#75 with Randy Hetrick - Navy SEAL To $50M TRX

this episode is brought to you by super side they're an always on design company that delivers great design at scale fast afford and within twenty four hours go to super side dot com slash m f m m m as in my first million some super side dot com slash m m to check them out this is very casual so i don't even get we're we can record right now it's recording now and we'll put that up so this is very casual and i'm gonna ask you a lot of questions and if you don't wanna answer something just say it but oh i will yeah this is very casual what's going on your randy right yeah that's me so i i'm a fan of your guys product and typically i i own it i have my i own my own gym downstairs i i do research on the businesses that we talk to and the people we talk to but in this case i didn't do too much research on purpose because i only have the product as a fan of the products perspective and and i wanted to come from that point of view but do you know do you know what this podcast is and who we are or anything like that well give me a little more background because i mean i've i've been doing a fair number of these since this crazy making period took off and it's hard to keep up with them it was funny because and i i love to support right because i do so much in the entrepreneurial community i love to support young entrepreneurs so i'm i'm basically you know taking pods that i normally wouldn't take just because it's you know we're here we're home and if i can support other guys that are getting stuff going and i'm all about it and what you said you've been doing a lot since the making what what what may what are you talking about no i said since this mayhem right corona thing yeah i mean i i do a a quite a lot of stuff in the press normally just to promote you know to promote my brand but since we've all been locked at home there's a massive proliferation of digital content in the form you know sometimes in the form of of video blogs and podcasts and so i in fact i just got off another another one with a with a investment bank and industry panel basically but it was just a call so i i i didn't have to be as pretty as i am now for you sam good well you look great so let me we're gonna i'm gonna give you a the the twenty second or the two minute background and then we're gonna make this all about you but so i'm sam par i own this company called the hustle and what we do is i i started it we just turned four years of like a like a two weeks ago so typically we have these conferences that where we host ten trade shows conferences where we host tens of thousands of people each year but we also have the hustle and the hustle is our daily email that goes up to millions of people so millions of people log in and they get our news from us in their email inbox each morning and it's a great business it's a eight figure wonderful business that we've bootstrap and then we also have trends and trends dot c it's our subscription product so we it's those premium content community which is also a great business so awesome and and we do this podcast as a that i think i forget how many listeners we have but we've had millions millions of lessons over a million listens and what this podcast kinda started as was me and sean my c host who isn't here right now but we both have started companies and we always had these interesting brainstorm storms with people like you who we're our friends and we would just r on interesting ideas and on cool insights and most people don't have access to those types of people and so we just do this publicly and so that's what we're gonna do today and so what i wanna do right now is i wanna learn a bit little bit about your background and kinda how you came to be where you are now and where you are now well where i am right now is in my house in valley i'm sort of like i i i feel like rap i spend all my time up in the tower above my garage right it's become my sort of everything from the sports marketing department or sponsorship marketing department of t to the you know production studio for every one of our sort of you know blog interactions and that kind of thing but you know i i so i'm the founder of t x i i live in in you know marin county prior to t x i was in navy seal for fourteen years and actually created the first harness while i was at the special missions unit and then just decided you know after i left seal teams i went to business called stanford and decided while i was there that this was a viable business concept you know which i think at the time i massively over over overestimate how easy it would be because the product was so great but but i used stanford is basically an incubator second year is an incubator for this concept and t x is i guess this is our fifteenth year in the market how and you know we're doing pretty well we're we're one of the the only truly global fitness brands and we you know we've we've put close to three hundred and fifty thousand training pros through our our t coach qualification courses and we're in about i don't know somewhere between fifty and seventy thousand gyms and studios around the world most of which are closed right now which is an interesting you know experience but fortunately for t we we we were for ten years all b2b b just serving athletes training centers clubs trainers and and boutique studios and then about four or five years ago now we decided alright we're ready to start to expand into the consumer the true b2c consumer space and you know it's good that we did that because obviously that side of our business in the covid nineteen environment is absolutely off the charts the commercial side of our business is really struggling because all the all the gyms and all the trainers are all out of work so it's been a little bit of a tale of two cities over the last couple months but that's basically the snapshot of you know what t is and and i'm today i'm c chairman and really promoter in chief of the of the brand do you own the company or have you guys been acquired or anything like that well the the the company is we have you know i raised a long time ago i mean i raised a bunch of rounds of of angel money when i started and then and then took on private equity back in twenty twelve and then recently recap the business to exit those initial partners and bring in some new partners because that's one of the you know the dirty little secrets about institutional capital is once you take it yeah it's very difficult to get rid of so so it's you know it's a private company but it's c owned by by a bunch of us including the capital partners that that came in in about a twenty at the end of twenty eighteen beginning of twenty nineteen how much did you raise from the angel folks well in the way back i think i raised about oh i have to think back to my rant around five million bucks from you know in several rounds of of angel money and and that's great capital right for i don't know i know what the complexion of your viewership is but the they folks about raising that yeah i don't use you can use your jargon it's a very it's a very highly intelligent not beginner audience so go ahead yeah well i mean the by far the highest may look the cheapest source of of money to grow business is always what they call non d diluted capital right and and that mostly in the form of sales but if you're gonna take on d diluted capital the i think by far the best source is angel investors for a couple reasons i mean if a presuming you pick your angels the right way because what you get in an angel investor if you've chosen well is you get somebody who has a lot of domain relevant domain expertise because angels tend to invest in things that they know and think that one way or another they can contribute value to if you pick the right angel you'll get somebody who not only has domain expertise but super passionate about your venture generally angels are willing to to invest on a common stock basis which you know i strongly recommend to entrepreneurs that they stay away from preferred structures up until they're ready to to sell a significant piece of their of their equity or exit altogether because once you once you you know once you bring in a preferred layer of equity into the cap stack everything's different in terms of the solidarity that you once had right across the team and the investors because that changes and and it's a you know it's it's a tough change in the experience of most people that i know to manage so so i'm a big fan of of angel investors in which you get not only capital right but you end up getting pro bon experts effectively who are excited to be involved in in your venture how how big was the company when you sold it to pe or so parts to pe well it's been you know two rounds of that now right so so the first the first money we took and i think we're were around i don't know you know thirty million something like that annual revenue and annual revenue yeah and and you know and and who who knows you know we'll be we'll be north of you know probably north of sixty somewhere who who knows how far because covid is a interesting experience but and we don't you know we don't really get into specific because we're privately held company so if you're heading that way just redirect you well so you already said it's the ballpark is sixty million it could be way higher but at you that's the a number that's been said a company like t x you guys so we talked to a lot of like these direct to consumer folks which you didn't start out as but you are definitely are now but yeah when i think of t x i think that you guys are in the same category as crossfit or and this isn't an insult but like tony horton like you guys are like a brand right like you're not just some amazon you're you don't rank on amazon and that's how you win t x is something that people know and a brand do you think that your valuation is like would will your multiples be significantly higher because of that you think or is it still rough to get a high valuation on products like the well i mean so for starters i mean we aren't we aren't it we're the number one selling fitness item them on amazon yeah but i but i didn't mean like your way your path of success has not been like well we're just gonna rank higher like it was just people like know us no yeah we built i mean look from day one this was never intended to to be a get get rich quick scheme right it wasn't a wasn't a trend i mean i it's funny because when i first started the business and there were no predecessor to the product i brought to market right our initial hero product which was the suspension trainer the the idea there seemed kinda crazy to bring this strap into the club landscape full of machines and think that you were gonna be successful but one of the things that we did that was that was a really great choice and i made plenty of less than great choices but the one one of them that was a great choice was really finding this sweet spot in helping training pros of all kinds right from from chiropractors and physical therapists on one hand out to to mma coaches and power lift and coaches on the other end and then obviously you know in under the under the bell curve you know tons of personal trainers and group fitness instructors we decided we're gonna become the part the business partner of them and that we were gonna give them this great tool that had it's like i was described the suspension trainer like a magic wand right if if you if you know the magic make you can become a magician to your to your clients and your athletes and deliver them unbelievable results that always you know you look at a twelve feet in nylon webbing ago yeah what can that do with the right pro and the right knowledge in that pro's head you end up going oh my god this thing i've never seen anything like this right and that's that's a unique characteristic that not many products or services ever had which is you have people to come in with a very low expectation and leave with a very high level of aston and so that's been a a powerful benefit to us and then we diversified the the the companies scope of operations we became you know the largest provider of professional education to trainers and then we brought the product line significantly all the while focusing on this premium brand that you alluded to which i do believe brings you know an an enhanced multiple the reality though is that long term if if all of a company wants to be is a product company right that delivers durable goods because our stuff lasts for freaking ever you know way too long yeah no i've had the same one i've had the same one for four years i i think i got it was gifted on christmas and i've had the same one for four years now yeah i mean and that's and you're in four years there's nothing for a one on one right i i talked to people that are that are still traveling around using our like first gen strap from two thousand and five in their bag you know and and it's i mean on one hand it's a complement on another it's a nightmare right you need what's the called plan planned ops absolutely obsolescence yeah yeah we need a break after like you know five thousand push ups we never we never planned to that because i i really wanted to be and i look i i i came at this whole thing you know i started my entrepreneurial career at thirty nine so after a career as a as a navy i you know i had a set of values that focused on premium level delivery and if i was gonna be associated with this brand then that's where we're gonna do so we built everything that way the unintended consequences is the one that you and i are beating around right now is your stuff lasts forever and that which means that you know you either have to create more products to serve your existing customers which is expensive right because r and d is not cheap or you have to constantly be in search of new customers which is not cheap and so you know it's it's i think that's why pure product codes get what i would say you know unfair valuations relevant or relative to some of these fake more fake companies that are you know tech based companies that have the potential not the promise but the potential to scale infinitely right and so those kinds of companies tend to get higher valuations than gear companies and that's that's just one of those realities and it's part of what you know we've never planned to be just a gear company we we have always planned to to expand our services let's subscription services and on and and that's what we've done right now you guys make what are your revenue streams your revenue streams are coming straight from your revenue streams are purchases from coaches and things like that or not well coaches and chiropractors and who like you know b to people with servicing clients right we make well we're an omni channel distributor so you know on the on the commercial side of the business which is the b side yeah we sell the gym we sell gear to gyms yeah but that's what it was is what education education gyms and trainers yeah well yeah so we do so we we became early on i mean if you think back nobody knew how to use a strap it didn't stretch and didn't have any weight attached to us so if i was with you or one zero one i had almost a hundred percent close rate in the in the earliest days problem was i can't be everywhere right so and if i wasn't with you and you were just looking at a picture of it say on i'm a website the conversion would drop to you know five percent so that was something that i realized very early alright well i have to be able to scale my knowledge on how to use this thing and so i brought in a guy who was introduced to me very very early in the company's history again fraser que who had been a career trainer and had written a lot of education in the form of courses for other pros right to teach other pros the various skills i mean how a trainer or coach learn his or her craft they usually get a basic certification from a entry level certification body like american council on exercise or or or ns and then they go out into practice and they start developing practical skills and along the way they wanna learn more about you know a particular tool or a methodology or and so they they do they have continued education requirements right just like a doctor or a lawyer they have to they have to do so many continuing education units per year to maintain their basic certification we became one of the leading providers of those ce courses that that help helped charge them a new trainer that coach move forward word master and that cost money yeah yeah our our normal our normal we have about ten courses of different chains not eighty nine dollars all b to b and the well no traditionally they were two hundred ninety five right so two hundred and ninety five bucks for a one day qualification course and it was eight hours live in person what you're probably seeing now is we've done some some pretty incredible pivot with covid nineteen hitting and changing the landscape and so one of the things we did early on was try to figure out hey alright number one we're not gonna be able to provide education right as long as this thing last because you can't get people together number two most of the people who come to our courses are out of work and so what what what can we do to support them was sort of idea number one and then number two was how do we take this moment which is really a bunch of lemons being thrown at i said make lemonade at it and we decided that well we can take our courses we can make them free figure out how to how to deliver them through zoom instead of live and we'll do that as long as as this you know crisis continues and we'll just try to fill our bucket with a whole bunch of new pros of all kinds of stripes right who on the other side of this will then appreciate that that we helped them out when they were down and also you guys have revenues selling to so that's what doing the main product t the main t x which it looks like you have a few varieties but i imagine most is from the main one and then you make revenue from these hundred to tune a hundred to three hundred dollar b b digital products what's what's the breakdown is is is like is is the actual product eighty percent of sales oh it's you know it's falling pretty pretty fast as are as the education and now the what what's the big epiphany and the big unlock that's gone on over the last two months is that we massively accelerated our what already was a migration toward digital delivery and subscription models and so you know we've also got an app that that we make money off of that's a four ninety five a month app that supports the end user and and we we have turned off the pay wall on that during covid but that will go back on once everybody gets back to work you know we're really using covid nineteen as an opportunity to develop new to solidify the relationships with our existing customers and and bring new customers into the tribe through a free door that eventually obviously everybody knows that no business can keep their services free forever but in the meantime we're using it as as a big opportunity to you know to build new relationships so the the mix is is really what was the other thing free covid i think you you know you're not you know i mean it's probably probably seventy thirty between you know equipment but you're defining equipment way too narrowly right you're looking at our hero products which are the suspension trainers we do the entire ecosystem of functional training so from we have you know steel ecosystems that you built the infrastructure that you know that not only you hang straps on but you filled with cal bands ball yeah which i which i everything you see in a gym sales team to handle that like have did you you have to do like hand to hand combat for that or is is a lot of it inbound and here's a filling order it's some of both right i mean no i don't think any business it it certainly doesn't exist for very long as as all inbound flow right generally you have to be well i guess i mean but are you looking down that them or you know the target have salesforce so yeah hitting the phones and and making it happen oh both yeah both we advertise into the commercial landscape through the traditional you know means to reach gym owners and trainers but then we also have a but pretty significant direct salesforce inside and outside that i'm what does i'm looking at available website patrick i if i looking at this tool i would imagine that your sales are like four x in april what they were in february it looks like you guys are just like like you your web traffic has gone through the roof yeah well it certainly has and the reason is i think less to do with anything we've changed in our marketing then with the reality that you know as a ten year b2b to be business we we've put you know we we serve tens of millions of people around the world who identify themselves as t extras but ironically had never bought a product for their home right because they use us in a gym and i run people constantly who my best friends you know we'll tell me like oh i've never bought you know they'll call me and be like hey can you give me a friends and family you you know discount and i'll be like you don't have one of our straps these are people that i know are die hard t ers and then there'd be like no and i do it three times a week in the gym you know and so that that was that was a reality that comes with being a b business for ten years but what happened with the virus was when all the gym doors got shut all of a sudden all of those installed that installed base of t ers went well the hell am i gonna do my do my workouts and so they turned to our amazon site and our website and you know that's that's been i believe the the big source you of the have the growth you need exclusive growth thing like consumer goods or well hard hard goods and digital products so you you're able to see how they both work and my from my perspective and i've been an an investor and i have friends who sell direct to consumer hard goods and then i also have a digital company and of invest them as well what my perspective is that the d guys can grow their revenue from zero to not zero very quickly but there's massive supply chain headaches whereas digital it's often the opposite where it's maybe a little more challenging to get started but the margins are way better and you never have a supply chain issue what knowing both sides of the business which do you prefer well i mean i i think that which for which was that it's easier and makes more money you know i think yeah well the reality is that i think i think creating a digital company pure digital is is hard because a very cluttered field right it's a it's there's especially now i mean this this virus has unleashed the digital universe right and so now just like any other marketplace there's gonna be this explosion of of would be you know participants and then there will be a consolidation and and some of the you know they'll separate sort of the weed from the cha and i think that we're in a really unique position because we started as a physical products company then we became an education company and education and content right because we made i mean hell we probably did thirty five dvds prior to dvds becoming dis intermediate by digital delivery we've obviously taken all that content and repurposed it into our digital ecosystems but then we we became a brand like a a a really significant premium brand in the space and then we stretch that brand around the world so now we're in a really unique position because we have the best of both worlds right we have a a large customer base that bought our physical gear and that then came to group classes in clubs around the world that we help develop and and educate the instructors who are delivering those so they got comfortable and identified with our brand and then as we've done more and more consumer branding we've extended that brand from the the pro space which is great from a credibility standpoint because if trainers and physical therapist love you the consumer at home tends to go well these guys must be you know a quality operation and so now we're in a really unique position now we're turning on some new digital engines some subscription engines that give us the best of it all right we're we we will have our products which you're right you stock out of i mean we're you know we've stocked out over and over and over during this thing because no one plans for a you know multi time step function change in the demand curve right and you you you scramble to try to catch up to it and i think a lot of us will find ourselves just about the time we're were caught up and we've got this you know a whole new stock yard full of products scary maybe the demand will settle down a little bit and we'll end up with more prop yeah and it's but that's just that's part of being a physical product well that's my question which which one do you find supply which one do you personally enjoy more both in terms of working on and the results i'm a i mean i'm an in inventor you know so so that is part of my like it's it's a it's probably what maybe wanna go into the navy seal teams i i have a mc guy bent to me and i came up with an old man that can fix literally anything with almost nothing and so i i sort of grew up you know out in the garage until you know the middle of the night holding a flashlight for my old man while he was you know jerry rigging some kind alright this episode is brought to you by super side alright so here's the deal i'm incredibly impatient like horribly horribly impatient if i get an idea at midnight by eight am the next day i want it done you know but that's really hard because if something needs to be designed where am i gonna find a designer at midnight to try to make this thing bring to life so you know i don't think i'm alone other startups ups even huge companies need design help fast and they just don't have the internal resources or expertise to get it done so how do you get reliable design done without dealing with expensive agencies and lots of freelancers you use super side that's our sponsor for this week just go to super side dot com slash m fm m and tell them what you want they have a team of designers that can get it done fast you know they are twenty times faster than hiring you know hiring a designer and fifty percent more affordable than a traditional agency so if you need quality design done fast try super side lots of fast growing teams that are stretched are using them already check them out super side dot com slash m m i've used them before i love them check it out end of a of a fix to to an old motor or two whatever could be anything so i really enjoy the process of product creation and i spend a lot of time and energy at t developing our next products i also though appreciate and enjoy creating great content whether it's in the form of pro education or whether it's in the form of of end user content your know workout content and so i i would say i like both i like the economics of the digital side of the equation for the reasons that you've pointed out right you don't stock out of it and you don't it scales infinitely but i don't think that it's an easy business to just say oh i'm gonna become a digital content publisher and i'm gonna you know make a billion dollars yeah like you and the other billion would be digital content producers that are out there all right on the same path and so so i i i i like them both i like the multiple so i'm gonna ask you on digital content and subscription and i'm gonna ask you about interesting ideas that you're seeing and new opportunities but first you said something that you're the chairman right does that mean you're not the ceo yeah i'm what we brought in a a president you know i've i've tried a number of times to get out of the day day in day out management of the organization because couple reasons one at this point you know i mean number one there's one founder right and so you've got a certain amount of of founder cache that is really valuable in working with the press in working with key accounts right and in generating love around the brand that there aren't others who can do that there are others who can manage the steady state sort of linear growth of a you know of a of a mid midsize and and growing company in fact there's those that can do that better than me because i'm more of a startup up guy so i've tried you know several times over the last call it six years to to get more out into the market and less in the conference room and you know we hired a president about eight months ago who you know i've been doing a transition where i can you know basically hand most of the day in day out over to him and to you know to the to the team and then with our new partners they're very good at the financial engineering side of the equation so i'm not right that i ain't i mean that is just not something that turns me on i i like the outcome but the process is just not something that you know floats my boat and everybody's everybody's cut of different cloth so what i'm really focusing my energy on is promoting the brand developing your products and and looking at new initiatives right that's something that i'm i'm very good at and passionate about is sort of trying to we're very similar so i've done the same thing in my president the next opportunity is gonna be handles a lot of stuff and i do the exact same thing where i can lead vision but i also come at the very bottom and i could just change pixels and and invent i do it digitally but the same exact crap where i'm just i have my computer up late at night and i'm just making stuff and most of it sucks but every once in a while i'll show to someone in they're like oh yeah let's go make that that's the product creation dilemma right most of it most of it goes nowhere but but about every ten you know every every tenth effort you go wait a minute there's something to this one right and that's you know and that's you you gotta be wired to not get frustrated by that just like you know just like folks who like to manage at that mid level they don't like the the scar and the ambiguity and the you know the va of of the startup or creator they like the the consistent predictability of you know weekly staff meetings and a checklist and all the things that make me sort of well this consistent than we next i feel like man this be opera i wanna shit so call nasty gal and it's scaled to i forget the exact number one or two hundred million a year in sales and had multiple offers around half a billion and it they they she screwed it up for a bunch of reasons one of the biggest ones that she was like i'm i'm brilliant at creating i'm horrible at operating and i i too am like that where i'm brilliant at creating but operating i just don't find it to be exciting and i think that most people who start stuff are the same way but i think there's actually a huge issue in you're in silicon valley although you may or may not run the silicon valley crew particularly amongst that group of people i've noticed there's a huge problem of people starting stuff who are afraid to hire people to actually run the thing and i've really embraced and it took years to learn this is that there's actually people who like creating the car from scratch and designing it and then there's people who love mod it out and making it better and and having both is really important how did you what hire your president and what was that like going through that process and also how many mistakes have you made in hiring the wrong people because that sucks too funny yeah plenty i mean i mean look first of all so i i operated company you know every single day for its first ten years that's a long time right and at that point when you're when the the engine of both creation well why didn't you do creation and management that's like dog's years right well i think i think the a couple reasons one i did try a couple of times right starting around year maybe around year eight to to bring in you know a president the my idea was always i'll bring in a president and i never had i never took a ceo title for years because i just thought it was sort of os for a little company to have a ceo that was my personal opinion so i was a president so when i i brought in a president and the first one that i brought in it really cool aligned with bringing in private well why we years like why not years about your i mean ten well because we were still very much evolving right and i think that one of the challenges with bringing in somebody to take over the the daily management is you have to be pretty well defined about where you're headed as an entrepreneur before you can now hand the wheel to somebody right if you're wheel right wheel left that's not exactly the moment to be like hey buddy here take this right because then the guy's like where do i drive man so so i think that's the answer the short answer is i wasn't ready yet in terms of our our definition to and and the the enough certainty to the general direction of our course to wanna hand that over but at about year aid i was and i said okay so i handed over the first probably the first two presidents that i hired which are both great guys but the mistake that that i made largely from being from listening to my then private equity partners that you know had had sort their their business school one on one playbook they were trying to run which is go high kill me quote hear that what p press kill me well okay what yeah so think you're gonna hear yeah i'm sure i was just gonna say i'm sure you're gonna you're you're gonna be hearing something familiar here right which is that a lot of the institutional capital investors they they they haven't run businesses themselves so they want to execute what they learned in business school which is you know the idea of best practice well what is best practice that's the problem right and and generally they will say oh it's someone from the upper mid levels of a great big successful company that we've all heard of what i've learned and it took me two two go rounds to learn this by the way total is that that is almost a i need a guy with the nba tell me what president i need a fucking hole in the head i don't like like what like oh my god i so i i've had a like got i've had a lot to we have a guy adam ryan who's our president and i've known him since high school i'm from missouri so i'm not from like this fancy san francisco stuff like i live now and that was awesome because adam has wonderful at being scrappy and things like this but he also can be like a big company suit if you wanted to and what i found is and i've hired some mba and it didn't work out what i found is these gray hair they're not actually gray hair but it's more fig these best practices this bullshit they just these people can't roll the punches and i i've never had success with that type of i've i've hired i have a few businesses on this like little investments i've made and we've hired ceos who were like this and it just man it never works and but you think that it should yeah well it's it's a little bit a key to trying to get a cat to bark right cats wow dogs bark so saying that well you know either one of them should be able to to do this thing is just not right and you wouldn't do it because it would be preposterous and yet what people do all the time especially institutional investors make this mistake they assume that because somebody operated at a scale right and at a successful brand that will that person clearly can this will be easy for person and it it's it's almost the reciprocal because what what they don't realize or haven't thought through is those people are are playing a different game like michael jordan was you know arguably the best basketball player in history when he went over to the major league baseball right hit with a thud why yeah he's a great athlete we've playing a different sport so so what worked for him in on the basketball court you know doesn't work when you're on the mound of a baseball diamond and and so i think it's the very similar thing big company big company leaders have large staffs generally a lot of certainty in the direction that they're heading you know kinda single digit management objectives right up or down it's it's it's you're only like a you're you're a little bit decision you can process so like right yeah and that consists of a small company right a small company and by that i mean anything south of a hundred million bucks is it's constantly pivoting and and the the the windows to make those pivot are not you know years they're not even quarters you know you're lucky if they're months and so though i think the difference in the operating cadence and style is profound and just going into a big company a successful big company manager and thinking they're gonna be successful as a small yeah i think that look president it let what's my almost number financial arbitrage machine and i need someone to figure out how to milk out three percent off the bottom line by using less materials then i'm gonna get one of those nerds but until then i need innovative people who understand how to be it's a perfect balance of art and science who understand like financial analysis and things like that but who also can understand what motivates buyers and who can think of widgets that you know make people feel good and wanna purchase and be it's just i've been to this i so i i empathize you are you seeing in anything at the moment or or is one hundred percent of your time on this or like on saturdays and sundays are you tinkering with anything totally outside of this field what interests you right now perpetually yes yeah i'm well i mean there's a lot of different things that interest me i'm you know i i'm an angel investor and a bunch of different enterprises both inside and outside of health and fitness and i because i'm a super you know i'm a start up nerd so i i live and breathe you know that and i teach i teach classes at both my alma mater at at the marshall school us see you're bad ass your business stanford and so i get to see a time epidemic of young you're pretty well i have to put on the i'm not sure that i would did i would put academic so okay yeah but i'm let but i'm a lecturer right not a professor so so that means that all you had to do all you had to do is have gone here and then have this is something to do subsequently right some of that and also like you know talk to them about air aristotle and like britain's economic policy and how it impacted imperial and the i succeed i i'm gonna i'm in ec dude got that part right right i'm in a collect dude and i'm i'm a super geek inventor you know which which i love i mean i've got like forty patents that i didn't i care less about the patents what i cared about was the thing right like bringing the thing to life and then once you do particularly in today's digital economy but you gotta protect it because if you don't you'll be knocked off and blown out of you know blown into oblivion almost immediately with factory direct stores out of china that have fba shops on amazon now so you know so that's why i became you know like i i joke about having a minor phd and intellectual property lot that i never wanted but i had to learn and so all of that like all the nuts and bolts of creating and then you know articulating a vision and and w a team to to to share that vision and then moving that thing forward what are your best the stuff that makes my about my heart pound well i mean i i spoke we're waiting until they until they they pan out but you know i've got no not yet i've i'm sort of a equity investor right i'm i'm you know i i make a good living now and and so i'm not you know i'm not i'm not in any of these for a quick turn but i think that they all will and you know most of them are in areas that i that i i i tend to to both invest and advise only in things that i think i can make a difference in i've taken a couple of of different flyers on on things that you know buddies that i trust and our domain experts in other areas have said hey man you should get in on this you know but i'm a and and also let's just qualify this i'm a small you know investor i'll i'm not i'm not placing six figure investments one after another but i but i i tend to invest in things where i can help the the operating team based on my own experience right and and really experience is just the sum of all your mistakes as much as anything else and so i you know i can help early stage businesses set up their their partnership arrangements right figure out what makes a good partner figure out what capital sources that make the most sense for them are because i know both the pros and the cons of all of them at this point and then you know team selection that's i mean i've been leading teams since i was you know twenty two year old frog man and led all the way up to you know the national level and so i've i've i've got a lot of experience whether i've done alright i certainly haven't but i haven't done all wrong either but i've got a lot of experience in in helping you know build culture create team dynamics that are that are durable and and performance oriented and build brands so if it's on those categories the that's in my wheelhouse are you a an mma fan nature a huge mma fan and man i this quarantine team thing yeah big time i've gotten very healthy much help like i've done higher man's and things like that but i've like actually started using my t by the way and looking looking weights and i've gotten strong but i i have a weight loss challenge and i five hundred dollars on on the line and i have to hit it by saturday and i i'm gonna crush it just through diet and exercise but i've began just i'm drinking like crazy amounts of water because i wanna do like a mma weight cut and just like destroy the the the the benchmark that i've gotta a yeah and so i about i'm currently drinking three gallons of water a day and then tomorrow on the next day i'm gonna taper her down i i my goal is just crush everyone what that's great that's great yeah well yeah i i've been an m mma fan since before there was mma because you know coming up in the seal teams right you do a yeah it was very ec in terms of the the the coaches that we would bring in so i i was a you know i've been the the full gamut at i was i was an mma guy before mma was termed right everybody was still p in their arts but because i had this bed lifestyle of constantly deploying and come back i didn't have that luxury so i became you know i'd been a kick box and at a wrestler in high school kick box through college then then i got into ji two at the end of college and and lean into that you know hard in as a seal but it was never i never had the luxury of being in one place for more than a couple years at a time and and so but i've been a huge fan of of we did a ton of sponsorship actually of the fighters in the u prior to re buying the you know the global rights to to the sponsorship placements so yeah i i in fact my quote we could help you with you no way for master that stuff i've become friends with ben through this podcast and media and so he been helping me out and i'm named dropping a little but i'm i'm a i was a huge fan of his and then i start talking him like that's awesome i'm friends what's someone i looked up to and then i think we're having michael biz come on and do up podcast as well yeah both of you're great man i mean i asked her a stud wrestler and biz just you know you have about one of the veterans of the of the sport i was so happy when he finally got to the mountain top after a all those years of grinding fighting everybody that you know that was that was there to be fought and he just kept sort of somehow fallen so you somebody finally got there before you know about all this i ever sometimes whenever i talk about like mma and you see i'm like i think i'm being too niche right now no one cares i think it's way bigger than i actually realize but when you were in the seals this the seal thing interests me for two reasons one jo will is it will will that guy's everywhere right now so and he's always fun he's got good that are to watch and then i'm also reading david go book can't hurt me it randomly came up on my audible thing and i started listening to it it's it's emotional it's just at it's hard to listen to oh have you have you heard it or read it damn no i mean i know i know david again i did never work together but i you know you crossed past same thing with jo those guys are those guys are both way behind me in terms of have age but the and so and the seal teams you know if if somebody more than a couple of years ahead or behind you the the likelihood of you knowing him is possible but not high unless you worked at the same places right in which case then you then you transcend the age barriers because you're all you know at a at a command together and you you you work together and i never worked with either one of those guys in fact i think as i was getting out they were both coming in but i certainly know you know of both of them and i i like what what they've both done with their brands and you know jo has done some really really cool stuff with his podcast and and his other appearances to few on there on that show billions which i i was laughing about he he he yeah so this new the new season he's he popped up a mat and i i was like yeah man that's what i i i love it when i see other frogs doing doing good stuff versus the stupid shit where they're out there you know telling and selling secrets that are gonna you know put other guys at risk which i do not admire but i but i really love when i see guys out there doing great things post career because that's what the whole country is supposed to be predicated on right it's the citizen soldier you come in you serve for however long you try to serve as well as you can and then you go on and do something something else cool out in the civilian community and be able to share some of the things you don't love the jo does and i love that dave's like as well like you or i'm just like i like to invent things and i like selling them and i like making money what i didn't whether what i i i always did track and field and running and weight lifting and swimming and those are all individual sports and what i really struggled with early on was how to be a leader it's super hard because you like for a lot of people they start stuff because it's like i said it's fun and it makes money and it's cool they don't but then they like if it was successful and then they're like oh i gotta be like a leader of men and women not necessarily a creator of products what do you think do you think that i mean i know the answer the answer is definitely yes but what specifically helped being in the seals in terms of business leadership and managing a team and by the way how many people do you have we've got about a hundred full timers and then we we you know we use another three hundred and fifty master instructors to do to deliver our education courses so they're ten ninety nines but you know so it hundred full time plus or minus and do you think you know another year a good hundred demand that we employ on sure i think they'd probably send a better leader than i am a manager right that's that would be my guess because it maps to i mean i can manage and the distinction between that to me is quite a wide gap right there are there are people i think who can do both at a very high level but not many because the the the i believe that most of the characteristics that make someone really good at one or the other almost prevent you from being good at both i mean there are some extraordinary people i think out there that can do both but but management requires just a a different level of you know attention to to to min i won't just say detail because i'm very detail oriented but ongoing min which is important in making a business go you know i don't have the patience for it and i also you know i never i i never really liked corporate management i i like leadership a lot and leadership about storytelling being authentic you're motivated i communicate you've seem very charismatic do the gaming leader yeah i i think that's one of the strengths that think bell i can largely as that as a result in your experience sales teams and that are listen can learn anything think well i mean we do you know so i do i do a key i do a keynote that is pretty massively overs subscribed frankly called lessons of a frog man and it's leadership lessons i business leadership lessons that i learned as a seal which turns out almost all of the key lessons that i know i actually learned as a seal the leadership lessons not necessarily the tactical business lessons but and and you know you would think and i actually had one of the assistant dean at stanford business school when i was out interviewing for to to to be accepted there you know give me this sort of patron patronizing put a shoulder hannah my shoulder and basically said well then you know why do wanna why do you think we should take you randy and i talked about you know my leadership experience you know i was at that point i was at the special missions unit as a as a true commander you and had been in the seal teams for you know i don't know ten years or so and you know then he put his hand on my shoulder and said me well then it's it's a bit different leading in the real world than it is in the military don't don't don't you think because out here you can't just it on your caller device and have everyone snap to and do what you say and i'll never i was so astonished man i was like is this guy for real right now or is he ab bait me and and i basically said to him you know dean if that's your view on military leadership and i think it says a lot more about how little you know than it does about the subject of leadership and you know not surprising that i didn't get in that time but but but you know i think that if you're talking about people and groups of people there are many many more commonalities to how to lead and motivate the group then there are differences depending on you know like irrespective of domain because you're talking about ant behavior and that changes very slowly over millennia you know and whether you're a you know a baker or a freaking frontline soldier or a software developer if you're dealing with other people humans behave you know largely the same way they have different micro cultures but but we're all part of the homo sapiens species and we we've evolved our behaviors over you know hundreds of thousands if not millions of years so the commonalities are that people wanna be inspired they wanna be they wanna associate with something they believe in and other people who share that belief system they wanna feel important right like they're contributing everyone wants approval and and reinforcement that what we're doing is is good and so figuring out how in in in a context to provide those basic human needs is what leadership all about and and i i think that it's it's not actually very domain specific whereas management arguably is much more domain specific right depending on the industry and and i think that requires you know a a different set of skills and very often the things that makes someone a good manager prevent them from wanting to be on the podium prevent them from wanting to take risks right and and those are things that you know you can't lead anybody if you're not willing to get on point and and this is less i think the in that male by google and i watch it i hope not because it's one of the is it's one of the you know the side hustle that that i enjoy doing i actually it's you know obviously i've been doing them during covid nineteen but but i'm i'm working on a couple of books in the early stages one of them is is going to be that it's gonna be the a deeper look into the substance of my you know keynote that i do for corporations the other is is gonna be an entrepreneur survival guide because what i discovered right is that the gap between what i learned at stanford for business school and the stuff i actually needed the day i launched this scrappy little strap start couldn't have been wider right and and that's at one of the best business schools in the world but what it what those business schools really prepare you to do is enter as a mid level manager into a large organization very few of them prepare you to be a boot scrape entrepreneur right that needs to walk out and figure out how to how to find some space how to get pesky little things like insurance you know when you're when you start thinking about somebody you're gonna partner with what's that all about you know how do you go about the the nuts and bolts of raising money without screwing yourself you know they're and ever after all that stuff you don't in business school you no i agree and now we're gonna be ramping up soon so i ask you just i i wanted to wrap up the questions on angel investing any companies that you've written checks through that we would know about well i mean i tell you a couple of ones that i'm super excited about right now there's there's one of my ironic one of my board members start a company called basil street cafe which is a really cool automated pizza kitchen concept that i think covid nineteen has has actually now made more viable even than before but it's a a really sophisticated combination of technology branding and distribution to create a a nationwide initially and then global automated pizza kitchen and and that produces some of those most kick ass pizza that i've ever had in my life which is really astonishing because your expectations out of a machine are very low and it turns out it's bit is water better ways or any restaurant quality use other that's one that better run at it than those guys i think sometimes you know like there were things that that you know we're a great idea but we're ahead of their time and i think some of the some of the players that have attempted to do this before have an interesting idea but the technology they didn't get right and you know and and it's largely a distribution business as well because you have to make great great pizza and be able to you know keep the keep the machines stocked with it and so it's a but i'm excited about that one you know i've got another buddy who that that i'm helping that has a company called everest which i think is a really cool you know opposite into the spectrum in a lot of in a lot of respects it's it's basically a very unique way to to collect capture and then encapsulate can be anything but the idea is hair ash could be any kind of material you know from a of flower from you know the mountain top where you got married or buried your grandmother or whatever and then enables that to then be put into either jewelry right that that you now have for instance i'm having some stuff done right now that i'll have my boys you know locks of their hair encapsulated and put it's like with it's like with really jolie have my blood and then you read about that they're fucking weirdo but they're yeah yeah that's that's the real than i than i you know than i'm in but the other thing they do that's really interesting you either choose to put it into jewelry or into tattoos so for who has tattoos and that's great drive a little more meaning to them right it's it's kind of a cool thing to be able to to cut a a lock of you know everything with from your dog's hair to your kids hair or a chat swab and you send it off to them and they've got this patented unique process of putting into into what what you know a keeps basically a permanent keeps where it's jewelry or a tattoo everett e v e r e n c and think their their website's ever dot life but yeah there's a couple you know and and then i'm i'm involved in a in a technology company and lidar radar called lu which is a cool a cool company and that's one of the example of one of those that alright not exactly in my wheelhouse right not an area that i can necessarily add value to but you know very exciting and another friend who pays a lot closer attention to that space you know put it in front of me and it it just made sense it's it's you know one of the companies that's out there vying for supremacy and the stuff feel like if you maybe that category that you're starting a company in there and that would just invest in there just because it's like probably maybe right if it's kind of in that category and then you look at you look at the you know the leaders and go well those people are really smart people this is a this is a sector is someone's gonna win in probably more than one so you know reasonable and again as i said you know i'm i'm a i'm a you know twenty to fifty k investor in any given one thing i'm not taking huge exposed positions usually i'd like to invest in things where you know i i can help based on my experience as a brand as an entrepreneur you know some government stuff that i've got involved with because obviously i spent a long time in you know in the in the government space but and then just some cool companies right there's cool companies that i'm trying to help right now like indy dot com is an awesome new platform to help influencers monetize their following right with content and i'm a big believer in that space and it's and it's an area where i can help them by exposing them to our large installed base of trainers who all of whom are influencers in their own right and trying to figure out how to scale themselves right and create new sort of passive streams of income so you know it's a sma right and and there's were you able to full of others that are of in saying from the first categories event in order to make these investments the first one no i i should have right and that's one of i mean one of the big lessons for anybody who's listening and i really believe this unfortunately i didn't i didn't hear it or or if i heard it i didn't listen the first time i heard it but i really think for entrepreneurs you you really should not with in i'm speaking generally because there are exceptions to every you know every general reality but in general i don't think entrepreneurs should take institutional capital without pulling a significant piece off the table it just you know from the time that you do and you introduce a preferred class of always be your task significant five million five hundred thousand i think it depends on the venture i i i would view i would view it from where i sit now as you know if if you were building and then running a successful company that and you thought that the only option for financing was to go raise it from institutions i'd sell at least a third you know of of my holding to to bring those people in enough basically enough to be okay if things go differently than you expected it that that would be you had a wait but you had a way the rule from and answer so that yeah yeah and and you know i probably could have sold more at the first stop but i i was very bullish and very you know as entrepreneurs need to be and i thought hey this is you know i'm not selling anything right now and that you know that was a big mistake that when i look back on it later on it you don't realize hey you could be locked up with these guys for a long time right and once they're in front of you then getting any kind of liquidity becomes really problematic so you know that's just something that entrepreneurs need to keep in mind and you know you could you could lose control obviously if you sell control but there are other ways where you know through the preferences that institutional investors tend to get into term sheets where your autonomy and your ability to drive the box and you didn't have the ability something you didn't have ability to take a couple million bucks take a million dollars off the profit each year to pay yourself i mean so like you were just strictly earning a a a low salary as the company grew or were you able to like because if you raised five million bucks right out the gate i would imagine you wouldn't even have had the ability to say like well this year we made three million in profit i'm gonna write myself a seven hundred thousand dollar check no of course not and and you don't you know and that's not frankly that's i mean that's that's a tough way for an early stage entrepreneur to even think because if you're starting to think about trying to extract stuff out of an early stage business chances are you're gonna compare that business growth and so my my view was never of that i mean i wanted to start making money right because the first if you count you know two years of business school where i was where i was working on this idea i went the first that those two years plus the next three without any pay right so i was five years that's why i'm saying like but you ten years in no pay iron right basically so like by that one right we were we were learning like i made they're nine years in i can definitely treat myself world and i should i should have taken money off the table then that was one of the mistakes right because what what i focused on instead was hey i want you know to up my up my my salary right and my bonus structure to a point at which i can start making you know a a good living on an annual basis but i should've have i should've have done both right because that that was possible and i chose to just focus on alright let's get my cash comp up to a up to a level that feels right for you know what i've built in the hundred hours a week that i'm working and now we so much you're saying you should have it just know extract value right this right and not i should've have done both is what i said i i didn't when my salary and bonus struggle you're paying your i did not money out i mean we're paying citi grand and that a mistake well i mean no probably more than that by by then but early on yeah i mean should for the first three years i was paying myself nothing then i think i started paying myself fifty grand you know and it just sort of if you if you dollar cost average back you know it would have been a a very bad financial decision right on a on a on an hourly basis but you know you get there and and and i make you know a good living today that's that's that's plenty so you know it all evens out but if you dollar cost average the first ten years i probably made fifty grand a you know which which after fourteen years david a seal valley nba right ain't kill and live in san francisco at the time i i fled the mill valley like everyone does eventually or to marin you know but but yeah i was i'm in glen park city paying a mortgage up on twin peaks and and awesome oh that's that's where i was so i was right behind tower market glenn park was my glen park was my my my regular you know the chen restaurant i was still down i it was my my regular jam down the hill and you know i i used to run glen every day yep i live in downtown glen park i w canyon today and i have a house here with like a a garage in a gym with my t x this is awesome man you're cool shit i appreciate you taking the time right your preferred method of what's your preferred method of chatting with people with twitter well my so on my social handles at randy hat right instagram instagram and and facebook at t x training is is the brand and t x training dot com is is obviously our website i'm working on a a randy he dot com website right now where where some of my stuff that you know my next big big vision is to to take a page out of richard branson you know handbook and and basically figure out ways to grow my my brand that can help the brand that i gave birth to do things that maybe it can't do and vice versa right you ladder yourselves up just like he's done with virgin and the richard branson brand that's that's you know sort of a goal that i have maybe you know i'd i'd be wildly fortunate to get to his scale but i could i could be happy with a lot less than that scale as long as i'm still contributing the mother opportunity you have the the story you have the luck you have the charisma navy seal who's fit and also went to stanford i mean you're a few you you you you have it bad you you got the factor so i yeah well and that's okay days when it feels like that and there are the other good times the sick thank you