MFM Mini-Camp, Lessons from Selling a Company, and Storytelling Wins

I had a crazy Um Amazing weekend. And I wanna tell you about it. Go for it. I want to hear about it.

Alright, so Uh, we've done these before, but I'll explain kinda how they work for for people who are listening. So About once a year, maybe twice a year. We do these kind of like friend slash founder weekend hangout type things. And by the way, sorry you should have been there. I don't know why the in Invite got lost in the mail. Don't worry about that. Oh, I'm worried about it. You're lucky I couldn't I you're lucky I couldn't have made it.

But I'm worried about it. I was gonna text you um while we were doing it and I was like, Wait, why isn't Sam here? And I was like, Ben, do we tell did Sam say no or did we not tell Sam? And then he was like, I don't know this Whole thing got screwed up. Uh,'cause we whatever, we bumped it back twice and then this happened. Anyway, so Um Once twice a year.

Go somewhere. Rent an Airbnb. Uh four to five kind of founder friends and hang out and the different This this one was a uh intimate birthday thing, as opposed to last time we did it, it was like a twenty Person one.

Um, maybe, yeah, I don't even remember. It's got bumped back twice, so at this point, who knows? Um But basically it was like all right, start the new year, let's all get together, hang out, and do whatever. And so we um We go to San Diego. We rent. Um, an Airbnb from Mark Jenny, who you've talked about on the pod before, just to

Explain what he's doing. He founded a company called R V Share. Which is like Airbnb for renting R Vs. And grew that, sold that for I think a hundred million dollars and part of it.

I think he sold it private equity. I think he's actually sold twice. So he sold one chunk the first time, second chunk recently. And um And I think he still owns a a piece of it. But anyways, RV Share really successful business. He's got a crazy story where I think he was like homeless at one point in time and and made the whole thing happen. We'll have him on shortly, but very inspirational person.

He now has an Airbnb a luxury Airbnb portfolio worth about fifty million dollars. And so he's got I don't know twenty something properties. And he goes for the over the top kind of like destination experience uh You know, maybe like party type of

Um How houses so that's like f like family parties. Family or like uh buddy's going for a golf trip, um, you know, type of thing, where it's like it like his one of his most successful properties that is in Scottsdale, Arizona. And we're like, Scottsdale, why? He's like, Oh, people guys go there for golf trips. And so, you know, eight buddies get together and they they rent my place and it's great. And they all have money and so the price isn't as big of an issue or whatever.

So this one is in San Diego and um The backyard I think this guy must have put Somewhere between one and two. million dollars into the backyard. So he um We g you go outside, there's a basketball court, there's a pickleball court, there's a

Whiffle ball field with a fence like a full baseball diamond, basically. There is golf course. There is like pool, sauna, everything you could think of. It is like uh Boy, uh, you know, boy paradise, basically. A little boy paradise. It's perfect for us, right? That's all we were doing. You go inside the house. You know, there's like a full poker table with the poker set with the perfect chairs. There's Pool table, there's all kinds of good stuff. Anyways.

So we get there. And um A couple of really cool things happened. Uh one, Mark came over for dinner Uh he's like uh you know host a dinner for us there. And he was telling us his story, which is kinda crazy, but I kinda wanna save that bit for the podcast.

Um I've asked him to come on tons of times, by the way. He turns me down and I'm good friends at Mark and he turns me down. He's like, Oh no, I'm with my family all summer. And whatever he turns to he just had a baby, so I think I appreciate that. I appreciate it. Y I think he'll do it. Um he's definitely he listens to the pod, so you know Instead of listening one day for that hour, just come on and talk. It's no extra time for you, Mark.

And so Then the next uh so we we kinda hang out first day is just straight. Sports. Male bonding. Sweaty male bonding, let's call it. And uh we're just playing every sport that's there. Uh, and in between we sort of talk business or whatever.

Second day we I tweeted out, I go, Who's in San Diego? And a bunch of people replied Ben goes through, curates, and is just like All right, these fifteen people seem cool. I'm gonna invite them over to the house. So they come over to the house. And I just wanna set the scene of this kinda like

Party. Uh first of all First of all, this whole segment should be called Sean Leaves the House because I'm explaining how cool this was. This is probably a monthly occurrence for you. Uh, to me, I was like, dude, I left the house, I met all these cool people. It was amazing. Cause I never leave my house. And so this time I was out of my house, I met a bunch of cool people. You did but you still didn't leave the state.

I didn't leave the state, no. I I barely got on a flight. So so so here's the scene. In the room, uh there is Two guys who own NFT projects. That have probably done

Two hundred plus million in sales. Wow. Um, they're both under the age of Twenty three, mid twenty four, maybe? Um so that's kinda crazy. One of them. One of them didn't even have a public identity until like, you know, a month ago. So that was uh

People know Frank from from D Gods. So D Gods was the number one project on Solana. Uh it's like the board apes of Solana. And um And yeah, he basically uh he just kinda said, Hey, hey, here's my real identity, whatever. So he could now show up to parties

And say what he does, whereas before he couldn't do that. Um okay second thing, uh so that's one group. Then there was the D to C cre crew. These are people who Have built products that like created a product uh

One guy um created this thing called gel blasters. Think like a Nerf gun or a B B gun. But just with like gel pellets. I love that. Um It went from like zero to I don't know if I'm allowed to say the number, but tens of millions in revenue in a year.

And then like has a crazy story. Uh, I'm gonna get him on the pod too to come tell this story, but has a crazy story of sort of getting screwed over by one of the big toy companies. They they pretended to buy his company for like a hundred million bucks. And then He like Does the diligence with them, shows them all the design files, the CAD files, the Everything, the specs of the product.

they fall out and then three months later launch like an identical product to to compete with them and like steal his influencer marketing plan and everything. Uh there's a kind of crazy story there. Um Other people in the room. Remember the mini katana guy we talked about? I think. He came.

So he's there and he's showing me like how they basically do Eight figures in revenue without a single dollar on ads. And it's not out of pride. Like he just can't advertise.'Cause it's like Facebook's like, yeah, this is a weapon.

You can't advertise swords on Facebook. So he had to get creative and was just like okay, how do I make organic content? That's so good. You want to buy the sword. Tens of millions of dollars worth of the sword.

And um I thought that was pretty remarkable. Really super nice guy that came over. Um And he's like, dude. I was listening to the podcast while driving. And I heard you guys talking about a katana store and I was like he's like I almost drove off the road. I was like no are they talking about me? Who are they talking about? And he's like that was a surreal moment.

Um All right, so he's there. Uh a guy you know. A C a former CIA operative came. Who I think you interviewed for the pod, you did a pod with him, and then we couldn't release it.

Yeah. We don't even need to say more,'cause that already sounds juicy as a mother effort, right? We couldn't release it because uh he said a bunch of classified stuff. And so this person I don't even know what I can say now. But basically Uh this is me speaking not this is me speaking not him. Um but it's almost as if they convince people in other countries to become

Treasonus. Spies. Yeah, smise is better than Sa does. If you've watched Jack Ryan, this was like the real life Jack Ryan. And we asked him all about that and then he left the government and he created a business. And so there was a good overlap. So I'm gonna tell you one so I'm don't say his name though, by the way. Yeah, yeah, I'm not gonna do it. So I was like uh I was like so how do you do it? How do you convince somebody

You're just this like, you know, American person coming into their country Yeah, you go into Afghanistan or wherever, you know, Yemen or some place. Um How do you convince them to like, you know, work for the US government to help us? And he's like well

Um Bye. Two years of rapport building and then it's you know it's manipulation, right? Like you were trying to and I was like, So how would you do that? I feel like you couldn't do that. And he's like Remember earlier, uh, when we were grabbing a drink, you said You really want X.

And I was like No. I it's like in passing I must have said something. He's like For about a year I will Basically talk to this person and I'll find out they're every want, their every need, their every problem. And I'm keeping a file. And I'm keeping this file for years before I flip them. And I was like, wow. Uh and this person's really charming. He's very charming and he's very likable. And when he's great stories. When he tells a story, you're captivated. He he's got an it factor. And so when I was with him, I was like

Oh yeah. I understand why uh I would I would commit this thing in order to like pe uh uh you know, please you. Right. So he told one story. Amazing. I called four people over. You gotta hear this, you gotta hear this. Come here. Tell another one.

He's like um And I'm like shit, I just Yeah, you ruined it. You're like, Hey you're funny, tell a joke. Then he tells another banger. And I'm like and everybody's like oh wow to the last three people who didn't hear the first one.

Get over here. Get over here. Get over here. Hey, you got another one? And he's like oh you know, the you know, the thing is uh you know Blah blah blah, he's kinda hemming and hawing and I was like, look. If the story's shit.

No problem. You're already you already won. This is just a bonus lap? If it's terrible. I have no problem with you. I already think you're amazing. I just depressurize the moment for a second.

And I was like, Yeah, just try to give us one more. He gives us one more and I was like, Wow, this is a Yeah, my friend Jason Hitchcock has this thing he says, he goes Uh you say one interesting thing, I say Interesting.

Two interesting things. I see. Those are interesting. Three interesting things I say. You are interesting. And that's what happened by the third one. I was like, you are interesting. Uh that's how I felt. So that guy was kind of amazing. And by the way, I I'll I'll say, um I uh this kind of sucks to talk about because I can't reveal a lot, but you and I have a friend.

And this person um is related to a bunch of like SEALs and CIA people. And it just so happens that there's this weird community of like these ex CIA NSA seals, all these like You know, appreciate it. Yeah and and well they they get out and they go and they start businesses. Because like I guess they have a pension, so they have a little bit of money, um, like r they they have some of their basic needs covered and then they go and start businesses and we're

They're in our world. And they're very successful and it's I love hanging out with these guys, you know, and they're and they're like Proper heroes. And then they're like talking to me about like internet and CAC and I'm like Yeah.

But what about ISIS? Like tell me tell me the story about that. Like tell me that time you eliminated eighteen ISIS people. You know what I mean? It's like they're heroes. It's fun talking to these guys. Yeah, and then um let's see who else. So then Uh, our buddy Ramon is there. Ramone's there with his son and and uh Ramon's telling us amazing stories. Has he ever told you the uh Contractor story. The best thing I've ever heard. Yeah. You want to retell it? Yeah. Can I retell it here? I don't know when the next time he's going to be on, but he's like, um

And he's officially he's an American now. Ramon's an American now, by the way. So that was the big thing. He's a he's officially uh an American. We go out to but before he arrives, we go out, we get him a cake from uh like the Safeway there or whatever. And we're like, um hey Can you uh write a message on here like now it's closed for the day. I was like Bro, you gotta write a message. And you know, convince the guy, he writes a message.

Uh welcome to America. Uh misspelled welcome, so it just says well to America. Like sounds like the most non American ever. He and I was like, you know, so you got your citizenship. That's amazing. What happened afterwards? And then his son Victor was like Oh man, in the car afterwards? Everybody who was calling, he would just answer. Hello, fellow Americans.

So that was amazing. So he's uh at at the dinner party we're like, you know Tell us a story. Uh no, we were like um What's an icebreaker for a group like this? It's like what's the f uh what's the Um

Weirdest way you tried to make a buck. Like what's the weirdest way you try to make money? Because otherwise in this type of scenario, if you kinda say, Oh, so what do you do? People just go into their script. Yeah, yeah. The whole thing just kinda pretentious because there it's a room full of successful people and everybody starts kinda one upping each other in this weird way. So instead you want to like neg the whole group.

So this is the neg the whole group question. What's the weirdest way you tried to make a buck? Um And Ramon's like Uh you know, he's got like ten of these and we're like, dude, uh this is the thing about Ramon, he's very quiet, but when you start getting him to tell a story, it's like a vending machine like a endless vending machine of of Stories you've never heard of, even though you know the guy for ten years.

So He's like, Yeah, uh back in the day, I was like, Okay, I want to start a construction uh What is it? He's like I'm gonna start a painting business. He's like I uh I need money I'm eighteen years old. I'll uh paint walls. And so he puts up a thing that's like I'll paint walls.

But you know, being the hustler that he is, he's like I'll You know what, uh how can I widen the top of this funnel? Let me just say painting, handyman, I'll fix anything, whatever you got. I'm in general I'm a general contractor. I'll do generally anything. And uh he puts up his listing on the like the Dutch Craigslist like that. And um

He gets an inquiry the next day that says, Hey, um, I need a electrician for some electrical work. He's like Great, be there tomorrow morning. And he's like, um he's like, I go to the store at like home depot type store and I'm looking at like these vests. I'm like, which one looks more like an electrician? Like basically he's like Halloween. He's like trying to find a costume. And he's like, I go there the next day and the guy's like um Cool, yeah, so we need like, you know, uh forty amps here and we're gonna do you know, we're gonna run a line under the circuit uh over here.

He's like, dude, he's saying words like forget about knowing how to do it. I don't even understand the words he's saying. And he has a clipboard though, but he's and he's like, he's wearing the vest and uh uh uh okay, tell me more. And he's like just The guy just keeps going. It's like a very complicated job. He's like I hoped it was I was like, dude, what'd you think was gonna happen? He's like I hoped it was like light bulbs like he's like Electrical, electricity, yeah, I don't know, light bulbs. And he's like, Once I got there, I was like, Oh shit. Um, but I'm writing I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do, so I'm like, Okay, maybe I could figure it out.

You know, open up the circ the the open up the the thing that's just a thousand wires. I'm like, Okay, there's no way I know what to do here And so he's like, um Yeah, listen, man. Uh I think he tells him this the next day or something. He goes home. Yeah, he goes home and he thinks about it and he reflects and he's like, I gotta come clean to this guy. Like I don't know how to do it. I don't know anything. I don't I don't know what to do. And he's like reviewing his notes. He's like I don't know what any of this means.

I gotta tell you, man, um I've never done electrical He's like, I Just needed money. I thought I could figure it out and um Slept on it. Turns out I can't have no idea how to do this.

And the guy was like What the fuck? You know what, kid, like he's like I'm an entrepreneur. He's like, um I respect the hustle. I expect that you were honest. And he's like everyone was like, You know, when you're honest And you're young.

Um, like good things happening. The guy he's like gave me a great lesson, he's like You know what? Like instead of telling me like Actually, uh, you know, what you should do is you you don't need to know how to do electrical work. You got the job. Now you need to find somebody who does know electrical work and subcontract it out and keep a margin. And so you shouldn't be here anyways. He should be doing that. And he's like

Oh, and he started an actual like general contracting business doing that from there. And the guy like helped him out, um, basically gave him a job and and helped him out. And that eventually he did that for a couple of years and he actually made Maybe uh for sure, hundreds of thousands. I think he made close to a million dollars. I think his first million was running that business and then he immigrated to America.

Any Created a uh Brazilian music festival, I have no idea why. And he lost all of it. And then he created more internet business and made it all again. And then lost it all again. And then made it all again. And so he's done that a bunch of times. Very fascinating guy. Yeah, even his current business, if he has this business called Alpha Paw. And he sells like dog great dog products at dog ramps, things like that.

And uh Even that like whip up up up up. And then hit some like you know, when COVID happen. Shipping costs went through the roof. So like a container for shipping used to cost three thousand dollars. Now then it started costing twenty thousand dollars. So like a six extra increase.

And when you have a huge product, you need a lot it takes up a lot of space. So you need a lot of containers. So his his unit cost blew up. That was really tough. And but he's so resilient. So like he he's like all right, what's the pivot? And he pivoted to He's like Dogs having trouble?

Cats. And so he's like, all right. And he made this kitty litter product called Genius Litter. And now he just got a deal where he's now in Pet Smart nationwide, which is amazing. And now he's like Back back, you know, in the g and now it's like Dude, I need so if you're listening to this You know the gentleman's agreement to go smash subscribe. But also

If you have a cat. Or you don't have a cat. You got a dog, doesn't matter what you got. Go to Petsmart, buy this guy's genius letter so his business uh, you know, thrives'cause this guy deserves the best guy I know. So um you know so just amazing stories one after another of each person about like bouncing back. So there was A bunch of like, I don't know, takeaways I had from this. Number one.

Storytelling wins. There was a bunch of people at this event. That were all equally impressive. But it was the ones who understood how to tell a story.

That stood out and that Everybody loved, made a bunch of connections, people Started helping them out. They're like, Oh, you should try XYZ. Oh, you got to meet Blah blah blah. And it was the people that didn't understand how to tell their story. They only told facts.

And it was just sort of I I'm you know, whatever. I'm Steve, this is what I do, blah, blah, blah, everything's been great. All right. Thanks, Steve. See ya, you know, like you know. Yeah, you need some of that sizzle. Yeah, you d they didn't have that sizzle. And so the sizzle, the story tell telling sizzle

was so important and so obvious. And then there's nuances like There were some people that were storytellers that every story was how awesome they were. And it you could just see it was like just repelling people. Like the here's how awesome I am. And then slowly but surely Okay, great, got one of those stories. I'm gonna go get a drink now. See ya. And it was the person who could tell a story that was like slightly

Making fun of themselves. Even the CIA guy he goes, Oh, I have a rule. I only tell CIA stories where I look like an idiot. Um, I never tell CIA stories where uh you know, I beat the bad guys, I fought five guys, and then everybody clapped. He's like, I'll never tell a story like that. And so I was like, that's a great rule in general for people. So that I th I think that was like one big takeaway. Second takeaway is

I should probably leave the house a little more often. This was dope. And um I used to do this all the time and then I kinda got a little cocky and was just sort of like, Yeah, you got a great network. You know, I don't really need to like put in like this, but when I was in my twenties, I used to do this all the time and this was just a reminder of how much value you can get by talking to other people in the game. Or like

Yeah, I I think this podcast serves as that for people too, where you hear these stories, you get inspired, you get ideas. Growth tax. And um and it's surprising how helpful people are. So you know what I describe that as you when you're around certain people, you realize that the world is malleable. And you see all types of people who are bending the world to the reality that they want. And then you feel like oh

Yeah, that's cool. I could do that too. So it doesn't matter you're like I don't care if you're selling If you're if you're in the CIA, if you're selling genius litter. It doesn't matter. It's just cool to see people who are kicking their dent into the universe. Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And um

Second thing I would say is there was a huge difference in life Phase attitude. All right, what does that mean? So we at this event. So we had R Ramon's son and his friend uh Shout out to Jude, he came so he's a fun kid too.

Super fun kid. Super chatty. Chatty Kathy. And uh but by the way, the next day he was like He's holding up the gel blaster gun thing. He's like, So they said they make this for whatever, m make up numbers. They make this for three dollars and they sell it for nine. I was like, dude, he's already picking it up. This guy's like ten or eleven. He's like, That's a really big like you know, margin. And uh I was like, Wow, you know margin? That's that's really impressive. Um So So anyways.

We had people that were Ten or eleven. We had the guys who were kind of like twenty to twenty five, the the NFT boys and then and D to C some of the D D C guys. We had guys like us who were in our thirties and we were like all right, yeah, we're and I'll tell you the differences and w and how each one was approaching it in a second.

We had guys in their forties, so that's like, you know, silly that sort thing. Um and then we had Well then I went and met up with a guy in his seventies. And a husband and wife in their seventies. So I saw all those life phases. I want you to guess, what do you think was the like Notable like

differences in those ages in terms of like what they cared about, what they thought about, what were the differences. Have you ever heard the story of like there's like an old bull and a young bull? And they see a bunch of cows and the young bull goes Let's hurry up and get down there and have sex with all them cows and the old bowl's like woa woa woa. We can block. We could we could walk down there and we could take our time.

And that's kinda the difference, I imagine. The twenty two year olds are like, Let's do everything The thirty year olds were a little bit wiser. The forty year olds were like Hey, let's just pick and choose our battles a little bit more wisely and like let's enjoy the process. The seven year olds were more so like Uh none of it matters. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. So the the the teen the teens or preteens, they were basically just like you wanna play?

What's what are we gonna play? You guys wanna play this while we play this? It's like we were on the pickleball court And then in between points, they're running and kicking the soccer ball. And then right afterwards, like, You wanna play Monopoly? You wanna do this? And like till the last minute of the last second of the day was like You wanna play? Yeah, and I thought that was like, you know, just an awesome energy to be around.

The other part of it was like, um They Also, we're doing con academy a bunch, and I was like, wow. They really like want to learn this stuff. Um

Yeah, that's a that's kinda amazing. So They were all about play. Then you had your guys in your twenties that were the I got it all figured out, guys. And I remember being that guy and it's like

They actually do have a lot of life. figured out they're way ahead of the curve. But the problem is they think they're at the end of the curve. They think they got it all figured out. And so you listen to the stories and they're saying things and you're like You know what? Four out of the ten things you just said were totally wrong.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. If the fact that you believe all ten is gonna work. And um And I just love that you think all ten are right. I love the odds all ten area. Um but they were they were a lot of fun. And their thing was just sort of like We're going huge. Like the of course this is gonna work. Uh, this is gonna be massive.

We got it figured out. And um not in a cocky way, just like They had only known. And uh I thought that was awesome. Because

As you get older you start to take L's. You take health L's. You take f you see friends take L's. You make big mist expensive mistakes, you take those L's. And that sort of humbles you a little bit. And so this was pre-humbling and I loved it. I loved that energy. Um'cause you know, even at first I was like

Man, these guys are delusional. And then I was like, How do I pass the delusion, please? I'd like to sip on some of that. Uh, that's a lot of fun, actually. I forgot how useful that can be. Um guys in their thirties like us. Weird middle state. It's like I have a lot of self belief.

But I now know how expensive it is to go down the wrong path. Whereas the guys in their twenties don't know how expensive it is to go down the wrong path. They don't even know they don't even think about the path. They're like, I'm just pathing. I'm just pathing, bro. I'm just on the path. I don't even think about the fact that I could be doing five other things. I'm doing this and it's this makes completely complete sense to me. Whereas the thirties were like Could do this or could do that. And they're almost paralysis by analysis. Yeah. Um

They've accomplished too much too much to just do something stupid. Like the guys in their twenties who created this NFT project. They were able to just do something stupid and it paid off. They created this Uh you know, a gel blaster nerf gun because it just was stupid and they thought it was cool. And like that was enough justification to do it.

Oh, that looks fun. Do it. Where's the guys in thirties like? That looks fun, but uh Let's let's spreadsheet this out real quick and just see. Well, you know, it's back of the envelope. Yeah, like um

When when you have something to lose, it changes a little bit. Right. And so they back of the envelope themselves to death, but you know, they're still At least they're still thinking of the the the difference was When you compare it to the forties, the forties were like We know what we're doing.

Um, when I hear about what all these other guys are doing, I'm half amused and half of it exhausts me and I want to go take a nap. Like you're just confusing me with all these things that Honestly, like I don't feel like I need to know any of this stuff. Uh I I I'm Perfectly happy not. being in NFTs and not knowing how to do TikTok videos to sell mini swords. Like

That's cool. But Man, I just wanna go relax right now. And the the second thing was they were like Like one of'em he just like found out he has high blood pressure. So you had a blood pressure monitor with them?

And he was like, um just took his blood pressure and I we were like I was like, dude, I never take my blood pressure, put me in. And so we took our blood pressure like four times a day just for fun. But I was like You know, they were like Like you said, they wanted to enjoy the journey. So they were like Yeah, yeah, we can talk business, but like

Let's go play some pickleball. That'd be fine. Yeah, and I think um I as you get older you you you respect all the different ways that you can get there, but you know your lane. And I know my lane and I know if I just do this All the time for an i f I know what compounding looks like. And everybody else looks very scatterbrained.

In comparison. Uh, but the know their laners and I I don't mean that in a discouraging way, like they were they were definitely learning and and they've they've made adjustments, but they weren't Seeking the next hit. They they were just like, I found a hit. And I enjoy this hit and I wanna also think about life and marriage and kids and health. And that was a way bigger part of their their life. Like their more their own mortality was more on their mind.

than proving themselves like the twenties and thirties. And the older I get and the more experienced I get. I understand compounding better. I it that was that that was a really hard thing for me to understand in my early twenties and late twenties. And then once I like start seeing it work a little bit. you start understanding it and you go, Oh wow, so if I just do this all the time for ten years, like look at the uh I'll I'll be in a better place than I will be if I start a bunch of different things and Uh so you understand compounding a little bit better. So you know, well, if I just stay in my lane, I can respect everyone else's what they're doing. That's neat and I and I think that's cool and I can learn.

But if I just do this mostly the same, I'm gonna I'm gonna get to where I wanna go. Yeah, so so that was the forties and then the seventies were basically like Some contra some combination of I wanna contribute. So they were like pitching me a project that was like a philanthropic thing and I was like Philanthropy. Oh, okay. That's what the this is a different conversation than everybody else's all the other conversations I've been having all weekend.

And the second thing was They were just happy we came over to their house. It's like when we were leaving, I was like It's gonna be really quiet once we leave here. Like, is this uh Oh, that's kind of

Uh huh Who was the person? Can you say? Um I don't wanna say their name just because I'm gonna like, you know, tell uh maybe I don't know what I'm gonna say about them, so I don't wanna say their name, but like kind of like a successful entrepreneurial couple. In San Diego. Um And so I was like, you know, I went to their house and I was like they they were really nice, really cool, hosting us.

What's that? Fat house. Uh semi fat house, yeah. N like nice um Yeah, nice house. But also you when you see a house at night, by the way, it's like uh you don't actually see the house. Because you can't see anything around it and you can't see like

You know, you only see like a part of it. It's just very different when you see a house at night or during the day. Um But I just felt like The things that matter to them were their grandkids, their kids marrying the right person. figuring out how to like contribute and also just like

their house not being so quiet. There's like any liveliness in the house. Uh it was like a win. It didn't even really matter what we talked about or what came out of it, like I I feel like us being there was a cool Fun change of pace. And I was like Yeah, I guess when I'm in my seventies, I'm also gonna w want that a lot because I'll probably be

Kind of like At home kind of bored a a bunch, you know, and so that was like also kind of a wake up call for me. It was like Oh wow, yeah, yeah, this life thing does go pretty fast here. Dude, so it sounds like a sick weekend. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

That's badass. Yeah. I I have to talk to Ramon and I gotta I wanna learn all about it, um or from his perspective. But it sounds like a sick weekend. Yeah, w that should happen every six months. Yeah, I think yeah, I think we should do that. Uh Again, and also the um It was cool that um

Like even the house we were in was kind of like a business. It was like this airb this luxury Airbnb itself is a business. And uh And it just kinda breaks your frame a little bit. Like I think that's a pretty important thing, like How how often can you break your frame? Um and

experience like this, twice a year, I think twice a year you'll you'll end up breaking your frame because you'll just meet a bunch of other people that Do life and think about life in a different way than you. I actually want to ask you about uh like a frame breaking experience. Um, before I get into that, I have to remind people That They owe us

They're in debt. To us. If you just heard Sean's story. He just went and spent the weekend creating these things to tell you about and then he like Did all this work to do it and We do that every week, three two times a week, two to three times a week. You're in debt to us.

So you owe us this is the gentleman's agreement part where you have to go to YouTube, even if you're on iTunes or you're on podcasts, or on Spotify, you go to iTunes right now, my first million, click subscribe. And that's our gentleman's agreement. And we'll be even and we'll be actually more than even'cause we're gonna keep doing this and we're working for you once you subscribe. That's all it's like a f it's the most fair trade because once you subscribe, we get in the algorithm, yada yada, yada. But This is the gentleman's agreement part. We can't check that you're doing this. That's why it's called the Gentleman's Agreement, is we just hope that you are.

So please do that. Um Can't argue with that. You can't argue with that. That's the they spend literally one second to click subscribe and we spend Thirty hours a week.

I can find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, Grow Better. I wanna ask you uh about a a frame breaking thing. Now that you're how long has it been since the Milk Road acquisition? Um

Two months, maybe a month and a half, something like that. So you're still early into it. Um this February first. is technically my last day at House P that's two years. So um And so now I'm two years into it. And I wanted to ask you and I have a list here, but I wanted to ask you

Uh, because uh I know that the guys running the Milk Road now or the owners are like recruiting interesting people'cause I like people like message me, they go, Hey, this person's recruiting me. Should I join Milk Road? So like I'm getting all these like a ass uh like to as your reference check. Um, what have you learned so far about what it's like to be the Founder of a company that's now owned by someone else. Is there anything interesting that you've learned? I have a a a list of a few things that are interesting to me, but is there anything you've learned? Uh, I feel like you got a more interesting answer than me, so you go. Well

Uh I'll I'll I'll say a few things. And these are a bit Frame breaking. Um And so the reason I'm bringing this up is because I think someone once said like Or at least this attitude exists a lot in Silicon Valley where they're like, What's your exit plan? And then's like, Fuck exit plan, don't have an exit plan.

Uh you're not building things to sell. Great things get bought. They don't get sold or something like that. And I actually think that's nonsense. I actually think if you want, you can build a company where you're like, I'm gonna exit in like four or six years or two years and I'm gonna make like tens of millions or hundreds of millions, whatever. Like you can build a company like that and I think it could be really successful. Um and so one of a a couple of frame breaking things that I had the first one Building something from scratch.

is a very, very rare skill. And one or two focused entrepreneurs with close to no money can probably do more in six months than a fifty Person team with millions of dollars in 12 months inside of a large organization. And that was actually really challenging to me. I remember HubSpot said they wanted to buy us, and I'm like, Doc, just launch your own thing. Like I don't why would you do you know what I mean? And

Being in at HubSpot now for two years, I see it's really hard. The reason it's really hard is the creative types who are who are bold enough to go and build something, they either aren't working at that company because they're out doing their own thing. Yeah. They're just stuck in this political game where they want to impress their boss. And it's not because a company's bad. It's just this is the natural thing. They don't want to embarrass themselves. They don't have a significant amount of upside to see the win. They don't get the dopamine rush of the sale coming into Shopify. And it's actually really, really, really hard. to build something from scratch and so it's worth it to them just to buy something that's already working. Do you agree with that?

Hundred percent. Um and you could see it when an acquisition happens. The velocity. Of progress. slows down like molasses. It is uh

It's it's like kinda remarkable. Now that doesn't mean it fails. But the velocity definitely slows down. Other things go better. What? The velocity and the pace and the sort of like

Um Yeah, the aggression and productivity I think go down. And that's what I describe as anxiety. goes way down. As an entrepreneur, your anxiety goes way down. Your frustration Way up.

That's the trade off that you're gonna make. However This is another thing. Where I made this mistake where I would dismiss big companies and I would call them idiots. That's actually in my experience not true and talking to a lot of people, sometimes it's it's false. They are idiots, but sometimes Um

Operating Like if you're around good operators, just like a good employee at a big company. They can be significantly better operators, and a lot of the things that we make fun of, bureaucracy. Meetings. Things like that.

That creates redundancy. And if you do it correct, redundancy creates um Predictability and predictability creates value. And that's why your anxiety goes down. And so a lot of that big company stuff. A lot of it's bullshit.

A lot of it's really necessary and the people inside those companies can actually operate things really, really well. Do you agree with that? Um I agree that that's true. I wouldn't say that that's the main value. The main value that I saw inside of a big company was that when you're big

Um You have usually two things. One is distribution. So you could take something that doesn't have a lot of distribution and give it more distribution or You could simply say I don't really need to innovate. Let all these other people innovate.

And I'll just follow. Because I have size. And so when I have size, I don't need speed. Right. Um, and so it's like a sumo wrestler versus uh, you know, a s a sprinter or like a uh you know a a a lightweight, you know, a lightweight wrestler or something like that.

And so you basically trade that distribution and size for for speed. I think that's the the first thing. And um very hard to have both. Um And you know the the

When you're at a startup the expen uh the mistakes are very expensive. But when you're at a uh sorry, when you're at a startup, the mistakes are not expensive. Like I don't know how many things you do to the hustle that were Like dumb or stupid or whatever and just like Roll it back. Um

Yeah, at the beginning especially, you know Whatever. I don't have any customers anyways. I don't have much revenue to lose anyways. I don't have a reputation to be burned. The press is not watching me. Uh Twitter doesn't care what I do. Whereas when you're big, then your every move. Matters and every mistake is quite expensive.

Um and so you have to be a little more careful. And so careful is not a bug, it's a feature. when it's a big company. And so I I started to appreciate that. They're not slow because they're stupid. They're slow actually because they're smart because They don't need to go fast because they got size.

And explic uh mistakes are expensive, so they don't take they don't try to make too many mistakes and Um You know, by going too fast. And that brings me to my second to last point, which is a lot of Cool shit that you and I like to make. You you and I are zero to one people, like uh by definition, we're not the best at one to whatever.

But a lot of the cool shit is completely illogical or really stupid. And A lot of the best stuff starts that way. This podcast, you called it my first million, pretty horrible name. Um my thing was call the hustle. Pretty bad name and it was just a newsletter.

That's kind of like not like when I pitch it to bigger companies, they go, This is stupid, this will never be big. And the reason why it existed anyway was because I was beholden to no one. We just said, whatever, screw it. We're just gonna do it. When you're launching something within a big company, you have to have logic. You have to have reasoning. You have to like make a point because you have to justify it for someone to fund it. Uh whereas When you're a nobody, just two guys, you say Now screw it. We're just gonna do this. We're gonna have an anti Black Friday sale where we charge more this Friday as opposed to less and it just'cause. Just'cause we want to,'cause this is funny. It's completely illogical and illogical stuff works.

No all the time sometimes. When I was hanging out with the the seventy year old I was explaining, I said, Yeah, I'm thinking about what I want to do next and you know I really want to pick a good project and I wanna pick a right the right way to spend my time. Um

And he goes, uh Picking is hard. And he goes. And the hard thing about picking is that Today

She might look like a Pimply, chubby But twelve months from now, as you s take that idea, you start dating it, and then you kind of Pivot over here, you change one thing, get a new wardrobe.

All of a sudden she's a hundred twenty pounds. She's you know, she's uh got her PhD and She just got word in the mail she's inheriting seventy two million dollars. And he's like he gave me this analogy and he goes That's the problem with picking is that the best things don't always look like the best things up front. This goes back to a Peter Thiel saying, which is The best ideas are Things that sound like bad ideas but are actually good ideas.

And um why? Because those things have the least competition, those things are the least done, those things have the highest upside because they're the most green field. Uh things that are obviously good ideas. Are super competitive. Things that are actually bad ideas, doesn't matter how hard you work, they're bad ideas.

So the sweet spot is something that sounds like a bad idea, but is actually a good idea. And that's you know, this guy put it in a uh, you know You know, a a different kind of analogy that I I appreciated. And uh I guess I'm glad I didn't, you know Say who'cause You know, people will get mad about that analogy, but I thought it was hilarious. And I understood what he meant, which is

You know, when you started tell when you started the hustle You were like, Oh, great, it's this conference. And I was like, you know. Conference. Okay. Immediately like A lot of work.

You know, seasonal Doesn't get that big. Who cares? If your product gets rained out, it's kinda not good. Yeah, yeah. You have two hundred dollar tickets to your conference, like all right, Sam. Good luck, you know. And then you kinda fumbled and then you were like, Oh, okay. Conferences working, but you know, conference ain't where it's at.

But I've been using content to drive ticket sales. Maybe I should just do this content thing through a newsletter. And even that was still Sort of pimpley and didn't really s newsletter. I mean Uh dude, people over here making flying cars and Uber and uh you're doing a newsletter? Like Get some ambition, bro. Like, you know, that that can't be big, possibly, right? Like aren't newsletters just like a personal thing people send out to their fifty friends.

And you kinda figured it out as you go. And then now people are like Yeah, how many freaking I wanna build the next hustle, you know, hustle for X, you know. How many people pitch you that, myself included, Milk Road was a hustle copy at after I made fun of you for the for doing a newsletter back in the day, I was like, you know. I didn't invest in your thing'cause I was like, I don't think that's gonna get huge.

Right. And I was like But you knew something you figured something out along the way that was not obvious up front. And by the way, the hustle is very close to crossing three million subscribers. And that brings me to my last point, which is Planning.

Is something. That I had never done. Like When people were talking about OKRs, which is like a framework for running your company, they would put it on a quarterly scale. And I'm like, Yeah, how about a weekly? How about a weekly one?

So we can like every single day we're gonna create something new. And that's really important. for starting out. And I don't think you should plan too much. Right. Worry about A B Z Uh which is I I I actually came ac we we both uh separately had like the same thing where I'm like I care about steps one and steps two, and then like I'll worry about step I think about step ten as inspiration, but I don't worry about three, four, and five. Um

And so that's important when starting stuff. But one I don't know when that point is. Maybe Ten million, a hundred million in revenue. I don't know what it is. But Planning is needed, it's necessary, and it's incredibly important.

And that's what big companies do really well, or they try to do it well. And as I'm growing my new thing, I'm trying to like bake this in of like planning and not worrying about like Uh looking like Like, you know, I could have like a quarterly plan. It's okay. I could I could even have like a six month plan. I remember when we were selling the hustle, we sold when we were around four years old. And they wanted like a five year projection. And I'm like What?

Like uh that that's that that's not even like I I can't even comprehend five years. I don't even know if I'm gonna be interested in this. Yeah. You want me to write down a lie? Yeah. My lies are verbal. There's no paper trail. Dude, it was ridiculous. And now I understand like it's actually okay to like kinda have some of these plans. So anyway, that's my list. of things that I've learned like being like l seeing the buyers Um perspective just a little bit. And I was just curious if you had uh any insights. It might be too early yet. Well let me tell you the th different things that they've done. So first they hired a bunch of people. We were running the thing with

Basically. three or four people and then one one freelancer, right? Like It was very, very lean. They you know. Basically one dude wrote the email every day and then me or Ban edited it.

And that was like that's how the the The whole product the whole product was basically created by that. Now there's like A second writer, there's an editor, there's a head of content. It's like who are all these people and what are they doing? Uh is the is the content getting better? I'm not sure, right? Like But it they've hired up people, which like you said.

Builds redundancy. 'Cause if the main guy got sick, which happened a couple times, it was like R you know, red alert. Yeah. Um You know, if we got a fact wrong, it's like oh I I didn't have time to check it, you know, like you know, we didn't we didn't have those things in place. And so, you know, I think they've they've basically taken

I would just say in general, they took a longer term view. They were like, Okay, we're gonna be doing this for a number of years. So what do we need to get to this point two years from now? And let's start taking those steps today. Where I was like All right, next month, what would be sweet?

Yeah, you're like I'm just like surround planning exercise. You're in survival mode. I had a even if it was wasn't survival mode,'cause it was like okay, w we got the business working would be like I just want it every day to be a new adventure. And like that's not how these people think when they are like long term oriented. They want each day to not be an adventure. They want each day to be like, you know, it's the difference between, you know, um

You know, people who go for these like long hikes And uh, you know, a sprinter. And like, you know, I was just more of a sprinter. And so Literally our goal planning, we would say like what's the minimum thing that would feel like a win. We call it a good win. Oh, that was good. And then what's the F yeah win? Where we would be like, F yeah, dude, we did

A B C, right? That happened. And that's And we would that would create our goal and then we would shoot for the F and we'd make sure we don't miss the good. Um and like That's what we did every single month. And it was a little bit more

Um And if we didn't hit it, it was a problem. Like I immediately was like Soul searching, like everybody stop. And let's figure out where we've gone wrong. I'm ready to change ever anything and everything, which is not always the right approach.

Sometimes it is. Right, like these things serve you and then sometimes they hurt you. And so I would say these guys They put more money into growth. They hired more people.

And they don't panic. There's the three differences between us. Uh, and I think their approach has some bad things and I think it has some great things. And we'll see, you know, how it all plays out now. I think I read somewhere where someone was like I was reading some like thing about masculinity and like the difference between a man and a boy and like a dr a real man Doesn't let like lots of different Uh or does it let like shallow input change his emotions and change his plans. And I remember when I was running my company, I would always get emotional. I'm like, no man, if I gotta be a man, I gotta like be calm and I can't panic.

And I used to think like, Oh no, it was cool to be like Mark Zuckerberg and see in go go in and see, Oh, this isn't right, you're fucking fired. It's like no, real men don't do that. You know, they could like they don't panic and they don't freak out. And that kind of changed my perspective on that a little bit. Yeah, my trainer, he's been teaching me this. He's like, Okay, so Like you know what you're doing a set. So you're you're bench your bench pressing or whatever. And let's say you picked a way that

The first You know, three reps, four reps are easy. The next four reps are getting harder. And then the last Three, four reps, let's say you're going to twelve.

Uh the last four reps you're like Sh you know, it's kinda shaky and you want a spot. But more than anything I don't know for you, but for me it was always like Get to the end. It's like I wanna I'm I don't wanna quit. I don't wanna quit. I wanna get there, but like

I would start rushing. And when you rush your form changes. And when you rush you don't actually have that time under tension. That actually puts it too. Wow.

Time under tension. Yeah. Classic, classic muscle building words. I like it. Don't make me say glycogen. So he's like, um he's like, those last four reps, you're trying to get them done. But that's where all the all the games are in that That last bit.

And that's where I want you to show poise, slow and actually slow it down. Like don't just like Do normal speed. Go even slower than your your normal pace was. To maximize what you get out of it.

And so then that became there's like okay, when you feel that sizzle, when you feel that burn That's the reaction is not panic and rush. It's poise. So Th I took that, I was like, Okay, that's the lesson in the gym.

But the gym is just a metaphor for life. So now I'm doing that same thing everywhere. As soon as I feel that sizzle. And that burn and I just wanna Get out of there. I wanna get done with it. I'm like, No, no, no.

Now's the time to be poised and slow it down. And so that's been working wonders in the business world because it's like Just when everybody thinks Shit's hitting the fan. I'm like all right, this is the time where we

Where we where we Go poised, we lock in and we calmly. Address the situation versus trying to react overreact and react to a to a a stimulus. This, my friend, is called growth.

Sean, you are experiencing growth. Congratulations. You're doing it right in front of all of our eyes and in our ears. You are showing growth. What topic do you want to do next? We're in a weird middle. Yeah. Let's do um Do you have anything little? Let me see if I got something little.

By the way, while you're looking, you have to tell me what to do for my researcher. Now I have four hundred applicants. I've narrowed it down to two hundred. And I'm like, I don't know what to do with these people. You have to tell me how to like You should just tell them to do basically just give them the assignment, which is uh I'll I'll tell you what to do. Okay, I'll I'll tell you how to do this. Okay, so the What I would do is

The best way to work together the best way to know if you want to work with them is to just four hundred or even twenty people, that would just take up way too much time. So you give them all the assignment. The assignment is hey, every week Um

Here's the things that we do. Uh, I want you to surface interesting nuggets that I might find interesting and one of that. All four hundred people did that, dude. Okay. So who are the best 25 from that. And did you do it for like two or three like have them do it.

for like two weeks. Be like uh you know, hey, do this with Two weeks. If you do it. I'm gonna pay you, you know, I'll pay you two hundred fifty bucks if you get through all the all the things. I that might be a lot of money, I don't know, do the math. But like Do something so they're not working totally for free.

Um or cut the bottom like Two hundred people right away. And then just be like, Hey, do this'cause'cause I think it's easy to do once. And it's really hard to do for three weeks straight. A lot of people could do a great M FM podcast once.

I don't know how many of them could do this podcast a hundred times in a a hundred episodes a year. And that's what we do. And so you kinda need a researcher who's able to c who has some Inflow of information. Thank you.

that they can steadily be curating good stuff. And then the second thing is Give them a couple of r uh research topics. So it would be like Uh the way I do it is sometimes I give them an assignment to bring me interesting nuggets, but then I bring nuggets and I say Hey, take this story. And uh I want you to research. Here's what I want.

And I basically gave them a format. So my format for them is You want I want you to come up with The frame? So the frame is the the framing of the topic. How will I just bring this up out of the blue on M Fm? Right. So

Let's say there's some interesting growth hack. Uh the frame might be You know, here's three of my favorite growth acts that I've seen in the past year. Right, because just talking about this one randomly doesn't work. Or let's say it's a growth hack, but actually Um let me give the example. The nugget was

Um, I bought a car from an anonymous account on Twitter. So that's a cool frame. That's like a hook for a good story. But we changed it to the guy mafia. So I bought it from car dealership guy. But you know what? There are all these guys. And actually maybe there's a bigger topic here that's called the Guy Mafia. And people like that that frame, right? So it's I I teach them. I'm like You gotta hit me with a possible frame.

Then you gotta have the supporting like evidence. Like what are the four or five interesting bullet points, talking points that I could say about this thing that would minute make you Say, Oh, that's cool, that's interesting. And then what's the take? With a takeaway.

And the take or the takeaway, and let's say for the guy Mafia was Well it was first it was here's why this works. But then I was like, no, no, a better take would be Here's what I think people should be doing. You should be doing this with a girl Anonymous account'cause I think it'll get more followers.

You should be doing it in All these other categories and then don't monetize with A pay a newsletter or a paid c paid community monetized by selling the actual thing, like selling me the car. And so that was the take. And so I t I tease some like here's a little Excel table.

And for every story, you gotta fill out the frame. The talking points and the take. And um I see if you're getting good at that. I need to Most people, by the way, are very bad at that. That's okay. I'm like Our skill is we need to be able to do that.

But them doing it poorly is still super helpful because you're like, no, no, that's a shitty frame. The frame's got to be this, and that's still better than a blank page. I need you to send me all this. Yeah, I will. Yeah, I need I need help on this. It's been very challenging. Yeah, these are the these are the tricks of the trade that other people are we're giving these out for free now. I remember once remember the the T V show um

The P Diddy one where he's trying to find a rapper. Yeah, and he's like, I need you to go to Brooklyn and get me some milk. Like make them walk across the bridge, you know I'm talking about? Like make them walk across to get them like a cupcake, like five miles. Yeah record label. And you had to go get shit.

Um, but he had this thing where he was in the studio and he's like He's like, uh sing it and then they they sang it. He's like Uh sing it again. They're like, Wow, wasn't that good? He goes, No, we need to make a double. They're like, What's a double? He's like A double is you say the same exact thing.

And we layer the two audio tracks, it makes your voice sound more full and powerful. And it just sounds better. And he turned to the camera, he's like, I shouldn't be saying all this shit on camera. And uh, and I remember literally like I was in seventh grade when that show came out, and I was like, I just heard a trick of the train. And I've never forgot that, even though I'm not a rapper. I never used it. But literally I was like make space in the brain.

He just kind of made it sound like he just gave me an insider tactic. And I literally like still remember this now. I'm thirty four years old and I still remember this. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. I just heard it That's good. Um all right, let's get out of here.

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