Shaan's Story: How I Made My First $1,000,000 By Age 31

i now realize something i already knew but i didn't have the guts to act on which was that at any given time you're really only gonna get to throw your all into one thing and so why not throw like if you're gonna do that like choose really wisely it we we're in san francisco we're outside of san francisco we're doing a a a live pod the for seven in a while or in this the studio what what is this some music studios that what this is normally music studio did the instruments give it away alright people were asking online they said they want us to do a pod we already did my story it's the second episode and now we'll do one on you alright through so how are you now good question thirty four and you're from everywhere everywhere where i born in oklahoma believe it or not tulsa yeah denver texas china indonesia australia san francisco yeah that's it and maybe a a little bit london too two months and you're living in australia in pre college or right right college i study abroad there and then also after college i started a company with a guy who a a like kind of a a a well known entrepreneur in australia and that was pre college that was after but and then you went to college duke too so you went from duke to australia yes and at australia you did the sushi thing no i did that i just add duke like that's what started you think was in australia no no that was here and then we moved to denver because basically you know like people move to silicon valley because it's like that's the tech hub and like people to la when they wanna be an actor if you wanna start a restaurant denver is the place to go so chipotle started there the first chipotle started there noodles and company started there their wiz started there smash burger started there there's like the seven amounts of like open minded white people yeah yeah love lunch lunch is a really big deal there but they like all the talent the people who know how to like pick locations and like roll out restaurant operations all this stuff they're all still there so when what it was like where we gonna start was like because there kinda like a big suburb like this is not dumb work we were like we wanna be the next chipotle how do you do that well we're chipotle start look and so literally we found the location across the street from the original chipotle do open our rest a great plan and so we were like yeah and like i guess we'll just do the exact and then we were like we rolled out the real estate oh these two brokers okay well we'll go talk to them and then who did there this okay we'll go talk to them and that's basically that was our whole plan of like figuring out how to start this restaurant and so we just moved to denver because and it was was funny my two c cofounder right two two best friends at the time trevor and dan you're not really a c cofounder of a of a restaurant yeah c owner me yeah yeah that's that's a good point that should been the single one that this is not a great thing i was like founding what yeah go top like like my my father owns it's a moving company he doesn't call himself of like the founder of creator yeah creator yeah which just the owner yeah that's fair so me like two friends were trying to eat tu sushi and we basically started this thing and they were like we were at duke so they were just trying to find a location near us and had gone i'd actually quit the startup i didn't really tell people this but basically when we graduated i got a really good job offer and it was a hundred twenty thousand dollars in indonesia and so and my sister was working at the place and the guy wanna my sister was doing good job so he he's like okay i'll hire you know we need more the guy who ended up going at with the prison i went to prison so i take the job and i'm like i tell my friends again like stupid i was like i'm gonna go learn a bunch here and then dudes when i come back think about how smart i'll be and they were just like okay i guess we'll just keep working on it over here like total jerk move i was just like moved and took this job in a month yeah and month for like a mafia guy he like did like jump bonds or what did he do no he just he basically what he had done was he he's like a drop out of second grade or something like that so he's like he basically didn't speak english so my boss never spoken english to me only like broken words crazy guy like you walk into his office and there's four us like executive assistants or ea or secretaries or whatever and each of them have a giant tv screen and it's just his email because he can't read or type and so they would say out loud his email this person emailed you saying this and he would just dictate who would be walk pacing around he just say tell them we're not doing the deal on this blah blah and then one would be typing and then the next one would be like hey you got a another email from this person so there's just four screens like that and they were just just like the brain yeah he's just talking out loud literally can't read right like his hands and then when and so what he was doing was what his his genius plan was he was like he recognized this arbitrage opportunity that was illegal which is why he went to jail which was that us companies wanted to do business in indonesia indonesia is like i don't know maybe the fifth largest population in the world it's got a ton of natural resources like cole and they so exxon mob bp all the con fill they all wanted this coal but if you go there and you trying to get the right you go to the auction and they're like actually that guy owns it my cousin owns it and they're like what where was the process like yeah the process was done in the middle of the night idea you don't need to know deal with it basically you gotta bribe somebody to get something so what he was doing was he was like oh they want this so i'll just go and bribe all the local officials get the prop i'll get the leases and then i'll just sell it so he bought up for two million dollars total like this huge amount of coal and then he sold each piece for twenty million and he amassed five hundred million dollars over the course of like three years just doing that and so when but liquid so he was liquid you uber liquid like if you if you did something if you like did a good job with the negotiation or meeting a contract he'd come into work and he just hand you keys to like a a bmw or mercedes or rolls royce said then you'd he'd be like that was your bonus like there's no set like but did he paper who's whose his whose name was on the title of the car yeah everything's his like we lived in this like jesus resort but it's his apartment but you get to live there everything he owned and then he owned it under seventy two shell companies so you'd be like hey what's this name and then there's like there's one woman who owns the file cabinet and she's got all these companies inside and so that's what this guy's gig was and so he was basically he he was like i don't need to know he's like he would just talk to engineers a technologist technologists and be like what would you do with this call he's like great then when when he would get a like he had like all these geo on and he'd be do a survey do a report that says this is fit for that purpose and they're like well it's kind of fitting he's like make it very fit and they just like basically fudge the whole thing it's my my impression do you think made him special he just bored bruce and cheating and deal and he wasn't cheating like he was just like playing that's how business is done in indonesia you don't get like that's how the property process are done if you don't want to do that you cannot play you think that he was playing by the rules of the game by the unspoken street rules of the game on that part and then on top of that he was like smart and ruthless so for example i met him because he met my dad my dad worked at bp for like thirty years and my dad was known as an expert in this one technology to get value out of cole you do this process you turn coal that's not that valuable into something pretty valuable so he means my dad i'm might he's like tell me about this and my dad talking him and my dad is like do you understand like these things that i'm saying he's like i understand that bp will want my coal basically he's like i understand that like companies will believe this thing you're saying there's potential here that's all i need to know and my dad was like but like should we test it or like he's like no no why would we test it let them test it they're buying it they can test it and like they can see for themselves so like you know if it works it doesn't work out why would i add risk into this by like doing this and my dad was just talking to and then my dad at one day goes i think i told this story before but he goes he's like he's like i probably am like a top five expert of this one cole like technology in the world you know pretty much nothing about coal yet i've worked my whole career and i've been making a hundred thousand hundred fifty thousand two hundred thousand a year and you're gonna make like three hundred four hundred million this year you're gonna make more money than me and i know more about this than you he goes yeah of course and he was just like he's like yes and you idiot yeah like do you think that that's relevant basically he's just like so matter of fact about it and so was like oh wow so my job when when my i work there was company comes in he doesn't speak english so he needed english speaker to do the meeting and then he would just do the pleasant trees and the food and the drinks and all that stuff and like you know just like with a translator make that work but he rely on us like go over the presentation well what was his name coco you're like alright gentlemen mister coco would like you to feel welcome to and let you know that he's not here to play any games yeah it would be like mister coco and these two young women will now go to dinner with you guys and i hope you have a great night you know like because again that's how business is done there like you go to karaoke i don't know if you know about all this like asian cultures like you go to these karaoke rooms and there's like why are they these cute girls here it's like bottle service at a club what they process or something or just i don't know i've never like gotten that far into the the lion's but like there's something going on like you know there's some service or i don't if it's just flirt or there's more i i don't really know but like all i know is this guy was getting mad deals done using this like workflow during the day he love so you don't and stop believe it yeah presenting at night they're singing songs saying and so that was but that was a wild experience for me so how long did this guy go to jail for well he died in jail he's dead so wow yeah why do you think i'm sharing all this because i'm like less afraid now that i remember really talk about this much you think it says for i think he got like twenty years or something and he died a few years think i cancer died oh my he was a nice he was a not it was really good to us he's really nice to us i mean i think he was like a again i asked this before you like he was not evil he wasn't he was just doing business by the way that that game was done whoever was gonna own that land was gonna do that he just decided it'll be me and he got fabulous rich off of it and all the things that seem really crazy to me was also like kinda standard practice in india and in china about like how business deals are done yeah you drink a lot you go out to the bars you with the with the clients and like you you you know yeah you you have to grease the the the the guy who's doing the deal not necessarily so that you can win but you won't get it if you don't tip everybody basically involved in the process that's actually this that's the first time of two times that you bud up with a billionaire who says like here's my playground you can run it so you the su sushi thing like it was only mildly it wasn't a success was not a success though but you moved to san francisco and you got a job with michael birch yeah right that's right and who who who is he at the time he by the way i don't think the hot wings are here would you mind getting them so i i told you this when i got here i was asking people say yeah i mean sam are in person we're gonna just hang out we're gonna have a a good conversation how do we make how do to take advantage of the fact they're in person and two the two first two people i say they go get a bunch of hot wings it'll make it hell hilarious just try to have the same conversation conversation probably hot wings i don't think those milk yeah there's not there's no sides so i moved to the san francisco pretty quickly i'm like god this can't be yet like no dude did it's sucks every day i'm waking up at five in the morning i'm driving to like the fucking fish market picking up the fresh tuna for the day job and the business was actually working we we did it as a cloud kitchen and it was basically making money i was like this can't be it luckily at that time my dad had met a guy in australia who had sold his company and in passing did your dad is like this looking it a king he met this guy and he was he was like in passing he's like you know what your what are your kids to and he's like my daughter does this and my son is doing this like you know sushi startup thing you should should check it out there they write this blog that's really entertaining was like i was we were creating a word we had a wordpress blog that was really just for our own amusement but like we used to do a lot of stuff to make content that in our mind was like somehow gonna help the sushi thing it didn't help the su sushi thing at all but what it did do is anybody who found that really got behind us they like kinda started rooting for us or they thought these guys are good hustle they're entertaining blah blah so this guy who had just sold his company for like four hundred fifty million and he was looking for his next thing to do he had a non compete with kurt with the business he knew so he knew he needed to do something new but we didn't know what and he read our blog and he was like oh yeah i wanted do business with you guys like so he flew us out to australia and we interviewed for a job with him and he was like this guy nathan mitchell so he's he's based in brisbane and his family had a drilling company sells a drilling company and so he wanted do business with my dad he wanted to do business with us and he was like okay let's put a team together and let's do this like dude that's such a cool way of saying that you just i wanna do business with you yeah well that's what i told myself i don't know what do i know what he wanted i can't put words in his mouth but he alright here we go so there's three there's three flavors there's like a a sweet spicy a spicy and then what they called very very spicy which one's a very very spicy one this one i'm not touching that one the biggest that one i didn't know yeah sweet spot the six and the buffalo alright i have buffalo in a minute so basically if i we ever answer question poorly or something we gotta eat i don't know what make up a game i'm gonna eat them with them hungry so basically he's like alright i got a bunch of like smart engineers but this will be so academic unless we get some hustle you guys are hustle join me and let's make this happen and gave us a a job offer i was just happy to live in australia i was like great i'll do this and so we started that company together as a biotech company in australia as that goes on it gets to a point that i thought was you know like kind of the transition point where it's like oh we signed this deal it's like ready to like change hands or whatever and i was like i'm gonna move to silicon valley because i don't know about sushi i don't know about biotech but i know i like this early stage stuff so i applied to two jobs stripe and then this place nobody ever heard of called monkey inferno stripe would have been pretty sick it was probably thirty employees at the time oh my god so if i joined even as just like what i was joining is like a biz dev manager or something like that i probably would have made like ten or twenty million dollars if i just stayed there think twenty i think so yeah because i i kinda i went back one day and i did the math and i was like i i know there's a bunch of assumptions like well you vest out would you get a promotion like you know some bunch of things like that but based on when it was like twenty oh twenty twelve early twenty twelve at the time which like a lot of people oh i tell people sorry about me and they're like you would've have gotten fired and i actually think they're probably true in your case i think you wouldn't have i think i would have played that guy i like that i seat because that that shit was exciting and you seem like you would've have got i don't know those guys but you seem like you would've have got got along great with them yeah like you're you're more of a cowboy yeah like but i think you legitimately would have made tens of millions of dollars i think set too and but it all worked out in the end like i have less than that but i was able to like got myself into position where i was able to do more so but basically it's like either like self development or just like getting lucky with those shares and not entirely lucky like i only applied to stripe because i thought that was gonna be a winner but like it still would have been lucky that it got to be such a huge winner could you tell early on it was gonna be a huge winner yeah i don't know why i think i was just like at the time i was reading a lot of paul graham essays i was looking at why my comb companies within y comb those founders i watched some with their interviews i'm a big like you bet on the person type of like you know the person is who who builds all the value talk to founders the guy never talked to the founders i i basically i i had one interview with this guy ben and and i blew it like i had the strongest warm introduction that guy's mentor was also my mentor and the mentor thought so highly of me he was like did you blow you just cocky no they did a us sell me this pen type of question that's a bullshit but it wasn't pen he was like hey told me he's like i'm not gonna do is sell me this pen type of thing but i am but i'm gonna do sell me this software and i was like okay what what's the software he's like you pick you pick and so i'm like it's my first job interview ever i've never interviewed for a job and i go and i'm like basically dating a angelina jolie like stripe is my first job interview and i'm like not prepared at and i know he's like what's a piece software you you're like i'm i don't know like so i'm trying to think of what software other people like rather than what i like so i was like base camp by thirty seven signals i i knew that was like a popular those guys were popular i didn't even use it though and i didn't use it though so i didn't know what to say but now i'm pot committed i didn't and i didn't wanna admit that hey i just picked random company that i don't actually use like that didn't make any sense either and so i'm like fumbling and stumble and no the the the way i got messed up was i started to explain it like i would i'd be like you know so what i would say if i was selling this don't he goes ring ring hello go you're selling this thing to me now and i was like oh god and i just i think that's a interview someone by the way i think that's i think those games are stupid yeah i don't know like i guess yeah i guess i would agree i don't wanna say it's stupid just because i sucked at it no that's not a good reason what i've interviewed interview the best way to the the best way i found interviewing someone is i just wanna know if i enjoy being around you and the only way i'm judge if like you're qualified is by just looking at your history yeah that's that's fair like i just wanna see what you've done in the past and i'm gonna talk to your old coworkers and then i'm just here to decide if like this is a good culture fit i i heard of a somebody got he's got kyle sami he's like a a vc he's he put out a or put out some interview or whatever where he said he's yeah there's only one way to apply it to my firm we i don't look at any resumes over reference call nothing he goes just take one of our existing blog posts and write it better like write a write a better blog post than we have on our blog you could take the same topic or a different topic right an amazing blog post and i was actually like that's kind of a good test as a good initial filter i would still wanna talk to the person but like that's a really good issue because when you see someone right you see how they think yeah and and how how how good they are at like how good they're riding was actually a pretty good test for a lot of things so so i'm kind of into that as a test what was oh my god he's brought milk is that milk or it's a tinted glasses so it almost makes it look like egg eggnog no should we should we start with with the medium or are you wanna start with the light yeah but do you want buffalo or sweet well that's the should we go i want buffalo i don't want sweet okay here's the buffalo one we'll do we'll start with the buffalo the suite can be our like a palate cleanser nothing like eating on microphone by the way yeah hot wings are the world you any paper towels you gonna hear me nine you're alright this is the hot ones episode of my first million thank you did i'm doing no milk for us what brand i mean what what restaurant shout out to our sponsor wing it providing these wings today dude i used to live in an asian neighborhood here in san francisco the in the chinese and like hong kong restaurants would make hot wings they are the worst at making those hot wings because they put like crazy it's too breaded and they put like sticky shit on it you know what i'm saying you know i don't know what that that crap you know that sauce that like i don't know dude have you ever had it like lunch or dinner at like one of the chinese restaurants on the sunset yes like it's like their hot wings are like breaded like fried chicken but then dipped in like sticky sauces yeah yeah that's what those are gonna be i think that's i hate that sticky shit all the chinese restaurants i go i i was like i don't know what that sticky crap is but don't give me that please like i wanna know also i went wing in because i knew you would not want boneless wing yeah i'm not an idiot i would've done boneless you that's such as such domestic no this is this that you're like a arrow cat we know the right way to eat these just just well it's easier with the other ones but you gotta stick the whole thing in your mouth and just pull it out yeah that's like i've seen somebody tiktok of that everyone who shows that is fat hundred percent of people who have a strong opinion about how to eat buffalo wings are fat i the how trying to eat what wings mh this is good this one's not too spicy at all what was monkey in inferno when you applied so i i apply and basically it's a startup up studio or an ideal lab i forgot what they called themselves at the time basically it was like sixteen engineers designer one designer and then michael and z birch who were the like the owners and the the the husband and wife couple that was meredith they were they sold a company for like eight hundred fifty million dollars they sold be eight hundred fifty million but this how do it dude it into the camera we'll wow clean clean yeah it looks like you're having fun over there i'm a mistake just n on the outside it's all good for me i like i like my i like my my wing bones like i like our women clean say in your mouth i'll where does it going with this well yeah a of friend was basically like this guy's done what i wanna do so let me just go work with him again like how did chipotle start i don't know or how should we be successful like the next chipotle let's just go where chipotle start to and follow their footsteps same thing i was like this guy has built several tech companies like maybe three or four companies that have gotten millions of user millions of dollars and one huge one for eight hundred fifty million and when he sold that company that company is considered i run this article where they said here's the top ten worst acquisitions of all time number one was mark cuban thing where he sold yahoo for two or three billion right number two was be which sold to aol for like eight hundred fifty or or whatever and when he was doing that deal he must have seen the numbers him been like oh facebook's way better we have like three weeks to get rid of this thing yeah he told me that story basically he was like yeah facebook was just growing super fast and they were just better like they were just better what they were doing and he's like we were just getting swamped with like we had all these like expand bought problems and then we had like you know this other problem and then like what vcs wanted us to make money and this this is our you know i heard this president she wanted to expand and make money doing these like deals with oh eminem and m is is doing a takeover of the homepage and like wow we made like half a million dollars doing that music but the case was rapper the kidding but they actually did have other stuff like they they started a reality tv show called i figure forgot out i was call like joanna or something that ain't gonna work but like at the time my myspace was like my myspace was one model they were like the media company they sold for four or five hundred million be was looking at that was like okay we could do that like hollywood yeah at you know big advertising big marketing thing and facebook was like blue website no ads just focused on photos engagement growth like all that stuff and they were just growing like crazy because that and they had a more controlled growth because they were doing college college first so they were able to like not have all this spam and all this other problems because they were gated by you head to have a university email address for a while and he sells this company and he has all how much you think he was worth after his well they owned like seventy percent so settle public math but you know seventy seventy percent of fifty and then half fax to taxes yeah the hundreds of millions of dollars hundreds of millions of dollars and he comes to america and he basically hires like but he he was already america the whole time okay he was here was in literally this part of the bayer i didn't know that so he was here he buys a place in san francisco and he hires ten engineers and then they're all just working on crazy shit buys seven condos smash down the walls to create one huge office and it was the same office at the beats by dr headphones were designed in and stuff like he that was one part of the office the rest were just condos and he builds he leaves one as a condo that was you saw that the bedroom that was there theirs and then he puts a bar in there he puts a like a a pull ping pong kitchen entertainment area and then huge office space where we all worked so day one i get off a plane from australia i come straight for the airport to the office to interview and i get there a little early and right across the street was a burlington c i remember i walked i walked to the burlington c factory and i'm just standing there in the burlington grocery with the suitcase yeah they're like what is this guy do you had a suit suitcase but but all the case before you're wearing i was just wearing like you know tech casual hoodie that like trench coaching the c factory just walking i'm understand there for like half an hour and then i walked across street and i bring the doorbell go inside i'm just like wow and the walls were mirrors that were one way so you could if you were inside the restroom you were looking at a mirror if you were outside the restroom you could see into the restroom restaurant or something like no the other way if you're looking at this it look like a mirror if you're inside out yeah the non weird way it look like people could see but they couldn't so they're like got a good sense of humor and sets of style with different things so i'm just like i don't know i've never seen anything like this that place probably has like a few million dollars worth of furnishings yeah that's was crazy that that's a crazy place and then i interview with him and it was the easiest interview ever had most chill interview it's just like tell me your stories he's kind of amused with my story and then he's like a cheeky guy and he's just i he already decided that's what he told me later he's like you had apply applied applied with this like website resume or was like oh i why i'm the guy for the job i wrote this email and then i started setting them like ideas for their current products i was like hey i checked out the flow for this i think it could be improved here so i was like trying to make impression i was i didn't do a job search and did a job hunt i was like this is the job i want i'm gonna zone in on it search versus and i'm gonna go like hunt for that and i'm gonna try to capture that job that's exactly what i did too and so if that had worked basically by the time i got there he was already into interested as long as it wasn't a weirdo i i think it wouldn't blown it and so chill and i got the job working under him and then like six months later he was like hey you should run this thing basically and you guys started three or two or three products more than did like maybe six or six two or three that were like it some would only last a month some would like what was the two years what was the mo he said just alright here's two million dollars a year or how much budget did you have we had a business that was already making about two million dollars a year but it was declining birthday alarm dot com right birthday alarm dot com and then we it was like a business one project was just maintaining and then at one point as it was just declining because was like you're just fixing bugs like let's turn those around we did a turnaround then back got back up and that was a website my aunt would pay you ten dollars a year and you would be reminded when it was someone's birthday yeah she'll never forget sammy birthday and then when at sam birthday if she's paying the reminders free if you want to send a card you pay the subscription like fourteen dollars a year or something like that and then maybe between two and three million dollars all profit almost other than hosting exactly and so that was the cash guy that funded the whole lap and then on top of that if we you know if we needed more expenses expensive they would just invest money it so i think it funded it i think i funded half and he put half just cash and his his mandate was like we don't do b b and we don't do real world like t shirts or uber or things like that they don't do like physical world love that from bmo probably he was just like yeah like whatever you gotta pick a lane and like we're pretty broad like it could be any idea but like of the lanes let's not let's do only consumer and let's do only software how many engineers did you have there like sixteen ish eighteen when i went there i was like oh this is a tech billionaires country club that's what i felt like not even country nobody else is there that like his plate was like his man cave yeah playground like plate man cave is a better word because you had like old mac computers as like art yeah and he had like really nice actual real art and like it was just like oh if i'm a billionaire nerd in san francisco this is exactly what i would do as well so instead of like owning like old ferraris he just a hired sixteen he had yeah he had those two he just didn't keep him in the office oh we had those two yeah it's alright so he had all the yeah he's got an island he's got cars he's got you know he's own projects he owns his own hotel his own private happier than you did you think he sure do you think he was happier for back then when he was a you know billionaire he was probably in his late thirties at that point maybe early forties forties yeah would do you think he was happier than you are now he's definitely more at peace so i think i'm pretty joyful like on a day to day basis i'm kinda bouncing around and he's more stoic than that like he's definitely has a good sense of humor and and laughs bunch and just bets take stuff too seriously i get i'm more easily ex so i'm excited about random stuff anything i can get excited about anything and probably still would approve yourself but i have this inner not peace i'm not just at rest i'm like trying to do something prove something be something make something earn something win something and like i he just didn't have that that same because of the acquisition because of that and i think just wisdom like i think he saw okay you know his whole cohort of friends mostly became super successful they were they were the who's who of silicon valley and so he told me once he's because i was like i was like how come you don't blog like i feel like all the vcs are blogging i at the time that was like the big thing and i was like why don't you like he's like well i just don't feel like i have anything like that interesting to say and i thought that was the funniest answer because i was like i could have heard him say i should i or do and then or he could've have said no i don't wanna do that because of this like i played the game this way instead but it was so humble to just say i just don't feel like i i have the like if i don't have something interesting contribute why would i just blog in your face day that would be rude da mass shot the founder of hot hubspot he's you know this billionaire guy he's like uber successful he told me he goes yeah i'm speaking at masters of scale re hop thing his conference and he was like yeah it's like you know the founders of stripe bill gates the ceo of uber whatever like it's kind of the who's who of always these big shot he's like i'm so humbled and honored and i can't believe like they're having me and i was like i i said go really can you really not believe that like it seems like it seems like pretty believable like you're like like that's seems like a very believable evidence yeah yeah like i i i don't i don't like from an outside perspective you're like a billionaire your hubspot at i don't i don't know what the cutoff of a fortune five hundred is but like it's definitely there or right around there you know at times it's worth twenty to thirty billion dollars and you made it i'm let me you know yeah i i can believe that you'd be there he's like well you know they're just i'm just honored and i and like i you know i i'm cannot believe i'm actually gonna be there and i was like well i don't i don't know even know what to say that's just so hard for me to grasp because from the outside you guys all seem like the same thing yeah you know what i mean totally but i thought that was weird so you're this i'll give you i'll you an example of a way where i saw that he was more at peace like we had a product that was launching and the press was covering tech covering it and it was like oh sweet tech wants to do an article and they sent to they they they sent over the draft or they sent over like the bullet points or whatever no no it was good but it was like they had said something that was like more than it was like they had said two hundred thousand and actually it was twenty thousand users or whatever like whatever some number was inflated and i was like so happy i was like yes this great like they're just gonna say a great thing about us even greater than reality like but i was just sort of like i wasn't gonna correct the record like that's on them right were like in my mind i was like this is a good thing they're over giving us for credit yeah they're giving us more credit that we deserve and he was like he's like well we should just correct it so it's the real number and i was like but then it's like worse for us right like yeah but like you know we don't need to we don't need to do that and that was the first one then the second one he was how he was talking about i think he had a bad experience with his vcs at be and when we had some vcs interested in funding us at lab and he was just like he's sharing some stories and he had told me he was like i was like do you think that they'll follow through he's like oh they'll follow through like silicon valley he's like he's like i he's like i would never not follow he's like i if i commit and even there's not a contract and then i realized that oh it's not gonna work off as i committed i'm in he's like because this this is a town where you play the game for like thirty years with the same people and if you make a move that's like self advantageous now like your reputation is worth more than whatever that's whatever that that was the i did that his approach and like actually there's many examples of people who are like sure my reputation is bad but like a bank forty million or eighty million or hundred there's like all these examples of that and silicon look valley tune you know what like they won in their way but when he's like he was just so high integrity and i was not as high integrity and i realized the reason why it was a high integrity is it's not because i'm evil because i'm a bad dude or because i like i just don't have more short term thinking i was just short term oriented and i was i was afraid of failing i was like you know so i was like okay what can i do to like increase my odds of winning where he was just more confident he was just like we're gonna win and we don't need to we don't need to play the game in any way other than the the straight way to win and like i hadn't really internalize that but once i saw that that was really sick to see because then i was able to like adjust my knob and be like oh yeah i just never gonna lie like i don't wanna lie even though my instinct was to exaggerate or my instinct was to not correct if somebody else believed something about me that wasn't true like whereas you know he would just he was totally comfortable on his own skin so what is he happier than me i would say yes because he's more comfortable on his own skin he's more comfortable with where he's at he's more at peace with where he's at he's not like at this like in our inner fire war or whatever not at the same time sure he misses like the adventure and the thrill of like building something and having it succeed and having that mean something because now no matter what he does like it's very hard to have it means something unless it's just like intrinsic motivation like i just love the product or it's helping impact people but like the thrill of winning is kinda gone because he's already won it like such a high school you know if you go to the arcade machine and you set the high score and it's so out of reach you know like you put up you can play have a good game but like you're still gonna never touch that the high school score again i think he knows that you guys like launched two or three things but the last thing was the last thing was lab which i remember so that's where we we became friends when you were one or two years and into being the ceo i think yeah and i was like what do you doing and you're like well we're launching this thing and then you kept jumping something and i would criticize you on like my dude you just gotta stick to this one thing right but you're probably right well you who who knows yeah i i now i i used to firmly believe that was away way then i've seen some the things you've done and i'm seen some of the ways some of our other friends have done like there's tons of ways to get things set what was the final thing that's sold the final thing that's sold was we after pivot after pivot we got to a thing that was like a esports app so basically esports this is like trend where people are playing starting it's like it's it's still just starting it's like it was around but whatever what it was really just starting i mean twitch was like only six or seven years old at that time no no yeah i guess i don't know twitch was trish is around twitch was big but it wasn't that wasn't really the thing it was basically the last idea we had the one that we got acquired for we basically built an app that was like the way a high school could go and play you could sign up a basketball or soccer or whatever like some game you could go play in a league for it and you would pay your league dues and like there's literally league baseball then there's like you know a youth sports there's all these youth leagues youth sports is a big deal there was no youth sports that was the whole idea and so we had had a bunch of technology we already been doing stuff in streaming and gaming and so we took that all that tech and we made an app that let any high school sign up and play in a fortnight league fortnite was the big game at the time was like fortnite was ripping and there were more people that played fortnite in the world than play basketball and so we were like that's crazy this has more players but there's no organized league there's only the pros there's no like amateur and so we created the high school fortnite league and we had an app that you would sign up you'd make your team you can invite friends and then you would compete against other teams and you get like rank you plant tournaments and all of it was streamed which is cool because it would it turned into like a spectator sport and how big did i can it was the biggest esports league but it was small overall it we were only maybe six or nine months into that version of it it maybe had ten to twenty five thousand players active players at the time which was big because it like in you like you know in theory those people would pay us like you if you if i go take my daughter's three and put in a soccer like i'm gonna pay ninety nine bucks or whatever to be in that league so same thing if we if we started charging for it if we could have this like saas business that was gonna generate i thought millions of dollars a year but maybe tens probably never hundreds and so that was the problem i was like oh if we do this really well and we succeed this it'll get to maybe like ten million a year maybe twenty million a in revenue but never really beyond that and dude isn't that fucked up that's not what we signed up for not sucks i it's not it doesn't suck because i agree that well that's just the game that just sucks at that because not enough yeah if you owned a hundred percent of that you could have made a sip mh maybe a similar ish amount of wealth as my first yeah exactly you know but i wasn't structured that way i know that sucks and so once once i kind of got that feeling and i was six or seven years in to the whole monkey for experiment with creating products with that same team same group it was like let's sell this and let's shake things up you know i had to i was lucky a friend su like like on the outside everything was amazing office was amazing what i sonic was cool you're were like i'm making a hundred and fifty grand a and like oh my god you're like the wealthiest person i've ever met it's like you have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year that's crazy and you're early in your twenties i remember you told me that and i was shocked i was and you have the sick office like you're set it felt that way at that time and then over time your expectation is changed you meet other people who are doing better better and you're like oh man hundred i was wake one sixty one sixty that's nothing like i'm way underpaid and and in general i just like i just wanted to get a win i don't think you're underpaid well for a startup founder i wasn't underpaid but if i just worked at a job i was right so saw the equity the equity was what mattered and so i own twenty percent of that of that of of the business and so anyways we decided to sell and then that was you know a crazy process and it's all life changing yeah for sure financially life changing yeah because go from no millions to millions as you know that's life changing and you actually stayed there amazon amazon about the company and you stayed there for two years right yeah would you and are you happy to say like i don't really think about the past like what's like am happiest said yes sure like you know it's find it in retrospect if i could go advise myself now i would have stayed only one year i stayed two but i also got a bunch of other benefits like popped out two kids and was able to like spend time with them and did have to stress about like i had like ten months of pate maternity leaves what's that i mean you had like ten months of pate maternity leaves no actually stupidly i only took two weeks with the first kid or are thinking and did i fell into all the traps you could fall like got a big it's like oh they put me on the special project and the ceo really loves it and cares and now's the critical time and and also being at home honestly as it like you're bringing at homes harder than being at it was like actually kinda easier to go back to working away but like i should've have taken more time and i just sort of like didn't and i think a lot of employees fall to this trap in companies they don't take that's like the company has unlimited time off you don't take it you you could take this much opportunity of maternity it's like oh you feel pressured to cut it short because you wanna get back to your team or your whatever stupid but the second year i was way more chill and basically when did it very little work when did you start the e comm thing somewhere around that time and you we don't talk about it on purpose yeah and so we won't talk about it much but what do you wanna say anything about it it's a big business i think we'll get i think we'll start talking about it soon maybe that'll be i wanna see how big good of episode yeah it does like fifteen million a year profitable damn dude bootstrap i you told me you're were doing it and i was like why would you ever do that and are you happy that you did that or not same thing in retrospect i would go advise myself don't do this path because you already had like clout a little bit and now so during the sale of the first company you started this podcast so then that's when the hustle and this podcast kinda collaborated but this podcast people asked me how to grow a pod and like i don't know because sean like started doing it right way and it kinda worked the day one like we got like i think the first episode was sixty thousand downloads the first one was just hey there's a new thing and people will go check it right yeah so it still was a good start but it got to a good start and then when we switched it to this format it got even better it like took off in a better way and then just time time like time is basically three years yeah and so the thing i've learned so so why do i say i would go back and do it differently is because i now realize something i already knew but i didn't have the guts to act on which was that at any given time you're really only gonna get to throw your all into one thing and so why not throw like if you're gonna do that like choose really wisely so for example when we got acquired by twitch i didn't wanna throw my all into that that wasn't like gonna be my my my baby my future was to be an employee at twitch i wanted to earn the deal and i was feeling like i needed to get that check right so there was like a desperation to secure the bag which by the way the right move i think maybe i think selling out is the way to go i had asked a buddy who was more successful at the time and i was like what would you do if you were me because he's like i would quit on day one i was like i would sell so that your team in fine and your investors are happy and then i would quit on day one i go why like it's so much money if i just stay even one year or one year no big deal and he's like he goes the surface area of opportunity is too wide who said that su and no smart man because i i went i remember we went for a walk and we walked for like an hour and a half in the mission we just walked back and forth through the mission on the streets it was like everything's closed admissions ghetto as hell and we were just like imagine like pacing furiously we were doing that and we were just talking through what's next and i said really wanted do this podcast i wanna create a podcast he's like podcast i was yeah i was like i think if i could just be in a million people's ear balls every morning that's like that would be the most fulfilling thing for me and it'd be awesome i just sound of the way there maybe yeah like i i had a million is now i realized like very aggressive of like every morning but like you know if you just keep going for five years it could happen like that that's realistic now but i remember thinking that's what i wanna do and i couldn't explain why i was just sure i wanted to do it which is in retrospect is a really good signal like that's the type of stuff you should go do and i did that but then the other thing he was just yeah just quick from day one the surface saver of opportunities too widen and i looked at it and like and i was like what would i do if it wasn't this and he's like again the surface area is so wide anything and i was like give me an example he goes alright i got a company for you we could do right now i'll c found this with you and he you do it because the surely was all he had just sold an e comm business that he had just no this a differ idea not even the com business this is a different thing he goes he goes in commerce does this company called cla y they're email sending company affiliates really shaking off he goes cla for sms and i go doesn't cl do he goes no i'll go won't thing he goes yeah probably well aren't there these other companies yeah sure but he's like you're focusing on the wrong thing i'm telling you i'm in e comm and sms is like it's like email but better people open it and he's like a ninety percent you just need a like if we just build sms for e com i think we can go get like a hundred that matter and this would be a valuable company and i was like okay it kind of sounds like i don't know it was just like idea it was almost born because was like here's was a already made idea there was like nothing else to think it was like anything i said was basically a distraction i think he was right he was absolutely right because so we talked about it we went kinda down there that rabbit for like a little bit we tried to find maybe a different operator go and run it and then i see this company in yc called post script and i send it him and i go hey this is they're doing cla for sms he goes alright i'm gonna invest so he goes and him and his brother invest in it and post script is now like multi hundred million dollar company in the same there's the same period of time right so like that was a path sure maybe it wouldn't have worked out for us but like i don't know i would guess it probably would but like physics has allowed it to happen and like possible and it it and it it it played out and so whether it's that one or even just the e comm thing if i just started it at day one like the more valuable than what i earned out at twitch okay it will be and so like again the surface of our opportunity was very wide and i was one thing was a guarantee and it was right in front of me everything else was unknown and so i've learned now that like you should just keep going until you like go like don't like turn down a thing that's known if it's not what you want if it's not the real thing that you want because only when you turn that down then do you get the opportunity to go find the thing you want site dating right dating somebody who you don't wanna marry but they're okay they're good it's it's not they're not the one and you might try to talk yourself it but like if you're talking yourself into it you're already losing and then like you gotta you gotta break up in order to meet the next person and like six or i forget when you started the milk road eight months ago we launched january yeah so so and that's actually going really nicely you have a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty thousand subscribers yeah over two hundred wow okay and maybe you'll run that forever maybe you'll sell who knows have you ever thought about what you wanna do for rest of your life i think about that the other time i wanna brainstorm that with you well okay but what would you like to do well assuming that milk crow is not thing yeah assuming that bill crow not a thing and assuming that the e commerce thing is not a thing so let's assume two things right there because in the spirit of what i'm talking about if it's not the one then you gotta find a different way so let's just say let's say that there's something else that's the one what would it look like what would it be like i i think there's one version of it that's like this podcast just more but like what if this podcast if this podcast was ten times bigger would i really care to do anything else financially ten times bigger either way audience i think well is there translates to to money so is there is there an an amount of money like whether money is important or not it is kind of you have i think should work backwards from that yeah is there an amount of money that you'd want per year the target currently is fifty in net worth yeah total net worth that's not like in tied up in one company that's like can can die next month like in of you know assets you own kinda like like we'd you know but it could be a little more loan against yeah like not concentrated into one paper valuation of this a podcast would more so be a or a media company for you would be more so an annual income thing i would imagine that so it could stack up to fifty or it could just wait and then sell for fifty or or or net fifty in in the end in some way well i think that you so by the way fifties is this random number just made it up yet so it's a lot maybe we should start there maybe that's the wrong number no i think that's a good number i know what you like you like nice shit you like spending a lot of stuff i think fifty is a good number for you okay i think the the difference between thirty and fifty for you or me is actually not a significant amount shoot for fifty then shoot i think that's a good number the difference between anything above a hundred is enough today that you would really really have to work hard like you just have to be you'd purposely have to be a jackass as to go through it that's mostly true for fifty ten you can go through you know that's just like a big house and like a medical emergency and like you can like kinda go through that a bad investment yeah i mean it you know what i mean and you can go and be back or two or three like pretty quickly thirty is in the range of where it's enough that like you can't scoot up a hundred for sure like you're you're you you would have to have like some crooks around you or like a stupid like your dad's smart not to be like hey man can we have a can we talk about this i think you're going too hard you you don't need a lamborghini yeah you know what i mean buffalo buffalo time so anyway alt one we'll do hot one dude yeah we're talking money now fifty fifty is enough i think that's a good goal but and i think that i've have seen you grow to be this like tech person to a media person you are better at media than you are tech i believe you are better at investing than you are at running things i believe better at starting things than you are running things and you are horrible at managing like i i don't theoretically at managing fifty plus people yeah i don't even know i think you'd be awesome at leading them but horrible at managing them just don't want to yeah but you're really good at being like a leader i bet you'd actually be a really good ceo too think you'd be a horrible just like what like inspirational speeches yeah you're you're naturally in spray like what jerry con jerry seinfeld it's a com comedy is like a secret weapon and then most of would understand comedy is kinda in storytelling it just charisma the ability to capture someone's like imagination and make them believe something or or capture emotion from them or make them feel certain emotion you definitely have that you have that you i everyone a people ask me like sean always good at i'm yeah was actually always good at it and then he's gotten better so i think that you you have that so i would say you could be a ceo but you're you actually got really lucky and ben levy doesn't publicly get enough credit but that's like your partner and all these things yeah he won hundred percent is your ying to the yang and if i was you i would go way harder on that partnership with him and potentially launch more things and let him operate who's having the most fun like who's got the who's having the most fun with i mean you that life stuff you are doing pretty good okay besides me who else rob diet was pretty amazing i think be like like you're more of a rob die than you are mark zuckerberg that's for sure know what i mean like if it's like just like one guy one company hardcore tech versus like little here a little there a little here all based around like a personality yeah you know what is like okay you exited recently that you had to think about what you're gonna do next yeah how did you think about it what i i actually gave this advice to someone so what i did i sold so i sold for enough that i'm you don't have to do anything i don't have to do anything not enough that like i'm gonna go and buy crazy jet enough that i still am ambitious but enough that like a a fairly luxury level of knees are met forever and when i did i did that and i realized okay for the next twelve months but it could be longer all i'm gonna do is research and think and i never give anyone that advice because i say you just gotta start and do stuff by the end of this weekend like have something life but i'm no i already i know i do that i i have that ability so for the next twelve months however long i'm gonna feel this sounds like i'm fucking oprah i'm gonna be not guilty about like yeah this is so oprah there's like some movies is that is that actually from oprah no but i just like it sounds like i because like you feel guilty i'm not doing shit we're like oh i'm missing out i'm missing out i'm like no this is like really oprah i'm gonna i'm gonna let i'm gonna forgive myself yeah yeah like because it sound like i need one of those coachella hats that chicks were like i i i was like i'm just not gonna be guilty about doing something i'm just gonna research i'm gonna read and when the feeling feels right it's gonna feel like right and i'm gonna go all in but until then i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say maybe to stuff i'm not gonna say yes to anything i'm gonna say no to everything i'm just not gonna i'm just not gonna worry about it right and i just read and i researched and i think that i actually think you suck at sitting still yeah that's why i gotta i gotta do it and forgive myself give myself grace yeah have grace but you have to you gotta chill because like someone like you you can execute like you you already you can do stuff right but then okay so you chill you read you do all the stuff talk to people and you talk to people you you inter i mean jen i business that come up business that i'm talking about the business that i end up doing now i interviewed them on the pod right multiple i was like i'm was gonna talk to like i got that's it go and interview people so so you do that but how did you resist the temptation to okay how many ideas did you have before this one none that you were none you weren't tempted to do anything before that no no i no i was not this is the first idea that you were like i'm gonna do it and then you just did it it was the first one that i felt okay i did investing so i did angel investing i realized that's stupid and i hate it i hate angel investing you're good at it and you love it i think i'm only good at it because i'm popular but i don't like i don't like it and i hate it it's so boring okay dude it's so stupid so i did that and we invested fifteen million dollars in one year into seventy companies and so i kinda like went fast on that right then i realized u i'm out i hate it so i bailed and so i like tinker with that but that wasn't like a full time thing we only worked on that ten hours a week yeah so anyway i do i just read like crazy and talk to people i think you should do that why wouldn't you just take like eighteen months and just like that is my plan not eighteen but like just how long twelfth basically it's like let's take twelve like listen here this is this analogy or this visualization will help imagine your life is this line alright you're about a third of the way through maybe twenty five percent of the way maybe if we live a long time this amount of time this like one inch on this fifteen inch segment this one inch of time can was gonna impact the rest of the ten inches do you know saying it changed the color it changes the entire trajectory so why not spend like a ton of time early on right really focusing instead of because there's a chance that had you done that previously which you didn't have the luxury to but had you done that previously or right maybe you did have military made better decision you would have made better decisions and you have gone all in on one thing what which have cumulative made more than all the other stuff combined right and so the question then is the fear i have is how do i make sure that's not just a kind of like like sort of like a how will i know also how do i do it in a way that's not just absolutely mandarin or maybe that's alright maybe this supposed be i think that's alright because that's your personality and so just by me like it it's almost like it's almost like most people we have it to tell them that hit on the gas harder with you you're a car whose back wheels we lift it up and you're already going all the way as hard as you can all we're gonna be doing is just figuring out which direction we're gonna place that car and then when we're ready we're just gonna drop it that's a good analogy do you what i yeah most people we gotta feel cool too well like a really fast cars well like most people we have to like fuel that car and like no ga just good good you're good like you're already moving it a little bit i'll go leave it you it's like they'll two that gas is down already right like we might as well just find out the right place to i put it then we put it you're going all in yeah that's exact so that's how i would look it right like people who are who are whose oven burn hot what i say like they're they're gonna be burning shit it's just like pick the right thing yeah like you know what i'm saying remember i made a joke that people might front me but i actually saw it from the the departed they're like john lennon give him a fucking bone he's gonna make art that's what he does you know what i mean that's what that's gonna how i feel about like whatever our stupid industry is it's like i don't know man just like give me a computer yeah out of the and i figure out how to like be cool but not be cool but like make something at least somewhat intriguing because of just what i love doing and i think the same one hundred percent with you alright i like that that's good right what yeah like also you'd last podcast podcasts you have me one hundred percent convinced that ai is the thing so i would go into ai yeah that could be it i just think that that's like a huge pawn and you just cast anywhere out in that pond and you're gonna have a winner yeah that's fair you think so it seems that way at the moment but i think it's more like if it's like if i was gonna me or wander around i'll definitely spending some time in that neighborhood to see what's up i'm trying all the different still early mask people where the best tacos are i'm talking to people and being like what was here before this and that's that's what i would do in in that space before right just do so it's still early enough to it you could take time like you take your time you could take six to twelve months off and and just relax i talked to someone the other day who works at open ai and i was like you're and this guy guy's is like a little bit naturally you have a pe like he's like not he doesn't just believe in hype and i was like hey is this legit and he goes yeah it's legit i was like should i i have to be worried that it's gonna like take over the world he's like no i don't know when that will happen or even if it will happen because it we are a bit away but like in terms of just like replacing like developers jobs or just like making life easier and like just like for art making new types of art it's one hundred percent lit legit and it's almost here it's basically here right and so i think that's like that stuff's pretty amazing should would do a hot one yeah i guess alright let's try how hot is it i don't know i've never tried this before i wanna get like a panic pack where is this place that'll make a good thumbnail though where is this place from or i i i door dash oh is hot no is that hot maybe this is not the whole let's see no i don't think phil i think this is supposed to be the hot one but not hot that's not hot right no there's almost hot i don't wanna eat like a a ton of it and fruit it to like chicken yeah yeah yeah it's like it's not hot i don't think it's bad at all yeah i think you got got yeah it's alright tastes don't rick ross probably owns this wing place does he have a wing place yeah know owns it's like thirty wings stuff he's you know he's like the rap version of shaq know i'm saying like he one's like five guys and shit should we just do that sound like thirty big stops no dude so i've been in the airbnb in like real estate game it's that's whack too i thought that was dope it's whack it's just it takes too long it's just too slow like i i it won't come up with an idea i wanna do something and like you don't get results if you're building something for eighteen months twenty four months right or with like a rental like let's do this and this and like i don't know if it's any cool for three months or if it's like you know if it's actually a good idea no i think real estate it's stupid i think it's really cool to invest in but like as a creative person wack yeah i like no dopamine rush either yeah but people are like oh buy businesses investment boring businesses i'm like i'm little born it's in the name yeah like also in the name guys yeah like where's the buy exciting business is that yeah throw about point boosters like broke i what you want is something that's boring to other people but not boring to you if it's was also boring to you like come on you're wasted to your talent i don't want boring life yeah exactly i see that's slept too i'm like man i don't want and i don't wanna work with a guy who runs a dry cleaning company i just like to be i you know i'll be like sitting outside on the corner like king of the hill like yep like i don't wanna have that conversation you know what i mean i don't wanna talk about it her yeah i wanna like do stuff yeah these are alright that's not hot though is it yeah our software is the worst have you heard of pubs hubspot see most crm are a cobb together mess but hubspot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous i think i love our new crm our software is the best hot hubspot grow better where do you you wanna go with this episode don't what will make it interesting but they're looking belt by the way thank you you wanna finish with like a a rapid fire a hot seat questions yeah that i think that's a hot one this one right that's one's hotter that one's hotter that one actually is hot for me there we go the milk is coming into play that one's hot alright let me dip this one oh this is almond milk by the way alright what's the rapid fire alright let me think of okay questions alright hot seat question here's number one would you rather be three times as famous and half as rich as you are today or stay as you are stay as i am why i'm married being famous isn't that cool i mean what's the point for single people yeah what what what advantage those fame have at this point well some people pull my ego but like i some people just feels good and then also you could argue that if you were three times more famous you could actually earn a bunch more too so you know it could make other things easy i'd rather be two times as ripped twice as funny and half is ripped or twice as ripped and half is funny being funnier is better for for like picking up girls and having guy friends probably so funny you said you're married why you trying to pick up girls i send meet guys too but then i say that i know being ripped seems to do it too but be dude there the be funny better being buddy's way better what would would would you rather be funny i'm all in on about the fame or wealth being half is funny that would be like that'd be really sad like you could be half as fit and you can kinda recover okay if you having this funny there's just no recovering from that that's like the end of the game for you and you are you half is fit three years ago and you were doing exactly i've been there before yeah hello my old friend nice to see you again what what about the other one tell me this story what's the highest stakes negotiation you've ever been in selling the company what about you well when did it feel high stakes for was there every day i'm almost positive every single day there's a chance i can kill a deal the hubspot ceo did i tell you this no you know he got into a oh the car other skiing it the day after was even worse brian was on the pod he told you about it he him and his son were snow in vermont or wherever people's snowmobile i don't fucking know and like his son hit the gas instead of the break and they ran into his dad brian and they fall over a cliff and it was either like twelve or twenty four hours that he just sat there he's like and he said goodbye to his son and he's like you know it might be it yeah this is it and suddenly they get cell phone service and someone comes and finds them and then afterwards he comes back and and close the did you text sam a bit yeah one more thing so dude that happened two weeks after the deal closed and like i think that company is big enough at him like frankly doing put pause on yeah i would i don't know if that would have like i don't know if that was like hey guys not to be insensitive just wanted to check out if we're still for the whole rip ip bride but so sending out the doc sign again you guys already so that i mean totally understand if you need a day yeah so anything coulda killed it no no pun intended anything i'll do respect brian i love brian so i'm only joking but any anything could've have like destroyed that deal yeah i think that stressful so that was the highest one what was yours well i have two one well i think i've i tell the auction story when we bought the be brand back i tell story before so michael tells me at one point he goes hey we have an opportunity to buy be ball yeah and you had to go like looking like a sc so no one knew who you were how i look thanks though but the we go to courthouse basically so so he tells you who we're gonna buy back and we and my am my mind like awesome what are we gonna do with it he's like i don't know we gotta figure out now he's like but it's a good domain you get the email list you get the domain you get the hardware and you get like the legal ownership with that the hardware like whatever servers or whatever they had so and so we we like okay what is this worth and so we came up was like my we sat in this room trying to speculate and then michael will just like put down the hammer at one point he's like i don't think we're gonna be able to buy it for less than a million and i don't think i really wanna pay much more than a million so let's go with a million that's your bid so we fly la it's me our lawyer and our coo and we get to a courthouse and i'm like inside a courthouse what do we can do the stay in front of a judge like and the judge goes okay are there multiple bit multiple parties here to buy it out of bankruptcy yeah and then we don't know who else is gonna be there we don't know if anyone else gonna be there and there's two other groups that raise their hand and she's was like alright go to that room and you're gonna auction against each other to see who wins i was like what we go to this tiny room just gonna fight yeah basically and one person from each booth it's like a in one out one person from each team got to sit at the table everybody else is behind them like oh and so then it's us and then it's match dot com and it's some other social well like ia they own a bunch of internet properties so they wanted to buy v yeah they were like we're gonna harvest the profiles and used them for dating it's like what like the seo we need that seo juice like damn have i hope you guys don't win that sounds awful what where where the people kinda do one another what are they like pull it you just sit down and it's like bid and we're like oh here i'm the representative from this this and this alright so it starts and it's like we'll start the bidding at at a hundred thousand and then it'll go up by like fifty thousand increments up to five hundred thousand and then it'll just be free form after that we'll be here as long as it takes to finish the bid and you get like a minute or you get like a minute between minute or two minutes or something like that in between bids to decide if you're gonna bid and so it goes a hundred a hundred and fifty two hundred and two fifty so on and so it goes up to seven hundred thousand and then the guy matt one guy drops out so then just us and match he calls time out he's like we need to go make a phone call right before that's like getting in a fight with someone have been like come out you can't do that exactly what happened you got punched some of those and it's like i'm out so we're at seven hundred fifty thousand and they go outside there had to make a phone call to their boss and i i was like oh must you have a boss yeah if you're like tat on them like as sir as that so i try to go easy up i walk outside didn't immediately at least stop talking and i just go to the restroom twice just to see if i can think up anything and then the and i come back in and i'm like i talked to laurel i was like okay they're calling at seven hundred and fifty thousand probably getting authorization to go up that was probably their max they're probably getting the authorization probably the highest thing can go as a million and i told the like auction year your person was like no more time outs like that can't we can't do that again and so she they come back and so like there's no more time out i'm like okay cool pressure is on them now and bidding goes eight hundred eight fifty nine hundred nine fifty when you are going when you make your bid for nine hundred you say like that's a thing so we had been acting like that to be like kidding me guys and then i then i told the lawyer but like i built this thing i not worth that i go we i go we gotta just act like we have an infinite bank role so that they just feel like they can't win this auction and so i said as soon as i say number just top it immediately top it with no hesitation just like not like we're here all day i'm i could say i could i could go on and on and on and so that's what she did she changed up her demeanor started doing that basically we got to million and add a million pulls a great move she doesn't say a million she goes one million twenty five thousand to just up it and does they you know that they were all stopped at a million we knew they had gotten an authorization for a round number so i think it was actually one million and ten i think she did so she had ten thousand above and they just got you guys can have it but you guys can take it and they were like yeah our our max was a million just not the i was like you and so we got it and they really like him it that was like the most high stakes like hand poker i've ever been involved and basically alright we'll do we'll do one more i can't read it from back here what what were the questions that you told me another one was like what is the i don't know like what's the oh so something that you thought you were on to something but it turned out to be become totally wrong yeah you thought you were on something you turned yours we had one when building lab basically like when we built vlad it looked like it was taking off and this is just now like four years in and imagine you're four years in and you feel like you might have just like made the next big like basically what club house ended it became that's what lab was and we started seeing this like rapid growth and people loved it and everybody felt it was new and fresh everything else we have made people like oh this is just like snapchat no matter what we did they're like it's kinda like snapchat and we're like god it like the next thing we build is not gonna be like snapchat no matter what and that was lab and it takes off to two hundred thousand users pretty quickly it gets to million users and vc you know founders fun wants to invest and all this stuff and it felt like we did it like this is gonna be the next social thing and we own it like we were actually gonna own one of those things and then it got about four million and then it started just we started to realize why isn't on the number going up as much it's like i know sign ups are still up it's like oh it's super leaky the retention like the retention has been getting worse and worse it start out okay and now it's just pretty bad and this was all the understandable and it's like an impossible problem to solve too it's not like you do like even if you operate at a a plus level it's just like a you retention is like the pro retention is the thing that's worth anything in business and retention is the thing that's also the hardest to solve because like it's like dating like you if you wanted to pick up somebody that's like just getting users like you could change the way you look you could teach you two pickup lines and like get keep to you it get you some you know shirt that fits you a little bit better and like you know pick the boo out of your nose you can get the you can go get their number but you can't make them date you you can't make them marry you and like that's what retention is it's like are they gonna marry your product or not and so once i knew that was a problem was like oh god we tried so many things to try to fix it it was just like not not moving because it's more fundamental it's like is this something people want to do all the time or not and it's very hard to like spam them with notifications to try to get that number up so the year we sold the hustle you know we sold in february so we said a whole year ahead of us but i think we probably would have done around twenty million dollars in sales and i started the company wanting to hit a hundred million in revenue before year ten and we sold it between four and five i think year four and five so we were kind of on track i woulda have got there yeah probably we could've maybe coulda have gotten there and i knew i could like i started the company with just an email even though people said it's stupid because i was like i remember telling you a stupid i was like do video dude do facebook video but was like chat instagram the math is such that like i'm pretty sure that like you know people are kinda dismissing this as like a hobby but look if you like just change a ten thousand person email list to like five million like the numbers add up to a hundred million dollars no one's real i don't know anyone has ever done that but i'm pretty sure that could happen like i understand the math and like each seller of advertising would sell one point five million dollars of ads and there are already people that do that so if i just hired like you know a hundred of them like things add up like this could all work out fine actually but i didn't truly believe my own prediction even though i knew like this list lines up you could tell everybody else but yeah telling yourself in your head is different i was like this works actually this works and i didn't entirely believe it and so i sold right when got like a pretty decent offer because i wanted to secure the bag but in reality i made a mistake i didn't make a mistake because i actually would did the same thing again but i could have achieved my goal right now looking back at it i the morning bruce kinda doing that right they already five hundred million something like that well they're at they're probably eighty million in sales yeah so they're close so they're like getting close and and i knew and him and i austin are good friends now we both talk talking and i'm like he's like yeah you guys actually would have been there like they're a year older than us in terms of company so like you guys actually would have been there even better because you had subscription revenue and he was like you're and he's he was like i'm actually amazing at operating things but you guys are always way better at like inventing new shit and we would just copy you and or you know he said something like that and he has really good it operating though and i that was my biggest mistake