Selling Deodorant for $100M and How to Find Your Best Competitive Advantage with Moiz Ali

Alright, so Moise is here. And so I guess if people don't know, so you started um They should start a couple business. People mostly know you from native, so you created Native which has the popular deodorant brand. You sold it to Procter and Gamble. For reported hundred million dollars.

Which I think is uh one of the better DC exits'cause you only raised like four million dollars, I wanna say? Less than that even? We raised five hundred thousand dollars, actually. Oh my God. Okay. So you raised five hundred thousand dollars. And I by the way, I don't know if you know this. I remember I was in a a mastermind group with your brother. And I was like and he was like in between he had d he already sold his company, so he's kind of a floating in between things. It's like

Why do you show show up to the mastermind if you don't really have a business that you're working on? So I think he was kind of like fishing and he was like, you know My brother's got this interesting business and I was like I was like oh I didn't You know, I didn't even know he I didn't know him very well at the time. I was like, Didn't even know you had a brother He's like and I was ready for this like big Tech idea. And he's like yeah, he's like selling like this uh natural deodorant.

Like and he made it sound like you're like sitting at home packing the deodorant like Containers by hand. He kind of was underplaying it. He's like, It's really cool, you know that's paraben free. I didn't know what a paraben was, and he's like, It's aluminum free or whatever. And he's like, Yeah, it's doing pretty well. And then he started to say the numbers and I was like, Whoa Um

That's actually like really good. And I was like, So how much has he raised? He's like, I don't know if he's he's like he's raised like nothing. And so that's when you got on my radar the and you've I feel like you operated very quietly. You're kinda like me where When you're doing something that's working. You shut the hell up. And when you're not when you're just thinking about ideas, you're like super loud to bounce them around off people. Is that your strategy? That's exactly right. In fact, uh we've done no PR for native.

Until uh after we sold the business. I remember we had all these news publications reaching out to us. And I took one interview with I think it was like retail dive or somebody And they were like, We want to talk about this deodorant company'cause we haven't heard of that. And yeah, they're like, Who are you guys? What are you doing?

Um, and we sort of uh talked about the business and they wrote an article and after that I was like I'm never talking about the business again. Uh when we went to go fundraise like we talked to a few people, we talked to Um Simon Equity Partners, which is basically uh the family office of like, you know, the Simon Property Group, which owns a bunch of malls across the United States.

And uh we opened up our books to them and were like, Here's our business and they're like Our job is to find businesses like you and you know, you're down the street from us, you're based in San Francisco. Your headquarters is three blocks away from ours. We've never heard of this business. And we should have heard that by now. How come? And we're like, you know, we're not talking about our business. Like no one walked around with native T shirts.

Until after we made an until after we've made an exit. And then I was like okay, now the brand can exist and be we can be loud and public about it. Is that What is that? Is that paranoia? Is it just focus? Is it strategy? What what why why do it that way? Yeah, I think it's two things. Um I think one is uh fear, which is like um fear of embarrassment. Okay, my business failed and I was super public about it, and now it crashed. And everybody's gonna think of me as a failure. So I was like we're not gonna fail publicly. If we fail it'll be really quietly.

Um and then two was like we fail the Indian way. Separately and personal shame. Yeah, that's right. Uh that's right. No one will be able to Google me and be like, Okay, boys Ali is a failure. Um, and then the other one was things were working so well were like okay We don't know how this is working so well or why this is working so well. But we better not go around thumping our chest saying this is working really well. Because one, I believe it'll jinx us and I believe in jinx.

And two, other people just start copying us and doing exactly what we're doing. And like you know, I sold our I sold native in November twenty seventeen. We had a competitor sell their business in December twenty seventeen, a month uh a month after at us. And you know the in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen sixty competitors in the natural deodorant space popped up.

Uh and every brand that didn't have a natural deodorant was like we should create a natural deodorant. Um and then sixty brands were like, Hey, we want to create natural deodorant as our flagship. For zero product. And so by like not thumping our chest and not talking about our business We were able to keep the category a little bit quieter.

Before we came out and said, Hey, this is a massive category and it's really working. Right. And I I I I Appreciate that about you guys. I've actually learned a little bit in that regard in that I don't I don't talk about my e commerce business on here ever Um or I'll reference it, but I'll never say the name or the brand or whatever. Yeah, we were also.

Someone takes a lot of the other. Yeah, I have a business partner and they don't want me to talk about it. So I'm also like okay, cool, yeah, you know, I'll honor that wish. But I I kind of came up with this term because you and your brother are the same and that Normally, you guys are all the info flows one way, and and this podcast is like the rare exception where I get to ask you questions. Normally

I never seen your brother or you in any social setting It's a technique I call oliboarding. And it's like waterboarding. But just with questions where you just dump the someone's head into a vat of your a nonstop flow of questions. And by the end, they're like, Wait, so what's your name and what do you do? And you're like, by then you're like, ha, I have your PL and like I have your whole family's backstory. And it's not like in an evil way, it's like genuine curiosity, I think, is what I've come to see, but it's also very effective.

Um A, is that true? Do you do you believe that? Do you am I characterizing it right? And then B, is that like conscious or un did you ever like Develop that as a skill. Or was that a choice you made or is just Natural.

Yeah, I think um A is it's partially right. It's more true with Solomon with my brother than it is with me. And he does that to me as well, where like I'll tell him about, you know, a meeting I had or a deal that I'm looking at. And you'll be he'll ask me ridiculous questions. He'll be like What uh what did the lunch what did the founder have for lunch on Saturday three months ago? And I'm like, I didn't get into that level of detail. You gotta stop asking those types of questions. Uh but I do think we have genuine curiosity of like what are what's making other businesses work and what isn't.

I remember we went to the Super Bowl um You know, four years ago or something like that in Atlanta. And we were at the Super Bowl party like the night before the game, and there were these two old Daisy uncles. That were there as well. And uh they were there because they had they owned Marriott hotels and Marriott had invited them to the game in like their private suite.

And you know, they're probably in their fifties and we asked them so many questions. I was like You know, how much do you have to pay Marriott? And they also own like Hilton hotels. I was like, How much do you have to pay Hilton per year, Marriott per year? You do you have debt on a building? You do? What's your debt? Like, you know, how often do you have to renovate? How much do those renovations cost? Uh how much like you know what does your average occupancy look like? And the answer to all these questions And they were like didn't seem excited to answer them, but they didn't seem cautious, like they didn't seem like they were hesitant either.

And at the end of all of these questions, where we literally did have their PL You know, we're like, Okay, well you know they didn't ask a single question. They were just like, Okay, well Uh great meeting you guys and we're like all right, I now understand the hotel business from two operators that have eight businesses around the Dallas Fort Worth area. And they didn't want to know anything about us. Like why were we at the Super Bowl party? How did we get here? How did we make our money they didn't ask a single question. So I think there is a genuine cur curiosity that we have.

But sometimes it's lost on other people. Th that's that's exactly how it goes. I've seen it. And then also you had like a brunch uh you I saw you tweet out like oh I've been fighting some D to C friends over like Who else have a brunch of D to C people? And I was like, Oh, what a nice guy, just being social, whatever. I had a friend who went to your brunch and he's like Yeah, the bird just basically boy sits at the head of the table and he's like All right, what's your cack? What's your like asking a bunch of questions. And I was like, That sounds about right.

And I learned this from your brother. I was like,'cause I watched him one time and I was like I w first when I talk to your brother now, I'm like it's like a duel. Like he doesn't know this, but in my head I'm like, I'm gonna ask Whatever N number of questions you ask, N plus one will be asked back to you. Um like, you know, because I will not be out questioned because I know the technique. But I started I started watching him when he talked to other people and I was like How does he get them to divulge so much information? And again, not in a

Bad way, but just like what gets people in the flow of talking? I'm like, okay, so first he's genuinely curious. He's super engaged, he's not looking around, he's not looking at his phone. He's actually looking them in the eye and he's asking a bunch of questions. And I've noticed he does two things. When they're saying something he uh likes or is like a smart thing, he gives them tons of like, you know. Nodding. Yep. That makes total sense. Got it. Love it.

And then when they say something really stupid or weird or that something makes no sense. I noticed that when somebody does that to me, I'm like, but that makes I like kinda start judging them a little bit and they can tell that I'm judging them and that makes them clam up. Whereas he'll just go. He'll just laugh and be like, ha Amazing. And then he he says the word amazing and then moves on. And amazing really means like

Wow, it's amazing you're so stupid, or it's amazing you think that, or it's amazing that you don't even know that, but like he never makes them feel bad. He'll just be like amazing. And then he'll just go on to the next question. And I realize that that is how he keeps the constant flow going. So I'm studying this oliboarding technique. And I think I'm gonna be pretty good at it. I'm gonna be like, you know, uh franchisee of your of your question appear. Yeah. First we have to charge you per question then. Uh, but really he's like um I think the other thing that he does really good or really well is that he's like how do you think about something? He never asked like, you know. Uh, what's your CAC? He'll be like, How do you think about growth when it comes to social ads? And like, you know, can you spend more there? And the question is really open ended.

But he's like aiming for some he a really wants a response. And people uh like Yeah, subconsciously get to it and I've started asking how do you think about that all the time now. Because it really gets people to open up and tell me about How they're how how they view their business and not just like a standard number.

Um, and I really like that question. And I've also franchise that from it. When I started my business, the e com one, he s I told him about it and he had like, you know, some good questions and then like, you know The way y'all's brains work, it's just like, you know, it nonstop. So I think at like two in the morning that same night, he just sent or like Actually it was like five nights later. It was like completely unrelated.

It's like five nights later, two in the morning, I get this email, it's one line from him, and he just says He says like With our business, I knew we just it was J we just need to do this one thing and it would work. Like and he explained like the competitive Like the the positioning, like what we were gonna do different that was gonna cause it to work. It was gonna be X, but with Y difference.

What's that gonna be for your business? And it was like That sent me into like a three week spiral of being like Oh my God, I need to know this answer. That is the important question as I'm starting this business. I really do need to have like a very strong point of view. On what's gonna be the one thing that we're gonna do that's gonna make this business work better than all the others that are out there were better than you know, how can we compete given that we're years late to the party and whatever else.

But it was such an important question and I was like man Um And like I ended up bringing him on as kind of like an advisor, but I was like, Man, this is the value of an advisor is not the answer, but the question. The question that's gonna make you Like think about your business in a way or like reveal a shortcoming in your own thinking. That you then get to go fill in that gap for yourself.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that. The one thing I would say is that like Um, you know, I've started an e commerce business, and if someone asked me that about native, uh when I launch the business, I'd say I've got no idea. We're aluminum free. There are a bunch of aluminum free deogerants right now. We're selling online, is that better? Is that better than selling in store? I've got no clue. And so I think those questions are really helpful.

But I think the fear that some of those questions can cause in terms of people being like, I need to figure out this answer before I can do X or Y before I can launch my product before I can start spending marketing dollars? Like you can figure out that answer. Uh well after your business is launched. And I think for native, that really changed. Like, you know, we were an aluminum free deodorant and selling it on the internet. And I was like, that's gonna be our competitive advantage. And then it became a little bit of like sense, uh, you know, like fragrants.

We have a strategy of launching new fragrances frequently. And those fragrances are different and people are gonna s uh pantry load and buy a bunch of deobruns. So it's not just buying one until you run out, but I've got seven because this is gonna be your fragrance rather than your perfume perfume or cologne. Uh and then it was like different marketing ideas and bundling products and launching new categories. Like there are very few brands that it can expand from deodorant to body wash to uh toothpaste.

Like you know, Old Spice could never make a toothpaste. We're like, we're gonna create a brand that can do all of those and it stands for better for you ingredients rather than one single thing. And I think I think that question the answer to that question evolved and changed. And I think uh that question is great and people should think about that in the back of their minds, but it shouldn't prevent them from actually taking the first step to launching their business. Totally. Totally agree. Also about the like a pro progressive like iteration of that question of the of the answer. But also Um I also learned what a good answer to that is. A good answer is not We're doing this magical thing that nobody's doing because

Usually that just doesn't exist, like realistically, like that's probably a signal that it's a bad idea, not that it's a great idea. Um And also not that like we are gonna jump through these 14 really hard to jump through hoops. Like I'm gonna crack I'm gonna be viral all the time. It's like oh God, like that seems like a bad strategy to back. Instead it was like

Actually, there's a category that people want. What we're gonna do is like People don't don't like this one thing about the main competitor. We're gonna do that one thing, like it's just common sense, but we're gonna do that one thing differently. And like I'm just gonna obsess over Facebook ads in a way that they're not. Like or just in a way that will work. Like Facebook ads are just working for businesses like these, so I'm gonna do Facebook ads. It's like

Almost the stupider the answer, the better. But like the clearer the answer, the better too. Like of do you even know what you're betting on? That's like what do you think is gonna work here? And like Can you back that up as to why you think that's gonna work, but you don't want it to be A genius magical

like m magical s silver bullet solution that like nobody has ever thought of or nobody has ever pulled off'cause that's usually just a sign of like weakness actually in the plan. Especially if you talk about like partnership to collaborations where people are like I'm betting my future on the ability to get other people to do X, Y, and Z. Like that's never gonna work. I couldn't agree more. It could be look, we're gonna create a digital first brand that looks better

Uh we're gonna have a better user interface and we're gonna have more uh better colors and it's gonna look better on your countertop like native deodorant or your bathroom, you know, shelf like like native deodorant. And that was it. Like that was the that's that's an entire plan. And that's perfectly fine. And we're gonna get ideas here. Yeah, go ahead. No guy. Okay, so so the idea is um example of doing that. So you know the the

So most people who listen to this are probably not Not not Brown or Daisy don't know this brand, but like If you've ever been to like an Indian grocer, which there's you know, all around the country, there's a bunch of these like you know, you go buy go bu you know, the sort of like the ethnic foods. There's this brand called Huldy Rom, which is basically they make like Just like this like

Super addictive, salty little snack. Um it's like fried. It's like Or equivalent of chips. It's like fried, salty, kinda spicy. And you just buy this thing. It's like an it's like a trail mix, basically. That's that's salty. And um And so it's been around forever. They do like five hundred million a year in sales. They're like a like a juggernaut of a of a of a consumer packaged good brand.

They're like pr super profitable. Don't do any like advertising and like they're just like They're they're massive. And so like I think one idea is like Hold the ROM, but with like packaging that's just different. Like different packaging, slightly better for you, like Maybe it's baked and not fried. And like

That's the whole business plan. Like I don't need to know more to start. than just that. And I think that that's a plan somebody could take today. And go start like, Okay, so then what are you gonna do for this? Like, I don't know or The same as everybody else. Like th you can do I don't know or the same as everybody else for all other questions, as long as you just have that one thing which is like

These guys do like five hundred million in sales and they sell mostly through these like in your grocers. I'm gonna do that, but with better packaging,'cause their packaging looks like my mom's packaging. I'm just gonna make it look like my packaging. Like you know, the stuff I'm used to buying. Yeah, and I can cater to Caucasians as a result of that. Like, you know, packaging that the entire world is gonna understand. It's not available only at Ethnic Growth Stories. There is. That's our business modeling their product. In a better bag.

Yeah or like two thirds of Indians have diabetes. It's I'm just gonna make mine like better for people with diabetes. And I'm just gonna be like it's baked, not fried, and like it's better for me because of that. Ha. Yeah, you know the guys who started Nature Nature Box is this uh company based in San Francisco that s uh like sold you uh snacks, like trail mix basically, and shipped it either to your home or your office. Their original business model was we're gonna go buy this at Whole Foods. Put it in different size packaging and just ship it to your house. Like, you know, what's the difference between this and Whole Foods Trail mix?

Literally not no packaging difference. No uh ingredient difference. They literally go and buy it and, you know, ship it to your house. And that was it. And Instacart like started and they're like, What are we gonna do? You have a grocery list, you just email it to us and we're gonna go shopping for it. Like really simple ideas. That were not like, you know, groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination.

That built huge businesses. And you invested in Manscaped pretty early on, I think, right? Yeah, yeah, and that's in Manscaped probably three or four years ago now. And so um You invest in Manscaped and it's been one of your

I think you tweeted out one of your best performing investments. Um What did they do? Like what's their version of this? Like the stupid simple plan that like just makes sense and it doesn't have to be rocket science, but like A simple plan executed well. What was their version of that? Yeah, I think a uh two things. I think one was they're like

Look, we've created a product specifically for your balls. Even though the razor that works on your face works on your like you know, if you've got an electric trimmer for your face Works on your balls as well. It's not like it's different hair. Possibly more coarse, but like that trimmer is gonna work there. And so they're like, look, we've created an electric trimmer specifically for your balls. And like, you know, that that might appeal to people who don't have electric trimmers for their face. Like I imagine you do. It's hard to keep these beards uh trimmed well. But look, you know, if you've got it for your face, you can probably use the same thing for your balls if you're comfortable with that. They're like, hey, you're using a Gillette razor blade because you're clean shaven. We've got something specific for your ball. So I think that was really smart though. Like, hey, use this product for a category that you probably aren't using it for.

Uh and then two was like branding and name. They're like you know, they got the name right, they got the trademark right. I think those were probably really hard for them to get, although I'm not like involved enough to know that. Um and and like you know, they've done a good job with like unique and differentiated branding. Look, they had um They had a barge sail up and down um uh South Beach in Miami and they had a big billboard on it and it said

God Bush. Uh use Manscaped. Uh like they've done really unique things in order to get their name out there. In a way that I think a lot of other direct to consumer businesses have failed, where we're like, you know, native would run billboards and we're like, Here's an aluminum free deodorant and please come buy it. It really didn't get your attention. These guys have done a good job of that.

Um and like you know, today they post on uh the okay they have a billboard in New York City right now. Instead of the heart emoji, it's an upside down heart emoji, so it looks like a you know, testicle sack basically. That's really clever branding and like really clever thinking. And so They're fantastic at that. And I think what's really difficult is that stuff doesn't scale. It's not like if the guy who's like you know, if there's two guys thinking about this kind of stuff and they retire. You're not gonna be able to hire or teach that skill to somebody else. You've gotta find two rock stars that are able to pull that off otherwise.

And I think that's gonna be difficult for them, but so far they're just knocking it out of the park. And you see A ton of brands. A ton of D D C brands. You're probably like, you know, one of When somebody has a D C company, you're probably one of the most, I don't know, desired like investor, advisor. type dudes you like that's your authority, right? People people want to do what you've done and then you've also invested in so many that now you have

That portfolio and experience as well. But you also see a bunch of D D C brands do stupid shit. So what are some of the like kind of like give me your rant on The things you see D to C brands doing Wrong. What are some of the m common mistakes you see that drive you nuts? Cause I know that like both you and your brother

It's like operational like um You know, uh operational excellence is what turns you on and Operational like, you know, uh ignorance or whatever, yeah is what like you know drives you nuts. And so give me some of the things you see D D C brands doing wrong or or stupidly. Yeah. Over ironing and like um Spending money on dumb things. Like you know

Uh Native was doing uh probably we were at a fifty million run rate or close to a fifty million dollar run rate. Um When we sold the business. Uh and we had eight people at the time. And when I left, you know, it was certainly doing north of a hundred million a year and you know, we probably had thirty or thirty or so people on uh on the team.

Like there were not that many people for a brand that was doing a lot of revenue. You know, I've walked into offices where people have twenty p uh you know, there'll be twenty people doing two million dollars or four million dollars in revenue and I'm like what are all these human beings doing? Like if if they're if you have got this many people here, send them to the subway handing out free, like coupon cards. to people who are getting off the subway. This is too many people inside your office to be working out a four million dollar a year brand. And so I think that's a that's a real like you're burning way too much money if you have that many people.

Um, you know, Goldman Sachs had the standard of like we want to do one million in revenue per employee that we have. That should be something that's rather easy to do. for um for direct consumer businesses. I sit on the board of a company called Brewmate, which makes like um Like you know, drinkware. Uh think like you know, um Uh w like hydration cats or or can coolers for slim cans.

The uh the uh they had one employee and they were doing thirty million dollars a year. Like only the founder, Dylan, was at the company and he was doing thirty million dollars a year. Now he had some outsourced agencies that he was working with to help him run to help him run Facebook ads and to help him do customer service stuff. But like you had one guy and one guy in the payroll, so you could easily flex up and up and down with those agencies depending on how the business was going. Uh so I think uh hiring uh over hiring is a real problem. Uh the other thing I think is like when another way to spend money poorly is like a beautiful office. I remember walking into some direct to consumer founders businesses when I was running native and I was like

Wow, this brand is super successful. Look at how nice this office is. They have a big they have a logo on their Uh you know, on the wall right when you walk in. After we sold our business about first time P and G came to our office 'Cause you know, we've been doing it off site so as not to tell everyone, you know, if if if thirteen people from Proctor and Gamble walk into our office with eight people, people are gonna be like, Hey, what's going on here? So we kept meeting off site and finally when they walked in The you know, there was a sticker on the door that said native. Like it was a sh was a sheet of paper.

I had written out native by uh with a Sharpie marker and taped it on the door. And that was our office. It was like, you know, done it with one penny. Uh and they were like, Is this seriously our your office? I was like, Yeah, of course this is our office And they're like This is the cheapest office I could possibly have imagined and I was like Hey, we care about dollars And so you know, I used to be afraid of being frugal and I'd be like wow I'm so embarrassed and now I'm like it's a real badge of honor. We're running a fiscally cons like you know, we're fiscally conservative when it comes to this business and we care about dollars and they're my dollars. I don't want to spend them well.

Uh so I think that's the second thing. And I think the third thing is really poor marketing. A lot of founder look if I c if I ask a founder, Hey, what is your CAC last month? And you don't know? That is a terrible sign. If you're doing uh under forty million dollars a year in revenue and you don't know what your CAC was last month.

That's crazy. If you don't know what your tack was yesterday, that's okay, but like you should know what it pro You probably should know. And like you know you you know if I ask you at ten a you don't know, that's okay. If I ask you at two PM and you still don't know where you cactus yesterday, that's a real problem. You're just not involved in the numbers enough. Like this is how you grow these businesses. It's paid ads or uh some sort some sort of advertising spend. uh versus uh return on that investment.

And if you're not familiar with those numbers you're, you know, being grossly negligent with your business. And you you used to do a bunch of like kind of like hands on, unscalable stuff like this. So I think y you know, you I don't know, to this day, but like you I showed you what we do as far uh this morning we were talking and I showed you what we do as far as like Every day in Excel we handwrite

Here's how much we spent. Here's the here's the new customers we got. Here's the blended ROAs. Here's the CAC. Here's how much from my email. And we write that every single day into this like spreadsheet. And I'm sure there's like more automated ways to do it, but it's not perfect and like The practice of doing it by hand makes you think about fifty two and like I need to get this number to not be fifty two. I'm tired of writing effing fifty two on this spreadsheet.

Like I just if this business if this number was forty two, we would be making so much more money. Okay, that becomes my daily focus. Um, what are some and I I've seen you tweet out about like people going and like Like go they go to Target, they like watch the aisles themselves to see how people are buying their brand or what they're not you know. What what they're doing when they choose the brands. What are some of those unscalable things you've done yourself, or what are your favorite kind of like give me some scrappy stories of like

stuff that uh that like you did as an operator or your favorite operators have done. Sure. Um, you know, I I I used to email every single customer native. And I was like, Hey, what um You know, you bought our deodorant. Uh do you like it or do you not like it? If you like it, leave a review. And if you don't like it, email me back and tell me why you don't like this.

And you know, uh we were doing Three hundred thousand two hundred fifty thousand dollars in revenue before we hired our first customer service uh rep. Like I was looking at every single one of those emails, being like what's working here and what isn't? And that's how we got our product better. We'd listen to consumer feedback and you know, we sent out Yeah, we were doing five hundred, six hundred orders a day, probably more than that. So we're getting a lot of customer service responses to that type of inquiry, but literally every single customer who ever purchased from us.

I would wait like you know five days until it was too late for you to return the product. 'Cause if you emailed us and you're like, I hate this thing, I can I return it? I want to be like No, you're we're past the return deadline. You can't do that any longer. So I literally had it scheduled for like, you know, a night if you could return a product for thirty days. I had it scheduled to go day forty'cause I was like, you know, it's gonna take five days in shipping. And so day forty, we would em email you and be like Tell us what you like and what you don't like and uh you know, we're gonna go and try and fix these things.

We once had we uh invited a bunch of consumers to a location and then started or grilling them with questions. Hey, you you know, there were consumers that had purchased from us a bunch. They lived in San Francisco and were like, Why do you like native deodorant? Why do you think it works better than other deodorants in the market? Because uh you know, people would be like, it has probiotics, that's why it works better than uh than other dealerants and I was like What makes you like it does have probiotics, but you have no idea whether that's effective or not, but I was like No matter what we do with our formula, we have to keep some level of probiotic in there because people think probiotic means efficacy, whether it does or not.

And so those are the types of things that were really interesting and fun and um, you know, non scalable. You know, I also you you were talking about um Solomon was tal talking about my business and how I pack boxes. I did pack boxes. I pack boxes until we're probably doing about eighty thousand dollars in revenue a month. Like, you know, Monday, Wednesday and Friday I would go home after working. Put on Star Trek and start packing boxes. And you know I was like, okay, I do I knew how much a box weighed, I knew how much filler paper to put in there, I knew how much a box weighed when like, you know, f with deodorant, without deodorant.

Um I knew how to optimize this price. I I I knew when we were creating custom boxes, I was like, I want our box to weigh one ounce and not one point three ounces, because at one point three ounces it tips us over this level and at one ounce it doesn't. Uh I'd go to our contract manufacturer all the time and be like, hey, we're seeing these types of fuck ups. What's going on here? And so I was like intimately familiar with the formula. I knew the steps to how to pour the a formula What temperature we poured it out at and like Native was being hand poor. We were making twenty thousand units of native at GeoGrand a day. And we were hand pouring each single bar.

So there was a there were about a hundred people working in Austin, Texas. Hand pouring deodorants. And um you know the best person could hand pour about a thousand deodorants a day. And a new person could hand pour about seventy five deal grams a day.

And we had to train these people to go from seventy five to a couple hundred or five hundred. And that was really interesting as well. And so there was a and I I mean, that's not scalable. Certainly hand pouring deodorant isn't scalable, but we went from five hundred units of deodorant a week. to twenty one thousand a day, still hand pour it. So it was more scalable than I thought it was gonna be. Yeah. And how much of that is you being a maniac versus like

good strategy, right? So like if somebody in my company was doing that, I'd be like, why are you doing this? You need to hire somebody so you could do something Higher leverage But clearly it kinda worked for you to be like a maniac and doing all the things yourself. So like, you know, what's the line? What's the right way to think about that? Uh, yeah, that's a great question. I think if you're in completely divorced from customer feedback

you're uh setting yourself up for disaster unless you've created You know, a flywheel that you know exactly how it works. Like you know, when Native was doing a hundred million dollars of uh sales a year I probably wasn't in customer service any longer. But when it was doing fifty million in sales a year, I was in c you know, I was probably the number one, if not the number two, customer service agent. And so like, you know, you need that feedback to understand what's working and what's not.

Where there are problems in my business and where they're not. And so Uh look, I don't know what the right line is. But divorcing yourself from customer feedback at under twenty five million dollars a year is bananas to me. You're not gonna know what people love about your product and what they don't love. And you're not gonna know like, you know, we'd have operational issues that I wasn't aware of. We'd be like shipping is taking an extra three days when it goes when it's going to California. What's going on here? Like, is there a problem in California? Is there a problem with our shipping company? Sometimes we'd run out of things and no one would know until a customer emailed us, be like, Hey, I'm waiting four days and we're like, We're out of this, we're out of coconut and vanilla. I don't believe and then we check our inventory and we're like

How did we run out? Like we did such a poor not only did we do a poor job at uh inventory forecasting, we weren't even aware of that we ran out when we ran out. And so uh those were a couple of the ridiculous things that would happen. Uh but like you know, because you're intimately involved, you're able to like you know, uh understand the business at a deeper level. And I think like really being engaged at you know What does my shipping look like? Yeah, w how can I make shipping faster so I can reduce costs? Is the weight of the box or the weight of the filler or the size different?

There was a company that I knew that I I was friends with the CEO in San Francisco His b he was shipping through Amazon. And his box uh that he was shipping in was about a half inch too large, and it went from being extra like it went from being like a large box to a custom large box. And so his shipping rate went up like seventy dollars a box because of this half inch he had. And like, you know, w when people discovered it or when he discovered it, he's like, I can't believe we've been shipping like this for so long.

You know, if you're intimately involved, you're probably gonna catch those things a little bit earlier. Right. And so you less zoom out. So you um You've seen D D C change. You uh You also have seen, you know, you also invest in the stock market and so you've seen

Shopify, Amazon, Facebook. Give me on each of those three stocks, give me your lay of the land on like What you think has happened and where you think that those are going. Are they trending are are they pr rightly priced? Are they Underpriced, or they're overpriced. You know, give me f give me shop let's do Shopify first and then uh we'll do Facebook and then Amazon. Sure. Okay. Uh and for context, I've lost millions of dollars in Shopify stock.

In the last six months. Uh and you know, I wrote this Twitter thread about it as well, and I was like Uh Shopify keeps uh their their uh their motto is to arm the rebels. And I I said they keep giving us muskets in a war that's being fought with like nuclear weapons. And you when you put out tweets like this and you you basically say, Hey, here's what I think you should do with your strategy, or if I was CEO, here's what I'd be doing, or like As somebody who's lost millions of dollars on your stock

Here's some things that I think could help. Do you ever hear back? Is it crickets? Do you hear get other interesting inbound? What what happens after you put that out there? Cause I've done that a few times and I've gotten very interesting. uh situations occur from my my my tweets like that. W what's happened for you? Definitely interesting situations. Uh Toby, who's the CEO of uh Shopify Respond, and he's like, These are great points. So did Harvey who's the president?

And definitely had some more interesting calls and I'm not sure if that's That Twitter thread which was a couple months ago now. you know, inform them and help them create this lookalike audience system that they're creating at Shopify. That's wonderful. I don't want any credit, just go do it so that we can go get cheaper You know, cost customers. So that we can acquire customers at a cheaper rate.

And build better businesses. Like, you know, go build out these products and make the the platform fantastic. You know, a bunch of people pay Clavio more than they pay Shopify. A bunch of people pay Recharge more than they pay Shopify. Like these are Shopify apps that it provide you with a small segment Of like y or a small thing compared to what Shopify uh enables you to do. You know, provide some of these services at cheaper costs or build in some of these services to make the platform better. Like, you know, Triple Wheel is doing a fantastic job at analytics.

Why doesn't Shopify build their own subscription platform instead of outsourcing it to recharge, which everybody hates and which charges a fortune? Like what's going on there? It's been a you've been publicly traded for years. This this is arming us with uh this is arming the rebels. And so let's let's shift away from D to C. Let's do other types of investing because you do real estate. Um you've tried to buy pieces of sports teams. You've tried a bunch of different things. So

Let's just start with the big picture. So give me a a pie chart percentage wise of What do you do with your money? So you you came to a bunch of money, you what's in cash, what's in real estate, what's in stock, what do you what are you doing percentage wise roughly for those? Great question. Um great question. And I think the answer is I should know the answer. I I know my CAC from yesterday. Yeah, and this is me not knowing my CAC which is embarrassing. Um the that like

Uh probably around ten million in private equity. Um Probably around Forty million or fifty million in cash. Uh, which is a lot. And not like cash, cash where I'm like literally holding in cash, but like really short term bonds waiting for bond prices to go up.

And so now I'm starting to leg into positions where I feel like interest rates are getting more more exciting. And so I'll put my money there. Um, so you know, I've been investing in really short term bonds. that you know aren't really subject to much interest interest rate risk because they've got six month maturities. And not five year, you know, uh bonds that are more subject to interest rate risk. And you know, since interest rates have gone up over the last four months, I've started to deploy more capital in that respect. Uh but uh a lot of cash.

Um Probably Twenty five million in real estate? thirty million real estate that I'm like, you know. That I or you know, my family owns and we're operating ourselves.

And then probably another ten million in real estate as LP somewhere. Uh here or there. Um I don't know how much money that is. Uh, but then there's like you know, I don't know. Then there's like random and probably another Ten million in um startup investments. Um

So maybe more than ten million sort of investments? Good question. Probably around ten million in the stock market. Uh maybe a little bit less now that Shopify and Facebook have gotten c cre made. Uh so maybe less than that now. But I'm not ex exactly sure what the amount is there. And why such a big cash is that to be conservative? Is that just I'm so busy, I haven't figured out how I'm gonna deploy all this. Uh or is it like intentional like no, I want to have let's say fifty percent, forty per fifty percent cash and Kind of bonds.

It's more reactive than it is proactive. Like I'd love to be more invested and part of it was actually like, you know, proactive in terms of waiting for interest rates for uh to go up again. 'Cause you know, if you invest two years ago or three years ago, you've barely gotten any return on your dollar. So I was like, we can sit on cash and not be subject to so much interest rate risk. Now I'm getting more excited about that. A lot of it is um you know When you get to a certain scale of wealth, you hire professionals who are like private wealth managers to help you deploy your capital. In a way that's really intelligent, in a way that's unique.

And um You know, supposedly gives you a competitive edge because you have more capital to deploy so you're able to hire smarter people to deploy that and you know earn a greater return. That's the shtick that they sell you? I'm not sure that shtick is real at all. Like Uh private wealth managers have been

really disappointing. Like no one is doing anything unique in this industry. You know if you ask two private wealth managers what's the difference between you and this other person They'll just shit on the other person and you'll be like, What are you gonna get me like What are you going to invest me in that this person isn't? Like what's your competitive advantage? Do you have access to deals that this person doesn't have access to? Uh they're like no, we're both manage the same amount of money. We've been around the same amount of time. And they're like, you know, have you heard of Elliot? I'm like, Yeah, I've heard of Elliot. It's the Wall Street Journal every fucking day. I'm pretty sure everyone could get me in there. Like, you know, their fund is twenty billion dollars. I'm sure anyone could get me in there. And they're like, Yeah, anyone could get you in there, but we know them really well. I'm like, Okay, I don't know what that means. Um

And so like I guess the where I've been disappointed and where I've been lost in this world, uh is How do I deploy my capital in a really effective way? And you know, every like, you know, if I tweet something about this, I tweet tweeted like, hey, if you've got three hundred thousand dollars, if you're earning three hundred thousand dollars a year, it's really hard to know what to do with your money. You're not rich enough for the private wealth manager, and you're too um rich for the Bank of America person who sits at the retail branch. And you know, I got a bunch of um People who are like I do this for three hundred thous people who are about three hundred thousand dollars a year, I didn't bet any of them. But like they were aggressive and like, you know, these private wealth managers, if you sell a business, they just reach out to you and they're like help us let us manage your money and you're like, What are you gonna put me in? And literally none of them say anything unique.

None of them have their own things. They're just like we're gonna invest you in this other guy's uh fund. And every private wealth manager can get you in there. For instance with public equities, they all tell you Go invest with parametric. They do tax loss harvesting.

So you'll get an extra point two five percent to point five percent. return over the S P five hundred if you invest with parametric, as opposed to doing this as opposed to just investing in a Vanguard ETF. But they all tell you to do that. Why would like you know, why use Goldman Sachs instead of First Republic instead of a smaller boutique fund. If you're all just gonna invest with the this dollars with parametric, you're all the same at that point.

It's like you know it's like buying an airline ticket from kayak. or Expedia, but riding on American Airlines and getting the exact same seat. Ultimately you're getting the same product. And so I haven't been smart enough and spent enough time figuring this stuff out. Gotcha. And then What about uh crypto? You don't do anything crypto and is there a like a strong opinion like oh it's all, you know.

For Gasey or or or or you just haven't had time. Uh, very little with crypto. I'm like a an investor in a couple of fund of funds that have made a fortune in crypto. So these funds have returned uh a a significant amount. And it wasn't in there sort of like Fun charter to go invest in crypto. But they did it anyway and they're like look We're up, you know, ten thousand percent.

So you can't complain, you know, they're like look, we turned your dollar into ten thousand dollars. You can't be a m you can't be an asshole LP and be like What the fuck, you can't do this. They're like, here's ten thousand dollars, shut the fuck up. So you know, they can do it. Um Generally I just don't understand the value yet and um so I've been hesitant to get in there. I'm not I'm not opposed to it. You know, everyone says invest five percent of your net wealth in it. I wouldn't invest five percent of my net wealth in it. Um

You know, it's hard because Uh the same parts of the world are like, Boys, you're not investing in crypto. What the fuck are you doing? And the warm puppets of the world are like, If you offered me all the crypto in the world for twenty dollars, I would not buy it. And so um I guess I've just been sitting on the sidelines. I don't know if it's good or bad, uh, but if someone has a strong opinion can convince me, please do so. Okay, I'm gonna resist the urge to do that now because people have had my rant too many times on it.

Um all right, so uh I guess let's let's do a little bit like uh Uh let's do a little touch on a real little real estate, then we'll do the personal stuff. So real estate You've been deploying, but now it feels like the landscape has changed. I think you kinda have an opinion on what's changed. Give me your current take on like What do you see and what are you doing?

Yeah, so uh I love uh native and Oh, February twenty twenty. And um right when Covid was gonna hit, like I was like, I'm gonna go to Europe. And I'm gonna tree I'm gonna go to France, I'm gonna try and drink all of the wine they produced in twenty nineteen in February twenty twenty in France. And uh then Covid hit. And instead I was stuck with my parents like, you know, all day. Uh and it was a very different experience than I suspected it was gonna be.

Um And so I started buying real estate and so from like January or from February twenty twenty to probably the end of twenty twenty one. I bought about fifty. Uh or so units, um generally single family homes, some duplexes, some fourplexes. Uh two units in uh you know, all and then aside from those fifty units

Two units in like uh California, where uh they're like old apartment buildings that are really small and we're renovating. And then I was an LP and a bunch of different funds. Um, you know everyone who bought in twenty nineteen, you look like a fucking genius. Like people are like wow, you're such a s savvy real estate investor. I was like I I sort of buying'cause I had nothing else to do. You know, if they were gonna return money, they're gonna return five percent. They're returning twelve, fourteen percent now. And that's fantastic, but I'm not sure I was very savvy about it. Um, I I haven't used leverage, which is really stupid of me. And you know, uh

It's really stupid today because if I'd borrowed you know, a year ago I would have gotten two and a half percent interest. I could have just invest in that ten year bond and made money. I just haven't used leverage in part because I'm too lazy to try and get it. And in part because I'm like, you know, I've got enough capital to deploy already. Um

And the returns have been fantastic. You know, I I bought homes and I was underwriting for six percent returns. There are twelve, fourteen percent returns, they're crazy. I bought a fourplex for six hundred thousand dollars. I thought each unit would rent out for like eight hundred dollars. They're each renting out for about fourteen hundred dollars now. So it's m I'm making a fortune. Uh people are are struggling with rents and so state governments are often stepping in and providing rent to landlords. Like you know, we get a call being like, Hey, John can't pay his rent We're gonna cover the rent for the next eighteen months and you know, go cut you a check.

For eighteen months of rent and late fees, which is bananas. Um, and so it's been a fantastic investment, but yeah, I am slowing down now. And uh do you think where do you think this goes? Are you gonna uh you're slowing down, but is you are you're slowing down because you sort of are like, Okay, I'm allocated how much I wanna be allocated, or you're slowing down because you're like Wait, this no longer these prices no longer make sense. Uh it's not even the prices don't make any sense any longer'cause I've a this this is the one asset class where I'm like I have a really long term view.

You know, stocks I pr look, I've been in shop if I never sold a share. Facebook I've been in, I've never sold a chair. I've had'em both for five years, if not longer. Uh Microsoft I've been in for uh more than a decade. I remember buying it while I was in in my admin law class in law school and I've still held uh every one of those shares. So like, you know, generally I I'm like I I'm a pretty good long term investor in real estate, I think of myself as

Uh like you know, I will never sell any unit uh in in real estate. Like my children will inherit this. Um, or you know, natural disasters will take these things uh into the ocean. I'm okay with either of those, but I will not sell one under any circumstance. So I'm not really worried about prices, uh You know, in in terms of cap rate long term, but I do think there'll be a small market correction. So I I guess I've slowed down my purchasing. I'm still uh under contract to buy two or three units in the next couple of months. But I'm not look before I was trying to buy

You know, a unit a week. Or, you know, two units uh a month and now I'm sort of like Let me buy a unit a month or less. just to see what happens to the market as interest rates go up. I think these prices will come down a little bit. But I I like, you know I a a lot of my cash is in real estate, you know, twenty five, thirty million dollars.

Uh I I'm not scared like you know, if the market crashes, no nobody will be more excited than me. I will deploy all the cash I'm sitting on to this. I have no problem if that thirty million dollars goes down to five. I will not get like this is the one asset class where I will not get scared. I will double, triple, or quadruple down as opposed to being like, Oh my God, I gotta sell what I've got. And that's just because you're like This is a concrete assets. There's limited supply. There's always gonna be demand. It's such a daisy mentality. It's like my parents' mentality of like big cash flows. It's immune to Facebook ad prices. It's immune to the stock market.

It's like generally uh like it's real diversification for my e-commerce and startup investments. Like these things will exist. Um They're general they're primarily in the south, with the exception of a few in California and a few in Colorado. They're places where people are moving to and not moving from. Um and so I'm excited about them and uh yeah, so I I would never I I have no desire to sell them, get emails and calls all the time.

No excitement whatsoever to sell love holding the stuff and generates a ton of cash. And you know, the other way I think about it is, um and this is also a pretty JC mentality, is like Okay, I've got all these expenses per year and no job. Uh I need something to make up for that, like th these expenses. Like I don't want to dip into capital. I don't believe in the balance never goes down. The balance always go up. That's right. I'm terrified of the balance going down.

And so I'm like I need something to uh afford my lifestyle. And this real estate helps me afford my lifestyle. That's Uh, I'm I don't know if I'm just too dumb or too lazy, but it's one of the two where I'm like Um

I basically picked two lanes to think about. And I was like, I don't really have the like mind share To be able to think about like If I go into real estate today, I'm the dumbest guy in the room. Okay, well, it doesn't take a genius to do real estate, so that's okay. I think If I put my mind to it, I could do that, but that's now my mental cycles that are not going towards my business.

Or the stuff I'm more interested in where I think I can have a bigger edge, where I think I can be more like the top one percent rather than like The sixty you know, sixty percentile or whatever. Sure. And so th that's the first part is like Do I want to try to learn this game from scratch? If I'm gonna do anything direct, or even if I'm gonna invest in funds, I gotta have

Some ability to vet these finds of pick. But okay, they're they're all pretty safe. You can get your five, six percent, it seems like, you know, without Yeah, y it's not totally variable like that. Um The other thing is like in direct I'm just like who is gonna have the time to manage all this? Like

I did one transaction buying my House that I was gonna buy I was gonna live in in San Francisco. Just the process of the b dealing with the bank to get the loan and then the closing the escrow and then the inspections and It was like um I couldn't do anything else. I was like paralyzed from like actually doing stuff I liked because I was Constantly having to nurse this

project and I I was like, I can't imagine. Buying fifty units in a year. Um, or you know, twenty units in a year and like the amount of just transactional like logistics that I would have to go through. It's such a turnoff from like, for what is the return?

Basically the same average as the stock market on long term? Okay. Like I don't have to div uh diversification is not that important to me to like do both of those things, like the mental cycles. Plus the physical energy it would take to do the transactions and then manage them and then like You know, my m my tenant calls you know.

My property manager calls me about the tenant that's calling me about whatever I don't actually even know what goes into it, but I know it's not nothing. And right now my tolerance is nothing for like for like headache. Yeah, and this isn't like you know it's Someone calls you on a Monday being like my A C is broken and it's in San Antonio, Texas.

You can't be like, Okay, I'm gonna get back to you Thursday like you know, it's a hundred and ten degrees outside. You need to get that fixed in the next twelve. You're right, there is a lot of pain there. Well I was I called my manager the I rent the current place that I live in and I called him was like hey there's like a weird smell He's like, Okay, so like where's it come from? I don't know, it's a smell. I I can't see it. He's like, Okay, like what

Kinda smells like I don't know, it's just like bad. It's like it smells really bad. And he's just like Okay, you gotta give me something and I was like And it's Sunday and like you need to send someone here because I can't have a house with a bad smell like And I'm just like, I got kids.

You know that that's the card and I'm like, You gotta send somebody now to figure out this mystery thing. And then the the guy comes over, he's like, Where's the crawl space? I'm like, I don't know, it's not my house. I don't know. Go ask. This guy in Arizona who owns this house who's ninety years old, go ask him where the crawl space is of this property because it's his problem to like fix this for me and I'm just gonna be a baby about it. And then I think about what it's like to be on the other side of that and I'm like Is that worth the like five hundred dollar like net that he's making per month on my on my rent?

Like probably not. For me. Definitely not. Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right about that. And what was in the call space? I don't know, we never found it yet. The guy didn't get back to me and now I'm pissed. I'm like we have no idea where where it is. The guy like sealed up one hole, so he's like, Maybe this will help the smell go away. That was it. I was like, Okay, well We still don't know what's causing the smell, you just bottle it up. Like whatever's in the wall that's dead or whatever's going on here. Yeah, sure. He's like either he's like He he the guy came over and on Google Translate he type out he's like

If the smell's still here tomorrow, I'll come undo the whole wall thing I just did and I'll go find what's in there. I was like, bro, can't you just do that now? Can we not go into the wall now? Why do we gotta do that? Without Google Translate, that's hilarious. Um Yeah. A bunch of a bunch of the real estate I bought is like an auction. And so um When you walk like there are very there's no inspection. There's no financing ability. Like you know, you bid on auction You you're right, you know, you wire the money the next day.

And then you open the house and you're like what did I just get into? And so um Sometimes you'll walk in like there was a one house I I purchased and the guy passed away, not in the house, but like Everything was still inside of his house. Forks and knives, spoons, his cards in the garage.

You know safe in there. We had to empty uh the entire house out before we could rent it out. And you know, you have no idea and like that was a mediocre situation because like you know, everything was still in okay shape. He used to live there. There was another house I got that was in perfect shape. Like you couldn't like you know, you go into the house and like try and look through the blinds. To find out what the condition is gonna be inside.

This one you couldn't see at all. It's the only house I've been to where I was like I couldn't see at all. And I opened up the lock but after I bought it and it's in perfect condition. There have been houses that I've bought. I walk in and I'm like Fuck. I j you know, I'm gonna have to spend forty thousand dollars that I didn't underwrite for. replacing the roof or changing the tile or putting in a new kitchen.

And so it is a lot of like rolling the dice. Uh at least in the in the with the way that I've purchased. And sort of um using, you know, the law of large numbers to be like this is gonna make sense at some point. And sometimes it does, and sometimes you get screwed and you know, you just eat the ones that got screwed. Like there'd been two that I've purchased.

I in two years ago that are still not rented because I haven't done the work. To go and fix the houses to make them habitable. Um and that's yeah, that's a lot of capital being That was deployed and nothing's happening with right now. Yeah, you need to just like get some YouTuber who does like he's trying to make content about like renovating home. Like, hey, you can use my home and like you get, you know, X percent and you get to use all the content. This is your home, sir. Go ahead and make it go ahead and flip this thing.

Definitely great. You and your brother both Do this, which is I think you treat business like a like a like business is your fun, like your adventure. I I feel the same way. And I asked him. Because He he gave me money and he he was like I'm gonna advise your s your company and I was like cool but like

Just so you know, like why are you doing this? Like I want you to do this, but like as your friend, I'm like, why are you doing this? This is a waste of your time. Like this is never gonna make enough money to move the needle. Like your s share of this. is never gonna make enough money to justify the time and energy and like it's not gonna move the needle for you. So like really this makes no sense. Why are you doing this? And he goes Exactly he goes, um He goes like I am not happy.

Unless I am like um Entrapped in a you know in a business and he's like But as like the as long as I get to create the I wanna live in a prison of my own making and like as long as I get to choose, I'm good. But like I'm also not like I can't be content and fulfilled unless I'm Like unless I'm locked into like a raging battle with like you know some like business thing.

And I was like wow, that's crazy, but it also makes sense to me. And you're the same way when you're like How do I do real estate on hard mode? Like You could just L P a bunch of funds and you're like, No, I'm gonna go buy stuff. I'm not just gonna buy good stuff. I'm gonna buy Stuff at auctions that I'm gonna go have to take like a you know two by four and break off a lock and then like walk in and see what I got.

And then like figure out how to turn this into like Fourteen hundred dollars a month of rent and you're like, Yes, sign me up. Whereas I'm like that's like That's what you do to get to your Your spot. You got there and then went back to the beginning and like I'm now gonna call you I don't even know this analogy, but like I always heard my engineers talk about servers that run on bare metal.

I like I don't know enough about servers to know what the fuck that means. But it was almost like What's the most like hardcore way this server can run? It's like optimized for performance. And like just the just the term bare metal, like just told me everything I needed to know about what the hell they were talking about. It's like this kind of waste of time, hard mode way of doing something that does yield like the best return and like satisfaction of like

Optimizing the space. Yeah. I was like squeezing the juice out of the fruit. And like to me, it's like Moise, you're like You like to operate on bare metal. It's like you're choosing to like play this game on like You're like, how do I handwrite My UTM parameters on my ads. And then like how do I uh you know stock my deodorant sticks myself and answer every customer service question?

And then how do I like buy real estate at a foreclosed auction with no financing and no diligence? And then like figure out how to make that work. You're bare metal. You know, there is like um first uh the the I learned how to break into houses, like I learned how to pick locks. Because of real estate. Like I can walk into a house now And like open it up pretty much because and like I I carry tools with me.

When I'm traveling to these houses to be able to like open up homes so that I can go inside. Which is a little bit crazy. Um in fact I saw my parents my parents are, you know, two old like an older uh Indian couple, obviously. That are like infirm and walk you know, my mom will be like my knee hurts if she walks with a limp and then when she's trying to break into a house with me She'll turn into like Yoda where it she can do spin. She's like What if I climb up to the top of the ceiling and like go chip you know, Jimmy down the chimney. I think I can get us in there and I'm like I thought your knee hurt.

But now you're perfectly fine. You can like climb this wall and like you know go up the uh go up the into the chimney and she's like, Yeah, I got it for this. Uh but I think that r really I think there's a lot of um in my family there's just a lot of interest in business. And so being an LP is a ton of fun, and I'm an LP in a bunch of these uh real estate funds and I'm like looking at the numbers and some are making good money and some aren't. But like you know, there's no um sexiness to it. It's a it's a paper money, like

Yeah, bring me the sexy problems. Like Oh your toilet is broken? What the fuck are you doing here? Why is your toilet break every day? Uh oh the government is gonna write me a check for eighteen months? This is crazy. The government is gonna pay me late fees? The government is gonna call me and be like Hey, Moys, you've got a house here. This guy can't pay his rent. We're gonna pay you 18 months of future rent and the last two months and late fee for the last two months. Tell me why you're doing this. How did you get to this? Uh who thought this was a good idea? Uh you know, does Grub Abbott think this is a good idea?'Cause that's a lot of money you're gonna give me.

And so um You know, business is great and making money is great, but it's a lot more fun to be an active participant rather than a sidelines participant. Like I don't wanna I don't wanna read what's in the Wall Street Journal and be like, Okay, that's great. I wanna be like a part of that system that's going on. There's a great like analogy where this guy Who's a partner at a big flaw from his name was Joe Flaw and he worked at Scad and Arps. Uh this was back in like the eighties and nineties where there were all these mergers happening.

Um He's he was like eighty years old and he slipped and fell in his bathroom and his head was bleeding. And uh he walked into this board meeting because he was part of this board that needed to Send off a hostile inquirer. And he had paper towels on his head because he was bleeding and he was eighty years old. And people were like, What the fuck is going on? You're bleeding profusely in your eighties. Like I slipped and fell and they're like, Go to the hospital and he's like, No, I want to be here.

And they're like, What's going on? He's like, I don't care if I'm You know, acquiring a company or fighting off an acquirer. I just want to be in the game. And nothing is gonna stop me. And this guy was eighty and bleeding and had paper towels on his head, but he wanted to be in the game, and I really respect that. Like I wanna be in the game. That's the where there's uh a lot of fun in life. You um

You watch basketball, right? Yeah. Do you uh which like athlete or in any sport, it doesn't matter, which athlete are you like I admire their like the way they do their thing is how I do my thing or how I want to do my thing. Yeah. Tom Brady. Tom Brady for two like I remember he won a Super Bowl

And there was a sixty minutes like uh interview with him at twenty seven. He was this was uh not his like you know, seventh Super Bowl. This was like his second. And they're like, So what do you you know, you're a Superbowl champion? Uh NFL M V P what do you think? And he's like Is this all there is to life? Like that's what he said at the end. He's like, Is this all there is? And you know, then he retired after two weeks, he's like, I gotta get back in the game.

I have two weeks off. This is boring. I need to be back in the game. And he's just like an ultimate competitor, and I really admire that about him. But I'm sorry, that was the answer to the question. That's that's great. Uh I don't do you have five five more minutes? I want to do a coup on the personal stuff. All right, so what were you gonna ask about the athlete stuff though? I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, that's what I was asking. I just want to know who you admire.

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. You on we had a little doc. I said, put down some bullet points. I said, You don't have to explain what they mean, but yeah, give me some nuggets that we could go off of. On it, you had a section of personal stuff and you go, You have two that are really interesting to me. You go I don't know how to spend money. What does that mean? Yeah.

Um you know, I'm living in the Airbnbs that are like five grand a month. Uh I don't have a car, I don't have a house. Uh I live out of a suitcase. Um and like you know, when expensive things are like nice, I'm like, Can I afford like I still do the math and be like this seems too expensive. for the value I'm getting, even though that like you know

At this point a thousand dollars probably has no value to me. Not like no value, but like it does it's not gonna materially change my life. I'm still so cautious when I'm spending twenty dollars. I don't know what the ha I don't know how to get this out of my system. Do you know how to get it out of your system? Um

I don't know how to get it out of my system. I Have no problem spending money. Um, but like I've seen this and I think you know the one of the main things is I see my dad And my dad has done really well f very like for he's got the same immigrant story that like everybody has, which is you come to the country, he had I think Ninety one dollars.

That was starting point, right? So that's the before. And then like, you know, he's made good money in his lifetime. Uh nothing like you know. crazy to write home about, but like especially from a ninety one dollar starting point, like They're they have my parents have enough money to do whatever they want. They really don't need to penny pinch, but like, you know If we go to Starbucks and it's like

You know, would you like the he's like kind of the small? They're like, Okay it's called tall. He's like, No, but what's a smaller than tall? Because I feel like a tall is gonna be overpriced. He's like, you know, this is three dollars, like I uh I can make this. It's mostly water. I He'll be talking to the people about it, right? I'm just like, Oh my God, like Not only is this embarrassing, but like

It's embarrassing in the moment'cause he'll just be like Let me clarify. You're saying the thing that's mostly water is three dollars and eighty cents. Like Oh hold on, hold on. Stop the line. What's going on here? Or like, you know You know, he'll pack seven people into a hotel room'cause like, you know, we can make it work. It's like, yeah, but do we have to? Um like we're on vacation here. Why does it have to be a struggle? And like And so you know that I just saw he could never get it out of his system. Like those in those the scarcity mindset was just so like ingrained in him because and I was like I all right, I get it. Like he had no safety net, he had ninety one dollars.

Like every dollar counted and like It wasn't about spending, it was about like saving to get to build a safety net, because you're in this new c you're in a foreign country, your parents can't help you. Nobody can help you. Like and so I get that. But I saw that like oh wow. You know

Actually, the money coming it wasn't logical. Like once the money was there, that didn't change. The mindset didn't change. So it's like I had to separate out. There's a mindset around money. And then there's like the logical like situation about the money. And like there's actually like they're unrelated. You would think Once the logical situation changes the mindset will change and it's like no it doesn't, so it's like a active thing. And so then I just started to like one of the reasons I asked you who you admire and you're like I admire this guy who's got like a bloody head going into the board meeting because he wants to do business that bad

I would view that as a failure and you view that as a success. And like Uh, because I have this belief, which is you become what you admire, right? Like fundamentally, yeah if you admire certain something, you're gonna strive to it. So it It makes a lot of sense to really pick and choose what you admire. Like I'll give you an example. A lot of people admire Elon Musk.

And I think Elon Musk is s s obviously super incredible. In a couple of ways. Like he is one of the greatest inventor and businessmen of our time, and like you know, the greatest since Steve Jobs, I would say. But like You know, I think he's like an Edison of our time. Great.

Sure. Um, but he's also had, I think, like, you know, I don't know, four failed marriages. And like that's not something I want for myself. So like I gotta be careful. To admire the l like the the all encompassing person because I don't want the all the full result of that like The you know, and and so you gotta gotta like So I got I got really specific about what I admired.

And once I admired certain things and I started to live life like those people, it's like, well, this guy's really, really happy. And like wow he's like pretty generous. And he's not generous based off of having this like huge amount of wealth. He's generous because like He doesn't feel super scarce about money. He doesn't feel this lack of money. Um, and so he's like willing to give and like he's willing to give freely and he doesn't think twice about it, and then he doesn't pat himself on the back about it either, like Oh wow, I really admire that about him.

Like I want to be more like that. And so To me, the only thing that got me to change my mindset was knowing that it's not gonna change based on how much money's in the bank. And B

Like I have to change who I admire. If I'm gonna like change who I become, right, because like I will naturally start to follow those blueprints. uh and observe people doing those things and be like, oh, downloaded that. Like I will um I will make that hap I will make that happen like I'll give you a little small win for me on this front. Like uh

I was just on vacation. I was in Hawaii last week. And like uh my parent my dad is like I said, like a horrible tipper. And like so my whole life I basically saw my mom being like tip'em and my dad being like You don't have to. And like You don't have to, or like I did, and I'm like he handed him like a one.

Like one one was his tip, and like The absolute minimum and I just saw the look in the valet guy's face or whatever, like It wasn't even valet, like you wouldn't do valet. It's like the face of the guy who you're you're mandatory, you he's standing there, you gotta give him something. The bellhop, right? And it's like So this time, um

We get to the place, the bellhop takes up our bags, you know, to the hotel room or whatever. And um I felt all those same urges of like my upbringing, which was like we can just take the bags ourselves. It's like yeah, but like that's this guy's job and like it's not about being lazy, it's like That's how this economy works. That's how this ecosystem works. If I don't Like

You gotta feed the whole food chain, otherwise somebody's not gonna eat, right? So it's like Okay, I'm let him do that. Then we got to the room was like we have no cash because I don't carry any ca uh dollar bills, like I only have cards. And so I've been in this situation like five times before. I'm not I'm not proud of it, but like I would just be like

Dude, sorry, I don't ha like I don't have anything. I don't have any cash. We just got here. I didn't bring cash. Or I would like You know, let the guy leave it at the door and then I'd be like, you know, not there to like tip the guy. And uh at this time I was like I was like, hey man, like so I'm so sorry. I don't have any cash on me. What's your name? And then like I made sure I went and got him later. And it was like, again, whatever.

Ten bucks. But those ten bucks meant a lot to my to me and like Okay, that's a step in the direction of the guy who's not Like has this lack mindset or scarce mindset about money and is looking to

Like hold on tightly to everything or like avoid paying things. It's like no no no. Um Like You know, make it happen. I actually had like a

A pretty comical series of events were on the even on this trip where I like My kid is two and a half. But it but I don't know if you know kids fly free under two. Yeah. And so I bought first class tickets because I'm trying to be a baller shot caller, but then I do the laptop I I lie about her age.

To make sure she's under two. And like I I knew in the moment I was like this feels wrong but it was also like the logic was like well it's like couple thousand bucks to buy this two year old kid a seat. Like am I g really gonna do that? And then everybody told me they don't check, I'm like, I'm gonna get away with it.

And I got penalized so bad for this cheapness that like It was just karma teaching me this wonderful lesson'cause we get to the plane and they're like Oh, you guys can't sit like sorry, you can't board the plan like what do you mean? I Not only can I not board the plane, I'm first class, but I get to board first. And they were like No, actually you have like two lap infants because you got two little babies

There's only like X number of masks in the top thing. So like There's three masks and there's four of you. We can't let you board this plane. We're gonna have to ask to see if somebody wants to switch seats with you.

And I was like, what? And uh I was like, Nobody's gonna want to switch seats with the People with the baby like have us sit next to them, like that's not gonna happen So sure enough. They go on, nobody wants to switch. I'm like all right, we'll we'll take uh like I we'll buy another seat. Like

It's too late, sir. There are full I'm like, all right we'll we'll go to coach we'll we'll we'll move back. Like Coach is full. I was like, all right, what's the next flight? It's tomorrow. I'm like, oh fuck. I knew this little cheap move on my part of lying about the four months of my kids' age would come back to bite me. And it did, and so then like we g my wife and we had this horrible flight over where like

One my wife was on the last row of the plane with a baby in the middle row between two people. And like because some guy was like, I'll give up my middle seat in the back, like to and now I'm sitting next to this dude. And so instead of having this awesome family experience, we're having this terrible one because I cheaped out. And so I just started to pay attention to all the ways That saving money was costing me money and costing me like joy. Uh rather than like how much it's saving me and like what I what I keep.

And so then who do you admire then? Is it is it somebody who's made that mind like who is that? Yeah, like my trainer. So like I talk about him a lot. It's probably like I roll at this point, but like uh The happiest person I know, and not happy in like a cheesy way, like But in a damn, I've never seen this dude not in a good mood.

And like I've seen him stuck in traffic for three hours. I've been late, super fucking late and inconsiderate, and like You know, like But he greets me like he's he's just been having a party. He's like, dude, where you been? Because his life is a traveling party. And so I saw that and I was like, Man

On every conventional metric that like I was raised Like you you came from a brown fam, it's like He's uh I think he's like forty one, forty two years old. He's not married. That's a that's a like household disaster if you're like a a brown person. It's like you know, we're having i interventions, you know, if that happens.

Um You know, he does well for himself as a personal trainer, but he's not like the most successful guy, no. Like I I'm surrounded by people with more quote unquote success than him. Um in terms of financial success. Um You know, so like you know, just in terms of like the kind of conventional metrics, the things I thought were most important.

You know, his scoreboard, it wasn't like wow, this guy I admire him because he's successful. Like he's successful at the game of life because this dude's never in a bad mood. And like Because of that, everybody wants to be around him. He's the most loved guy I know. Because of that, he has these like magical experiences where it's like you go to a coffee shop with this guy and like

You're gonna have like something if you just hang out with them for three hours, like something awesome is gonna happen. Because his mood, he's gonna make a joke, and then that person's gonna say this thing, and then they're gonna take us to the back room and hook us up because they just got liked our vibe and like I tell the story. Like he goes to the DMV And like He you know, he goes to the DMV and it's like DMV's like the classic, like worst place on earth to be.

And like he went in being like, nah, dude, he looked up the DMV on Yelp. It had two stars. And he's like, I'm gonna have a five star experience because I'm gonna be a five star DMV participant. Uh, you know, and just watch what happens. So he like. Walked in with a little Pepping his step. He's smiling and he makes a joke to somebody and he realized and somebody's like, Oh, you could I'll just help you out over here.

Everybody else is grumbling in line, like why is this guy getting to go up front? She's like, Don't mind them. And then she flirts with him, and like she she hooks, and he's supposed to take the test. And she's like, you know what? Like it's fine. You've been driving for a long time. And she just gives him the thing. And he's like walks out. He's like Damn if I could do it at the DMV, I could do it anywhere, right? Like He's like I'm he's like I wasn't always this way. He's like, dude, I was depressed for a while. My dad died and I used to be bitter about him for XYZ and he's like

He's like, you know, I used to be the guy Like I didn't want to come out from the covers because I just wasn't looking forward to my day. Like you know, you do if you looked at me, you'd just see like a blanket and two eyeballs because I just didn't want to get out of bed. And he's not saying this as a motivational talk because he doesn't he's not a motivational speaker. It's just like He's my personal trainer. I just happen to hear these stories.

So when I heard this, I was like Okay. This dude is winning. The reason I want This money, this family, this all these things because I want to feel good. This dude just feels good on auto like he feels good no matter what situation you put him in. So that's like an invincibility, right? Like He is unconditionally feeling good.

So that's the guy I started to admire. And then I started to pattern myself after things that he was anytime I noticed he did something different. than me or my friends or the people around me, I like took special note of that and like would lean into to trying that out as a new experience to see You know Is that part of what makes him him?

That's really interesting. Uh and a great story and um You know, for a long uh I feel like everyone I've admired I've just been it's almost like uh Sex where I'm just automatically attracted to that person and it's not even conscious. Like I just get an erection. when uh you know I hear about Tom Brady'cause I'm like, wow, that guy is awesome and really good at what he does. And he's his ultimate competitor and wants to win.

Um, and I never reali I never even thought that you could choose who you admire. I just assumed it was like you know, your sexuality where you're like Are you attracted to this person? It's like comes from here. And not here. Yeah, actually maybe that is true. I think there's some truth to what you said. Uh, but like in the same way that like we don't all go try to marry porn stars, like if there's a certain point where you're like what really matters to what what do I actually want? And it's like well there's this initial thing, this physical attraction, which is important.

Uh but then like Actually I now know it feels really good to have somebody who's caring and thought and like whatever, like I can trust and And the the things that are like slightly below the surface that like You're like, Oh, I actually now that I know about it, now that I felt it, I'm like those are super important. I just You know, it's just less primal than like the physical attraction, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Um I've not done a good job of admiring people that I know really well. I've only known like you know, I admire people that I just hear about their competitiveness and their instinct to win. And uh I'm gonna think about that and try to do a better job of that.

Uh, your brother's like this. Your brother's another person I chose to like admire'cause I was like He's also your brother's also like in a good mood pretty much all the time. I I've I've never seen him like I've never seen him Either Like in low energy. Like I've never seen him just kind of like on autopilot the switches off.

And I've also like even when he's like Like I've never seen him defeated either. Uh So you know those are So so you know, when I've seen him, I'm like he walks into like when your brother walks into a room, like he sub he unconsciously goes

All right. And it's like he's expecting like the parade to start, and I'm like, bro, this is just a bakery. But he's like, all right, what are you doing? What are you eating? Oh, is that good? All right. And like it's not that he's he's not like Mr. Smooth socially. But his like will to have a good time. Or like to have the experience like in its fullest.

actually like imposes its will on everybody else. Everybody has to participate at that point,'cause they're like Uh yeah, it's croissant. You wanna try it? Oh, you know what? You should actually do this. And it's like he forces the good time out of the the average because He just literally walks in, he's like

All right, what are we doing? Or he'll be like Let's win! And I'm like, let's win what? We're not even like playing anything. Rise to your level or have to stop being friends with you because Uh that's just the way you're approaching things and like either that's just I'm out Or I gotta figure out how to be in, and w being in kinda means like

Being on and not just being like Ho hum about about life, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I've chosen to stop being friends with him as a result of that. No, in in reality, I actually have a room as well. And uh I know we're You know, we were at uh we were in Texas uh for like Mother's Day was my father's birthday two weeks ago. And um

Someone had gone to Cos I think my sister had gone to Costco and bought like, you know, some cases of water and like watermelons. And I got home and she's like, Hey Moys, can you get this stuff out of the car? It's like heavy and like, you know, uh I I I don't wanna do it. And I was like, Why do you have Salman? He's been at home all day's like He never does anything. Like he will not lift a finger for this kind of stuff and I was like this is why this guy's always in a good mood. No one asked him anything that like you know is uh not enjoyable because they know he's already said no to it so often.

That it it's not like you know, it's not something that it's asked or expected of any longer. That's why he's always in a good mood. Uh but it is a lot of fun to hang out with him. Like I and you know, I've hung out with him uh often enough to see both sides of that when it's like excited and like the energy comes And you know, it certainly lifts me up. And times where he's like more analytical and he's like let's look into this and does this make sense? Or more like You know, um I remember one time when Tiny Co was struggling We I was in San Francisco and he's like we have a new strategy, the whole business where instead of creating our own iPhone games, we're gonna license the intellectual property of others.

What do you think of this? This is like a bet the company move and you know, I had no idea I was a lawyer. And twenty two and didn't know anything. Um But I was like I could I could get the real sense of like It's not just pure optimism. There is a sense of reality there and that also like Help me understand him a lot more too.

Yeah, he said something about you that I thought was a baller line that I've I've reused many times, which was uh I don't even know if this is the real thing, but this is now the the the legend of it, which was When you went into the deodorant business, somebody was like, Hey, Moy's like Do you even know anything about the deodorant or like about deodorant? And you were like

No, I know nothing about deodorant, but in six months I'm gonna know everything there is to know about deodorant. And like that's all that's enough for me to go. Like I can start this, I don't need to like Think of myself as some expert. I've used that so many times. Is that a true mind? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that was definitely true. I remember who it was too, actually. It was the husband of one of my close friends who's like, You don't know anything I was like I use it and I'll be an expert in six months. Wait, give me six months.

And then what is it? That's an amazing attitude to have about anything. It's like, Yeah, of course. I d I don't know anything and like give me six months, I can be Pretty like I can be pretty much an expert at anything if you give me six months of obsession. And I think that's true with everyone. Sorry, go ahead.

Your brother had some that were like this,'cause I started writing down these traits. I was like There's a um Uh what I call is like you know, sometimes you have a speaker system, you turn it up to level ten and you're like oh it's pretty loud, it's bumping. And then you like get in someone's car and it's almost like they got they go theirs goes to fourteen. You're like, God, I can't hear anything. I'm deaf out of two like out of my right ear because

Like why is your shit so loud, but you're like, Okay, at least I know what loud is now. I have experience loud, even if I don't ever want my speaker to be this intense. Like I now know the level of intensity that exists because I just thought was the max before. And like that's what your brother did. Like we invested in a company together and they were kind of fucking up.

And I was like, dude, can you I've been trying to help these guys. Can you help me help them like He's like, Yeah, great, let's like all right. Let's win. And he gets on the call, he does his clap, and he's like And they're you know, they're kinda defeated and he's like, Okay, so well let's raise all this money. You're trying to raise money, let's raise the money like Let's look at the deck. And they like put out the deck and it was like awful.

He's like, Okay, so this is bad. Um But let's fix it. Like, okay, so he he he rattled off, he's like slide three and he was like super detailed, right? It's not just like general rah rah. Sorry three, that chart, it makes me think this, you need to flip the numbers to be like R visualize it this way, like this example here on Google Images.

And he did that for like this super detailed thing right away. And I was like, Whoa. And then he was like, All right, um They're like, wow, thank you so much. This feedback's been so helpful. He's like, Great. Um How long do you think it'll take you to to do this, like to make these changes? And they're like Uh I don't know. Hope I'm gonna work on today. Like, you know, I know it's super important, so I'm gonna work on it today. He's like

Great. It's t noon now. Let's talk at five. And then he's like, send me a standing calendar invite for five PM every day for the next seven days until this deck is amazing. And he's like, Let's just keep doing this, right? Like you said it was super helpful, right? So let's just keep doing this. And I was like, dude, I wouldn't have had the balls to tell any company I invest in like Let's meet again in three hours. It wasn't like forced. It like I can't even now when I'm saying it, it's not coming out the same way where it was like

Great, let's do this and like let's just shorten the time span, right? Like let's just cut all the fluff, okay. So you'll make these changes in take a couple of hours. Let's meet again. And I was like, I've never done two meetings with the same person in one day. So then I knew I was like, oh shit, I just found out my knob wasn't even at ten, it was at seven. And like this is what 12 feels like. And he we did it every day for five days straight until the deck was amazing. We would meet twice a day with these people.

By the end of it, they hated us. But like the deck was so much like the whole pitch was like the whole business was different basically by the end'cause it was like Usually when a pitch is bad, it's like actually the business is kinda bad. And um And so I once I saw that, I was like Whoa the Ali brothers, they function at like a different

Like they have a different level twelve that like Uh, I like to see and I'm sharing this on the pod because there's people out there who the all the people around them They've never seen like what twelve looks like. And I think you guys do this. And that's like my favorite thing about you guys. That's awesome. Uh I'm glad that that worked out. And yeah, he looked he has this insane ability to Get the most out of people and like uh without

Them feeling like it's an ex like without the without him forcing it upon you. Like he would do this when I was running native, he'd be like, How can you make this deal run better than dub and secret? And I'm like, This guy's an eight billion dollar R and D budget. I've got eighty bucks. I can't do this. And he's like Here are five things that you can do that like, you know, and he'll just Even though the f like three of those things will be outrageous, um, he'll be like going to find a new ingredient that'll work. And I'm like, What am I supposed to, you know, dig and find a new element in the periodic table of elements? But like two of those things will open up my mind in a way to be like, you know what, I'm not trying I'm not focusing on the right problem here.

I gotta stop thinking about retention and customer service. And all this other stuff that matters but will matter later on more. Right now this is my problem and forget everything else and um It's really humbling to be around that. Like whenever I'm around him, I'm always more jazzed about business and my business. Um, and like, you know, I think we've seen enough where we understand what the problems are right away. Like I'm in some of these board meetings and I'm like

Why are we talking about like you know, I was in a board meeting a couple weeks ago, all we did was talk about fundraising and I'm like This is a waste of my time and your time. Either you're gonna get this check or you're not gonna get this check from this one guy. Stop begging him, like move on. Why don't we talk about the business? And see hey, what's working and what's not.

Make a better business and the dollars will follow. Stop wasting time here. And and that's what like it's so much of this is experience, and I had no idea that it would be experience. And I think about this all the time. I remember when I was at Nate uh when I was at a P and G My boss who ran Deodorance quit. And I was like, Oh, he's quitting. I hope he does better. And I didn't realize all of the things that would happen to me. That um

you know, now we're super clear. Like he had made all these promises about keeping native independent and amazing and you know, not uh not like forcing his will upon the company. And he'd protect me from PG. The next guy never made any of those promises and so he didn't really feel like he had to do any of those things. And I completely respect that. But I didn't even understand what was gonna happen when the guy told me he was quitting. And now I'm like, Okay, when you know headcount changes, this is what's gonna happen. A new sheriff is gonna come and Into town, he's gonna bring in his own minions to work in the places that he likes and either fall into line or fall out like you know, f uh Leave the group.

And uh I didn't understand that. And so much of this is experience and once you go through those go through these things, it's super helpful. And you know, he's had f he's had so much more experience than I have, and he's been he's a little bit older than me. And so he's had it earlier than I have, and so he's been this great sounding board for this kind of stuff. You uh you tweeted something out that was great. You were like here's my uh My project status, like uh uh here's like my my my sell sheet I use for all my real estate deals. And it was just like Status of it. It's like, you know, um I I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was like Scent.

Um reply received waiting for Uh paperwork. Um follow up needed. And then there was one that was just like I'm unsure. I don't know what the hell's going on. Like I don't know what the front I don't know what's going on. I don't know where it's at. Like I don't know why it's not moving. And I was like, that's the status.

that I've needed in every project I've ever done. Cause my my I always have, you know, a tracker for anything I'm doing. I'm like, all right, it's either like I sent it. I'm waiting for a reply. I got the reply. Now I need to like reply to them. I need to analyze it. I need to sign. I need to wire the money. I need to do whatever. But like so often after like Twenty four hours, every s whatever status it was in, it's now slipping towards the black hole of I don't know what's holding it back from just finishing now. Yeah. And I think that's what you guys do really well, which is actually any initiative and any project, it's like

All right, we're trying to, you know, like get more profitable. It's like Well, we have this big plan and we're doing it and then like Surely but slowly but surely, like a month in it's like What happened to that whole profitability thing? Are we doing it or are we not? Like and it's like. Everything has slipped into I'm unsure what the fuck's going on and I need this like piercing clarity back.

And so A, I think that was an amazing little tidbit in there of like I need that I need that status because most things are actually in that That bucket. And I need to get them the hell out of that bucket, but I had to name it that to like acknowledge what the heck was going on. Yeah.

Uh another example of the relentlessness thing. Uh, level twelve, level fourteen on the volume scale. Like I showed your brother this deal that I was in vet I wanted to invest in and he was like, Oh, this is Like looks great. What's like Let's do it. And I was like, Okay, cool. And he's like then every day he would text me, like, What's going on with that deal?

And I was like, Oh yeah, like uh no change in like I emailed the guy, he said he's just He said he's finalizing stuff. He'll get back to me by Friday. It's like Tuesday. So Wednesday's like Yeah, what's up with the deal? And I'm like, Uh, I think it's still the Friday thing. I haven't emailed him again. Do you think I should? He's like

Yeah, let's email him again and tell him we love this and we want to be involved. It's like, Oh, is that like a thing people do? Like that's Just let's kinda fluff them up a bit. He's like, Yeah, let's just keep it hot. And I was like, Okay, cool. Then Wednesday, Thursday, he's like, I just feel like we need to do something. He's like Eventually got to the point where he's like, Uh, what's the guy's bank? Let's just wire him a million dollars. And I was like, We haven't signed anything. He's like, Well once we wire him the money, he's not gonna wire wire it back.

So like we're gonna secure our allocation in this deal, just like let's just send him a million dollars. And then he'll kinda be forced to like finalize things with us rather than keep us in this like limbo stage and maybe in the end he'll say Hey, I can't do the full amount. You can only do a quarter of the amount. Because I got all this other investor interest'cause we know that's what's going on here. And again I was like, whoa, didn't know that's an option of like

You can just wire the guy the money. I guess that kinda makes sense. And like uh uh these are very, very valuable uh little tidbits. Yeah. To add like a another example somebody gave us, they were like It was like, what's your open rate on your push notifications for your app? I was like, Oh, it's like thirty percent. I think that's pretty good. It was like twenty percent of it. It's like I think that's really good. Industry average like eight. We're at twenty. I was patting myself on the back, I was feeling happy.

And he's like, What do you think the theoretical max is? I was like What? He's like what do you think like theoretic Okay, he's like it's not literally a hundred. You're not gonna get a hundred percent of people because some people have uninstalled your app and they have notifications off. Like, what do you think is like And I was like, I don't know what you mean. He's like, I think I could get fifty percent of people to open a push notification. Let me just like see. So he sent a Push for his app.

And his app was like had it was like a social app, like you post photos. And he just Sent a post notification that said Um your Uber is arriving outside. Um like please like open this to to meet it at the door like whatever. He like sent the thing that was like your Uber is arriving with your package. Swipe to like open it up. He saw like fifty five percent of people open that thing. He's like, Okay, that's like

The juiciest, I have to know what's in this push notification. He's like, that's now the max. Is it anything we wanna use it? Now we know. So actually our Twenty percent is not on a hundred, it's on like fifty five percent. And so everything we do is from here. And I just remember thinking Wow, some people in Silicon Valley are like maniacs. Like they will Push the boundaries in ways that I just really haven't thought of.

And every time I saw someone break like an invisible wall That I had just had up, I'm like, Oh fuck. The game is so much more interesting than I realized. And like these people play without these walls. Oh, this is awesome. Like what what else can I do? It's still refreshing to see that kind of stuff when you're like, I don't know why I thought this wall existed. And now that it doesn't, it makes so much sense that it doesn't exist. Like just break through some it required some genius to break through a

And now that he's done it, it seems so obvious. Uh, whenever Solomon and I look at like deals, we're all way uh like one of our if our investments are like uh You know, raising a new round. We're always like We wanna either uh buy the business we I wanna buy the whole business. Run the business or sell my shares.

All of my shares. I want some action. So I can't look, these are the three options. I'll buy the whole thing, I'll run the business, you quit, or get take all my shares and get out of here. But I don't want nothing. I can't do nothing here. And uh it's a lot of fun to like it's a lot of fun to be involved and have that action. Um Uh but uh you know, it makes it so that you admire a certain group of people, certainly.

Yeah, exactly. And by the way, this is a good example. I admire that Uber push notification. Some people like how unethical and weird And like um, you know, why would you do that? And like, you know, if I told that, uh and I have done this many times, like I've told my designer, hey, let's try this and he looks at me like I'm Bernie Madoff saying, Let's take all their money and run away like

You know, they think I'm evil when I'm actually just running an exper to me this is like An awesome experiment, and it's because I admire People who did some of these different girth hacky things that were like Just unusual thought experiments that I'm like, Oh, you you the way you think is how I wanna think. Uh but not everybody not everybody wants that.

Or even thinks it'd like they think it's Bad. Which is like But knowing that is also where you figure out your lane. You're like, Oh That's my lane. These things I think are easy and fun and good. other people think are hard.

boring or like or like evil. And I'm like, oh okay, cool. I I now know what differentiates me versus anybody else. There was this one great story at um when I was a native, we had bought we had these uh uh end caps for Target. Like basically like shelving that was gonna sit at the end of a an aisle. And they come in filled with all the deodorant. Like you know, we ship'em and all they have to do is take the box off and filled. And uh so we sent them to Target and uh nobody could find them. Like you know

There were a bunch of targets that were like we don't have this. And so we're like, okay, what should we do? And so some P and G person was like, Okay, what we have to do is we need to call up the P and G target team in Minneapolis. They're gonna call up Target. Target's gonna call their distribution facility. And then we're gonna go all the way back around.

And we'll find out where they are because we've already shipped them. And so um someone on our team was like, This doesn't make any sense. This is fifteen phone calls, this is what you guys ordinarily do, and they're like, This is the only way to do it. So we Google target distribution facility in like New England. Found their phone number, call randomly cold called them and were like, Hey, we work in native. Uh I think you've got uh a bunch of these end caps. A bunch of stores don't have it. We ship them to you. Do you know where they are? And they're like give us twenty minutes to look in the facility. They called us back and they're like, Yeah, we got'em. We're gonna ship them out in the next truck.

And that's how we solve the problem and like you know To the P and Gers, it had never occurred to directly call the facility and to Google for that number. They're like we have to make fifteen phone calls and play secretary on the way back and like You know, their their mind was blown and for us we're like this is the most obvious thing to do. Call the person where the problem lies and um It's it's i it's crazy to see where those walls are and it's so amazing to break through them and be like this is the way things should be done moving forward. Can I give you one of those as well? When I was when we got hired like Twitch Twitch is an Amazon owned company, so it had like

The Twitch bureaucracy plus the Amazon bureaucracy. Like there's layers, you know, and and it wasn't all bad, but there was certain things you'd run into. It's like this pocket, it's like Oh no, I'm stuck in molasses. What is that w where did I step that like got me stuck? And one of them was For a period of time, I believe. There was something with the performance marketing where it's like So how much are we spending on like you know getting uh like installs and they're like, uh, you know, this amount like cool, like

What's the cost? Well, we don't really have the tracking like we don't have tracking, that's like you know the Basic they're like well. We don't want to install the Facebook Pixel. Because Amazon doesn't really necessarily want like we have to get approval before

Facebook'cause when Facebook pixels in your app, they have your data, they're kind of a competitor to Twitch and to Amazon. So like You know, there's some s sensitivity, you have to get that done. Like so we just spend we don't know any We don't know the We don't have the pixel installed? Like you c I don't even know you can run an ad without the pixel. And then they're like, Yeah. And I was like, How long is it like, yeah, it's been on Legal's desk for like a year? And I was like, Oh my God. And so I was like oh wow.

So it's like we can't and so my job was At that time I was like Oh, dude, we're getting our ass kicked in Brazil and like nobody in the company is even paying attention. Like we need to we need to like win in Brazil and like w what happened? We used to be number one and we're slipping because Like mobile gaming took off and we don't do mobile gaming. So it's like we need to win.

And um And so we built a scraper first to like see how fast the competitors were growing, because nobody in the company would do anything unless you had a case. For how like Much how big the market was. So it's like, Well look at the competitors. Like, Yeah, but like we don't know and I'm like, All right, we'll we'll build a scraper which is like

Startups do this all the time, but in a big company it doesn't like Super super kosher to do that. But I was like, uh, whatever, we'll do it until they tell us to stop. And the second thing was I was like, Oh, we don't have this pixel so we can't like run these ads. So I was talking I just went on a phone call with this guy who was the number one streamer in Brazil that we had just like paid a bunch of money to like come onto our platform.

And I was like, How would you get a bunch of more people to download our app? Uh, if I can't do Facebook, I can't do marketing like paid ads. And he was like, um, he's like, Oh, easy boss. And he's the same as the translator's like, he's saying it, ah, it's easy boss. You know, here's what you need to do. He's like, give me ten iPhones. I was like what?

He's like, buy me ten iPhones. I was like, what for? I ca you know, like I don't know how to do that. He's like I'm gonna give away iphones. Iphones like gold bars in Brazil. If I just say I'm giving away iPhones on my Twitch stream, everybody download Twitch. And you know, sure enough, I Get the I just like f kinda like bootleg away to get the guy gift cards so he could buy iPhones.

And um he buys ten iPhones. He does a stream where he's like, I'm giving my iPhones. He's like, I'm not giving away the first one until we have a like we have ten thousand people watching my stream. Go share this, text your cousin, text your mom. Tell them to get on this, I'm not giving it away until then. And then uh and he drum up he had he broke he like had he was the number one streamer on Twitch that day. He brought in himself like Hundreds of thousands of downloads, like the m biggest download spike that we had had.

Just by giving away like you know, f we ended up giving away like five iPhones. As like so for five grand basically. We did like more installs in a proven way,'cause they were all coming directly off his link to his channel. And I was like, and people And that's when I knew like Twitch might not be the place,'cause like

I told the story and I'm like I feel like I slayed the dragon and I'm dragging his carcass into the boardroom. Like the in the ninth floor, the top floor, the the the mega boardroom or all the se the exact I feel like I'm dragging this carcass in, being like, you know. Are you not entertained? You know, and uh people were like oh like you know that's interesting. Uh and then it sort of moved on and I was like, Wait.

We just discovered this like incredible growth hack to like get a bunch of downloads. We did this thing out of the ordinary, like You know, can we get a little love here? And uh when I got no love, I was like, Okay. Um This is not the place for me, because if this was my company And somebody did this, I'd be like, look, I don't know if this was good strategy long term or a bad one. It's really irrelevant.

The fact that you did this We need to tell every team in the company that like something like this is possible in your department. Like don't get stuck in the molasses. Like find something. And try something that works. And like these guys have tried nine things that failed. Tell them tell them about all nine. And then tell them the one that worked.

And like I would have gone on a road show for that. And that's how I knew like, okay, what type of company do I need to be at is one that like celebrates that type of thing. That's a pretty amazing story and like really amazing that this guy who's in Brazil is like I know how to get downloads. From this street like giveaway iPhones and get people to download it? That's brilliant of him. And brilliant that you found it and like harnessed it and were like fuck all this red tape, I'm gonna figure it out. That's awesome. Finally I'm getting finally I'm getting the love I needed. Yeah I've been waiting for two years to just get the daddy I'm proud of you uh son I'm proud of you moment, but I I got it now. All right, man.

Sorry I took you so far over. The time limit. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, appreciate it. Where should people find you Twitter is probably the best spot, right? Yeah, Twitter. I'm at Mois Ali.

Uh Moise Ali. All right, perfect. Thanks, man. Perfect. Thanks all. Thank you soon.

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