How A 29 Year Old WRITER Built A $27.9M Business From His Couch | Sam Parr

If I were to start a newsletter I definitely could do probably at least 3 million a year I would think which just by yourself just mean an assistant you said the first hustle clone that you did you made 60,000 from that I think it did between 50 and 60 in revenue and I probably walked away with 40 Grand I called myself a $50,000 millionaire like that first 50 Grand might as well been a million dollars I felt I remember I was Like should I go to Thailand should I bring these girls with me to Thailand

like 27 Grand might as well have been 25 million the cool thing about a newsletter is you write it as if it's just me writing to you not me to millions of people just I'm wunning to you that's it and uh that built a lot of loyalty let's just assume that the person that's listening is a great writer what is the next step I know when we we spoke you said you have this Process of reverse engineering your success do you have your phone on you I do all right you're going to help me do

some math so we spoke yesterday and you mentioned to me that by the age of 21 you had made this decision by that by the time that you were 30 you would have made $20 million and so for most people when they're 21 they're just getting out of college or they're just starting their first full-time job they have no idea What they want to do right so what gave you the certainty at the age of 21 that you wanted to make 20 million by the time you were 30 well I wasn't I had certainty that

I wanted it I didn't have certainty that I could get it but I basically like grew up in a middle class family my parents were business owners and their business did well when I was in high school but for the majority of my life just a very normal background and uh I just didn't want to Have to like worry about financial stuff like I saw like what it meant to maybe not have a lot and I thought if I could just remove that from my life that would be cool right and so I just read

like a lot of entrepreneurial entrepreneurial biographies and I just noticed a pattern of like people who like have done major things in their lives a lot of times they're not like Mark Zuckerberg where they do something huge right off the bat when they're 21 but they like have small Hits along the way and I was like I think I can get a small hit enough to like make that much money by the by the time of 30 and if I do that that way eventually if I have a family I could just focus on like

emotional and spiritual like stuff for them and like I focus on being present for them and not have to worry about like Financial stuff because it kind of freaked me out that um we don't live like that long and I'm going to spend 40 or 50 hours a week Doing something I hate just to like provide I I just didn't like the idea of that and so I basically spoke to a bunch of wealthy people and they I asked them how much money they spend per year and one guy said like 50 or 60 or

something like 60 Grand a month and I was like that's so much money but if I have roughly $20 million and I only spend 3% of that per year $20 million would never run out and it would actually continue to grow so if I could make that by the Age of 30 I could live a very lavish lifestyle and I don't spend 60,00 ,000 a month by the way but I was like you know that's like a good Benchmark to where you can live a really fancy life and not ever run out of money and

just only focus on important stuff as opposed to just money and I just thought that was a really I mean I thought it was it was a dream so like I didn't I had a goal but I had to make a plan but yeah that was my goal yeah you know what's interesting I was actually having a conversation um with my mom and I said to her I was like I want to get to the point where I just don't have to think about money like that is like a dream like don't have to think

about money and I think for so many people I would say 99.9% of people every single every single week every single day every single month they're thinking about how am I going to pay the bills how you know like money is always on the mind and so I'm curious for you like in your in your childhood in kind of your early years were there experiences where maybe you would even see your parents or people that you grew up around they were just constantly like worrying or thinking about money yeah my parents owned a fruit stand

that was their business and then eventually my mom became a school teacher and then the Fruit Stand kind of like grew into one thing and then into another thing and then when I was like In fourth grade my father like uh left to start a new business and I remember thinking like that's really stressful like are we going to be able to like eat and and have that like are we going to be able to provide and like have clothes I remember feeling that feeling and it was kind of traumatizing my parents also had this

like mentality which they're not wrong for having this mentality that a lot of parents have which is like it's my way or the highway I pay the bills so Like that was often the reply that they would have is like well if I pay for things you're going to do it my way and I hated that feeling I [ __ ] hated it and so like those two feelings I was like I don't want to feel this way I want control and I want Power not necessarily like power over anyone else but I wanted power

over myself and so like I just remember being like seventh or eighth grade where it's like I want money so no one can tell me what to do Like I really want that feeling mhm and I just read like a ton of books and when you read all these books that I would read about like biographies basically you know how they say like you're the average of The Five People You spend most I felt like I was the average of them and so I started getting used to like succeeding though I wasn't actually succeeding I

started like getting used to like reading all these School Stories and it kind of just like You know maybe there's a way where money doesn't have to like be everything you worry about and I still think about money all the time by the way but like it's not from like a scarcity mindset which uh I wanted and then or which I didn't want but then when I started my first business the hustle dude I paid myself $20,000 a year for like the first two and a half years so I lived in San Francisco so I

was like poor and then I was poor I started a business in college And I was like paying my for my own life I was poor then and so I just didn't like the idea of being poor no one does but I really hated it and so that's kind of like why I had all these goals yeah you know I think um I was listen to an interview with Hanan Minaj and he always talks about like the drive shaft like understanding someone's drive shaft and I think it's so interesting that for someone like you obviously

you built a business that you sold for over $20 Million like people that achieve that level of success from what I've seen they're usually motivated by two things it's either extreme desperation or extreme inspiration and one of the things that you mentioned was like just wanting to have that feeling of control over your life like hating the feeling that you weren't in control of your life is there a certain experience or like a story that you even remember from your Childhood where like you really felt that feeling of like oh I just hate this like

The Angst of that yeah I think I told you this but basically when I was like 21 so like between the ages of like I started like I went to college on a on a track of field scholarship so I was like a pretty good athlete back then and I like started experimenting with like drugs and alcohol and I got super into it and like I loved beer beer was like my favorite thing on Earth and I like Kind of fell down the slippery slope to where I like pretty much became a full-blown alcoholic and

I got arrested like two or three times in like a month and so I had had to spend like uh collectively like five days in jail like two two uh two days for one thing and then three days for three days and three nights or something like that for this other thing I remember being in jail in like County Jail and it was so horrible I remember Getting out of there and thinking I never want to do anything bad ever again I don't want to break any rules I want to follow I want to follow

the exact rules do everything the right way because I remember coming home I have this uh I had this 85 pound pull this gorgeous dog and I remember coming home and when I got arrested I didn't like when you get arrested like it's hard to call people because I don't know if you do but I don't know people's phone Number and so when I got arrested they take me to I'm like [ __ ] I don't know anyone's number I can't call anyone to go get my dog and so my [ __ ] dog had

to sit there for like uh 2 Days in the house and he had water and food but he like [ __ ] all over the house when I got home and I was like devastated I was like oh my God I was in this cage and I failed you I felt so bad about myself and I felt like I let down the this animal who's it's my responsibility and So like pretty much there I was like I got to get my act together like I'm I'm a loser uh I have potential but I'm being a

loser right now and and I basically got sober um and I failed a couple times I relapsed uh when I was in San Francisco and then I did it again but like getting in trouble was like uh it was like a really big deal and then after I got arrested by the way I don't know if you know the story I had cold emailed the founder of Airbnb when I was In college and he offered me a job and I got the job and back then it was called airb and breakfast it was like early

in their in their company and they gave me a job but then I lied about my resume uh I basically said I didn't have a criminal record and they found it and they I moved out to San Francisco and everything and I showed up and they're like dude you lied you're out we fired you before we even started and so like getting in trouble in that like three Monon period it was like it was like uh the worst it felt horrible I felt very very bad about myself and from then I was like I want

power over myself like big time yeah you know what I think um yeah like it's such a it's such a it's a story that resonates and I think one of the things that I'm curious about is what was the beginning of like that those tribulations with alcohol I think that's something that I've seen you mention a lot like your journey of Getting sober like the effects of alcohol and it's even interesting you say the thing about wanting to feel in control when you were like a kid when you were a child but then what's the

one thing that makes you completely out of contr yeah alcohol drinking alcohol yeah I think that like well it kind of stems from some place I want I want to control because like I was I was nervous a lot I was I was a pretty I still am but I was much more of an anxious person so I'm Like well if I have money that's just like one thing less to worry about but alcohol makes you not worry about stuff as much and so I got super into it for that reason I'm like oh my

God I don't worry right now like so it was very much a self-medicating thing um and so when I got into booze yeah like and then part of it was like I'm scared to like do things I'm afraid to to talk to girls I'm afraid to like not be myself and for some reason alcohol makes me feel better And so it definitely helped and it was like the greatest feeling ever uh being drunk um how would you feel I'm just curious like when you go back how would you feel when you were drunk just numb

to be honest but like just numb but like I mean there was a period where I was intoxicated every single minute of the day for like a year and a half and so like I don't remember like there's like months where I'm like I don't really remember too much about what I was doing Then um and so I was like super into it and I basically moved out to San Francisco and I relapsed and I went to a homeless Clinic to to quit drinking um like it was pretty insane and like I remember I had

like apple uh like these corded headphones and I'm pull up in this uh like I was just walking but I didn't have a lot of income because I was running my own business and so I and so I qualified for like this like free clinic and I also was like dude I'm a Junkie kind of I'm like a loser I should be with these people this is this who this is what I am I need to experience this and uh I remember like I had these headphones in I'm like what am I doing here dude

I got like an iPhone like I had like I I'm not my life was not set up to be this bad why am I behaving this way and so yeah I got sober and it was like the like three or four months after getting sober was like the greatest feeling on Earth I like that was when I Really felt in control I'm like I control my emotions I control so much uh stuff and that was like the greatest change of my life yeah no that's amazing know I think for for most people that kind of

get addicted to alcohol they start drinking almost like an obsessive rate um there's something that you're like trying to escape from like it's a form of escapism you say even it's this feeling of being numb and I guess for you when you reflect now given what You've achieved and the fact that you've been sober do you have Clarity on like what was it exactly at that time you were escaping from okay quick break later on in the episode Sam's going to explain exactly how you can build a $27 million newsletter but first let me tell

you this if you're going to start an online business you need the right website domain introducing our friends at pork bun who are sponsoring today's episode and they're going to help you Get a custom domain for just $164 so let me tell you this when I was looking for my website domain I did some research to make sure I got the best deal and I found pork bun I started by searching for the standard.com andet domain names but then I saw cum. buo was available and it had a special deal on it I bought the

domain for just $164 and the reason that I bought it is that I want people to be able to find all of my work in one place and the good Part is not many people have bio domains yet a lot of the best names are still available so now I own cum. bio it looks super super professional and it's easy for people to remember so stay tuned I'll be sharing my new website soon but the great news is that I've also hooked you up with the same deal that I got on my domain so if

you want to get your bio name while it's still available just go to the link in the description and use code get your bio to get your bio domain For just $164 that's all it is thanks again to pork bun for sponsoring this episode and back to the show just like some weird stuff that happened with like parent issues of just like getting in trouble and like getting yelled at parents arguing things like that like I just didn't want to like confront it um and it just felt better to be intoxicated yeah I also think

I'm genetically predisposed to to to like This stuff uh but yeah just escaping like weird traumatic issues when you're like a kid is that's what I've learned it all comes down to is basically is like experience something as a kid that could even see seem innocent for example I hate flying I don't like flying at all I'll I'll drive across the country often times instead of flying I had to go through years of therapy to remember it was because when we were kids my brother was playing with me and he put my arms Behind my

head and he dunked my head in the water just like teasing me and one time water got in and like I thought I was drowning and that stemmed all of my like claustrophobia issues so like it all comes from like weird stuff when you're a kid uh I think yeah that's interesting it's like a lot of our story and how we behave as adults is like built in our first 10 years it's all I I firly believe it's like all from that from that period which is kind of scary Right yeah when you have kids

you're like cuz like for example I think I thought booze were cool and I didn't like my father one time I saw him take a straw out of a drink I was like why are you taking that straw he goes men don't drink with straws and so my whole life I never used a straw and he was referring to like his Jack and Coke you know it was like or like you know like those D straws like I remember for years I'm like I remember seeing you guys when I'm An adult like why you drinking

from a straw men don't drink from straws and people are like what are you talking about I'm like what my dad told me that you know what I mean it all comes everything comes from when you're a kid yeah you know you you spoke about your dog Sid and there was this post you did you said Long Live Sid this dog saved me from being a degenerate a man's dog in his 20s is special they see the evolution I love him so much I got my Life together because of him got sober because of him

why' you say that why was he so meaningful to you so I got this dog because I knew a guy who was a drug dealer and the drug dealer got arrested and they were like hey can you watch Jake's dog I was like yeah I watch him and they're like he'll be back in two weeks and he just didn't get out and that's how I got this dog and he was a huge like white pull like the meanest looking dog ever and uh he didn't get Out of jail so I got him and so I

had him for 15 years and he the reason I loved that dog was because typically when you're 20 you don't have the same friends when you're 20 as you do when you're 35 at least my age like and you're for a man you know men develop later than women for a man you're developing in your 20s like well into your late 20s and like there's not that many people that are around for the whole Evolution so it felt special to Have like a being there who could see that but also dogs are special man because

you got to you got to take care of them I like heaven responsibility Heaven responsibility makes me feel good you know what I mean and so I have a family and it's like the greatest feeling on Earth it's the most masculine feeling you could have is to take care of someone or something and so it just yeah I love that I think that like men should try to have children you Should try to have a family like that's cool like having someone to like devote yourself to is a really good feeling yeah you said this

dog saved me from being a degenerate I'm I'm curious in those kind of like early stages of having having Sid like what were some of the changes that you were seeing in yourself so I'll give you an example so I I was like an okay student but I didn't really take it that seriously but I remember there was an Accounting Meetup and at this accounting Meetup they were going to give away $200 in a raffle and I needed that $200 to hire a trainer to teach me how to train this dog because I didn't have

any money and I went to this accounting Meetup and they were like if you switch your major to like at accounting by the way like we could you can come to these all the time and I was like [ __ ] yeah sign me up so I switch my major to accounting just to like go to of these meetups and I Eventually won $100 or $200 at one of these things but then I likeed accounting and so like like I would like do these things just for this freaking dog and like it actually meaningfully changed

my life but that's like one example but I remember like I can't get in trouble tonight I got to go home you know what I mean like just that simple feeling yeah you know what it's funny because you you mentioned responsibility I think it's actually a really big thing For men is like you almost need something larger than yourself to be a good person for like something like it makes you better because you're there's some there's someone or something that you're doing it for it's not just purely selfish yeah I think that like so I

had that 20 million goal partially because I was like I'm G to have a family and it would feel good and I didn't have I wasn't dating anyone then like it I was way off but I felt good to like think Like this is for the share with with my people and that's like a really good feeling I think that a lot of people particularly in business when you're like making money just to make more money that's a really empty feeling but when you're doing it to give it away or you're doing it to create

jobs or something like that when you climb up that maso's hierarchy of need it feels really good like it's a very good feeling yeah uh And yeah I just enjoy having I remember when I was 26 one of my employees got pregnant and was going to have a baby and I was like feels like I'm having a baby like what the hell like how am I going to like how am I going to make this business work to be able to support this woman and her husband and her child like that that was the feeling

and I was really really nervous but it felt amazing it was like a it felt awesome to have that pressure I'm like I have to Make this business work to support this woman and her family or to like create a workplace where we can like pay salaries and it was very scary and awesome feeling I I really like that I'm a big fan of um have you heard the phrase burning the boats yeah yeah I love burning the boats like basically it's like uh this Spanish conquistador he came from you know Spain to America and

lights his boats on fire and he goes look boys we better you know take care Of business cuz we don't got no boats we ain't going home and like I love that feeling I thoroughly like that feeling I think it was also I hope I'm getting this right otherwise my like uh my like uh Primary School like Latin teachers going to get mad but like I think there was also a story of um when they came to like sack Troy they obviously came on boats and they turn up on the beach and there's like this

huge wall that they have to scale in order to get into Troy And so to create the um the impression to create the belief in the minds of the soldiers that they either had to sack the city or die they burn all the boats yeah I love we don't have a choice it's like you just get it done I love that feeling I think that we should put ourselves in some more situations like that I think that that is where greatness kind of comes from is when you're like your backs up against the wall That's

why like a lot of badass Businesses are founded by entrepreneur or U immigrants it's like when you come from nothing it's like I got to make this work so I love that that feeling I'm I'm a big fan of that yeah and so it seems like in your story that feeling of the back against the wall it's like you come out of jail you see um the effects that it even had on Sid and like the people around you now it's not just something that's detrimental to you it's actually beings animals people around You are

actually it's hurting them and so you start to make this progress from being a degenerate to like actually starting to get your life in order you mentioned there were moments where you relapsed and I I think that's interesting it's something that I've heard um Alex hosi talk about is something that I experienced which is that whenever you make a journey of like change and you go on this path of like you start at Point a and you're trying To get to point B and it's completely different you start on this path and every now and

then you start looking back to where you were before like you kind of get tempted with your old life yeah you know talk to me about those real lapses like what was happening there dude being the so the lifestyle that I had of like being drunk all the time and like so basically I lived in um this in Nashville at the time and I lived next Across the street from the projects and just chilling on the corner and drinking all day with these guys it was so fun like it was so much fun you know

what's that have you ever seen that YouTube video where kids like I just want to do hood rat stuff with my friends that's what I did every night and it was honestly so much fun until you realize you're a [ __ ] loser you provide no value to anyone and you feel sick all the time like it's fun until it ain't Fun and it always becomes not fun and so I remember uh like getting my act together a little bit for about four months and I get out to San Francisco and immediately I'm in a

new place and I'm super uncomfortable I'm super awkward I'm I'm nervous I'm by myself I don't have a lot of money I'm nervous about paying rent I just moved out there to join I basically left school and went moved to San Francisco to like join Airbnb and that didn't work out and I'm Like I don't know what the [ __ ] I'm going to do and I'm trying to fit in and so it all came down from not being confident in my own like values and things like that and so I started drinking again to

like Escape but also to fit in and then about a year later I um really like kicked it for good and it was and and it worked out yeah it's it's interesting even with the context that you provided earlier it's like as soon as you start to feel out of control it's Like reach for the alcohol it's like that stabilizing kind of yeah and it's rooted down into like and so I think I told you like I'm obsessed with like reverse engineering things and So like um I'm I'm pretty into like discipline and like um

now I am into discipline and like having a routine and things like that because and then having a plan and like executing towards a plan because when you when you're someone like me or and I would think you I I told you this Analogy but it kind of feels like when you're like this like there's a bunch of people out there who are these like high energy people and they're like a car and someone's sitting in the car and like pressing the gas as fast as they they can but your back wheels are lifted up

and it's like you have to make sure you point that car in the right direction because if you point in the wrong direction it could be like destruction you're going to get to where you you're Going to go to a place you don't really want to go and you're going to get there fast or you're going to like get in a wreck along the way like picking that right uh picking the right lanes to stay within is really important and so for people like me like if I have like a plan and like a clear

destination that's where you're going uh I feel very happy and I feel Unstoppable but as soon as like that plan goes away or uh uh you know things like that like then it's Like oh let's go this way let's you know what I mean and so it's important that's why I love like reverse engineering and having a very specific plan so why I always have like five and 10 year goals and things like that because without it I just kind of can go off the rails yeah and I think to your point it's like we

have this and I think people relate you have this energy you have this like fire and if it's not directed in the right way it can be completely detrimental but If it is directed in the right way it can achieve incredible outcomes with which we saw with your media company and by the way that's why I love UFC UFC the fighters they're freaks right they're animals like they're these men who want to fight to the death in their underwear in front of millions of people and like there's a funny Dana White quote where they're like

hey this one guy got arrested for like getting a dii getting in a fight or something and he's like Yeah and they like well are you angry he's like I'm angry but these guys are animals what do you expect like so my goal is to point him in the right direction and give him some and and put point that car the right way but when you're crazy enough to do that you're going to do other crazy things and I think that for anyone who's like wants to achieve anything interesting they probably have a little devil

in them you know what I'm saying yeah and it's just About keeping it in bounds you know one of the things you mentioned even with the relapses is that after about a year and a half you actually kicked it for good I'm curious like what was the difference like what was what made that time different whatever happened within that per of time okay one second this episode is sponsored by our friends at cloak now one of the most annoying irritating things is when you get these spam calls on your phone an unknown Number pops up

you answer it thinking it may be something actually important and it turns out it's just a Spam call well I was shocked to find out that if you're getting these spam calls there is a high probability that your phone number and personal information is on the dark web or on other data broker websites and the scary part is that by having your phone number or email address spammers can stalk you hack into your account and even get access to your home address Banking information or social security number and so when I found this out I

had to make sure I was protected online and the first thing I did was go to cloak.com and use their free security scan and it's so simple to use you type in your phone number which they keep secure by the way they do not share it and cloak will check over 120 different data broker websites to see if your information is there and if they find anything they can help you Remove it and stay protected online going forward here's what you're going to do this is step one I'm going to link Clo's free security scan

in the description click on that check if you are protected it only takes 30 seconds they keep all of your information secure and private and if you want to try their paid plan use the promo code Callum at checkout to get 20% off a clo subscription that's Callum c a lum at checkout to get 20% off cloaked without Further Ado let's get back to the show yeah I went to this Clinic it was called the San Francisco south of Market mental Mental Clinic I guess uh and it was basically homeless people and I met this

doctor named Joselyn porz and Joselyn was like you know you you don't seem like a lot of the other people that are here you're pretty articulate you don't seem like that mentally ill like what's going on and I kind of told her my story and she really believed in me and so she Was my doctor for like eight or nine years and so once I made above $155,000 a year or something like that or I had income I no longer qualified for ObamaCare so I just started paying her out of pocket and so she actually

saw me go from like um whatever I was like a loser to like meeting my girlfriend who became my wife starting a business selling that business for many tens of millions of dollars and she's like it was so awesome To like impress her I was like I want to impress you like you believe in me I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to be the best story that youve like I want to be like your win story and so having her like on my side like really helped me like because I wanted to show

off to her and like make her proud things like that yeah someone that believes in you it's interesting in everyone's story I feel like that's a success even if it's just one person there's always that one Person that believed in them it's so critical yeah like I wanted to go back to her next month I mean like check this out like look what I'm doing now you know what I mean it was was very exciting and and uh progress is pretty like addicting like to like progress on something like it feels pretty awesome yeah like

whether it's weight loss or whatever like it feels awesome to like get results yeah you know we're going to get into the newsletter stuff and how You buildt like a multi-million dollar newsletter and the blueprint behind it but before we do talk to me about some of your early businesses I actually even have a list of them what do you have you you've got the you got a hot dog stand you had an online business selling whiskey yeah matching app so yeah so I I had a hot dog stand it was called Southern Sams wiener

as big as a baby's arm I met a guy who had a hot dog stand in storage and he wasn't using it and at The time I had $500 and I was like I bet you I can get a day's worth of supplies for a hot dog cart and that's so I went and got my like food license or whatever and he let me rent his cart and I would pay him at the end of the month so he would gave me a month for free basically so I could start this business and it was

awesome it was badass it was so much fun I and I did it because that was like one of the jobs that you could have like and you could Still drink during the day because I would work from like 11:00 to 3: I would go to class from like 3:00 to 8: and then work from like 9 to like 3: in the morning you know the bar scene and uh I would kill it man some days I would walk home with like a grand in like $1 bills and me and my like I would hire

this young woman to work with me we called it being Hood Rich we just had we just had a a stack of cash just like a fat stack and it felt awesome and then other days We'd make like 80 bucks but it was like 110 degrees in Nashville in the summertime it sucked it was so bad and I got curious about like the internet because I was like I don't want to work outside all the time this is really hard and so I started a online website that sold a very special type of whiskey that

you could only buy in a handful of stores in Nashville but like people all over the world wanted it and so I started selling this thing and I'd be in Finance class and I'd hear PayPal go kaching kaching kaching I'm like dude I just made $500 I made $1,000 and I start thinking I'm like by the way do I need like a [ __ ] liquor license to be doing this like what am I doing and so I go to the uh the lawyer like they would a lawyer would come to school uh and like

the entrepreneurship like clinic and you could ask him questions and I told him what I was doing he's like yeah you're breaking the Law dude you can't do this and I was like well [ __ ] uh so I bailed on all that and I moved to San Francisco and when I got fired from Airbnb I happened to be staying on an Airbnb at a guy's house who had an idea for a roommate matching app and it was basically like Tinder but for roommates which was stupid because it should have just been Tinder for Tinder

like that would have been a way bigger business like it should have been I I dated a girl who I Met on the app like I started I was like I don't even need a roommate right now I I used the app to find my roommates and I was like [ __ ] I want to meet people like what's going on and uh we sold it for not a lot of money um but enough and then after that I started uh a conference company yeah and the conference company did all right and then I started

the hustle after that which eventually was was life-changing yeah you know it's actually funny Watching you even talk about it because I can see like your emotion like you still get so amped about it it's like so fun to you it's kind of like like listening to your stories it's like it's the degenerate guide to business and yeah it's it's the same it's all from the same place like it's fun to do bad stuff sometimes and like when you're making money online as long as you're doing in an ethical way and Supply supplying customers and

it it sometimes It feels like what you're doing is illegal you're like like have you ever made money on the internet and like seeing like a got like the kaching you're like oh my God this is [ __ ] awesome like I got my first sale it's like the greatest feeling on Earth you're like how's this legal this is so cool it like kind of is that same energy so yeah it felt awesome yeah no I love it I love it okay so it's interesting actually the story of the hustle of Course you go on

to sell it for rumored $27 million uh to HubSpot but it started as a conference so so talk to me about that like what was kind of the early origin of of the hustle yeah I um sold the app I worked at the company that bought it for one year and one day and then I started this conference and the idea was like I'm going to do this conference called hustle con it was a horrible name uh it was like Ted Talk for entrepreneurs yeah it was like a Horrible name but I thought it was

funny and I was like I'm going to meet someone at the event hopefully and I'll partner with them and we'll start a business together but this is a cool way to kill time and I did the first event I think I had the idea and then six months six weeks later the first event happened and it and it made like $60,000 and then I was like that was amazing I just made 60 Grand in six weeks that was Awesome so I said let's do it again and so I spent six weeks or eight weeks or

something driving around the country on my motorcycle just celebrating and I did it again I think the next time it made like 150 or 180 I don't remember something like that over $100,000 and I was like that was amazing let's do it again but then I started thinking I'm like man if it rains like my business is like out of business like if something bad happens like I'm doing all this work For one day like that's not the savviest business and in order to make people come to the conference I created this newsletter where I

would write stories about uh were about each speaker and I made them look really cool and I got like 10,000 people to sign up to that newsletter and I was like you know maybe this newsletter thing is kind of interesting and I'd read the biography of Ted Turner he was a um he owned CNN he founded CNN he was from the South he was from Atlanta and he was kind of like me he was kind of crazy uh like a southern guy was I identified with him and I was like if this [ __ ]

guy can do it I could do it and so I had this idea of like if we create a daily email if you do the math the math is such that if I can charge $50 per 1,000 cents to my email which is was roughly the going rate and I can get a million people to subscribe and if I send them an email every single day of the month That would be like uh like $1.5 million a month and and if I I'm pretty good at writing Tech is like a pretty big sector I bet

you I can get a million people to subscribe to this newsletter and build an $18 million business and then I was like but and if I get 5 million people you know I could I could get close to $100 million I bet you I could do this and so that was like the concept early on was uh that we're going to create a daily newsletter that Tells you everything you need to know about business and Tech and we'll have some ads in there and we only need like two or three writers to to do it

and so it's going to be like a really really profitable thing and that was the original premise and I showed this to a bunch of people including like I cold emailed like CEOs of like billion- dollar huge media companies and they were like this is silly this will never work and uh I sold the company the year I sold we were probably going to be in the $20 million in Revenue range uh so I sold before I was able to get to 100 million which was my goal but some of my great friends like Austin

from morning Brew um they're around $100 million now so like my premise my theory was was on point which I'm very proud about but I sold uh before we actually got there yeah you know I I qu it earlier I said it's almost like the degenerate guide to business like listening to you and it's Interesting because you have there's like zero fear like when I listen to you recount the story you'll mention cold emailing certain CEOs or when you started hustle con um starting this newsletter to promote it and I'm just thinking to like the

average or like the normal person even someone that's listening even me if I was listening to that I would be like if I wanted to do a conference and I was like at the time kind of like I wasn't in a great Position you would have so much procrastination so much fear like no one's going to come or how am I going to get any of these G dud but what's the alternative you like go in a cubicle doing [ __ ] that you hate until you die I'm afraid of that like when people do

that I'm like aren't you fearful like aren't you fearful of spending your time your life your one life aren't you nervous about spending your time in a way that you don't want to spend that's What I'm fearful of so and what's the downside you look silly I mean I don't know like that's not that big a deal and and and dude even if you fail you look pretty cool like if you do something like spectacular and you put your effort into it like that's the difference between America and England that's one of the when we

were joking is like in America if you try really hard and you fail you're you're still like in many cases You you can love it you're like that's sick you you you you swung that's great so I kind of like in the back of my head I thought that I also always drisk things so like I get crazy about it like I I remember I had $1,000 dollar that I had in a bank account and I'm like worst case scenario I'm I'm going to move to in my mom's house and I got $1,000 I can

get my plane ticket home so I'm good so everything plus that is upside yeah uh that's kind of was the attitude yeah I Actually love that it's like in the beginning almost set up that it's like the ultimate like fail safe yeah I always have those so I to this day I have a certain bank account where it's like everything go to [ __ ] we're good as long as this is good we're good yeah I believe in like protecting the downside and drisking things because that makes it way easier emotionally yeah you know what

when you um and it also means you can start you can take more risk like Cuz now you're like oh okay like it's not going to go to complete [ __ ] and now I can kind of I can really go for it and the fear should be uh if I don't take this risk now while I'm young and have few responsibilities if I don't have a sense of urgency that window is going to pass so like the fear of that what you were saying of like sitting on your ass it should be the other

way around it's like If I don't get to work now it's never going to work because I'm always going to be too afraid to do it and so yeah that's like that's what I think I I have I have I have a homemade tattoo on my feet that's say act now like I'm like homemade tattoo yeah with like a you use like a sewing needle yeah it's called a stick and poke it's super ghetto it's like pretty lame like it's very dangerous it's a very dumb thing to do but I did it when I was

21 uh and and I Believe in like action uh like big time yeah you know what before before you start hustle con you sell this uh roommate matching app you work at that company selling it is like even glamorizing it I think I made like 30 grand like that's how much I made you you work at the company that you sold it to for 13 months I'm curious someone no 12 months in one day 12 months and one day I'm curious for someone with your personality like what Was those they should have fired me I

I shouldn't have even worked there is that what you're gon to ask what they should they should have fired me no it was I was horrible did that create almost that created that feeling of like okay I'm just going to go for it again the second I get out of this I'm going for it again yeah yeah yeah yeah and it wasn't like I was a bad employee because I wanted to be a bad like I wanted to contribute I just didn't have a lot of skills or Anything uh and I just didn't I had

hadn't had a job before I didn't know how to like interact with people uh so I wanted to do it but yeah it was just like a I knew I'm like I basically like read and studied for like a year and like learned and networked and I was like this is my Apprentice per this is like an apprenticeship for me so I'm gonna take advantage of it and then on that one day I'm out yeah when you so the first you Said the first hustle Clin that you did you made 60,000 from that I think

it did between 50 and 60 in revenue and I probably walked away with 40 Grand yeah was that crazy to you yeah it was awesome that's like like $1,000 a day you make in profit yeah it was awesome what was the feeling like you deliver the [ __ ] like what's the feeling I called myself a $50,000 millionaire like that first 50 Grand might as well been a million Dollars I felt I remember I was like should I go to Thailand should I bring these girls with me to Thailand like like like 27 Grand might

as well have been 25 million yeah it felt awesome yeah how quickly do you have the feeling I'm going to do the next one um uh October 1st uh so I did the first one in July 1 on October 1st when I got back from my trip I said let's get to work yeah so uh just a few months um and then I was ruminating on the idea of um Turning it into a media company during that period and then I launched the media company in April uh it was April 19th of 2016 it's when

I launched the media company yeah I'm curious for you like when you reflect back on it when you did that first one why do you think the speakers that you had came because I was upand coming like I I wasn't I had good energy like I I it was like clearly like I had the energy of like I think he's going to go somewhere I don't know Where or how far but like he'll do something because I was very good at at making it exciting for them like I'm doing this thing it's going to be

awesome I've got these other 10 people as speakers who are also interested oftentimes I didn't though I would I said that line to all 10 of them uh and that kind of helped each one say yes uh but I had this like energy where I was like pretty positive on the phone with them and I was like I'm gonna I'm gonna Make you look really cool it's it's a no-brainer for you to show up uh because I'm GNA make you look awesome I'm gonna make it so you're just going to walk out your door I'll

have a car waiting for you you're just going to show up you're in San Francisco you're going to do your thing and you can leave right away and I'll promote your company and you're going to look great I'm going to make you look so good I'm going to work on your talk with you this is like a No-brainer uh it's going to be so much fun like I had this type of energy uh and like it was easy to say yes I guess you know what's interesting I was um I was watching owning Manhattan it's

um the show on Netflix Ryan Ryan's yeah um and real estate agent sold billions of dollars of real estate really successful came to New York City in the beginning and wanted to be like an actor or something was like a hand model completely broke um ends up selling he Was a hand yeah like he used that's how he used to make money like when he first got to New York God bless him um apparently I guess he has good hands whatever but um he says that he says this thing he goes sales is the transference

of enthusiasm yeah I totally believe that yeah I 100% believe that yeah that and like I use that with copyrighting but yeah it's 100% the idea of like getting my energy and my thoughts in my brain into yours And like infecting you with that yeah I'm a big fan of that yeah and you know I think it's so good because I think a lot of people listening that want to start businesses but there's something holding them back they don't see The Logical path of how they can get from where they are to where they want

to be and you're missing out the piece which is just what about the energy enthusiasm like that's how you're going to get the speaker that's how you're going to get The subscriber the the reader is the enthusiasm piece yeah I mean that's like it's very that's a very big deal because like anytime you're starting anything but even if you're not starting something even if you're trying to convince someone to like be your friend to date you to donate to your charity like we're all selling some [ __ ] right we all trying to convince someone

of something and like usually enthusiasm and energy is like one of the easiest Ways to get people to like buy into you because you're like oh this person's like I want to be part of that that feels awesome it feels really nice to be led by a confident person and so if you like act confident even if you're just pretending like people like getting behind you yeah that's a really good line it's really nice to be led by a confident person feels good right even like really like even like the leaders of the world like

if they have an Employee who like like seems like they know what they're doing it's like all right I'll Trust You you show me the way like that like so it's like Everyone likes to be led not just like followers Everyone likes to be led and things where they're not an expert in and so uh you know I learned that in with by the way in dog training like with the dog like uh it's called um um being calm assertive uh like like a confident person people love like dogs want to be Led the same

same are with humans like it's fun to like they it's fun to follow sometimes and have to think okay so you so you build uh you start with hustle conon first event 60,000 second event 150,000 in the act of like promoting hustle con you've also built this newsletter where you're promoting the speakers that gets you yeah 10,000 subscribers and you could Google it like SAR hustle con um first one or something like that and I show all the emails that I sent uh there's like a blog post where I've shared all of them but yeah

I started that that's when I started the newsletter yeah that's awesome so even when we hear the narrative it feels like it was just going from like one success to the other and I know from even doing my business for the last 18 months it is not that there are really tough if you're like your a growth chart can look like this but if you zoom in it's like that you know it's like lots of ups and Downs and like it looks nice and smooth but there's all these times when it's down and the time

that it's down that could be like six months do you know what I mean in those six months that's uh uh 180 days that is miserable that's miserable it sucks so no it sucked all the time um it sucks most of the time but yeah it worked but it sucks most of the time and there's certain moments that stand out to you of like it just sucked a little bit more than all the Other ones yeah dude the first first of all I wanted to quit all the time like I'm happy that my girlfriend who

now my wife was with me I was like laying on the floor all the time I'm like I can't [ __ ] do this this sucks I'm out if someone wants to buy the company I'll sell it to them for anything I can't stand this um the first week that I started the company so the idea of the hustle was a daily newsletter and it was news and business that you needed to Know in order to get customers I started blogging I would blog like crazy I would blog so much that I in order to

make people believe that it wasn't just me blogging I had like fake authors and like I had one author that was a woman and I would write like a perspective from a woman all the time and it was just me like I did this all the time but one of these um blog posts that I wrote I met this guy who was making $60,000 a month on Kindle and what he would do is He would find really top selling pickup artist books and kind of like plagiarize them I thought that was really sleazy but I

thought that was interesting and so I wrote an article explaining how he did it and then the next week I thought it would be funny to to kind of like stick it into Amazon's face I found a romance novel romance has a lot of high liquidity lots of buyers and lots of sellers I found a bestselling romance no novel and we plagerized it and we put a D title on it and a new picture and we posted it and we got like 50 friends to quote buy it and we just refunded them and it like

started going up the charts and people actually started buying it and the book publisher who we the book that we plagiarized was owned by the largest romance novel uh publisher in the world which I didn't I didn't know that and they called me and they're like you you you just broke the law and we're absolutely suing you and I was like [ __ ] My second day of business like and I wrote a post saying like I'm about to blow $400,000 on my media company because that's how much money I'd saved and I'm going to

build this huge media company and I looked like a total douche and I'm like these guys are going to take all my money that I have this business that I wanted to start and have dreams for is it ended on week two and then they email me the next day and they're like look It's not a big deal just write a blog post saying that you apologize and we're going to forget all about it but like I sweated for like 24 hours I was like we're done we're done like I can't afford a lawyer um

and so yeah that like right off the gate it was hard um and then like I had so many issues with hiring hiring people is being leading people is quite Chen leading people's uh I think kind of easy managing them is is hard so there was all types of you know When I started the business I was 24 25 and so I didn't exactly know what I stood for so I kind of hired all different types of people when it's best to hire just like people who are aligned with whatever you're trying to do and

I hired all types of people and it I made a lot of hiring mistakes yeah you know what those and I I resonated with it so deeply like doing what I'm doing at the moment there are certain nights where I'll like look at the ceiling and you're Like how am I going to get out of this situation like it's not immediately obvious to you what the next step is and particularly if you're the type of you're working or the type of I'm work I'm work in where you have to like create you're on the treadmill

it's like I got to create like I I have a deadline I have to do something in my case it was six days a week and so yeah it's very stressful yeah and and even the thing you spoke about like leading with Confidence one of the most difficult things to do especially when you have employees is like you have to wake up the next day and be like here's the plan and seem confident in your mind you're like I have no idea what we're going to do yeah and I feel great with that now I'm

very um comfortable saying I don't I'm not sure but I wasn't comfortable with that then uh and so I yeah you just got to you just lie basically and you're like it's going to be great it's going To work out I think uh but yeah it's very stressful that's a very hard thing to do those nights when you would be with your girlfriend now your wife Sarah and you're lying on the floor you're looking up at the ceiling and you you have that feeling of like I want to quit like I don't know what I'm

going to do next like what keeps you going in those moments like take me back because I put myself in a situation that I couldn't bail like I had like I I Would always hire people before I could kind of entirely afford them so like I would hire people when I'm like if this person doesn't help me like if I don't make more Revenue off this person in 3 months I don't I'm out of money and so I I would do that a lot lot and that and so it kind was like dude I have

to make this work otherwise like these like I think after one year I think we had seven employees and I remember thinking like I this has to work otherwise I got To lay them off and so I like those types of situations I I hate them and I like them at the same time um I also had all my eggs in one basket so I kind of screwed myself I think in the first year business we did 300,000 the second year we did 2.2 third 5.5 million 5.5 million year four was I think around 12

and then going we sold going into year five I think we were going to do 18 um and throughout that Whole period we had money I always had at least $2 million in the business bank account I paid myself $440,000 uh like or $20,000 and like $40,000 and then like another 40,000 and then last year I paid myself a lot of money but I like was I felt broke the whole time which was insane I shouldn't have done that and so I felt desperate like a lot while running the business and I'm thankful that I

married a woman who had a great job and she was kind of My Sugar Mama but like I was I legitimately felt broke while I was running the business yeah you know what we're going to get into the blueprint of how you did it but before before we do have you reflected on like what that was because I think it's it's interesting right like some sometimes as humans things and we even spoke about it before things that we experience as child as children it's like you're almost like comfortable it's it's weird to say it Like

this but you're almost comfortable being broke like that's the thing that you know so even when you have you're making like a ton of money it's still like actually in your personal account it's broke like have you reflected on like why was it that you had millions of dollars in your in your business savings yeah and I treated the business like its own entity even though I owned most all of it I didn't um I was like that's not my money that Belongs to this business and I'm the steward of the capital and I like

I might have the keys to it but it it ain't mine and so that was that's a good attitude but pay myself more but sorry what were you saying why why was it that you think that you did that paid myself little yeah because I had low confidence and I was like um I'm not worthy of taking a lot of money these people should have way more um my time should be free like I thought that was cool and I also was like yeah that's how it should be like I'm a nobody um and that's

how a lot of people are with business where they're like I pay myself last I think the owner should pay themselves first a lot of times um not all the time but a lot of times but I think it was just rooted in I'm uncomfortable taking taking this yeah you know I think that's so relatable I think there's so many people that are listening that you can have all of the Accomplishments almost all of the evidence in the world that you are someone but deep down you still feel like you're nobody yeah and the the

I I don't struggle with that as much anymore because when I did Hustle con I would basically like we had we did it from 2014 up until close to covid so 19 or 20 and we would have the founders of all these amazing startups and they were like billionaires and stuff and if they had to speak at let's Say 1 I would be like you gota be here at 10:00 a.m. they're like why I'm like you got to do sound check and that was a total lie there is no sound check at a conference like

the mic works every time like I I just take it off this person and put on that person like it works but I told them that so we all would get to hang out in the green room together and so I would have like the founder of weor and like the founder of like Away Travel that suitcase company And I would just get to listen to them talk to one another and I would throw out a question there every once in a while and I would get to hear them like complain and I would get

to hear I would kind of do like what you're doing to me where I would ask them questions and I would get them to like dive deep a little bit and basically my takeaway was that there was stories like where someone was like a billionaire and he's like I'm afraid to fire this person Because this the conf this person's very Alpha and the confrontation scares me and I'm like but you're a billionaire why are you afraid he's like what do you mean like I I don't get it you shouldn't be afraid he's like dude I'm

afraid about everything all the time or I would see someone uh who was just in the New York Times for like a $200 million funding announcement and they're with me two weeks later and they're like I don't know how I'm going to make this work and I found that to be very invigorating that the people that I looked up to were like basically the same ballpark as I am in some cases in terms of IQ like I could keep up with them in some ways uh but they still like were kind of a [ __

] [ __ ] like I am like and that was very invigorating yeah but it's at the end of the day we're we're all human like no one no one escapes that like anxieties insecurities fear of failure scarcity Mindset everyone everyone has yeah and it's cool to like meet some of the people you look up to and hear that many of them have that same thing it's a very that's a very good feeling yeah cuz they're just like you yeah it feels great what did you learn about how to overcome it you just do it

anyway I mean it's just it's it's a very relieving feeling to know that none of us really know what we're doing and so if I just act more confident and I have a plan That I've thought through even if that plan screws up like that's it's pretty it's a worthy cause to go after it and as I can lead people to I can lead people down that path if I'm a if I act confident about it and I'm honest about it the whole time I'm like I think this is going to work I think this

is going to work if we do this then this is going to happen then this is going to happen that's the plan it hasn't been done yet it hasn't been done before but I think We're going to do it so I try to be honest about it but like yeah you just can if if you're confident and enthus people will follow okay so you so you build the hustle um to this point you now have huge of viewership what or readership I should say I think I think when we sold we had roughly two million

people a day two million people that's crazy yeah was there what was the point where you felt And we even mentioned it in the beginning right like you wanted to have this feeling when you were a kid of I don't have to worry about money anymore when when was the feeling that you genuinely 100% just felt like I've made it when I saw I felt like that it took about a year till I get used to it but basically my plan was if I can if I can so there's a lot of rumors for what

we sold about sold for um for most every rumor I've seen it was it was a bit more Um than than those rumors um and when we sold like I remember thinking like it definitely made me happier like to have that like Fortress of so like that Fortress that like you can't [ __ ] with me right now like I'm good like that made me feel good but then like I'm 35 now I think I sold when I was 31 something like that um like you there's always levels though so now it's like I need

to get to 500 you know what I mean like there's always like CR levels and That sounds like ridiculous but it's no different than any sport where like you become Elite and you do something amazing you're like but I could do it even better so there's always levels so I definitely think about it all the time uh money is not my motivating factor anymore but it is fun to compete with myself and other people on that game but that's not the number one motivating thing but I felt like six months after I sold I felt

Like like I I could breathe I was like oh my God mission accomplished like that was a very proud feeling I F like I could breathe that is powerful okay I'm I'm curious actually when you sell a company is the money just in like an account like you could search it up and it's just like a number on the screen basically so I'll walk you through so they emailed me and uh September I think they emailed me in September and they said uh hey this company's cool the Hustle is cool like do you guys want

to talk about partnership and the person who emailed me his name is James Gilbert he was from like corporate development and I had had people reach out to me and email me about buying us and they kind of like uh like I was I've been like dragged through a process before and they weren't that serious and so I was kind of fed up with it and so I just said hey James it looks like you work in corporate development um do you want to Buy the hustle is that why you're emailing me yes or no

uh because partnership is like a very vague term so just tell me are you trying to buy us if yes let me know and I could and I'll come with that in that mindset and he was like yes we want to buy you that's all he said I said great here's a Google doc that I just made and I'm going to list out all of the reasons why you should not buy me if any of those reasons scare you away just it's all Good we'll end it here but if you're still interested let me know

and I listed like anything that would be potentially bad about my company like uh a few months ago we missed on our Revenue Target or something like that I don't know it wasn't that big of a deal because in due diligence they find all this anyway so I was like let's just get it out the way and he was like no no I'm still interested let's talk and so we signed a term sheet I think on October 1st and it was a 90day closing period and so for the amount I I sold for uh we'll

say mid tens of millions of dollars they take it as serious as a billion dollar multi-billion dollar company and what that means is basically that they have to do all this due diligence like a crazy amount so like if I used Fiverr or some type of freelancing Marketplace website and I just paid some guy $10 to make a logo they need to know who that person was And if I made them sign an NDA and like the receipt for it like it's crazy the now the problem with this is that at a small company like

mine you don't really have like a full I have like a full-time HR person and like one accountant and it was the same person uh like it's really [ __ ] hard to get all these files because you can't tell anyone at the company what you're doing yeah partially because uh that's Insider information so a publicly traded company my company so You can't talk about that with anyone it's like you can go to jail if someone like like if I bought and sold the stock based off that information you you can get you get in

big trouble and so it was so hard and then the deal went through on February 4th or 2nd I think and a week before it went through I went to chase I just walked off the street to a Chase and I was like hey uh I'm going to be getting a deposit next week and it's going to be kind of big do I need to Like warn you and they're like what do you mean I was like I don't know like I just thought I should give you a heads up like I'm not sure how

this works and I was just literally at like the the glass yeah and they're like hey why don't you come over and talk to this guy over here and I talked to him like Hey I'm GNA be getting a eight fig deposit like on Monday like do I need to like show you my ID or something I know I was like I don't even Know what to do and uh they're like no you're good just accept the money and and then uh on Tuesday or whenever the deal happened they just why are you the cash

and it's in your checking account I had previously used this thing called personal Capital it's like you know mint you know like yeah yeah mint like a net worth tracker yeah and uh I put like $20 million into a fake like manual account like six months prior yeah because it's your net worth a lot of times is just Like this number on the computer screen and so I was like let me just feel what it feels like to have like a $25 million net worth you know what I mean and I kind of got used

to it like over those six months just like seeing that fake number on there but um yeah they just long story short they just uh they just wired to you just sitting there in in an account yeah you remember that feeling when you just first see the number yeah it's it's it's great I mean they say Money doesn't make you happy um makes you happier I don't know if it makes you happy it makes you happier it makes you happier knowing that like if you get sick like you're okay I mean yeah it made me

happy it made me happier for a very long time yeah you know I want to I want to get into how to how the people that are listening can do it and and I think the thing that's special about you is that not only did you do it for yourself there's people around you That have followed kind of the blueprint of how you built the hosle I'm very proud of that a lot of people have done that a lot of people who worked at my company have gone on to build media companies very awesome yeah

you know what let's get into it and I actually have um a post a LinkedIn post from by the way I have to say there was so much luck involved in my journey so I don't want to I always want to make sure I don't like I had a plan but there was a Shitload of luck that it worked out yeah yeah and and actually your co-host on my first million Sean um I want to read this post then get your reaction to it so he said I just sold my second company the milk Road

and I'm super happy we grew it from 0 to 250,000 readers in less than a year self-funded and profitable biggest daily crypto newsletter he then goes on to say I was inspired by my buddy Sam PA who I got to watch Step by Step build the hustle from Scratch over several years I copi and pasted his blueprint but for crypto yeah he did he used the same ads and everything um so you know what let's let's get into the blueprint someone sitting at home obviously they got their laptop in front of them they think that

building a newsletter could be a good start I remember when when we spoke about it you said first you have to be a good writer yeah if you're going to be like if you Got to be talented yeah you got to have skills you got to have attributes you know what I mean so talk about talk about how does someone become good at the skill of writing I don't think everyone can be good but I think everyone can improve the way that I did it was I used this technique called copy work which is basically

where I would get like the and it's like a proven method to learning writing it's the same way where if you were to learn piano I Wouldn't just point at the piano i' be like go write me a song I would say learn happy birthday and then we're going to do Jingle Bells and then we're going to move to like some simple blue L music and then eventually you're going to do that for 5 years and you're going to learn to like steal and be influenced by a bunch of your favorite people and you're going

to have your own flavor that's I think it's the same case with writing and so what I did was I found my Favorite books my favorite um famous newspaper articles I found famous um sales letters like like website copy and I would spend an hour every day word for word writing it by hand and that's how I learned how to do it you know what I think in the beginning part of the the reason that makes it difficult you don't even know what's good like I remember when I started the podcast like I don't know

what a good podcast episode is from the perspective of someone who's like a Host from the perspective of someone who's world class you don't really even know as the beginner what's good so how does when you say find good writing or like sales letters like who what are some examples or people that you were following that like I would Google like what's the world's greatest sales letter like it was that simple and there was like a famous Wall Street Journal advertisement that went out that told a really good story and they the Walsh General claimed

that this was the most successful ad of all time so like it was that simple or it would be like The Catcher in the ride like a very famous American book like I would just Google like what are some of the most like beautifully well-written things like that that that's what I did JN appal the the famous comedian uh D the comedy director he would do like famous SNL skits where he would write it out word for word um and so just whatever you Like aspire to be similar to or to write Sim you just

copy it word for work you know actually I actually love that framework I think the thing I love about it as well you made it like a daily practice every day you have to do it yeah yeah to this day sometimes if I have to write something I'll I'll go and do it yeah can you can you talk about more of that process in detail of like what was it that you were doing every day like it has to be done not on like Literally with a pen and a and a notebook so I in

my home I saved them I have got stacks of yellow notebooks and I would spend roughly an hour every day for like 10 months uh just writing it word for word and it was even um and then I would like underline it I'm like oh that that phas the way that he the way that he instead of using a comma there he used a period and he started the second sentence with the word and that was kind of intriguing How he that made me feel you know what I mean like I would just like write

little notes in the margins like that yeah you would get into the specifics of it there was even you actually wrote out the framework I saw it in an email you said Step One is read and absorb find a great priest of w that you would like to copy write it by hand on a piece of paper got be by hand 30 minutes a day you say do not miss a day this can potentially change your life skip one day and you'll Likely skip the rest you then go on to say make a swipe file

throughout the day as you see writing you like save it a Swip file is just a folder of writing examples that you like and then number four the final one you say before writing anything important spend 3 to five minutes copying your favorite WR yeah that [ __ ] works man and I didn't I didn't invent that process I mean that's like uh up until like the probably 1920s I believe that's how we learned how to Write in America uh but yeah it's the best way to learn how to write in my opinion yeah and

so it's even like I'm curious like even when you were building the hostle in those initial days each time because there was a point where you were the only writer there yeah so when you would do these posts three to five minutes before you even started you would be there just like copy work yeah I had I had authors who I loved and I would just copy them For a few minutes and I said today I want to act like this person today I'm going to write like this person yeah I did that all the

time yeah you know I actually think both parts are important to your point which is like you were doing the copy work but then you were actually applying it somewhere as well yeah and that's why it's addicting yeah because I would hit send and then people would buy conference tickets and I'm like it [ __ ] worked I got to learn How to do this more like it was awesome it was a really good feeling yeah how do you come up with your own style there well you're just influenced by a bunch of people and

you you steal from five of them so like for example I love this writer named Felix Dennis my favorite favorite writers he's got a book called How to get rich and he's hilarious and I think his writing is the best I'm also inspired by Anthony Bain I love his writing um this other author um Or this copywriter Robert ogy or sorry um David oovi uh I just like would find people I'm like this is great I love this I aspire to be like this you know what I'm curious like before someone actually like how do

you even know that you're a good writer like before someone even starts a newsletter like most people suck most people suck when they start because the way that you're trained in school isn't exactly the most entertaining way um and so like for Example my favorite framework is Ada attention interest desire action and in high school you're taught have you heard of bing bang Bongo do you remember that no do you remember like I don't know what they did where you grew up but in America it's like you have to have a thesis that like says

like today I'm going to explain why running is such an an uh why running is so good for your health um and it starts with why it's good for your cardiovascular system it's Good for your muscles and it's good for your lungs and then you have paragraph one for cardiovascular system paragraph two for your muscles paragraph whatever and it files it's like horrible and then you end with in conclusion it's like the most like unengaging way to like write we actually had the same thing we didn't call it what do you say bing bang there's

like a lot of ways to do it I there's what do they call like a three point thesis yeah we we put it PE so It's Point evidence explanation and like every paragraph would have to have that follow that structure yeah I don't like that at all uh so I like adaah attention interest desire action uh and that's like a way better format and so like if you most people suck because they're following these things that they were taught in school but that's an incredibly unengaging way to write yeah you know what can you can

you explain ad I think it's going to be so good for Someone yeah so let's say that I'm trying to convince you to drink more water I could say uh drink more water it's good for you that's not the most convincing or engaging thing instead I could say let's say that you are into like building your muscles I'm like hey dude have you ever seen those bodybuilders with huge muscles at the gym carrying around a gallon of water so that's an attention getting uh sense um you see uh and this is the interesting The uh

the reason they're doing that is because water actually grows your muscles by 20% if you drink it while you're working out I don't know if that's true I'm just making it up um and so that I got you interested you're like oh I want to learn more about how to get big mus big muscles and then desire is like look um it's actually proven that if you drink this muscle it does this one thing to your to the oxygen in in your muscle and it grows it by 30% the Only thing you really have to

do is drink water every single day um and you can't skip a day uh but but if you do if you do that after one year you're going to look like starting here but now you're going to look like here here's your after photo I just made you desire it and then the action is like so all you need to do is go buy a water bottle make sure it's at least one gallon tall or just use a milk jug fill it up with water at 8:00 a.m. Every morning and make sure it's completed by

9:00 at night that's the action I told you specifically how to take action and so that ADA formula I use for everything you know what's it's so good and um it's interesting like once you start to understand that framework you'll see see everywhere you'll see it everywhere like even even with um you're talking about writing it's exactly the same in short form content right everyone always talked About the hook the hook is the attention it's the attention grabber and then like the sentences that come afterwards they're building on whatever the theme was in the hook

that's the interest and then the desire is like making you want it at your core yeah it's you see it everywhere it's just uh it's in it's in sales in s like when you have you heard like Co call people like in like you're in like a boiler room I used to be like have to like do cold calls and they Would say uh they would say Ada attention interest desire action this is what we have to do uh and so yeah it's just a very easy framework for selling okay you know what let's move

on to the next step so let's assume let's just assume that the person that's listening is a great writer they're using their age yeah you have to be good people forget the step they like I want to get in the newsletter I'm like dude but you suck like you're not yeah your product Isn't good so you have to have a good product yeah let's say that the product is good what is the next step I know when we we spoke you said you have to plan the business like you have this process of reverse engineering

your success do you have your phone on you I do all right you're gonna help me do some math so there's a few assumptions that we're gonna have to make we're going to have to make the assumption that you're going To make money through advertising there's a bunch of ways to make money through a newsletter advertising is the most popular at the hustle we actually owned an advertising newsletter as well as a paid subscription newsletter but let's just assume it's advertising so a lot of people they'll say I want to create I just had this

one kid email me say he's going to create a newsletter on how to um pick which is going to be the winning fight for a UFC Fight and so I'm like all right so let's do the math so so you're going to send that email one day per week because there's four fights per month how many people in the world are going to want this let's say you kickass I don't know 50,000 maybe 50,000 now the ad rate for them I would I I could go and find this by just typing in um like how

much is DraftKings pay per thousand Impressions it's called CPM I'm just going to guess and say it's $10 so You're going to do on your phone do um so 50,000 divided by 1,000 that should be 500 50,000 divided by 1,000 yep all right times four because we're sending four times per month yeah and then what did I say the CPM was 10 10 times 10 that's what times 10 so I got 2,000 $2,000 that's how much money you're going to make that's [ __ ] the reason it's [ __ ] is because and people say

like well but I'm passionate about this and I'm like yeah dude but the CPM suck and Not that many people want this thing uh or if they really do want it their buying power is like really low they're just like what does a bunch of people who want to bet on Sports have in common they're going to make some bets but they're probably small and like the Commerce is not particularly huge now let's say that you have um doctors let's just say that you have doctors um and there's 50,000 doctors in the world now let's

say they need news uh like every Day six days a week you're going to send them um the latest and greatest on what's happening in the world of heart surgeon heart surgeon news or something I don't know uh for them I bet you can charge $1,000 per th uh per thousand cents and so let's say there's 50,000 of them so there's 50 so that would be uh 50 times and we're going to do it we're going to send because it's news we're going to send it more than one day per week we're going to send

it six days a Week because it's news they want something on Sunday as well as well as Monday to Friday so six time 4 is what 24 24 so we're going to send 24 times a month so 24 times uh um 50 is what is 1,00 times a th000 1.2 million okay so you see the difference so that's 1.2 now a th is quite high for a CPM but what the point of this exercise is to show you that if you pick the right market and you if you pick the type the right type of

content That you're sending so I can't send UFC picks that often because they don't happen that but I can send you Doctor news I bet you there's something going on in the doctor world all the time I can send you that six days a week and so I just showed you with 50,000 uh in one industry and 50,000 subscribers in another industry one makes two grand a month one makes $1.2 million a month you see what I'm saying yeah so the math for the hustle when I started it was um I Think I can get

three million people to subscribe to this newsletter I'm going to email them 26 times per month and I think I can charge $50 per 10,000 cents on average and that came to be you know we could do the math again but that came to be like $50 million and so whenever you're starting a newsletter you have to do this math to determine how big is the potential opportunity that you want to go after and so you have to do this thing called an eeky guide you know e Guy is yeah so it's like it looks

like Olympic rings and so it's like a it's like a vent diagram so what I'm good at what I love to do what do people want and what are people willing to spend for you want to find something right in the middle of all that because a lot of times people be like well I love sports I'll Mega Sports newsletter but it's like dude people don't pay for that [ __ ] for to advertise because that has like such a low advertising rate you need Something like B2B or something where like the person reading your

newsletter has a will spend a lot of money a doctor for example if they're making decisions for a hospital an Advertiser would advertise with you because they say if this person buys MRI machines from my account I'm they're going to you know I'll be able to sell $5 million with the MRI machines to them you know what I mean so that's the math behind the whole thing that you have to do early on in my Opinion yeah you know what that's so good and I I love it that we actually went through it step by

step because it just shows it shows the difference um here's the thing that I'm curious about and I think it's what's going to be the objection of people that are listening which is I think most people even this is questionable but most people know the things that they like and they tend to have an idea at least about what they're good at they don't really know what People are going to pay for so how do you even figure out it's very easy so it so to determine a CPM here's how you so an Advertiser so

let's talk about it from an advertising perspective so a person advertising on your newsletter sometimes they're either brand advertisers which means they just want to spend money to look cool like a to Toyota like if Toyota runs commercials on TV I'm not entirely sure If that's going to make me buy a car but like if I see it a [ __ ] ton of times some people will or their direct response meaning they're going to click a button right there in on the ad and buy a buy something and so they're usually one or the

other sometimes a little bit of both but if you're buying an advertising uh an advertisement in a newsletter you're going to want to see a profit so if I spend $10,000 with you I better make at least $10,000 in sales so In order to do that you have to do the math so if I'm um let's say I'm selling a newslet let's say I have a newsletter that is only to 500 people but it's the 500 people in the whole country who make decisions on buying supplies for the top airlines so what do you think

the top Airline average contract value would be if you're like the guy who makes decisions for which type of tires go on the the wheels you know of the airline yeah like Millions right Millions I Don't know what it is but it's Millions now what do you think if it's for um 25y old dudes who like comedy like not a lot so like if I'm going to advertise well there's 25 dudes who like comedy I mean I guess I can advertise a comedy show but I don't even know if they're all going to be in

that City so maybe I'll make like 500 bucks back if I advertise you know what I mean and so the ad rate is determined by the uh quantity and the quality of the reader So for example 1 million mothers who live in Middle America who make $40,000 a year that might be the equivalent to 100 or 1,000 Airline Parts buyers you know what I'm saying and so the the equation of how uh valuable your newsletter is it basically would look like number of people multiplied by how engaged they are so how influential you are over

them so if you get behind a product do they actually like that like where they follow what you say Multiplied by uh uh the price of the product H does that make sense yeah you know it's actually such a good point because I think when people think about things my rambling I'm sorry no no no you're good when when people think about a newsletter or the value of a newsletter they think purely about the number of subscribers no what you're saying is actually the spending power of those people that are subscribed and how engaged they

are how much influence do You have over them yeah so for example Mr Beast has huge engage so his engagement is crazy high over a huge amount of people they aren't EX the biggest Spenders they're kids but that adds up to a shitload of chocolate bars being sold you know what I mean can you can you actually I like I lik one of the pieces that you brought up which is actually engagement and influence how do you Actually so say I'm a great writer and I've actually chosen an audience that has a good level of

spending power is what kind of things were you doing with the writing to actually have influence to actually be able to sell products off the back of I wrote like a person and so they felt like they were my friend and they liked me and that was like the easiest way to do it um to test that you could I would write an email that says um I need a Good book to read reply back with a good book and if I was sending an email to 10,000 people and only like three people reply back

with a book I'm like [ __ ] these people don't care about me you know what I mean like things like that like I would just write to them the cool thing about a newsletter is you write it as if it's just me writing to you not me to millions of people just I'm writing to you that's it and I'll talk to you as such like I'll I will ask for a Recommendation sometimes or I will like um tell you something silly that's going on in my family life and uh that built a lot of

loyalty yeah would you almost say there's a direct correlation between like the more personal you get the more that you almost feel like a friend to them the more influence you had yeah 100% that was our slogan by the way at the hustle was like you're smart No Nonsense friends who's going to send you [ __ ] free news every day yeah you Know what now that you say that it makes sense what Sean said that he kind of like the blueprint with the milk Road was like exactly the same as that it was exactly

the same it was like your friend that understands crypto basically he sto that line for line for me and then and then we grew to 100,000 people organically and then after that we used paid ads to grow and I came up with this ad it was um it was a qu it was a quote that I just made up it was um my boss Thinks I'm smart I'm not I really just read the hustle and I spent probably $10 million on that ad or more I don't even remember promoting that across Facebook and if you

Google that ad right now so many other people have used that ad that ad was like a really good ad I got lucky it just worked out and Sean used that exact same ad yeah my boss thinks I'm smart I'm not I really just read the milk Road on crypto yeah uh and a lot of people have used that ad yeah that's Hilarious okay so so the equation is almost like it's the like the number of people in your audience so your subscribers yeah and then it's the engagement and then it's the spending power of

those people so I'm curious cuz I'm sure it's like a balance across all three when does someone know that they have something that they should put more into it like you've got a niche that is worth building around for me it was a little bit of a gut decision I just like I looked at how much traffic Wall Street Journal got and Business Insider got and they got tens of millions of people per month so in my head I was like I definitely there's definitely a million people in this world and at least in America

that want this like I feel pretty certain and if I can get those million people here's the outcome is that a worthy Endeavor yeah that will allow me to hit my goal so it was just kind of a gut Feeling like that yeah you know what one of one of the things you mentioned earlier you said that in the initial stages you were doing all of the writing yourself D newsletter all of the writing you were doing yeah but then I I I hired someone eventually but yeah I did a lot of it early on

how big can someone like what Revenue number could you think someone can grow a newsletter to just doing it themselves um I got it to 30,000 a month in Revenue Uh there's a world but back then there weren't a lot of tools but there's like ad networks now that you could use so I had to like go and email people and Co call them and ask them to buy ads in my email now there's more like networks that you can use but uh I didn't have a reputation then so I was just cool emailing people

nowadays I could probably find five advertisers that would each pay a set rate every single month to advertise and That would make my life way easier I mean if I were to start a newsletter and I which I never would I don't want to do that anymore I definitely could do probably uh 300 I I probably do at least three million a year I would think which just by yourself just mean an assistant dang yeah I mean yeah because I would write the newsletter from 300 p.m. to like 6:00 p.m. and then all day I

was spending growing it or doing business development and I think I could get like Five there's six advertisers to each pay me 50,000 per month given I had at least 250,000 subscribers and I could get to 250 I mean I got to 250,000 subscribers in one year so I I could do it again probably yeah now it's a lot of work you got to write a newsletter all the time so I don't want to do that but it's a lot of work yeah but I think even for people listening that's like an Insight like that's

almost your mind opening up To the fact you can build a $3 million newsletter with just yourself and an assistant with like crazy margin is yeah I mean and I know possib I have friends that do that I've got friends that do two and three million with like them and two other people yeah like you could do it for sure and if you really wanted to do this would be harder to start but it's way easier to run you do uh paid a paid newsletter so people like I have a friend who does roughly 20

million a Year and paid subscriptions and he's been doing it for 10 plus years so it's but he's doing 20 million a year just him writing dang that is crazy okay you know what so you mentioned obviously the writing piece and then growing it and Business Development let let's start with business development in the initial stages you're getting on these calls and like selling these ad spots yeah this guy named Chris at wealthfront I called emailed them I said Um well I had a little bit of an advantage because I think the founder of wealth

front spoke at one of my events but I basically had like at that point 3 times 15 so 35 people spoke at different events and I emailed all 35 I I just used LinkedIn and I found the marketing managers at all 35 of the companies I was like hey um my uh your founder spoke at my event I've now started a newsletter I currently have I think I started advertising when I had 50,000 subscribers I was like I have 50,000 subscribers I think this is worth uh at least like uh5500 or $2,000 for you to

advertise on you want to do it for a grand uh and if it works keep on going and they were like yeah I I'll try it for $1,000 yeah I I'll try it and I did and it worked a little bit uh and they would keep on going and I did that to get to 30,000 and then I hired an advertising sales person a full-time person and Within two months we got to like 70 grand per month like once I hired someone dedicated who knew how to do I'm not that good at to to sell

advertising you got to be pretty organized I'm not that great at it but once I have like a really organiz IED person who knew how to do it I mean we it it got you 100 Grand in like a few months yeah that's awesome okay did you was there was there ever any stories I know people fear this with sales cuz once you sell it you have To deliver was there one where you got like someone in they like agreed to the rate and then you almost like hopelessly under delivered I felt like that all

the time I mean we we did a good job of delivering and if I didn't deliver I had a policy that like dude if we don't deliver just give them their money back or like give them make them whole so if I the cool thing about a newsletter is that like my production costs are like nothing so if you're not happy I'll just Add you again in tomorrow's Edition do you know what I mean like and that was and that's what I would do I was like I need you to be happy because with the

advertising business as well as any other business repeat customers is key and so we ended up hiring account managers who sole job was to like say hey uh HubSpot or Salesforce here's the results of your campaign we got a lot of wonderful feedback for it um we had you got this many clicks it looks like you Had this many signups for whatever how how are you feeling you know like let me get you on the phone and walk me through how you're feeling about this if you're happy we can do a little we can iterate

we can like like like it was like a it was like a Enterprise sales gig you know what I mean yeah I love I love the way that you said that like make it whole like make them whole because I think so many people when they're doing sales they get the sale and I've done this Actually you get the sale instantly move on to the next one like you deliver the thing no you gota like provide value dude you gota you gota you gota like I won't yeah like I have a podcast now and like

I I don't want you to advertise unless you're going to make a profit you know what I mean it's got to be a win-win otherwise you're just a fool and you're goingon to make a little bit of money and then in a few months you're never going to see it again yeah they CH It's the death of your business yeah churn is is the most important thing I think for for every business is is retention yeah you know what let's quickly talk about the the growth piece so let's say that I I have the sales

locked in I've got you know I'm good at writing how do I actually grow this thing like what are the best ways in 202 the key so I'll tell you what we did and then I'll I'll I'll guess what I think the best thing today is so the key Is you have to know who am I targeting like literally name them like what is this person so for me it was like a 26y old who lives in New York San Francisco LA works at any of these thousand tech companies and makes like 100 Grand a

year that's who I'm going after so they're kind of a nerd but where do they hang out in my case they hung out on Reddit uh that was like a nerdy hangout place at the time um so I was like all Right what subreddits with were where were they hang out and and what subreddits and what topics are they currently reading about and so I went and created content that I felt had a good chance of ranking high on those subreddits that were relevant to the person who I wanted to attract and so for example

you remember soilent yeah yeah yeah the drink right yeah it's like a Dr it's like a meal replacement drink that like Engineers would drink I paid a Guy two grand to live on it for 30 days and like write about it yeah and so I had the headline I thought about the headline first the action the Ada uh of I lived on soilent for 30 days here's what it made here's here's what happened and I posted that in the subreddit for soilent and we got like 50,000 people who came to the site that week and

I would do these like big articles like that all the time and a lot of them hit some of them didn't hit but I would Always think like all right so my audience is on Reddit it's on Hacker News and at the time it was in a variety of Facebook and Facebook groups so I'm going to create content that's long form articles that's tailored for those people using headlines that will capture their attention and then when they come to my website I had a really funny popup that followed Ada and it said oh [ __

] not another popup and I said hey look while you're here here's the deal this Is actually a Blog that I've written to promote my daily newsletter where I tell you all the business news that you need to know sign up now if you don't like it I'll vow you a dollar and we would get like 30,000 people a month signing up for that um and I would just turn these articles out like crazy so only like 30% or 20% of them got a lot of traffic but I would churn out so many that it

kind of added up so we were able to get 100 or 150,000 subscribers in the first 12 Months maybe and so if you do that full time you could bang out that many articles too yeah you know it's so it's so good and it's like it shows how foundational and how important that ADA framework is right because all that you were doing is that you're creating the attention is like the viral article the thing that gets I don't know hundreds of thousands of people see it maybe like a smallish segment of those then click through

to your page maybe 10,000 and Then you then have the interest and the desire built in the popup which then convert any of the call to action and then my welcome email was really good if you Googled the hustle welcome email a lot of people like wrote blog posts about it it was like a very famous welcome email that I wrote that was really good um I try to do what's called The Forgotten text so the for so your welcome email your unsubscribe page things where you just use the stock text From a your web

provider yeah I always would customize those that like or your popup I would like customize them to like stand out um and that really worked well yeah you know what's interesting about Business and Entrepreneurship I think a lot of people that are really good at it especially guys started off as like gamers and when I when I hear when you even the way you're explaining it it makes sense because it's kind of like I don't know it's like when you Learn I'm trying to think of the right game but like it's when you learn those

like strategy games or like those games growing up where you kind of figure out the way it's played and the rules and then you're just optimizing the [ __ ] out of it and it's just like and that was the thing with the newsletters a lot of people didn't think that it could be a real business but I was like but no like the math says this and they're like but dude an email is like a joke I'm Like no no no this is like the rules of the game are this like but let's just

add like three zeros behind like your subscriber count you know what I mean and and that math still works yeah if you were going to use the same strategy in 2024 what Would You Do Well it all depends on where your audience is already living so if I was going to do Tech and business my audience is living on Twitter right now so I would get popular on Twitter if you're appealing You know if you're into a car newsletter or something like that car YouTube is like pretty popular then I would make YouTube videos and

get them to convert to um a newsletter if I'm for me I would never do a consumer newsletter I would only do B2B and if it's B2B I could probably advertise to get them and they would be on LinkedIn and I could probably acquire a customer on LinkedIn I don't know what that goes for anymore I haven't done it forever but like I get I bet you I can get a LinkedIn subscriber or a subscriber from LinkedIn for like five bucks and I bet you I can make like five bucks a month off of them

through ads in my newsletter do you know what I mean so the reason you um the reason that you say you would do B2B if you were doing it now they spend more they spend more and because the the the bar of content is [ __ ] like a lot of like B2 boring yeah so [ __ ] boring so it's like it's not that hard to like be Cool you know what I mean like I was a tech news newsletter it's not that cool the industry wasn't cool so if I just said a silly

joke every once in a while people thought it was like the greatest thing they ever heard yeah you know what I mean yeah you know I was reading someone say this um recently like everyone thinks about like Tik Tok or YouTube Instagram all these platforms no dude it's way too hard LinkedIn and it's like still wide open to yeah it's way Easy it's way easier it's it's way easier to go B2B and you make so much more money uh like I've Got a Friend um or a guy I'm friendly with and he's got a company

that had only like a million subscribers and he sold it I had two million or three million subscribers and we sold for tens of millions he had like a million subscribers and he sold for 500 million and it was like all B2B like the most boring [ __ ] like HR and [ __ ] like that uh because like the head of HR Like makes software buying decisions that are really costly you important right so anyway like B2B is way better way better what makes someone buy you like when when you get the I don't

even know if you've had this conversation with the people at HubSpot like what is it that they're seeing that makes them buy the news the HubSpot on so there's basically two reasons one is they just want the iida so do you know anything about PE or anything like that yeah it's A hard industry I don't like PE I'm not an expert into it but basically uh private Equity private Equity uh you have a fun let's just use math um you have $100 million fund and what you do is you say I'm going to with $100

million fund I can buy 10 companies that are collectively worth a billion and the reason I could do that is because I'm going to use my 100 million to buy the companies and then I'm going to borrow $900 million to pay for the company and In doing that I'm going to buy companies that have uh cash flow and I'm going to slowly grow the cash flow and then I'm going to sell that business in seven years and I'm going to return 1.8 billion dollar these guys get one bill they're 1 billion plus a percentage of

the 800 additional million that we made and I'm going to turn my 100 million into 500 million you understand what I'm saying so that's how PE works and so a lot of buyers in newsletters are they Just want that cash flow in my case it's a called the Strategic it's actually way better so HubSpot is a company that sells CRM and website software they sell it to small business owners and the average um price of their software I think is around $20,000 a year the hustle had roughly two or three million people on their newsletter

of which a lot of them were small business owners as well as people who made software buying decisions so H HubSpot is Thinking well I could go and buy ads to grow HubSpot or I could just buy this newsletter and never have to buy an ad in newsletters ever again because if I convert 0.1 %c which would be of a mill 0.1% of a million people is what 10,000 so if I can get 10,000 of them to buy my $20,000 software that's a lot of money you know what I mean and that's how they thought

about it and and there was a good math they did a good job that makes sense so it's either it's just such an Extreme cash flowing asset or it's just a strategic like strategically for their business strategic is a way better way to sell by the way you get way higher multiples yeah that makes sense okay no this is so good you know what here's here's where I want to end we spoke kind of like in your origin like wanting to be in control of your life that was like the big thing that was the

thing that you really felt is like you just wanted to have this autonomy this control over Your life I'm curious now because you seems like you've kind of done all of the things right like you have great wife you have child you've made the money like what is what is your even let you know what let me put it like this if the S par that's before me now you're 30 you spoke with the S par that was 21 or 15 or I don't know what age is the one That's like a an inflection point

for you what would you tell them because it was it'd be an interesting conversation to just achieved yeah because you got the thing um I really believe in like making a plan and following the plan and Trust the plan I would tell myself to do that I think um I think I would tell like 15-year-old M I'm like you're the [ __ ] man you can do it like I I really was not a very Confident person I knew I had some type of like I mean everyone has a little bit of special stuff about

them and I wanted to like hide like my uniqueness I like kind of felt like it wasn't cool to be like dork and [ __ ] like that I'll be like no like lean into that [ __ ] lean into your weird quirkiness like I remember being a kid I'm like dude I wish I was like in part of a family like these TV shows where like they were all nice to each other or like I wish I Lived in like one of these nice houses like in California i' never been I'm like I wish

I want all these things like no like it's it's cool to be different and like lean into like your kind of weirdness and that is cool people will be attracted to that and you will get to where you need to go if you lean into that and don't be self-conscious about like being quirky or being weird and uh I just be like no you're you're the man like it's cool it's cool to be unique Make sure you beat uh What's the phrase uh uh watch your own drum beat or something like that like do that

Mar to the beat of your own drum March to the beat of your own drum yeah I wish I would have had more confidence in doing that earlier on than I did yeah and you know what it's it's even funny just um when I'm doing these interviews having these conversations I observe the guest right as you're speaking and it's like I said it earlier it's almost like the Degenerate guide to business every time that you speak about these stories of you like doing these youed be really embarrassed of that stuff by the way I was

really embarrassed about I was like I'm just like a [ __ ] redneck like what am I doing I want to be more but now your face lights up when you talk about it yeah I was like I want to be more refined I was like I want to be all all the like no like be unique and um like even now I'm 35 and I hang out with People that are a little bit older than me sometimes and they're more um I'm like I'm still a kid and I was like self-conscious about that for

a minute I'm like no [ __ ] that dude that's the way to go and so I'm now I feel very confident um that like the world is shaped by people just normal people and like I can make my own reality I could kind of kick my Deb in the world and so now I'm a lot more confident of like not bending into other people's reality I'm Going to bend my own and so now I'm a lot more confident but yeah I wish I was more confident about that early on of like you don't have

to do it the way other people do it you don't have to act it the way other people are acting like it's all right you could have your own path yeah you know what's funny I actually wrote that in my notes I said I want to maintain my childlike Wonder that's like the biggest thing like if you can maintain your child like Wonder I was on the subway on the way over here there's this little kid sitting next to me and everyone's quiet he just starts shouting out kids would do that they'll just they're just

themselves they control their own reality and it's like if you can maintain that and you can lean into it the things that you're good at you can achieve incredible outcomes yeah and if feels awesome like the world wants you to be vanilla don't don't give into it you Know what I'm saying um um also life go by goes by really fast and like you got to do it your way a little bit you know what I'm saying um and I get care of that yeah yeah s thank you so much man appreciate it thank you

so much for watching this episode I hope you enjoyed it it's really a dream for me that I get to do this it's surreal that this is what I do fulltime and every week so if you enjoyed the content if you enjoyed the conversation the stories please hit That subscribe button it helps us immeasurably with growing the Channel with getting guests all of those things so please hit that subscribe button and I'll see you next time