3 strangers reveal how they make $10M, $20M, and $30M/year

00:00:00All right, I own 40 $10 in revenue. Weacquireand this year will generate around $20of revenue. We manageUm and that makes $30 per year ofrevenue for the company. Those are threeideas that didn't even exist in my mycone of vision. You know, I didn't evenknow that people do businesses likethat.

00:00:26>> All right, how's it feel to be in reallife? This is strange.>> This is weird. It's been>> There's normally a screen right here.>> by side of the last time we were inperson in San Francisco doing it on thered chairs.>> So when we when you started this thingand then I came on two or three monthslater, we had these bright red chairsthat we bought off Amazon for $150 andit was just us sitting on chairs and Ihated it cuz you could like see like acrotch shot.>> Yeah, I think I might be doing it now.>> like sitting like this>> [laughter]>> and then we had a like acamcorder.>> Well, we have a guy in the room and we'dbe like, "Hey, are we good to go? Is itall good? Audio? Video?" And he'd belike, "I think so.">> [laughter]>> It was like, "I think so" is like notwhat you want to hear from from the guywho's [laughter] who's setting up thecamera.>> intern.And it was one camera.>> audio video before?>> No.>> [laughter]>> But I hear you.>> Yeah,I can hear you great.>> Um what do you think of New York? Youbeen to a bodega yet?>> Yeah, we went to a bodega, yeah.>> So I talk about bodega culture. I don'tknow if you've like seen any that havebeen Have you seen any that haveimpressed you?>> I have to like stay out of bodegas cuz Istart chatting it up for too long. I'mlike,"Dude, I've been here for 75 minutestalking with this guy.">> Dude, like the like the cashier, right?It's the best. I'm friends with so manybodega owners and they>> do a full MFM just inside

00:01:41a bodega. Ithink I probably should have done that,actually.>> And like it's the pure definition ofentrepreneurship cuz you could clearlytell like oh, one day someone asked forcereal. Now they have 10 Costco-sizethings of cereal [laughter] and they'reindividually packed into an iced coffeecup and they just sell cereal now. Likethat's [laughter] just what they do.There's no like Does this go with ourmission statement? Like no, we sellcereal now.>> Right.>> I don't know if you need a license tosell food, even though it says don'trepackage this for individual sale, wesell cereal now.>> Right.>> And that's what I love. All right, sotoday we're doing something a little bitspecial. You said you were coming and Ireached out. I basically just slackedlike the Hampton Channel. I go, "Who inNew York has like an odd business thatwe can like impress Shawn with?" And sowe picked three different entrepreneurs.They have I tried to find threebusinesses that were off the beaten patha little bit because that's why peoplelike watching MFM. You guys likewatching or seeing like kind of strangebusinesses. So hopefully can open upyour mind and be like, "Oh, there's amillion ways to get done whatever I wantto get done and build a big company." SoI picked three.>> Okay.>> Okay, so they're going to come on. Whatare they going to do?>> Sowhat we told them I we just bumped intothem. We just told them, "Hey, come inhere and don't start with words. It'sMFM. You got to start with a number. Andum don't make us dig it out of you. Justgive it to us. You know the stick. Youknow what we like to do. We like to knoweverything. We like you to not be humbleand brag about the We want you to bragabout So they're going to say a

00:02:56number.They're going to say what they do. Andthen we're going to get to know theirbusiness cuz we're nerdy aboutbusinesses. And then at the end, youknow, we will ask them two things. We'llask them what adjacent businessopportunities are there? Like what otherbusinesses do they seebecause of where they are in their tinyniche that we don't have enough exposureto that other people might go run at.And then two, like how can we help them?Like what's the what's the burningquestion? What Where if they just had meand you for like, you know, 10 minutes,what would they want to talk to usabout? So that's what we're going totry.>> All right, the first guy.>> Ben, we can bring him in. What's up?>> Not much.>> How you doing?>> All right, welcome to the podcast.>> Thanks.>> All right, soI've known Alex for years for a year.>> Yeah, a year?>> A year.>> [laughter]>> We're very good friends, so I'm going tobe biased. Okay, start us off with thebig number.>> All right. Uh I have four I own 40publications, 40 magazines, $10 millionin revenue.>> 40 magazines, $10 million in revenue.>> Yeah.>> What uh what sort of magazines are wetalking?>> Uh real estate advertising.>> Real estate advertising. Okay, give us aexample.>> All right, so>> you got to carry one. You don't have oneon you at all times. That's insane.>> Yeah. Uh real estate agents basicallypay us uh to promote their listings. So,magazine is like a lookbook of all thelistings that are on the market uh atthat time in their neighborhood.>> And it goes to a lot of different likelocations.

00:04:12Like do you have different 40meaning 40>> 40 meaning basically we've divided thecountry into 40 locations. Yeah, zones.So, we're covering all of the US andCanada.>> How big is the magazine? Like how manypages?>> Anywhere from like 100 to 200.>> Well, who who's the reader? Cuz therealtors are the ones advertising orwhat?>> Realtors are advertising.>> reader?>> Uh we we have a mixture, but basicallywe mail the magazine out and we'll mailit out based on property value, uhincome, things like that.>> With the goal of being a real estateagent uh is has a bunch of listings inNew York City or something, I don'tknow, Dayton, Ohio.>> Yeah.>> And you want to show the resident of thehomes on this block that they shouldeither use this real estate agent or buysome of the nearby homes.>> Yeah, either or.>> Okay.>> Yeah, yeah.Uh agents definitely are using it topick up listings. Like they want to beable to say, "Look where I'm going toadvertise your home." things like that.But they also want to sell the listingthey have.>> And what's it called?>> Haven Lifestyles.>> Haven Lifestyles. Okay, how did you comeup with this idea?>> All right, soit started with my business partneruh Ryan. We were college roommates. Iwas a couple years out of college. I wasactually a bill collector for like 5years through college and after.>> collector?>> I was a bill collector. Uh which Iactually I think really helped withsales. Like uh just having to callpeople all day for money,>> What what are you like the

00:05:27muscle? Likewhat what does a bill collector actuallydo here?>> Uh dialing them up. It was uh it wascredit card. Uh so, it was Victoria'sSecret. It's literally Victoria's Secretcredit cards. But yeah, anyhow, I didthat.I actually I was a supervisor. I gotdrug into some HR uh nonsense that Icouldn't believe and like having tobasically defend myself.And I texted my college buddy. I'm like,"Dude, you want to do something?" And hewas like, "Yeah, let's let's start themagazine." So, that's where we started.>> But why the idea of the magazine?>> He hadHe had a small publication in Annapolis,Maryland, and he said that basicallyagents had reached out to him and like,"Why don't you do something in DC? Wewant to advertise in DC." So, we justlaunched one.>> Who's the biggest How many companies dowhat you do?>> Most There's a lot of smallpublications. So, like each city you gointo will have like a publication. Butwe have them across>> the whole country. And you do 10 millionin revenue. Can you say how much profit?>> Yeah, like 2.5.>> Okay. And the biggest one in the spaceis how big?>> I don't know. It's not public. I don't Imean, we could be one of the biggest inthe space. Like there's not Most of themare franchised.>> How many years you've been doing this?>> 10.>> 10. Okay, so it's been a slow build.You've been steady at this revenue for awhile. What's next?>> It's been a slow build that that hasjumps.>> Give us your one. What was your onelike?>> 300k. And

00:06:42that's just me going, meetingindividually, like just grinding it out.>> Okay.>> And and my business partner handlingeverything else.>> Did you know right away like this is it?This is I'm going to do this for awhile. Or were you still even after yearone, were you still like, "I don't know.Should>> I never thought 10 million,but I thought enough to support myself,yeah.Uh we launched a an initial publicationlike we just did a free version of themagazine. Like just let us put you inand we'll show you what it's going tolook like. And then I went around andhad meetings all week. Uh and I'm like,"Here Here it is." And I mean, literallythe very first meeting, the guy's like,"I'd do it." I was like, "Okay, cool."Like I'm like 25 years old. All right.And just meeting after meeting was likethat. Got to a meeting where a guy'slike, uh "What can you do for 10,000?"Which is way more than we were charging.Like how many covers can I get? So, it'sjust like all of a sudden like I'mcalling back to my business partnerevery few minutes like, "Dude, there'sanother another another. Like there'ssomething here." But I kept my other jobfor like 8 months.>> But so so theIt's more like a brochure, but it's amagazine because it's it's got a lot ofpages, but it's a brochure. I mean,you're just showing off other otherpeople's stuff.>> It's not a brochure, man. You're just amagazine.>> You're just sending a magazineunsolicited, correct?>> Yes, yes, yes, yes. That's true. It's onno subscribers.>> mail.>> Sure. Junk Yeah. It's not It's It's nota subscriber magazine. Also, I shouldsay I mean it's like Victoria's Secret,just underwear.>> Yeah, exactly. [laughter]

00:07:57>> A huge portion is online at this point.Like we do drive most of our trafficonline, but everyone is paying to be inthe magazine.>> And and who is doing So, let's say Iwant to be in the magazine and I likesay like, "Yeah, I'm in." Who does theartwork? Who actually makes like thepages?>> We handle it.Uh most of our designers are uhYeah, Philippines, yeah, basically.>> And how many of them are there? Cuz theyhave 40 magazines and how often?Quarterly or monthly?>> They're all every once every 6 weeks. Weprint 30 different magazines a month.>> But why did you just say>> Every week we've got seven going to>> Most of it's online.>> Most of the exposure. So, when you'retalking about subscribers, junk mail,whatever. So, like we mail copies out.We do that based on, like I said,network, things like that. And thenwe're also driving another, you know,90% of our readers online. Which arethen looking for people that have likerecently been looking for homes, thingslike that.>> How many people work there?>> 20.>> So, I'm I'm confused.This is a dumb question. I don't reallyunderstand how junk mail works. So, Ican just mail anything>> Anyone to anyone.>> So,I I you just look up like, hey, addressit like which zip codes or neighborhoodshave a certain profile.>> Yeah.>> And then you download from some site allthe addresses.>> Yeah, it's all through the post office.Like you you basically can pick postalroutes and they'll deliver. It'sactually cheaper when you do that.>> How many magazines do you send a year?>> Um like half a million.

00:09:14Yeah.>> So, this is the post office's businessmodel, right? Like basically the postoffice is pretty much funded by guyslike you who are>> Like we have to make sure it stayswithin certain dimensions. It can't goover a certain amount of weight or we'reIt's>> The post office is basically Facebookads.>> Yeah, exactly.>> It's Facebook. It's selling You are theproduct. It's selling your address andyour mailbox without you benefiting oragreeing to it.>> to others.>> What would it take to get you to a 100million in revenue?>> It's definitely possible.>> No, no, I'm asking in the like Asian momway. Why aren't you at a 100 million?>> [laughter]>> Um yeah, I mean, it's a good question.>> Hey, I want to tell you about somethingpretty cool. We have a database of allof the unsexy business ideas that havebeen discussed on this podcast. So,hundreds of episodes, the team atHubSpot went through, they pulled outall the unsexy ideas. So, not the superhigh-tech ones, but the simple,relatable, interesting, profitable ideasthat we have brainstormed and they'reall available for download for free.Just click the link in the descriptionbelow. Thank you to our friends atHubSpot for sponsoring this podcast andputting together this free resource foryou guys. Back to the show.>> It It's kind of a question I would havefor you, too, because I know you alwayssay you get to 10 million, I know youcan get to 100 million. So, like, how?>> Uh I think there's a few different ways.I don't think there's like one likeswitch a

00:10:29flip of a switch. I think there's a lotof other verticals we could be hitting.>> Uh other than real estate agents.>> Like>> home services, is that the sort of thingyou're talking about? Or yeah?>> And which we do within our publication,but I think if it was specific to theirmarket.>> You've told us about the business.Magazine company, aka junk mail. Yousend it to people.What's the burning question? Like, wherecouldsmart friends help you?>> Yeah, I mean, honestly, I do think thatquestion of how do you take this from 10to 100?>> Can I take a stab at helping you? So,uh first, I always want to know what'sthe default growth rate. Meaning, howmuch did you grow last year to thisyear? What What do we I What do I expectif nothing changes?>> 10%.>> 10%. Okay, so, to get to 100 or is yourreal goal 100? What's your real goal?>> My real goal is to double profit.>> Double profit. Okay, so, you might noteven need to grow top line then.>> We grow profit faster than we growrevenue.>> Yeah. It seemed like when Sam was askingyou like, who's the biggest that do inthis thing? You're kind of like, wemight be the biggest.One thing that I can immediately tellthat's very different about you than theway bothBoth me and Sam are reverse engineertype guys. We like to understand what'sworking for others, how big other peopleare to give ourselves like we createthis almost like box. And I feel likeyou don't do that as much. Is that fair?>> Definitely weakness. Yeah, yeah.>> But you're happy.

00:11:45>> Yeah. Super happy. Yeah.>> [laughter]>> What I mean is like>> To be clear, we have a sickness yeah,>> [laughter]>> and you seem fine, but we'd like toinfect you with our sickness.>> He doesn't need to change.>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you did want tochange,here's what I might do. I think what Iwould do is maybe it's not like directlike oh, who also sends home listings,sells to realtors, but just the generalmodel of mailing out magazines orinformational stuff to homes andgenerating a big business off the backof that. Who else does that that's notexactly your space. Like are there likewealth management companies that growthis way or is there some other categorythat grows this way?>> I think the most I mean it's a it's alittle different, but I think the mostintriguing are like neighborhoodpublications. So I don't know if you'veheard of Stroll. Uh but they do like>> is that one?>> I don't think it's Revolution. There'sStroll, there there there are others.>> It's kind of like what's going on inyour area? Is that>> Exactly.>> Years ago I talked about this. I thinkit was called Revolution. It was aneighborhood publication that's afranchise model that back then we Ithink we were in real life when we didthis actually. It was like north of 100million.>> Yeah, they're they're definitely over100 million.>> My gut tells me that if you did havededicated home servicesthat would bemuch>> And maybe there's a way to do it moreinformationally. So instead

00:13:00of the oneyou do right now, you're just likehere's the homes for sale. It's kind oflike utilitarian. If you just said likehey, here's all the home serviceproviders that wouldn't be that great,but if it was like let's say it's winterand it's likehere's the five tips every homeownershould do for like listical type ofcontent. Right. And then on the insidethere's providers, but like you just dosomething that's actually like the adthe front cover is basically like free agive. It's it's useful information,entertaining, useful information aboutabout home service or home care.>> Yeah. And then inside you obviously havehome care providers where if peopledon't want to do it themselves, theycould hire pros to come do the stuff forthem. I wonder if you could get good atthat. But I would I would just kind ofif I was you, I would start with a notan answer but a study. I would I wouldgo get real familiar with what are allthe other players doing in the space,who's big, who's not, who used to workthere, go talk to them, go learn fromthem. Like I would kind of go on like alike a one-month expedition of that andI think you'll know so much more about>> Him and I are buddies. We talk abouthiring all the time. I'm like, just gorecruit someone who's at the biggercompany and just have them come and workfor you. Um why is there a world whereinstead of 40 could be 80 markets?>> It would be dicing the Well, we could gointernational. We're already in Canada,so there are markets that make sense forus to go into. But as far as 40 to 80,you would then

00:14:15break down the 40 into80. It's the same geographical area.It's just going to be more cuz I meanwe're literally covering the whole US.Got it. But I do think if you break itdown, it's going to resonate more. Likethere are areas that we have full statescombined together because it's just notlike Ohio, Indiana is just not that sexyof a market.>> Would you ever sell this?>> I would. It's not necessarily my goal.I'm pretty happy doing it. Yeah.>> That is crazy talk.>> be too happy.>> It is crazy talking to a like an anemotionally stable person.>> Yeah. Um you>> [laughter]>> you wanted to double profits and I I Iwonder what would happen. Again, I thinkthis is more psychological thanstrategic and I think people underratehow much of entrepreneurship ispsychological and not strategic.>> Mhm.>> I wonder if you just decided thatinstead of 25% net margins, you're goingto have 35% net margins in the next 6months,what would happen differently? Because Ithink you would I think right now myread is that you would like for there tobe more profits, but you don't reallyhave like a I have to have more profitsby this date. And if you literally justchanged the way you talked about it andthought about it, I'm sure that theanswers would become pretty obvious toyou as you started. Is that true? Likedo you have aa goal and a date where it's going tohappen by?>> Yes, but it is it is more recent changein the mind mindset. So,>> What is the goal and the date we canhold you to?

00:15:30>> It was 1 year from a month ago. So, it'swe got 11 months.>> To double?>> yeah.>> Double profit.>> at a double double as in double the runrate at that point.>> to 4 million in run rate profit.>> Five.>> Yeah.>> Five.>> How's the first month been in terms ofif we were saying like out of 12 monthsyou're you've already used whatever 8%of your time. Are you like doing whatyou needed to do to create a bunch ofmomentum or or not really? It's like>> Yeah, I think so. I the the main thingthe easiest way to double profits rightnow, I think is retention. We alreadywork with 10,000 plus agents every year,but we don't get them to advertise atthat many times. So,I mean literally double retention andwe're fine.>> You have the inventory yourself.>> Exactly. We have we we have the clients.Like we have people that are agreeing toadvertise with us.>> Do you ask them multiple times?>> Yeah, we ask them every every cycle.>> Why don't they just do it again ifthey're if it's a money printer for>> times they just want it's like, youknow, I've got a big listing. Great,now's the time and then they just dropoff.>> Do you ever pre-sell them on likeinstead ofthis one time you say I'll give you adiscount if you do it for 12 months?>> Yeah, yeah. I we have like 1,500 peoplethat do it for the year. So, they'rejust on auto debit. So, there's a decentamount doing that. But I think there's alot of things we can do to improve theirexperience where they're coming backevery month or justI just need them to

00:16:45advertise one moretime basically.>> you would have brought us one.>> In the last in the last okay, let's saythis year, how many of those agents haveyou personally talked to on the phone?>> Zero.>> [laughter]>> Should I?>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.>> Okay.>> Not not necessarily to sell them, butlikeeven just take your 100 top spenders,you should call every single one of themand figure out what do they love? Whatdo they hate? Why aren't they doing itmore? How do you get them Could it Arethey actually it's just been out ofsight out of mind? Oh, yeah, I I will doit.>> Yeah.>> And you will learn a lot just by takinga roster of your top 100. I also learnedthis in our our recent business thatthat that's done pretty well. I askedthe CEO, I was like, "Hey, like this hasgone pretty well. What what'd you do?"And he goes,"You know what I did? I came in and hegoes, I tiered out our key clients astier one, tier two, tier three." And hecreated aa definition for each. He goes, "Tierone is somebody who's they would do me afavor. I have them on a textingrelationship. They know me, I know them.They would do me a favor for if with youknow, quickly.Tier two is I got their email. We'vetraded some emails. We like each other.>> We're acquaintances.>> We're Yeah, we're we're we're friendlyacquaintances.Tier three is like we're transactional.Like when they need me, they call me.When I need them, I call them. Wehaven't really talked much because thattransaction is infrequent.>> Yeah.>> And then there's tier tier four

00:18:00which islike worse than that.And he's like, "When you do that and youjust score yourself like, oh what woulda what would a really healthyrelationship look like here? What woulda really weak relationship look likehere?"And then you look at your top 100 andyou realize, "Shit, we have no tierones.>> Mhm.>> A couple tier twos and everybody else istier three or four."Then it's like a wake-up call. Nothingbad's going to happen by talking to yourtop 100 customers, but a lot of good canhappen from from going and talking tothem.>> Yeah, I like that. And you could do thatin 30 days. You could talk to all 100 in30 days.What do you think? Are you impressed?Did you ever know that something likethis could exist?>> No. It's so simple of a business, too,right? Like>> Yeah, it's pretty simple.>> The I mean the it's just they didn'teven subscribe. I'm used to mediabusinesses where it's like, "First, Iwin their hearts and minds and I getthem to listen to me regularly or readme every day. Then I get to make money."He's like, "Read this.">> Ah.>> [laughter]>> He uh He Have you heard of>> Why aren't we doing jump sales?>> You know Lindy?>> The AI tool?>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. TheFlo, the guy who started Lindy's inHampton and he's like, "Alex Daniels hasthe most impressive AI setup I have everseen.">> Oh.>> And that's been like a little bit of aclaim of fame that he's had.>> What what Give me Give us a little saucereal quick. What are What are>> Uh we used Lindy to basic to to run thesales process. So,

00:19:16>> They don't have sales people?>> We do have sales people, but they're onthey've they've shifted but where wherethey've really shifted to a a differentfocus basically, which is where I'd likethem to be more of that customerexperience and like getting people tocome back. Uh, but Lindy is able torespond to theevery email that's coming in, follow upwith it, upsell them, just go throughthe whole process. But yeah, it was it'sit it it was a big Lindy, which is whatFlo was talking about is crazy.>> That's awesome.>> All right, appreciate you, dude.What you done is awesome, dude.>> All right, good to see you guys.>> We need like a name for this.>> The dragon stand, the shark tank, the>> The swimming pool.>> [laughter]>> The denim dungeon, let's go.>> dungeon.>> What's up?>> What's up, brother?>> How's it going? Have a seat.>> All right, your name and the impressivenumber.>> It is with the big number.>> Great. Uh, I'm Josh. I run TeamOutsider. We acquire family-ownedcampgrounds and this year we'll generatearound $20 million of revenue.>> $20 million in revenue. Okay, so uh,explain like I'm a aa idiot cuz I kind of am.Um, what do you do exactly? So,>> Yeah, so we acquire campgroundstypically from families who are lookingto retire and a campground the majorityof it is like a hotel, right? So, we'rerenting different spaces. Some peoplecome in their RVs,

00:20:31so they haveeffectively a traveling hotel room. Wealso have tent spaces and cabins that werent to people who don't want to stay ina tent and don't have an RV.>> Do you camp? When's the last time youwere camping?>> Like10 years ago, but>> Yeah.>> I appreciate it.>> I haven't gone camping in like 20 years,so a campground is literally just apiece of dirt, right? It's just theground.>> We we have amenities, so all of ourcampgrounds have stores. We typicallyhave a cafe where we'll sell ice creamand sometimes burgers and pizza.>> basically or>> We have cabins as well. Uh, we haveswimming pools, lakes. At one of ourcampgrounds we have a go-kart track.okay.>> it's a very outdoorsy hotel,essentially.>> Effectively, yeah.>> Okay, we're looking at one here. What'slike the most popular one you guys have?>> They're all really popular in theirlocal communities.The first one we bought, which is rightnear Grand Teton and Yellowstone, isreally popular, cuz that's a majortourist destination. We have one rightoutside New York City called theNeversink River Resort, a couple hoursaway, so that's really popular withfolks who live around here.>> So, so give us a give us a story. Whatmakes a guy want to buy a campground?How did you even realize that that's agood opportunity>> Yeah, so I met my partner in college,Cody. We studiedtogether and started a businesstogether, which was tremendouslyunsuccessful, but showed us that it wasreally good relationship. And so, westayed friends post-college,

00:21:47got someworking experience, and thenrealized we wanted to do somethingtogether again. We were looking for abusiness where two non-technicalfounders could hopefully have a winningsituation, and we wanted a market thatwas large enough to participate in andinteresting.One where there was an immense amount offragmentation with ownership. One thatwas operationally complex, and one thatwas meaningful, where the team memberswould feel good working there, and wherethe customers would feel good aboutbeing part of it as well. So, how manydo you own? Currently, we have 16, andthere are about 4,000 sites amongstthose in 10 states.>> And did you raise money?>> Yeah, so the first one we did with ourown cash and an SBA loan, so just kindof>> That was the Yellowstone one? How muchwas that?>> About 3 million.>> And so, you how much money of yours andloan did you put>> The loan was 80 plus percent. Yeah, therest was cash.>> Sorry, so that was an already operatingsite?>> Everything we buy is existing cash flow.It's been there generally for decades.Most of these are staples within theirlocal communities.>> So, let's walk through that first one.So, you you find this property. It'sdoing what when you buy it?>> It was generating around half a milliondollars of top line, of total income.>> Top line, and then the cash flow on thatis what?>> About 35%.>> Can you do that for me?>> Yeah, we wecall it 150.>> Okay.And you buy that for 3 million

00:23:02bucks.>> Mhm.>> [clears throat]>> Okay, so that's that's the entry andthen you do that knowing hey, we thinkwe we can turn that 150 into 250. Whatwhat was thethe inside at the time?>> Yeah, so that one didn't have a lot ofdigital marketing.It was It was like a mom and pop thing.>> All of them are.>> And it's all everything's run on paperand they've been doing it forever andthey're like our kids don't want this Do you want it?>> Exactly. So we are often times asuccession plan for these sellers and sothese are multi-year relationships.We've got a couple under contract rightnow. One of them I've been talking tothe seller for 5 years. And generallywhat happens is we maintain therelationship and when they're ready tosell, we get the call hopefully.>> And what are you going to do to make itbetter? And what what what is what isbetter mean? In terms>> Yeah, so there there are a few things wecan do.One of them is introduce justprofessionalize systems. So digitalmarketing, a better website, voice voicesystems for the phone to be able to makesure that the training is happening theright way.>> Does digital marketing mean like Yelpand Google reviews?>> Google reviews, but also paid ads, abetter website. Often times there's nodigital reservation systems. We'llintroduce that.>> Got it.>> Um so that's kind of on the technologyside.>> I missed it. So you're like I wanted todo something with my friend. And thenyou had the like business schoolexplanation like high fragmentation blahblah. No, no, no. Like where were yousitting when someone was like should webuy campgrounds? Or like you met a guywho was rich that bought campgrounds?

00:24:17You're like we should do that Likewhat actually happened?>> Great question. So our backgrounds werein hospitality and real estate. Okay. Sothere's the obvious confluence there.And then Cody lives in Bozeman, Montanaand is an avid RV'er. So he said hey,like the thesis sounds interesting. Whydon't you fly out here and let's drivearound the country, meet some owners,team members, guests and see if this issomething that actually has a little bitof a spark to it. So I flew out from NewYork, spent some time on the roadmeeting different campground owners andteam members and guests and just fell inlove with the space.>> And how much money have you raised intotal now?>> Uh we have raisedaround $60 million.>> You raised $60 million bucks fromWhat did you say? 15-ish properties?>> We've sold a couple, but we have 16currently. And what is it all worth?>> North of 100 million. Does that meanthat 40 million is you and yourpartner's equity?>> No, we've raised outside capital. So, atthis point we have family offices wework with, we have a select group ofaccredited investors we work with, andwe have a few institutional partnerswe've worked with as well.>> what I'm saying is of the 20 million inrevenue or if you value it I don't knowI don't know anything about real estate.However you value it, how do you getpersonal cash flow or net worth from it?>> Like most real estate operators, it'spromote based, and different deals aredifferent depending on the investmentpartner, right? So, we are back endincentivized

00:25:33largely for most of these.A typical private equity structure wherethere's a preferred return, there's areturn of capital, and then there's asplit depending on kind of who theinvestor profile is.>> And so so you when you do that firstone, you go buy it for 3 million, it'sdoing half a million in revenue, 150k ofof cash flow.What happened? What was the like successstory of that one? Obviously it was asuccess or else you wouldn't have 16more.>> Well, we were able to refi a coupleyears later. So, took all of our cashout.>> the income the NOI up to what?>> Uh the NOI in that one went from closerto closer to 300 at that point.>> Okay, so you doubled the the profit onthe on the thing. Recap refinance itout, use that capital to go buy the nextone.>> Exactly. Exactly.>> That's pretty awesome.>> Why are campgrounds if I'm wanted to godo real estate, why would I choosecampgrounds instead of whatever, retailshopping, multi-family, office,whatever? What would I What would be myadvantages if I was going to do this?>> Strong yield, it's operationallycomplex, which means there's opportunityto drive value, and really attractivedepreciation characteristics that aresimilar to manufactured housing forexample. So, you can depreciate theroads and the infrastructure, there'svery limited land value in a lot ofthese more rural markets, limitedbuilding value, so the depreciationcharacteristics are also reallyattractive to people who are taxsensitive.>> Will you do this for

00:26:48forever?>> I hope so.>> Yeah, and you just like like lookingdown 10 years or 20 years down the line,where do you hope to be business-wise?>> Yeah, so look, I think the the largeropportunity as more of life movesonline, I believe businesses that getpeople together in the real world goingto be more valuable and>> there are different types ofexperience-oriented real estate that canspeak to that thesis, but campgroundsstill have a lot of runway. We stillhave a big pipeline of properties we'dlike to be a part of, and so hopefullywe're doing this forever.>> Who are the big dogs in this space?>> Yeah, so there are two very large REITsin this space that initially were intothe manufactured housing side of thebusiness, but recognized both from adepreciation perspective and also theinfrastructure is very similar, right?You're renting pads and>> REIT?>> There are manufactured housing REITsthat have a large portion of campgroundexposure.>> Oh, that's interesting.>> Yeah, so that was one of the ways wewere researching this that we got alittle more comfortable with the idea.>> When you're buying these, you're you'rebuying out the operator and then you puta property manager, property managementcompanies>> We're we're the manager.>> You are the manager.>> Yeah, so initially we didn't think wewere going to go that route. Initially,so Cody, my partner, went and managedour first location for the first year,scrubbed toilets, did the whole thing.We thought, you know, learn how to holda shovel and dig a hole, and then youcan hire a third

00:28:03party to manage it likemost real estate sponsors do. And whatwe realized is A, you can't outsourceculture, so that was going to be reallyimportant for our success, and B, if wewanted to scale, there weren't really,at least at that time, competent thirdparties that could scale with us. So, wemade the decision to build an OpCo andhave been managing our properties eversince.>> Your branding's cool.>> Thank you.>> Yeah, appreciate that.>> And when I was looking at them, I waslike, "Oh, I would like to see this." Isthere a world where you would buy buymany of them in a similar region andcreate a membership, you know, like KOA,is it KOA?>> actually we're actually a KOA franchiseein certain markets.>> So, how do you how do I explain KOA tosomeone? I mean, I I don't know thatwell.>> McDonald's of campgrounds.>> Okay.>> They've got 550 flags across thecountry. They own about 50 of themthemselves, but they are a franchisework.>> No, no, they're>> But is it like he's saying where it's amembership or is it just a brand you cantrust?>> You know what you're going to get whenyou>> It's a brand you can trust that you knowwhat you can get.>> Yes, like when I when I do road tripsand want to camp, it's likesomething might be a lot nicer,something could be a lot worse, but KOAI just I know what I'm rolling up on.>> Like I was talking to a a kind of like aa famous guy and he was like, "Oh, outan hour outside of cities or somethingcalled What was it? Post Card Cabins orsomething like that?" He's like, "Oh, Ilove going to those with my kids. It'slike What's the What's the story there?"And then I looked it up and like ownedby Marriott or something.>> They sold to Marriott last year. It's alittle bit of a different model. Theywere

00:29:18focused on very remote single-unitsand destinations where you didn't haveto see your neighbors. We are morecommunity-focused. So, a lot of ourcampgrounds have seasonal guests, whichbasically means these are people whoreserve the right to a specific spacefor the duration of the season, paybefore the season starts, and come everyyear. Grandma's there, aunts and unclesare there, kids are there, everyone'sbeen raised there, all the friends arearound, so it's very sticky andcommunal.>> Mhm.>> But is there a world where you do brandit so it's similar to each uh eachproperty has a uh maybe a a differentstick, but it's all under one brand?>> Potentially down the road. I think realestate brands are inherently tough toscale, and until we have meaningfullymore scale, that's probably not theright focus for us. But as regionalconcentration starts to happen, which isalready naturally happening,perhaps that's something to explore.>> I hear you I I know nothing about realestate. When I hear you describe this, Ithink that sounds awesome. You'reoutdoors all the time. You're outdoorsall the Obviously, that's not the case.What's the day-to-day work? Are you justlike cold calling these places trying tomake a deal?>> Writing a lot of handwritten letters, uha lot of cold calling, a lot of checkingup on>> found like a letter with a cookieconverts better than like, you know, acall?>> A a lot a lot of it is luck. Thechallenge in this space is effectivelyour sellers are behind the front deskmost of the time, which means in seasonthey're

00:30:33exhausted and they don't want totake a call.>> bottleneck of the business is justgetting in touch and wooing>> Finding people who want to sell.>> Building relationships and being thetrusted succession plan.>> Because they care, they don't care it'snot a just a money thing for them.>> Exactly. These are their friends thatthey have been personally servicing foroften times decades. And so, whoever'staking over that relationship is areally important>> like a like a camp campground ownerslike publication or summit or podcast?>> there are Facebook groups andconventions and all those things.>> them all of the time with like the samethumbnail image of across all of them soeveryone like starts saying like, "Oh,this is the guy. He seems like a goodguy.">> A bit of that. We're We're trying tofigure out how to do it in an authenticway. Uh and that's a tough balance cuzthere's a level of mistrust around beingover marketed to in this space. So, alot of it is catching them on the rightday when the campgrounds are a littlebit less busy and they answer the phoneand we can start a relationship and thenyou know years later when they're readyto sell, we get the call.>> This sounds pretty awesome. Is this umHow many hours a week do you work?>> A lot.>> Yeah.>> You you grind?>> Oh, yeah.>> You're in grind mode?>> Yeah, absolutely. But I love it.>> There's a lot of real estate people thatchoose real estate because while realestate is work, there's a way to do itor a astate you can reach that is not aboutgrinding and it's not about like youhave a lot of flexibility and you gotcash flow coming in or you're

00:31:49you flip aproperty and you can take time off. Youknow, you could do all kinds of things.Um sounds like you're approaching itmore like company building than it is>> Company building and it's a hospitalitybusiness.>> Yeah.>> Right. We've got tens of thousands ofguests every year, 350 people on theteam. So, there's nono easy break period.>> Is there are the people you employ torun a campsite, are they pains in theasses? Like are they hippies or are theymeth addicts?>> No, we have some amazing people thatwork with us. We um>> to the meth>> Yeah, please.>> answer the question.>> Actually, like the majority of our teamis incredible. Uh they're aligned withour mission, which is to be the mosthospitable team in the world, which whenyou're trying to replace a mom and popoperator is really important because thehospitality that a family provides isawesome. Really tough to beat. But we dohave some fun stories of team membersthat haven't been the right fit. We hadaa situation where we found out we hademployed a convicted bank robber who hadrobbed nine banks and had to gopersonally fire him in person and evict>> that like?>> Terrifying. Yeah, he actually wasincredibly nice and reasonable, but thedrive in I was very scared.>> [laughter]>> Uh, had a another situation where wefound out through a guest that somepeople in the team had been cutting downour trees and selling the wood for cashon a Facebook page. So, wasn't a greatsituation. Again, these are totaloutlier situations. They're just fun forconversation.>> Hey, why do you live in New York? Why doyou do this

00:33:04in New York?>> [sighs]>> My family's here. My wife's here. Myson's here. My parents are here. Myin-laws are here. So, you know, when youhave kids and the grandparents around.But, my partner's in Bozeman and look>> So, let's hit it real quick. What's theburning question? If you if you had aburning question, something that that wecan give you kind of a quick maybe adifferent insight on than than as anoutsider, what would be helpful?>> Sure. Umas you think about what we do and tryingto scale culture to a team of hourlyemployees across 10 states states withthis workforce, what is something thatwe could do differently to keep peopleincentivized to deliver the level ofservice that we're trying to deliver?And if you can solve this in 10 minutes,I will love you forever.>> Well, I actually I'll give you a quickstory. So, my first business was arestaurant business, which has the sameproblem. Frontline workers in hundredsof locations if you do it right. And wemet with the founder of Chipotle and hesaid um if you can get a frontlineworker to care about the customer liketreat this the way you're treating thisfirst location, you'll make billions ofdollars. The problem is that's thehardest thing in the world to do. AndChipotle actually did some prettyinteresting things where like both inthe naming of it like they have generalmanagers. The general managers get comp.If any employee you ever have becomes ageneral manager, even if you no longerwork at Chipotle, you get 10 grand inthe mail. Like they do lots of things tolike build a culture

00:34:19where they getpeople to stay longer than they normallywould to work their way up the ranks toactually think like an owner of thatplace. And so, I would just study I'dmake a list of the 15 companies thathave already solved this problem. Iwould just study what works. I'd lookfor common patterns, and I would try tohire people who were there in the earlydays, either as consultants or or as afull-time person. Often, you can findretired people who you're not going tohire them, but they kind of wantsomething to do, and they're sitting onthis wealth of knowledge cuz they helpedscale, you know, whateversome cruise line. And you know, and nowthey're just retired. And I think that'swhat I would do if I was going to solvethis problem. My real-life answer is Irun away from businesses that have thatproblemcuz I just I'd rather pick a differenthard, but you've picked a hard. Yeah,good luck.>> Have you read>> [laughter]>> obviously you've read Will Guidara'sUnreasonable Hospitality?We had him on the podcast, and he toldtwo stories that was interesting cuz Iwas like, "Okay, this works good in afancy restaurant. Where else does thiswork?" And he told two stories. Thefirst one was he was like, "I workedwith the a dealer of a Ford dealer, likea car dealer. And I worked with them. Igo, "Look, let's just find like aforgotten moment where we could blowsomeone away." And we they I go he Willgoes, "Let's go sit in the car. Let'slook around." He goes, "What's in theglove box?" And the the dealer was like,"Nothing. We don't keep anything there."He goes, "I got it. Let's put a

00:35:34$15Starbucks gift card in the glove box ofevery card, and we're going to put anote that says, "We wanted toWhenever you going to open this glovebox, we wanted to surprise you withsomething special." And that's all itsaid. The second example where he gothis team to do it,he told the story of a UPS store owner.Not exactly a high-margin or wonderfulbusiness necessarily, but he was like,"Every week the owner had a competitionto whatever person did that wasconsidered the most hospitable thing,they just got a $20 bill. That was it."And he was like, "Just doing that onecontest, it changed the whole culturecuz now everyone was competing on whocan be the most hospitable." And justlike one little trick. And likegrown-ups are just like kids. We justlike stickers.>> Totally.>> and he told these two stories, and I waslike, "Oh, that's those are so small."And he was like, "They tracked likereferral business, and it and itdefinitely worked." And so he gave Youshould listen to that podcast. It's MyFirst Million Will Guidara. It wasreally cool.>> Amazing. Look forward to it.>> But yeah, that guy's awesome and he andhe gave you like some actionable tips.>> Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. Right on.>> Well, thanks for doing>> Congrats on everything, man. Thanks forcoming on.>> Appreciate it, guys.>> All right. God bless, dude.>> All right. See you.>> Should go camping.>> Yeah, it's pretty awesome.>> [laughter]>> All right, the last oneis going to be funny.>> All right, how's it going?>> What's up?>> All right. Welcome

00:36:49to the hot seat, thedenim den.>> The denim den.>> [laughter]>> Is it live right now?>> The dudes in denim, we're live. Yes.>> Um all right, you want to give us thebig the big>> the big number. Um I'm Brian. I run acompany called Autopilot. We manage $1.8billion. Um and that makes $30 millionper year of revenue for the company. Westarted about 3 years ago for thecompany Autopilot. And one number thatkind of blows my mind, I think it's atestament tohow much people want to invest in retailtraders. Um it took Bill Ackman and RayDalio about 10 to 15 years to startmanaging a billion dollars.And the fact that like Autopilot, thistech company that plugs into yourRobinhood account, your Schwab account,could manage $1.8 billion, to me justblows my mind.>> I'm shocked. That's crazy. I didn'trealize how big you guys were. So,what's the business do?>> Yeah, so the business we're most popularfor launching the Nancy Pelosi stocktracker on Twitter.>> I thought your big number was going tobe uh like 44%. That's Nancy Pelosi'sannual returns. Or you know, like whatare her annual returns? What does NancyPelosi do?>> In the last 3 years, um she's up around240%. Check the app for the actualperformance. I have to say that for SECcompliance. But uh she's outperformedthe spy significantly. So, I think thespy in that same time is around is uparound 30 to 40%

00:38:05and she's up 240%.>> In your app, I caninvest alongside her picks because she'sa politician, so>> Exactly. So, there>> Wait, is she she's not a politiciananymore, though.>> So, her Well, she retires in January of2027. So, we have that much time to copyher trades and follow her trades, butbasically>> I can follow anyone.>> You can follow anyone. So, you canfollow her, you can follow differentpoliticians. We also take 13 apps fromdifferent hedge funds. And that was theway that we kickstarted the marketplace.I think every startup has like thatchicken and egg problem they have tosolve. Uh for a marketplace, you havethe supply side and the demand side. Andif you don't have anyone to followthat's good, you're not going to getpeople to come follow that person. Butif you don't have anyone to follow, noone's going to want to launch on yourplatform. They're like, "Why am I doingthis?" So, we were like Chris and I, wegot together and we're like, "Let's justmanufacture the supply side. Let's takepublicly available information.">> Because the whole premise of Autopilotwasanyone can become a head Is that anyonecan become a head fund?>> Exactly. And instead of like having aSubstack news newsletter where you couldfollow my contents, I can charge acertain amount and you could follow mytrades or my portfolio that I think isgood. Exactly.>> Got it. Okay.>> And I think there's a lot of Substack.I'm sure we've all like read some ofthem, but you don't know like theperformance of this person. Maybethey're right one and they'll alwayspost their winners.>> They write a very convincing

00:39:20case andthen they talk about how last time theywere right, but you only know if theirtrade is a winner.>> like three or four other times for thatone. And so, with Autopilot, you have atrack record of success. You can seepeople's winners, their losers, theirperformance, their entire performance,and then you can see how many dollarsare following them, their content, etc.>> money have you raised?>> We've raised about 16 million.>> 16.>> Uh yeah, 16. 16.>> And 30 million in revenues seems like agood company.>> Yeah.>> What's that worth?>> I don't know. We're going out to raise aSeries B. Um the valuations uh differentventure firms have, you know, floatedrounds between 300, 400 million.Which is crazy, but that is venturemoney. Not sure what it's actuallyworth.>> How How old are you?>> Uh 31.>> You start this business. What's thefirst idea you had here? First idea iswhat?>> Uh so, the first idea we actuallystarted 6 years ago was an idea it was acompany called Iris. Iris for the eye soyou could see into other people'sportfolios. I was trading on Robinhood.>> You've been thinking>> about this idea for like six plus years.>> Yeah.Yeah, and I think like like we all kindofany retail trader, if I don't know ifyou guys invest in the stock marketyourself on an app,>> Yeah.>> anyone's like there's stocks that justfly and it's kind of obvious. Like Iremember buying Nvidia or buying Teslaand you're likesome things are just obvious to younger

00:40:35people, but if you justlike don't do the research, you're notgoing to get those asymmetric gains.>> Yeah, but most people don't do theresearch.>> Most Yeah, most people don't and I and Ithink>> And most things I think are obvious arewrong.>> [laughter]>> Most time when I invest, I lose, but>> That that is fair and there's All right,do you have like the inverse Cramereffect or>> No, no, no.>> But I think I think there are certainpeople who just have a knack for it andI think we were talking earlier aboutlike how most people should just investin index funds. I would say I thinkthat's true for the most part because alot of people want to do it themselves,especially I think there's this adventof DIY,but I think the goal is for autopilot,for you to find someone who you haveconfidence in and can see the trackrecord of success. Where you put like 10to 20% of your net worth, not all of it,but in about 10 to 20% in thesehigh-risk, high-reward strategies.>> what's fun Wait, so we're we're doingthis Ray Dalio thing tomorrow, we'reinterviewing him, and he started as anewsletter. It was like a $1,500 a monthnewsletter that's smart and then someonewas like, "Hey, if you think you're theman, then why don't you have your ownfund?" And like you know what I mean?And he's like, "Maybe I will.">> And now he has the biggest one.>> Yeah, now he has the biggest one.>> And so my question is like why doesn't II think you know uh Motley Fool? SoMotley Fool does nine figures a year insubscription revenue. So for you don'tknow, Motley Fool, you give them $100 orsome amount of money and they give youstock picks, but they also have a fundwhere they invest

00:41:51in their own picks andI think they have over a billion AUM.It's all public, you can like look itup. So will like every financial bloggerwho like is a stock picker like be anautopilot person?>> Yeah, I think that's going to happen. Wehave a>> But then there's going to be way less ofthem because everyone's going to be ableto see who's legit and who's not.>> Yeah, so exactly. And so we have a 6,000person waitlist to like launch aportfolio on autopilot. So we do a lotof due diligence. We look at uh thetrack record of success. We'll look atWe'll analyze their actual portfolio.Cuz for example, if you run anewsletter, but your actual portfolio isbad, we don't really want you on theplatform.>> Who's the most famous or successfulperson that launched their portfolio onhere? Not like you're tracking thepoliticians.>> Peter Wolfe. And so, I checked out hispersonal Robinhood account, and I waslike, "This guy's up 200%.">> check someone's personal Robinhood?>> So, I I just by like I would go on avideo call and I would look at it. Butright now, we have tech where he couldactually connect his Robinhood accountto our platform, and we could analyzeit. And 200% butover over over 3 years. And I was like,"All right, 200% over 3 years.">> right? 3 years is like>> Yeah. Yeah.I mean, you're right. And it's like,"What does it do in a downturn?" Um butI liked the way he was thinking aboutwhat he does tohedge against risk. And I was like, "Youknow what? Like launch him on theplatform. We'll figure it out.">> of like You're You are like theeditorial

00:43:06team. You're You're theAmerican Idol. You're letting them sortof audition. You're picking, right?>> Yeah. So, you're picking the pickers.>> Then they launch their portfolio. Peoplethen pay up front to do it, or peoplejust copy the trade and you get it Youthat person gets a commission.>> There's like a subscription fee, verysimilar to Substack.>> How much?>> Um the pilot could We call them pilots.They could set it. It ranges from 100bucks a year to 500 bucks a year.>> And so, they do that Um how much are thetop people making as>> The top people are making around 1 to 2million dollars per year on Autopilot.>> Woah. Okay.>> And that's outside of their stocktrading.>> That's That's all Yeah, that'sjust their Autopilot.>> And so, they And so, that's likeThat means they have how manysubscribers? Like 10,000 subscribers?100,000?>> Uh it depends on how much they charge.But for example, Peter Wolfe has around220 million dollars following him onAutopilot.>> Oh, so you see like how many dollars arebacking you?>> Yeah. And so, again, for example, uhthis is a stat that we pull. Uh BillAckman, who traditionally raised a lotof money really quickly when hegraduated Harvard, it took him aboutfive years to raise $60 million.This guy on Autopilot within 1 yearraised $220 million. So>> So you're basically it's kind of like umJustin Bieber was YouTube native, right?He was a YouTuber first and became

00:44:21Justin Bieber. And you're basicallysaying like the next Bill Ackman, thenext generation's Ray Daliois going to come from the Autopilot orfrom you guys.>> Do I put my money into Peter's fund?>> Yes, what would happen is you connectyour Robinhood account or whateverbrokerage you have and it itautomatically follows his fund. So whenhe makes a trade, we send a notificationto your brokerage to automatically buyor sell that security.>> Copy trade.>> But it's not giving the money to theguy.>> Yeah, and that and that's actually themoney in your Robinhood.>> Yeah, and that's that's how we are ableto operate from a legal standpoint.Whenever you're giving custody of assetsaway to someone, the SEC gets reallyinvolved. Is that a brokerage you havecustody? That's when a lot of regulationpops up.>> the business?>> It'sAutopilot. It we've been runningAutopilot for 3 years, but the entirebusiness like structure is 6 years.>> So Autopilot has existed in 3 awesomeyears.>> Yeah.>> What's going to happen in 6 years whenyou have 3 years?>> If we have 3 years.>> Like stock market years. That'swhat he's saying.>> I I think what we see is the retailinvestor right now perseveres longerthan they used to.3 years is a long time.Um I would say if it was like 3 yearsdownturn like consistently, I feel likethe whole world will there will be a lotof questions for the whole world. But Ithink that happens.>> Well, it happens to like Robinhood andthese other guys, right? Like what whatdo you mean?>> I think 3 years straight it hasn'treally happened, but I think

00:45:36you'll seelike 1 and 1/2 years um happen. So>> And Robinhoodalmost diedbut they they didn't because they hadraised billions of dollars.>> Yeah, and they they had an emergencyfunding round.>> Yeah, so like it was a near-deathmoment.>> When was that? During the GameStop>> during GameStop. Um they were about togo under and I think they had raised $40billion like immediately. Um and or notsorry for $4 billion immediately.>> Because they needed liquidity?>> There's>> something with like being a brokerageand like the DTCC, not too familiar withit, but they're like you need to post upthis money. They're we don't have it.>> Are people nervous to invest or areventure venture guys that nervous toinvest?>> I think what we've seen in venture isjust AI waveum and it's just not fintech was sexy in2020 2021. Right now with our metrics, Iwould think it would be very excitingfor venture capital.>> like we have some friends in fintech,like a lot of fintech companies makelike no revenue. Like, you know, youcould be likewhat's the thing called? Wealthfront.And you could have billions of dollarsin AUM and like your fees are so tinythat so you're making 30 actual millionin revenue.>> yeah, I think>> like>> Yeah,so right now because we've launched ourown portfolios where we take 100% of therevenue. Like the Pelosi portfolio isours, so we get 100% of that revenue.Um our GMV revenue is 30 million, butour autopilot

00:46:52ARR is around 22 million.>> Okay, so you have more real revenue thanlike remember Ankur was doing carry andlike he had like a billion in AUM, butthe revenue was like literally amillion.>> I I think yeah, I know that's that to mealways blows my mind. I think the thingthat's interesting about us iswhen you look at other traditional assetmanagers, they just put your money inlike ETFs and like mutual funds andthere's no real alpha they're trying toget you, so they can't really chargethat much money cuz you're like, whywould I go to them? Why don't I just goto Wealthfront that charge like 0.1%?And so with Autopilot, the reason youpay so much uhis because these people are they'rethey're the hope is that they outperformthe market. Um and so I think theaverage AUM that people pay on Autopilotis around 3 to 4%.>> Does Nancy Pelosi hate you?>> Probably, I would say.>> Have you guys interacted like>> met.>> No cease and desist even from her like>> No, no.>> Wow, Nancy.>> There there>> All right, Pelosi>> Or she's getting soft in her old age.>> [laughter]>> Yeah, I mean the goal is when sheretires wewe try to have her actually join thefund and have a commercial.We we did sponsor the UFC and got a fakeNancy Pelosi. Did you see this?>> This is incredible.>> Um and so the the goal was this was theUFC before the election and Trump wassupposed to sit row one at the UFC. Andwe were

00:48:07like, wouldn't it be funny if wesponsored the UFC and it shows InvestLike a Politician right in front ofDonald Trump and then we have a fakeNancy Pelosi right by him.>> Like you bought a ticket or or as partof the sponsorship?>> had the ring sponsorship at>> Yeah, we had the ring sponsorship>> Yeah.>> And then they hired a look-alike NancyPelosi and they had her walk in, theyhad like them You had like kind ofsocial content of her entering thearena.>> Did you have to actually buy thatticket?>> We had to buy that ticket. That ticketrow one was $60,000.>> No way.>> How much you spend on the wholemarketing buy?>> About $450,000.>> Did it help?>> Um it didn't help directly. I think thebrand affinity was there. Would I do itagain? Probably not. It would havehelped if Trump was actually showed up.>> Did he end up showing up?>> [clears throat]>> There was an assassination attempt, sothere was and I was like, dang, he's nothere, but I'm I'm glad he's safe. But Ithink if he did show up, I think thethe media that would have been pickedup, the earned media would have beeninsane.>> Hey, it was ballsyand and sometimes you got to do what yougot to do. That's I think it's cool.We're still talking about it now, right?>> Exactly. That's that's that's fair.>> That that that happens when you dounique over the top things, so that'samazing.>> Yeah, we're trying to think of the nextstunt, butwe'll see.>> How many people work there?>> Right now, 30, 35.>> Uh so you're doing800,000 of revenue perThat's just

00:49:22kind>> It's it's about a million dollars peremployee right now.>> Walk walk me through the like What doesthis look like if this is actually big?Cuz some of the weird ideas you haveThere's a weird idea. And weird ideashave a lot of potential even though onthe surface it takes a little time tolike understand>> kind of like a common sense idea. Like II don't know, growing up I was like,man, why can't I rob an account justlike follow this other guy's robin hoodaccount automatically? Like I don't wantto just give my funds away to someoneelse. Like I want to be able to do stuffmyself and I also want to like go onvacation without worrying about likewhen to sell or when to buy. And I thinkthe solution to me was just the mostobvious.>> Mhm.>> But I think the ultimate goal ofAutopilot is to become the world'slargest asset manager. When you look atBlackRock, uh they actually do this forinstitution. BlackRock connects allthese financial institutions, companieswill go on a tool called BlackRockAladdin and buy different portfolios.So, it already exists at the institutionlevel.>> say buy different portfolios, like>> Uh BlackRock will create their ownportfolios based on different risk. Umand so like if you're Walmart andyou're, you know, heavily invested in,you know, uh groceries for this quarter,you could actually like hedge your beton BlackRock Aladdin. If you're aFacebook employee, you could actuallyfind a portfolio on Autopilot thathedges like tech. And And that tool thatBlackRock created makes around $6billion per year and BlackRock's one ofthe largest asset managers. And so Ithink with Autopilot, one of our goalsis to get that same tech and like buildit

00:50:37for retail investors.>> How do you get those How do How are yougoing to hire those people?>> Well, he's saying people come to theplatform. Like it's two-sidedmarketplace, right?>> And so then the pilots come and they'rethe ones with the ideas. You verify, youknow, their employment, where they'veworked, but really the goal is whereanyone can just publish those portfoliosand get paid. And then plus it's amarketplace, we take a a cut of thatrevenue.>> What would be the burning question?>> I have a bunch of large macro questionson AI, but I also have questions becauseyou guys have been running companies for10-plus years. Um one of the biggestthings is hiring. How do you find peoplethat are highly motivated? Whatquestions do you ask? Because one thingthat I've noticed is when you hire,especially more senior-level people,their ability to BS is greater than myability to detect>> [laughter]>> And I think there's certain questions orcertain things that you can look at thatyou guys probably have more experiencethat would actually really helpAutopilot get to the next step.>> Well, for one, having like a personalaudience is like definitely that'sprobably one of the biggest perks isthat you're able to like if you coldemail someone, they're like, "Oh, I'veheard of you or I know of you." At thevery least, at best, you have a lot ofpeople who will apply. But whenever Iwould hire for people who roles that Ididn't know what the hell I was doing, Idefinitely would have like an outsiderhiring committee. So, I would haveoutsiders interview people all the time,>> Mhm. and that helped me a lot.>> Yeah, that

00:51:52was going to be one of my Iprobably have three or four tips.They're not all related. The first is Ifind a lot of my hiring mistakes were Ididn't actually even understand what Iwas hiring for. I wasn't clear enough.Sometimes that comes from I do the workfor a little bit and I'm like, "Oh,okay. What the person's going to need todo is X, Y, Z." As you scale, thathappens less,but still writing down not like ageneric like I think a lot of peopleoutsource the job spec to eitherChatGPT, a recruiter. It's supergeneric. It's going to attract a genericcandidate, and it's not actually clear.What are youWhat are you trying to get somebody tocome change in your company? What dothey need to be world-class at? Whatsort of problem are they going to haveto solve? And be really, really clear.So, that's the first thing. Second iskind of yours on outsidehelp. So, I have a buddy whohe's better at hiring than I am. And so,what I would do for any executive hireis I would call the favor and be like,"Hey, like once I've done the screening,will you talk to these Will you talk tomy favorite kind of three or fourcandidates and give me your take?" Andit really wasn't about who he picked, itwas me becoming a better hirer andinterviewer by understanding the deltaof like, "I thought this person wasgreat. He sniffed out theirreally quick. Why did he do that?" AndI'm watching the the call, and I'mrealizing like, "Oh, he dug in in adifferent way, asked a different stylequestion, didn't accept [clears throat]their first answer at face

00:53:07value. I gotto start doing that." And so, I gotbetter by doing that not just becausethey helped me pick this person, butbecause I realized where I was weak inthe interviewing process. I also thinkthere's two really good pools to hirefrom. One is you want people who'veeither done it before or never doneanything, but can do anything. So, doneit before iswho solved this problem before? I alwaysstart there. Cuz if I can find somebodywho's already done this before,that's going to help me a lot. And Imean specifically, so it's not justlike, "Oh, he worked at a successfulcompany."But they do enterprise sales, and wedon't even do enterprise sales. Allright, it's like, "No, they solved theythey did this exact thing before this.">> We've talked about this a lot in the podwhere it's like it's so fun to hireyoung people. They don't have anyexperience. It's so fun, right? Cuzthat's what you were recently. But likenine out of 10 times if you're justlike, "Hey, you did that there? Do thatsame thing here.">> Right.>> And that tends to justbe way better.>> we so we we will map out which companieshave solved this problem before. Who wasthe person that was there at the yearwhen they had this problem where we are.Who was that person? And then were theythe real shot caller on the team or werethey just doing something but there'ssomebody else who was amazing. I like goto that level of detail there. So that'sone pool you got to get good at and theother pool is likebasically diamonds in the rough, likeunproven talent that you can almost be astock picker on and be like, "Okay, Ithink this person's like a 10xer." And Ibuild the company with

00:54:22those two poolsof of people. Um and you build systemsso that you consistently are sourcingfrom both of those.>> Yeah.>> Most One thing most people Are you theCEO of the business?>> Yeah.>> How much time uh per week do you spendrecruiting right now?>> Right now about 20%.Um>> That's pretty good. Most people ThatThat means a one full day a week,basically.>> Yeah.>> Most founders who have like hiringproblems, if you ask them that question,they're like, "Hours? IThey don't really track it.">> now I'm like seeing how important it isand>> If you listen to like a lot of the mostsuccessful founders that that were in ascaling phase, they spend like 30% oftheir time just on recruiting.>> Are you guys profitable?>> Yeah.>> Okay. So you're at 20 million in revenue>> Or 30 30 million revenue.>> 30 million.>> 30 million revenue. We're cash flowpositive, not like GAAP profitable, butsure.>> So you're default alive.>> Yeah.>> What's the growth rate going to be thisyear or what?>> About 250%.>> I would think almost all your entire jobis collecting people.>> What what sorts of people do you need tobe hiring right now?>> A lot of software engineers, um productpeople,growth people, marketing people, reallyanyone.>> [laughter]>> But I thinkjust people.I think the thing isum is just maintaining that high bar andwe've just hired a lot of people andperhaps I'm actually very quick to getrid of people if they like come in andwithin like two to three weeks theyhaven't really done anything.

00:55:38I justimmediately I'm like, all right, you'regetting out of here.>> Does that impact that and that impactsculture, which is why you got to get thehiring right?>> It it impacts culture, but I thinkeveryone who's been here anyone who wewe we tell people if you're here forlonger than three months, you don't haveto worry. So I think after thethree-month mark people are like, okay,I'm I'm chilling, but before thateveryone's like freaked out.>> Are you going to only hire in New York?>> Yeah. Yeah.>> Can you afford it?>> yeah, yeah, we'veI I think especially with AI thesalaries that we're paying people likewe we justjust offered a guy like a 350k salaryand I'm like, this is crazy cuz I'venever made that much money. I stilldon't. But yeah, I think the the goal iswith AI each person is much much moreeffective. So a good person with AIcould be 10 20 times more effective thanan average person with AI.>> That's crazy. Yeah. My CTO used to sayit to he's like, I you're one person.No, you're three people. He says, you'rethree people. He says it all the time.And people like it's funny cuz like it'sreal simple. It's people just realizewhat you mean. It's like, no, you needto be able to do the work of threepeople because you got to be smart aboutwhat you don't do. Don't do the Automate stuff. You know,figure out like a faster path, you know,that's your job is to be three people.And when we used to do offsites, wewould say every day is two days.Liketwo days of stuff needs to happen everyday.

00:56:53And so I think when you do that,you set up set a different bar for forfor your team on how they how theyoperate.>> Dude, thanks for doing this, dude. Thisis awesome.>> You're awesome. We I I messaged himroughly two hours ago.And I was like, where are you?>> Yeah, I saw the post. I'm like, yo, Sam,I got to get in my first meeting.>> I said, where are you?Can you be here?>> Well, you guys have are one of the greatlike growth hack stories. Like there's,you know, what you guys did with thePelosi tracker. You have anothertracker, too. You have other trackers.>> Yeah, we have like, you know, the theLeopold tracker.>> Who's the best?>> Um right now Leopold. He's up insaneamount.>> Is he like a 25-year-old?>> He was like a 22-year-old. He worked forOpenAI. Now he's like 25.Um he left OpenAI and then started afund.>> Isn't he>> up like $10 billion or something?>> Uh, five around $5 billion.>> So, he's a billionaire now?>> I think so. I think so.>> outside capital?>> Uh, I think I think a lot of a lot of itwas friends and family, but he>> Gross, Nat Friedman, and like smartmoney was immediately behind him. It waslike>> did he raise?>> I think originally $500 million, notthat much. Now it's at like aroundupward of $5 billion. But what he did,what which was super smart>> in 2 years?>> Yeah, he looked at what companies whatwas the bottlenecks of Open AI. And hewas like, "Okay, well, SSDs." Like a lotof people thinking GPUs. He was like,"SSDs, like Micron."And so, he just started buying all oflike the other bottlenecks

00:58:08that no onewas focusing on, and now they're justlike skyrocketing.>> And isn't like his somebody is like thechief of staff at Anthropic?>> that.>> He's got some some some information flowas well. That's pretty good.>> Yeah.>> I mean, he's brilliant. Have you readhis like situational awareness paper?>> No.>> I guess I'll do this. Uh, I did this andit was very very useful. Take the PDFfor situational awareness. It was likeon my list of like>> What is situational awareness?>> That's his hedge fund name.>> He published a>> Oh, it's>> a white paper or blog post, like a PDF.Before like before he launched the hedgefund or>> Yeah.>> right after? I think it was actuallymaybe before, and this is how heattracted the money.He launched this thing, which wasbasically he had a very strong point ofview on like what the next 10 years ofAI looks like. Very bold predictions. Itwas like, "And then, huge tensionbetween China and America. And thenbecause of that, this." It was likesuper specific predictionsof how the puck where the puck wasgoing. So, he published this thing, anda lot of smart people were like, "Yo,this is like one of the smarter takes ofwhat's going on." I think that attractedmore capital, more>> Situational awareness was the name ofhis publication.>> and I think it's the name of his uh fundor his his whatever his com- company is.So, take it, give it to your Victor inyour Slack. Yeah. You say, "Victor,break this downinto the 10 key ideas, like predictionsand hypotheses that he has.Explain

00:59:23it, and just explain it to me."Victor did a wonderful job. He like justchewed up this PDF for me. It explainedit step-by-step. And then I askedfollow-up questions and it was justgreat. And I was like, "So, did thatplay out? Was he right about this? Didhe trade on that?" And it just it justanswered every single question. It wasso good.>> a guy like him>> Victor, by the way, is like a AIthing that Sam probably onto that I amnow hooked. I ended up I ended upinvesting in it.>> Yes, thanks for telling me. I wish Itold you about it. You [laughter] shouldhave told me that.>> Well, it was at aabsurd valuation, but like it's thatgood that I was like, "Yeah, for sure.">> I told you I told him about this tool.He's like, "I don't know. I don't trustthese tools. These are stupid." And then2 days later he goes "These tools areawesome. Can I order this tool?">> I made him feel dumb. I was like, "Whydo you just trust a random startup withall your stuff?"And then I heard about it a little moreand I was like, "Let's try it out." AndI tried it in one of my Slacks and I waslike, "This is amazing." Now it's inevery business I have.>> Yeah, it's good. But theI'm curious about the personal personalside of this. Is he like low-key rightnow? Is he trying to hide out?>> No, he posts on Twitter.>> Really?>> He's a He'sHe's a very good friend of Orkesh. So,he's down the street.>> Cash bought a couple of times. Worth Imean>> Is he cool?>> Yeah.>> Do you think like Peter Thiel's cool?Like, you know, like Do you think a lotof Asperger's genius is cool? Yeah, likeYeah, he has that.>> He's great.>> I love him.>> I love it.>> [laughter]

01:00:39>> You you can follow him on Autopilot.>> I'm saying>> Yeah, cool is not the word I would use.I love it, yes. I think he's awesome.>> And so, you can replicate his?>> follow his top 15 picks on Autopilot.>> And how do you know his picks? Cuz>> Uh so, he follows a 13F. And so, it isdone with a little lag.>> yeah.>> There's about a 45-day lag.>> But even we only track with the lag.>> a 13-day F how big does your fund needto be?>> Oh, $100 million.>> Oh, okay.Damn, so he's the guy right now.>> He's the guy.>> He's the guy.>> Does he Does he do podcasts?You guys should get him on.>> He has a couple. We're trying I I thinkwe're reaching out, yeah.>> And it's stuff like this that makes melike very adamant of like people shouldalways invest in index funds, but thereshould always be like 10 to 15% of yourlike net worth on high-risk high-rewardstocks or portfolios. And so, this iswhere Autopilot doesn't right now wantto take 100% of what you have, but just>> What percent?>> I would say 10 to 15%.>> Your liquid net worth, where is itallocated?>> Um>> Who are you following?>> Right right now, I follow basically like20 different pilots on Autopilot rightnow.>> So, right now of your of your 100% networth>> So, of my 100% net worth, it's like 90%on Autopilot. A lot of it is inAutopilot right>> the truthiness. You said you connectwith their brokerage account.>> Yep.>> But like, people have many differentaccounts.>> Yes, so we can connect to all of them.You could>> But but you don't know if if this istracking all of them or just trackingsomething, right? I

01:01:54Me as the user, Idon't know if you have everything thatthis person has done, right?>> Yeah.>> Winners and losers.>> So, what it is is the people will go onour platform and create a modelportfolio. And so, you only see thehistory of the model portfolio from whenthe pilot joins.To to now. Um so, it's not like actuallyfollowing their brokerage account.>> Oh, okay.>> Um but what we do have is we have what'scalled skin in the game where the pilotswill also put their money on Autopilotfollowing their own portfolio. And so,you can be like, "Wow, Peter Thielhas $500,000 following his own trades,verified by Autopilot.">> Got you. Got you. Got you.Are you having fun?>> I would say right now I'm having fun. Iwould say the last 3 years have beenit's it's hard I would I would saygetting from 0 to 1 million in revenuewas the hardest thing I've ever had todo. Getting from 1 to 30 was actually apiece of cake.>> What do you think the next the nextthreshold will be?>> I think we're on track to hit 100million in revenue by March next year.Um I think it's going to be difficult.>> Burn rate?>> Uh uhrecurring revenue, not burn rate. Rightnow, we're at like a 70 million runrate. Um but we want to get like>> I passed on investing in this like twicealready.>> it.>> I know.>> Um but>> like a really hard thing to get off theground. It actually was a hard thing toget off the ground. This is what Iheard.>> I>> Um well, I'm a degenerate and they werelistening to MFM, I think. So,

01:03:09likethey knew that I'm a bit of a>> to Chris a couple times.>> to Chris. I really admired themarketing. So, I think I just reachedout giving respect. I was like, "Hey, II think it's brilliant what you guys aredoing with the plus tracker on Twitterand the UFC I just thought you guys weredoing a really good job of that.">> I think marketing we wouldn't be herejust because of how hard this stuff isto do.>> What's your What was the first round'svaluation?>> The first round was uh 7 million.>> Right.>> Yeah. But that was 2021 like there's alot of uh>> Yeah, man.>> Yeah.>> [laughter]>> Well, either way, I'm a fan and uh Ithink what you guys are doing are great,man. I appreciate you coming on.>> awesome. All right, we appreciate you.>> All right. Thank you, guys. We'll talkto you a little bit.>> That was awesome.>> Good picks.>> Yeah.>> Uh that was cool That was fun. I hope um>> This is a This is a Hampton plug, by theway. I definitely just went into the NewYork channel and I just said>> Yeah.>> "Who's interested?" cuz I didn't want totweet it out cuz I wasn't sure whatwe're going to get.>> do the plug for you. If you're ainteresting business owner and you wantto be in a community of otherinteresting business owners,>> [laughter]>> join Hampton and uh maybe you too can beon MFM someday, too.>> Yep. The I didn't realize how bigAutopilot was. I thought>> It's been scaling a lot. Like it wasn'tthat big like 6 months ago. You know, itdid it's like>> Well, he I knew it was 30 millionrevenue. I thought that meant like>> GMB>> So, like yeah. Cuz those businesses notum his business, but that category ofbusinesses usually pretty shitty.>> Right.

01:04:24>> Uh like numbers could be huge, but theactual but not his. That's insane.>> Yeah, he's doing well.>> That was cool, right?>> You know, one of the things withprobably the biggest thing for me sinceI started My First Million till todaywas I remember pre-My First Million andlike 10 years before that the the full10 yearsI felt like opportunity like success wasthis this needle.>> You had to do this thing.>> or it was this narrow thing this thing Ihad to search for in this room and itwas so hard to find and I needed thisbrilliant idea.And if I just I Is this the brilliantidea? Where is the brilliant idea that Ineed perfect execution? I rememberopportunity just felt so scarce. Andthen one of the things of you move toSan Francisco, you meet a bunch ofpeople, we start doing this podcast.It's like you just realize, "Oh, dude,there's thousands of different tens ofthousands of different ways that I canwin. Opportunity is ever. It's reallyabout picking what's the right fit forme. It was a total like from lack toabundance mindset shift onsuccess. Like, where does success live?And like, what I like about a thing likethis that we did today isthose are three ideas that didn't evenexist in my my cone of vision, you know,I couldn't even I didn't even know thatpeople do businesses like that.>> also [clears throat] parts of theirbusiness and their lifestyles andpersonality that I want to like like Ilove and I want to steal.>> Right.>> But I don't admire

01:05:40the whole thing.Like, for example, Alex, I'm like, ohman, he's so calm, like like, oh, I needto learn from that. I don't necessarilywant to trade what I have for what hehas, but like I want to steal this fromhim and I>> He wasn't in a rush.>> Yeah.>> For better and for worse, but mostly forbetter.>> And same with Brian, huge businesstaking off. I don't want to do all thosestunts. I don't want to raise VC, butthat's pretty awesome.>> admire the creativity and the like>> uhJosh's outdoor business, I'm like,that's awesome. I don't want to raisemoney, but like it would be maybe fun toown one. Like, you know, like there'sreally small>> I should go camping.>> Yeah.>> [laughter]>> And no, but there's like small thingswhere I like I you know, I think umpeople will sometimes in the commentstease us about like having I hate whenpeople say you have these guests thatare out of touch. Whenever I hear that,I'm like, no, you're out of touch withhis life.>> [laughter]>> Yeah, that's about you.>> Yeah, you're out of touch. No, but whatI mean is I'm like, I am equallyimpressed by like a billion-dollarcompany versus a five-million-dollarcompany. They're all they're bothequally awesome.>> So, somebody uh Jesse Itzler said thisat one of our events. He got It was likean intro. Like, I want to somebody Whatdo people What should people know aboutyou? He's like, hey, I'm Jesse Itzler,blah blah blah, I do this that.And he goes, my thing is I root foreverybody. Because when you root foreverybody, you can never lose. And thenhe sat down, and I was like, yo, I kindof like that fortune cookie

01:06:55he justdid. I like>> Is Jesse Itzler really a cool black man?>> Yeah, yeah.>> [laughter]>> No, he's the best. It's cool black guyslike him.>> Yeah.>> And it's like, whoa.That's like the next level. So, in thesame way of like you when you root foreverybody you can never lose, there'ssomething like if you think you canlearn from everybody, you can neverlose, right? So, it's like great,tomorrow we're talking to Ray Dalio.There's going to be some awesome thingsto learn from him. Again, parts, not thewhole. We're not trying to do what he'sdoing, but I'm still going to pullsomething away.I'm going to get a win and I'm going tohave some fun in that hour.>> Just in the same way I I got wins andlearnings and fun in this hour. I thinkthe new slogan should be we can we wegetyou know, high high and low low becauseI get like equal joy. Like we'll go tothe we'll like pop into a bodega. I'lllove that And now we're going togo hang out with like the 80th therichest person in the world. I'm goingto love that equally.>> Right.>> Um all right, that's it. That's the pod.