Asking 3 young millionaires how they make $1.8M, $5M, & $12M/year Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:00 All right. Today we're playing Shoot Your Shot, where we let founders come in, sit in the hot seat, and pitch us their business. We got founders that have million-dollar businesses all the way up to hundred million dollar businesses. They get 15 minutes, and in it, they start by telling us the one big number, give us the pitch, and uh and shoot the shot.

00:15 They get to ask any questions that they want. >> Yeah, we've done this in New York City. This time it's in San Francisco. Now, whatever you're doing right now, you need to stop and go to Spotify or go to YouTube. Look us up on My First Million and let us know in the comments which city you want us to go to next. >> All right, let's do it. >> All right, you want to bring the first guy out?

00:41 [laughter] >> What's up? >> How's it going, >> Nick? What's good? Hit us with the big number. >> All right. Um, so I'm running a backup generator company in California. >> Okay. >> We're doing about 12 million in ARR right now. >> Wow. >> And uh we've got line of sight to 14 million this year and contracted to go out to around 25. >> Okay. So the the big number is 12 million in revenue and you're what are you providing for people?

01:04 You you provide >> backup generator sales and service. >> So what does that mean? Like I'm a house I'm a homeowner out here. >> That's right. >> I would just buy a unit. I rent a unit or you sell it to power companies. wholesale generators, service generators. Um, we typically do higherend units. Um, our clientele are typically the like high-end estate properties as well as large more regulated facilities.

01:26 So, every telecom tower, every nursing home, every police station, fire station, every data center. >> So, it's B2B, >> mostly B2B. We will in the product that the high-end estate properties get, that's a it's an industrial product. >> So, there's all these businesses that as soon as somebody says them, I'm like, ah, of course. yet they've been a complete blind spot to me my entire life.

01:45 I've never thought about it once and I always wonder how did that guy start thinking about this? So how did you realize this is a business I could go be a part of. >> So I started my career in management consulting where you dabble around a bunch of different industries. Uh at one point I landed in a corporate job at NRG large power company in the US was doing innovation projects there strategy and one of the areas we had the hardest time finding good expertise in was backup generators.

02:10 And a backup generator is if your power goes down for 1 minute or 12 hours because of a storm or an earthquake or something, [snorts] this thing kicks on, you're good to go. >> You do not want the power to go out when you're on the surgery surgery table unless there's a backup generator there to cover. >> Great. >> And so every surgery center, every hospital, they've all got them.

02:28 >> When did you start the company? >> Um, so I acquired the first one. And so this has been an acquisition venture. It started with a thesis. Went around looking trying to find a a service provider to buy. We bought our first one in January 2024 and then bought a second one about five to six months later. >> And describe the industry. So is this a bunch of mom and pop companies, a few large players?

02:47 Like what does the industry even look like? >> So very barbelled. So you've got we go headto-head up against big big industrial names like Caterpillar and Cummins and Generrack on the direct side where we're competing for the business of you know marquee names, big counties, big state contracts and things like that. We also go head-to-head against the small mom and pop players, but really the the lion share of the market is owned by the the bigger platforms.

03:13 >> So, you did a search. You quit your job and did a search. You searched on the side. What'd you do? >> So, this was actually this is my third search venture. Um, I had done my first one was an office plant company. Um, >> what >> an office plant company. >> Plants. >> Yep. Like, >> yep. Probably possibly those. >> How'd that go? >> Uh, that that's still own it.

03:30 Um, >> you own it. >> Bought it in 2017. Um, we've done 14 acquisitions on that platform. >> Uh, hold on. Uh, how much revenue does that do? >> Uh, that's around 10 million. >> What? You own it out, right? >> Uh, me and my partner. Yeah. >> Okay. How much Ia? >> Uh, a little over two. >> Was that a thesis or that was I stumbled into a guy who owned a plant?

03:51 >> That was a failed ventureback startup. There's got to be an easier way to make money sitting on my couch cruising bis by cell in the way that a lot of people do with Zillow. uh instead of >> you had a a venture uh company that failed. >> Yep. >> And so you were like a management consultant founder, >> but you were like a management consultant nerd.

04:08 You were just like a an academic. >> Totally like tower. Here's your board deck. >> Yeah. You're like, "All right, now I need to get after it." So, uh this company, it failed. Now we're going to get into plants. >> Yeah. Okay. I'm going to buy something. >> We bought it with an SBA loan. It was like the polar opposite of what I had been doing throughout my career which was a mix of like management consulting boardroom Fortune 500 type of stuff and ventureback startups and I guess there's a third leg to that which is

04:34 small business world. >> You did plants then what >> we carved out a portfolio of commercial landscaping contracts in that plant business and sold that to private equity. >> How much did you sell for? >> Uh just a little over a million. >> Okay. Okay. So, that was the one, >> but it was it was 20% of my cash flow and like 80% of my headaches and that freed me up.

04:54 >> Um cuz I was like the bisdev guy. I was finding the plant acquisitions. I that business I built it. I bought did the first acquisition. I did four after that and then I kind of handed off to my partner to run day. >> You you like doing the search the business and you like doing the M&A. You have a partner who does operations or >> Yeah, that's right.

05:12 >> How much did you raise for this third business? What's it called? It's called On Point. >> On Point. Yeah. So this is the first time we've raised outside money because we felt that given where the macros were in terms of electricity demand booming, data center market booming, you know, electrical contractors booming, we felt like to meet the opportunity where where it was going to be like we needed to raise some outside capital.

05:32 So we brought in 6.5 million. Um we did a significant chunk of it, but there's you know about 5 million of outside investment in this one. >> And how big is this going to get? >> I don't know yet. I think this business can get really really big. >> Hundreds of millions. hundreds of millions. I think we can get to we're the question will be it's really revenue throughput.

05:49 Do we have the technicians to pull off the work? I've got the work contracted. It's pure it's purely an execution game at this point. >> And so describe you said you go up against Caterpillar and these other larger players. What what axis do you need to compete on? Is it price? Is it what what how do you win the pitch? >> 100% speed. They are slow. They're good at what they do, but they're very slow.

06:10 >> What's the speed difference? uh how long how long >> for us in and AI has been an absolutely like central part of our strategy of speeding up every single process in that business. I need to be able to deliver a quote while my guy's there. These are complex machines with a very difficult part supply chain. It can take weeks to turn around a quote from a hey your generator's broken to hey here's what it's going to cost me to fix it and when we can do it.

06:32 It's very very slow business and it's very very difficult because of all the research and tribal knowledge and it's you know spread across >> use to speed up that quote. If let's say the guy standing there >> y >> understanding what's the issue >> y >> is he inputting something on his phone and he's getting what >> and we've done all the backend work of every document that we have ever produced as a company has been ingested and studied by AI.

06:53 We've built it reg uh retrieval augmented system so that we can do research on the fly and produce answers on the fly. >> This is great. So there's companies I've got a friend that owns a HVAC company and it does close to 200 million in revenue. And he was complaining and lamenting over all my business sucks for this reason. His you know yours suck for that reason.

07:14 And he was and he was telling me like he was like well we just have to get better at buying Google Adwords. And he was like the demand's there. Like I just have to like operate. And I was like so envious of that because that's not what I have. I've got to like teach people what it is and whatever. Are you in the weeds of training people or is your personal job just finding who else you're going to buy?

07:34 >> Um so we've kind of put a pause on M&A right now. We're really trying to nail the operational workflows >> and that's what you're doing >> and AI support and I'm doing a lot of the building myself. >> Is it a pain in the ass to train these technicians? >> I'd say it's more than a pain in the ass. It's impossible. Like this is very >> or finding them which >> both because a there's not enough of them.

07:55 Those that exist are on their way out not in. >> And who is they? >> Uh field technicians. >> I know. But what what do they like are they in the same category of an HVAC person where like if you give me eight weeks of your time I could teach you how to do this but it's hard to find someone who's willing to do it. >> I'd say not far off of that. Okay.

08:09 Um it's mechanical, it's electrical, and it's both. And usually very few guys are good at both. It's increasingly instrumentation and controls. So, there's more computer and uh like troubleshooting, diagnostics. >> How much does a field technician make? Is this like a job that people are going to want because it's pays really well? >> This is a good job.

08:27 This is an opportunity where the elite field technicians, they will clear well into the six figures, a guy with a high school education, but it takes time to accumulate the experience. And you don't see a lot of generators. So, experience accumulates slowly. Even in HVAC, you might do, you know, three, four service calls a day. Our guys are doing one or two service calls a day.

08:48 >> And the consequences are massive. >> The consequences are massive. >> How big is the average contract? >> Hey, I want to tell you about something pretty cool. We have a database of all of the business ideas that have been discussed on this podcast. So, hundreds of episodes the team at HubSpot went through. They pulled out all the simple, relatable, interesting, profitable uh ideas that we have brainstormed and they're all available for download for free.

09:09 Just click the link in the description below. Thank you to our friends at HubSpot for sponsoring this podcast and putting together this free resource for you guys. Back to the show. >> How big is the average contract? >> It varies tremendously depending on whether you're dealing with a, you know, a 3 megawatt unit at an AWS data center or a Frank and Shirley's generator in their backyard.

09:28 For the, you know, data center units, you're probably talking 25,000 a year in service revenue. >> And is there ever churn? There is, but generally they kind of want accountability on the vendor. And so, and that is one thing that's hard about competing against Caterpillar, right? Like the the facilities guys like, "Well, I hired Caterpillar and they couldn't figure it out."

09:49 So, >> Right. So, so let me make sure I understand. It sounds like you do you sell the generators, but you service them. I would guess servicing is more than new sales. >> Yeah. And you get brought in directly by the facility or by the guy whoever the company is that made that they they put service they need service technicians out in the field everywhere.

10:06 So they subcontract out to you. >> So we're an independent so we have to we have to eat what we kill basically. So go straight to the facility. >> We got to go straight to the facility. We can work through the project uh through the facilities operations companies like the JLL's and CBRE real estate. And now you're you're saying my biggest bottleneck is I got to get enough technicians to be able to service the workload that we have.

10:27 How you going to solve that problem? >> So, we're still figuring it out. We've [laughter] got every recruiter, you know, we've got every recruiter spun up sending us leads. Some of it is like you can pay to bring guys here. Will they stay here? Open question. I'd say we can find the guys who says that he knows how to fix those things. Can we select for the guys who actually know how to fix those things?

10:49 That's I I think we've had a harder we've had an easier time finding people and getting them in the door and selling them on joining our company than we have had being damn certain that when that guy shows up there, he's going to find the problem and fix the >> But what did the um like we this is second time we've mentioned him, but like you know Tommy Melo, the A1 garage door guy.

11:08 Have you heard of that guy? >> Yes. >> Um and then there's like tons of these like influencers who are legit business guys. What have they done to like because they have all had the exact same thing where they're like you know garage doors like a lot of the people who come to me are kind of like problematic and I got to teach them how to like I think he said he's like we teach him how to like pet the dog.

11:24 You pet the dog right when you come in you ask may I come in? >> He does like sales excellence but still he needs the technicians to go do the work. One of the things we always talk about is like uh as an entrepreneur it's easy to feel like I have this this problem this burden and it's like unique to me and it's like very few problems in your business haven't already been solved by somebody else.

11:43 So the easy thing to ask who else has solved this problem and how how the heck did they do it? So he's saying how the heck did the garage tech how did the garage companies get scale up their technician force? >> Who do you look at that's already done this? >> So you basically have to start a trade school. You are the trade school. You have to bring these >> AC buddy who I'm referring to.

12:00 He has Hoffman University. >> You have to. Have you done that? >> Not yet. We're not big enough to do it just yet. We're working on building our shop. Building We have a third bay in our shop that is the training bay and we've handed our lead technician, you know, an assignment to we got to build out our own training capabilities. We've built the digital side of it.

12:19 So turning every job we do into a training experience that can be relayed onto the team because I need the guys to get more than one rep a day, right? I if I can turn every rep we do that day a bunch of reps, >> how are you turning it into like a simulation? >> So as guys submit their field reports, we have a prejob briefing. So we prepare these guys to go out to the field like they're CIA agents being dropped into Afghanistan, right?

12:44 Here's everything we know about this unit. Here's everything we've ever seen. [laughter] like they play it on their phone. They can listen and hear, hey, this is what I'm this is what I'm facing. And so, and that's the AI side. Then they do their report and they document their findings in the report. Um, and we've got a pretty slick data collection process where they can use their voice to produce their report.

13:07 We've got AI reading everything that they do, everything that they say. And then at the end of the process when they submit their report, we will flag the reports that are the best training material. when you're laying in bed at night and you're thinking, "If we can do this, this, and this, maybe in five years we could sell or maybe I can have this much annual income or like whatever that number that that vanity thing is."

13:30 For you, what is that, >> man? I think for me, this is my third time around and I feel like I'm doing this because I chose this. I wanted to be doing this. So, it's kind of about like what are all the cool capabilities that we could build that have never been possible before. >> Well, okay. And be specific though when you're like when you're thinking about this you're like what is that like what really gets you going?

13:50 >> Um I think making like really great jobs for these tradesmen helping them ach like ordinary people achieve like really really extraordinary performance. Um I'm like super excited about what we're going to be able to do and like how we're going to be able to empower people who have never really worked for a company that gave a crap that much about the process.

14:09 There was this really cool company, I forget the name, but they took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or some huge national publication, and they played off this idea of like, you know, how like your grandfather walked me around the city and he's like, "You see that building? >> I made that." You know, and he was just part of the construction crew or like, you know, look about 50 years ago, we installed this thing because and there's like this pride and the ad that they put out cuz they were

14:33 trying to recruit people is, do you really want to brag to your kids that you made B2B software just a little bit better? You know, something like that. And like I wonder if there's like some cool like um missiondriven like angles that you could take to this like recruiting because when you talk about like I'm passionate about giving like everyday guys like a chance to like do something interesting.

14:50 No, it's an interesting idea and I think there's definitely a point of pride over oh we work on you know it's kind of fun too cuz we work on a lot of high-end properties. So these are like you know lifestyles of the rich and famous type of stuff where we work on those properties. We put those generators in >> and the mission critical hospitals whatnot.

15:05 Yeah. and that right there's such an important duty. It seems like like I coached high school basketball this year and our star player, the power forward, he's graduating. We were like, "Do you want to go play in college? We can get you in front of some scouts." And he's like, "I'm going to trade school." He's like, "I'm not going to trade school doesn't have a basketball team."

15:22 He wanted to go work for, you know, he wanted to become like an electrician, but but like feel like crazy stuff like hanging out of a helicopter doing some repair and some crazy sight. And it made me realize, you know, there's probably a lot of people who are like have the talent, you know, whether it's veterans, whether it's uh exathletes, they kind of like the idea of doing certain types of work, getting paid really well for it, not having to go to a 4-year university.

15:46 And I wonder how you can surface more of them faster or where they're going today that you can tap into that flow. >> I think the stigma of the trades is gone. I think that is behind us. like the things that we were told when we were, you know, coming up like, you know, you got to go to college, better make sure it's a good one, yada yada. I think that there's some of that still there, but like I think the stigma of going into the trades is behind us.

16:07 And now it's like this is the opportunity for the tradesman's craft to shine and we're trying to give them the tools so that they really can and so that they can grow faster, learn faster. >> Well, nobody's built a great brand around the trade school, right? Like >> is there a what's Harvard? What's Stanford for for that, right? like where could you be proud that you got into that you're going that you're coming out like a Navy Seal who's going to be able to do all these amazing things.

16:31 >> That to me is a even bigger opportunity than what you're currently doing cuz like $150,000. >> Yeah. It serves all kinds of industries, you know, and there are some they're really niche, you know, and they're uh they're with that specific trade. And so it's there's not like a big one that everybody would know, oh, that's the stamp of approval, but there's not a Harvard of the trades in general, which I do think there's like an excellent opportunity there.

16:53 I would love to work on that. I feel like right now I'm working toward that and I need to understand it at a level of depth and have solved it for one quarter of the universe so that we could think about okay what what would how would you next level this thing? >> You have very um kinetic and contagious energy. I I have a feeling that in the next four or five years you're going to be significantly further along than where you are now.

17:15 It's very evident. >> You picked an amazing space and uh it's so cool. you know, we had a guy, the last guy was like a franchise guy and you're you you're doing entrepreneurship through search and acquisition. Uh I just love all the different styles. So, I appreciate you coming on, man. >> Yeah. Thanks for having me. >> All right. Appreciate you. Thank you.

17:33 [applause] >> We have someone else. >> Welcome. How's it going? >> Good. Excellent posture. >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. I scream good posture. I'll work on it. I'll >> look at this guy, too. [laughter] >> Up my game a little bit here. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. What's your name? What's up, guys? I'm Kevin. >> Kevin, >> yeah, >> welcome. [laughter] >> Thank you.

17:52 >> Welcome to Shoot Your Shot. Um, hit us with the big number to start. >> So, big's relative. My number is 1.8 million. My I think I'm a little unique with this setup cuz I actually just sold my business about 2 3 weeks ago. >> That's what I sold it for. Starter business on the board. >> Wait, so you are >> You just exited at 1.8. >> Just exited at 1.8.

18:09 Yeah. >> What did you sell for $1.8 million? >> Uh, it was a franchise business called Smash My Trash. >> Smash My Trash. >> I've heard of this. Have you heard this before? How to smash my trash? >> Explain. >> Yeah. So, the basic concept is companies that produce a lot of trash, industrial businesses, warehouses, factories, things like that, throw away a lot of stuff in these open top dumpsters that are these rectangles that hold like 40 cubic yards of stuff.

18:32 The pricing model is that every time you fill it up and you need a new one, you have to get it replaced. And that can cost like $1,000. >> Yeah. I used to like get on top of ours and like jump up and down. >> That's it. >> Imagine if a giant thing came and smashed the trash down. I thought I was going to like hire someone to come and jump out the trash for me.

18:50 >> That was it. No. So, we have these trucks that back up to the dumpster. Like you said, Sean, there's a crane on the back with this spinning spike yarn that goes in, pushes the trash down. The deal is basically, let's say you get 10 pickups a month, 1,000 bucks. That's $10,000 a month you're spending on trash. We'll get you down to just round numbers, five, and we'll split the savings with you.

19:10 >> Wait, so one a large company will spend 10 grand a month in trash? >> Yeah. Or more? >> Who? Like a warehouse? big factories, production facilities in like agricultural California is where I was doing a lot of work. >> Wow. >> Companies. >> So, these are like you just go to the parking lot, there's a huge dumpster back there. That's that was the opportunity is to >> smash the trash down.

19:30 So, you have to do less pickups per per thing cuz you're paying per pickup. >> That's it. >> And do smash smashing trucks exist already? >> There's a new concept. So, it's a franchise. This guy came up with the idea, started growing fast, decided to franchise it. So, these didn't really exist. They exist in Europe, but they're like mounted to the side of the building.

19:50 So, those companies would back the dumpster up. So, the insight was throw these things on a truck, have them drive around and do it as like a mobile service. >> You bought a franchise and then now sold your franchise, >> correct? >> One location. How many? >> Five locations. >> Five locations. >> How much did it cost to buy in? >> I bought it in chunks.

20:05 So, my I think my buyin was like 185k >> upfront. upfront and then >> how did you have money before? >> I worked in tech. I was like somebody who worked in SAS and uh had like the W2 sales or what were you doing? >> Yeah, I was in like sales and product and stuff like that. Like the kind of classic Bay Area W2 thing. >> So, this is so interesting. So, you're just sitting there at the office.

20:24 You got a good job. You're working in tech and yet you're like I need to get out there amongst the trash. What was the what was the chain of events that led you to like quit this safe thing and go buy into a Smash My Trash franchise? >> Yeah, it was a couple things. So it's like a growing sense of dissatisfaction. I like I kind of started to realize late in life that I wanted to work for myself.

20:44 And I was also like in this venture world where you're like going after like the next round of funding, this eventual exit. And I didn't I was like blind to the way that a lot of the world worked in terms of like cash flowing bluecollar businesses. And I started to get bit by that bug a little bit. Like I started hearing stuff about that and I got interested.

21:01 And then it was really when I got married and went on my honeymoon and I waited till like the last minute to book our honeymoon. So we stayed at places that like we probably shouldn't have gone to that were nicer than we otherwise would have. Started talking about started talking to people there at the pool and stuff and been like >> no way. All the rich guys are trash.

21:22 >> People make cash doing businesses that are off the beaten path. >> Do you remember like what were they what were they saying? What did they do? >> So one guy did like real estate. One guy did like a food truck but like did like a food truck like as a serious operation like had many of them. I had also had the seed planted on my bachelor party. I was there with my friend who was in private equity and he actually got in and smashed my trash before me.

21:42 >> Gotcha. >> So he planted the seed and he was a private equity guy. >> Of the 180 how much of was that a huge chunk of your savings? >> I did 85 myself. a buddy gave me 70 and then so that was like the equity and then I did a $350,000 SBA loan as well. >> Were you like I'm all in. This has to work or was this like a safe like I'm putting a small amount in.

22:03 I'm I'm >> It felt like a pretty safe side bet. I had more than that that I would have been able to but it felt uncomfortable. >> Okay. >> So you you decide to go in, you buy one. >> What happens? >> So I actually bought three out of the gate. >> Okay. >> I bought I bought three territories out of the gate. Now territories in franchise world like a lot of times people picture of restaurants where like it's clearly a unit.

22:21 This is area. So I mean it's really one business. The areas are a little arbitrary. >> How many years ago was this? >> This is in 2022 I got started. >> Okay. So four years. >> Four years ago. >> So got started and part of the reason I got into it was I was interested in something where I could draw a direct line between like brute force effort and cash in the bank.

22:40 I felt like in tech world I was so many layers abstracted away from like metric, right? Brute force to cash on the >> Exactly. >> So, what what do you mean? You just meant like if I more people I call, the more money I'm going to make, >> right? Like I had this no-brainer offer. I had these people who definitely could use this and 100% could make money and all I needed to do was go get them to believe me.

23:05 >> Yeah. >> And I could just start making cash and it wasn't like this promise of some future outcome. And I found that really motivating. Okay. So, I paid somebody overseas to like zoom in on Google satellite view and put pins on every dumpster. Okay? And like that was my plan. And I would drive from Walnut Creek down to, you know, San Jose to Selen.

23:25 It's like hour and a half, two hours each way every day and just like trespass, go into warehouses, try to talk to like the person there who's in charge of the dumpster, >> right? >> And just kind of wield it into existence. started driving beyond the confines of my zoom in. You go, you drive. Okay. Contractor gives you a pin. You drive to the pin. You get there.

23:44 You weren't invited. >> Knock knock. Now what? >> So, not even knock. Drive right around to the back where the dumpster is. Okay. >> My I So, I built this up over time. I learned >> Yeah. >> You don't want to go to the office because the office they're going to, you know, they're going to tell you no. So, what I would do is I had a red hard hat that I would put on, get the clipboard going, >> right?

24:05 [laughter] walk into the back and try to find the person who's physically loading the dumpster. You got the red hard hat on. Start asking questions. Most of the time they would just work. >> He's like, "Dude, there's no construction around here." >> You're the trash contractor for the company, >> right? They're just not sure. They're just like, "This guy's asking me like, "How many pickups do you get?

24:21 Who's in charge of it?" I start to kind of size the account, get some info, and then I would go to the front armed with info, and then I would, you know, work my way to the decision maker. >> How many months until your first dollar? >> Right away. right away. And the first >> How thrilling was that first sale? >> Oh, it was great. Oh, it was great. I was like out with our neighbors when they first because these are like kind of chunky contracts.

24:41 We're talking about like large I mean for me at the time, you know, couple thousand bucks a month recurring revenue. So, it only took two, three, four accounts to basically pay my debt service and my driver. So, >> you had a driver right off the bat? >> I hired a driver right off the bat. Yeah. And did Smash Rush give you this playbook or you were just like, I'm going to redh hard hat this or they were like, hey, here's how you do it.

25:04 >> They didn't tell me about the red hard hat, but they gave you the basic playbook and then I before I opened went around to a couple other franchises, including my buddy I mentioned, >> and just was like, "Show me everything. How do you guys do it? What works?" It's sort of like, have you ever seen those videos where someone's so my friend Neville Madora, he's an Indian guy and during South by Southwest every year he dresses up like a chic, like he wears like a white uh thing and a hat and then he's just like I get

25:34 [laughter] >> and then there's like these Instagram videos of guys who like they're like I'm just going to like look like a DJ, whatever that means. And then they get into the club. Uh that that's like this version of that. >> Exactly. People just don't ask questions. >> So you this is amazing. Okay. So you said you sold the business now. Year one. Do you remember kind of like what was the P&L?

25:53 Like what you what' you make in first year business? >> It's hard to say. I because the first year I bought the two additional franchises. So one day I drove beyond the bounds of my territory and I found like the trash gold mine and I bought those two franchises and bought two more trucks. Okay. So all the cash went right back in. Were all three territories successful or one sucked but another one was amazing and made up for it.

26:15 >> That was kind of it. There was a great one, there's an okay one, there's a medium one, and then I added on like these two amazing ones. Um, so I had to buy two trucks, had to buy two new uh territories. So all the cash went right back into that. I think I probably did like 6 to 800k of topline in those first two years. >> Wow. What was the biggest pain in the ass looking back?

26:36 >> The trucks. the operators or >> um not even the operators. Fixing the trucks when there's issues >> was something I just don't want. It's a big truck with hydraulic equipment and I eventually just kind of adopted the philosophy that like I had a mechanic. He was going to charge me what he charged me and I he was probably overcharging me. But when there was an issue, I would just overpay for it.

26:55 >> You didn't exactly have like a lot of like shopping around you could do for smashing. >> Yeah. I just wanted to get it done. Like a lot of our accounts, they're paying us a lot of money every month. And if we can't get to them, I just was willing to pay a lot to just solve that problem and have it not be something we deal with. >> So, how much profit did how much take-home income did you do your last year?

27:14 >> So, it was kind of like the first two years and the last two years was were very separate chapters. First two years, I was down there every single day, not taking anything out, reinvesting everything into new trucks and new territories. The last two years, basically 2024 to 2026 summer, it was like maybe around like 450 Ebida if you want to call it that, but 150k that was debt service.

27:35 So really my take-home was like 300k. >> So why sell? >> It was, you know, it just it felt like a starter business. It was always kind of my starter business. I got into it cuz I thought it would be like this direct line. It just weighed heavily on me in a number of ways. Like one these loans and I got loans for the second two trucks. It was that first 350k SBA loan.

27:53 I got subsequent loans for the other trucks. So that's a personal guarantee in my head every day. >> Right. [laughter] >> The a lot of people don't realize franchise agreements also have a personal guarantee where you owe them royalties every month as a percentage of revenue. I think most people know that with franchises, but there's minimum royalties, which means you either pay some percent of your revenue or this fixed amount on a schedule, whichever is higher.

28:18 and that's a 10-year long agreement that also has a personal guarantee. So, I always felt like I could handle that, but that's like also weighs on you. And just like having these big trucks out every day where like >> couple times a year I'd get a call that was like something bad happened and >> what what did it feel like when the wire hit? >> It was kind of antilimactic a little bit.

28:41 So, I had already like id worked with my accountant on like all right tell me like after tax after everything what the number is. I had like seen that number in a Google sheet and then when it happened I was very happy my wife and I for like we had a trip just coincidentally planned for to go somewhere the next day so we did get to enjoy it but now it's just like back to baseline kind of I feel the relief of not having like the responsibility and like I don't have my phone on me right now I'm used to like >> you're

29:07 walking around you're raw dogging your no phone right now >> no phone what I'm saying is normally I would beressed stressed out like I could go back and there could be just like a bomb dropped on me on my phone where you know something went wrong. >> Who bought it? Was it just somebody else who wanted even more territories or was like who who's the buyer?

29:23 >> It was that it was the neighboring franchises. So, it's a great thing where you know I was happy with the amount they paid. I think they're going to they got a great deal on it for them cuz they're just going to be able to fold it into their thing, right? >> It's how a lot of franchise M&A ends up happening. >> I have a feeling that you're plotting.

29:37 You have something that you've been that you've been thinking about. What is that? What are the list of things? And also, did you know what that was before you sold or the space gave you the time to figure it out? >> So, the first two years were a dead sprint. The last two years I got it in passive mode. I had two kids and so I wasn't able to go down there every day, so I did a lot of stuff to make it like truly passive.

29:57 And I spent a lot of that time trying to figure out my next move. I don't want to say too much about what it is. Uh, but I do have something in the works. >> What other opportunities did you consider doing that you did not? So, what I got really interested in was like this concept of how you could sell somebody a financial ROI no-brainer where the only objection is that they don't believe you and it would be like cheap or free to prove it to them.

30:21 >> And so, I was looking at all kinds of stuff like that. Like I think you can like audit people's utility bills. I think the idea of doing like site speed optimization for e-commerce is kind of interesting. That was like the insight that I uh that I thought was like a fun playbook to run that was like pretty straightforward if you're not that smart and you just want to work hard.

30:36 What's really smart about your approach that I think very few people do is in business what most people do is they think about the product. They're like, "Oh, I love that product or I know about that product or I love this industry. I've I think about their college major or stupid like that." you worked backwards from like what type of sale process do I want to do every day because that's going to be like 90% of my existence as an entrepreneur is just going trying to sell get more business >> and so you were like

31:03 where's somewhere that I can just brute force you know get dollars in the bank by going and you know calling or showing up on more sites and then even just now you're like and the pitch I want to be giving is a you definitely are going to make more money it all I got to do is prove it to you and I can prove it to you on a cost that's very little to me or a quick quick uh demo from my side to show you that the value is there and I think so few people take a sales first approach but as an entrepreneur that's actually all

31:32 you experience in the business is just growing the business mostly uh like the product is very like funible you could swap the product out. Yeah, that's I So what it is for me is I just I think like you guys, I like business. Like I'm a business nerd. I like hiring. I like selling. I like figuring out the systems and the processes. So when you have that, you kind of have the luxury of being able to pick a business that you think would be enjoyable and straightforward to run.

31:57 >> When are you going to start it? >> I already started the the new thing. >> So you only to And that's only 3 weeks ago that you sold. >> Yeah. Do you have a new mindset with this new one? Like what's changed now that you had that experience? you're going into the new one. Do you have any new rules how you want to do this? >> Bootstrapping. Bootstrapping.

32:12 I found, and this is probably just because I'm more riskaverse than I care to admit, but like this idea of the personal guarantee being tied to a franchise agreement. I really felt like the one-way door, you know, irreversible decision thing. So, I think going forward, I'm going to try to bootstrap as much as I can and keep my options open as much as I can.

32:34 What's funny is like maybe your tech co-workers were like that's this is very risky, you know, this is like insane what you're doing. What I've noticed talking to a lot of uh entrepreneurs on here and through my life is that most entrepreneurs I don't consider myself to be a very risky person at all. Uh and most say that as well. They're like I'm not that risky.

32:55 And like it's this idea of like there's a difference between uncertainty which always exists and risk which you can reduce. Uncertainty always exists and you just got to get comfortable with that. But you can definitely can like limit the risk and taking those person personal guarantees that's actually quite risky. Uh and so it's funny to hear that you're a riskadverse person.

33:10 >> It's like great fighters, they don't pride themselves on how much like how much risk they're taking in the fight. It's all it's really it's a self-defense. Hit and don't get hit, right? And like the best fighters, if you look at like Floyd Mayweather under goes undefeated, he didn't even really get hit that much. Kabib didn't really get hit that much.

33:25 It's like the black belts understand that it's about minimizing the damage you take while still winning. >> Yeah. Like there's all these investors and they're like, "Rule number one, don't lose money. Rule number two, pay attention to rule number one." >> Yeah. >> Uh and it's pretty funny. >> Let me ask you another question. I'm I'm talking to my friend who's a friend from college and he's got a a normal job business.

33:43 He wants to go do something entrepreneurial. >> And I think he wants to do it very much for the money, but I think truly the benefit would be that he's just going to have a lot more fun. He doesn't like his job. And just liking your day matters a lot more. You had a good job. You did it for four or five years. Did you end up way ahead financially versus where you would have been just taking your salary with raises and savings?

34:03 Was it a big financial win or was it the life win, the confidence, the fun that you had? Like where was the win? >> I think about it as like the escape velocity that I needed to go work. I can work for myself for the rest of my life as long as I don't like mess it up. And that's how I think about it. It gave me that escape velocity out of that. And >> is it financial runway or it was confidence?

34:24 >> It's financial runway. It's confidence. It's experience. It's pattern recognition skills and everything like that. And for me, I kind of had to like do the because and really because I bought the business so far from my house, I was going to try to keep my job for like a second there. And then I realized I had to quit it. That was the case for me.

34:41 I think for other people the move is just find something you can like step into and test it out a little bit before you fully before you like fully rip it. >> We've never done franchises. Um, and I've always been a little skeptical of franchises. It's like franchises seem like great business for the franchiseors uh not the franchisee and so you did it you have a good outcome.

35:01 What's your current perspective on like is franchises a good good place to go or like did you discover some other franchise along the way that you're like I wish I had done that one that's now that I understand what makes these work that's a way better one tell me something smart about franchising >> I think there's three situations where doing a franchise makes sense I think the first one is if the franchiseor actually has some secret sauce and like the nerdy way that I think about it is if you listen to like the

35:26 acquired podcast they do the seven powers if the franchiseor gives you a seven one of the seven powers. It could be worth it. So that's brand with like the Midas touch or it's like cornered resource like the Chick-fil-A recipe you can only get at Chick-fil-A. That's worth it. Those are rare and in high demand. The second one is if you are going into it to do like a rollup.

35:48 Franchises are friendly for roll-ups, I think, because you just have carbon copies of each other. Like the systems are like the integration is the hard part of a lot of roll-ups. The integration of a franchise is just like the people stuff. It's pretty straightforward to roll up and it's like a walled garden. Like if you're in the system and you have the appetite and the capital to do a rollup, you can do it in a lot of cases and a lot of franchises are ripe for consolidation because they're incentivized to sell a lot

36:12 of units because they make franchise fees on each unit. And then what that means is in a couple years it's just like begging for consolidation. And the third reason is basically my reason which like if you're literally not going to do anything else. You're not going to do something unless you feel like you have the training wheels of a franchise. That's what it took for me to do it.

36:32 Like I don't regret doing it. I probably won't do another franchise in my career. But like it played a important role in my uh it got you where you wanted to go. >> Right. I wasn't going to do it otherwise. >> Well Kevin, you're you're the Thank you for doing this. >> Yeah. Thanks guys. >> Awesome. Thanks for coming on. >> Yeah. >> Bring him in. What's up?

36:51 >> What's going on? >> Good [clears throat] to meet you. >> Great meeting you. >> What's up, brother? >> What's your name? >> Noom. >> Noom. >> Yes. >> Noom. Welcome to the show. >> Thanks for having me. I'm excited. >> Okay. I don't know if they told you what you're getting into, but uh maybe start with what we call the big juicy number. So, give us one number that'll get us interested.

37:08 >> All right. Big juicy number. We're doing $430,000 a month selling heated jaw massagers. >> Jaw massagers. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. So that was my nickname in high school. >> Hey. Okay. [laughter] Damn. Less detail the better on that one. All right. So, do you have one? What is that? What is a heated jaw massage? >> Okay. Listen, I do have one. Fits in your pocket.

37:29 >> Is this like a look maxing thing? >> See, Steve Jobs had a thousand songs in your pocket. >> He's got one hot jaw bone in your pocket. >> Share jaw massagers or is this like a toothbrush? >> It's uh it's super kosher actually. Yeah. Uh it's not going in your mouth. But I mean, so I have two actually. This one is like what we're selling right now.

37:46 Okay. >> Uh, it's the Gen One. It's like 3D printed. Looks like a vape. All right. >> Um, this one is gen two. I'm flying to China tonight, actually. So, I'm trying to do it. But you basically click this button. >> Adjustable. >> Gen one doesn't work. >> As far as that one doesn't work. I g [laughter] I gave all my San Francisco Gen 1 ones away. I was just at a conference.

38:05 It's over. I only have this. So, [laughter] >> um, but yeah, you you have the two buttons there. Adjustable heat, adjustable vibration. >> There you go. >> Literally. >> Okay. So, I do this. >> Yeah. So, it's like a couple things. you have muscle scraping. >> Is that what we're doing? >> You know what? Some people are looks maxing, but um the main thing actually is it's for people with like TMJ disorders, >> right?

38:25 >> So, I mean there are like tens of millions of people out there dealing with like chronic jaw pain and generally that audience is uh is not the looks maxing crowd. My my main customer is not that, but they do exist. >> So, so it is TM TM >> TMJ. Can you explain TMJ like in America how how one out of every how many people have it? Give us something like that.

38:44 >> Yeah. So around 5% of people seek treatment, but it's many more that have it and potentially don't even know. So like there are a lot of like really common things that happen. Like the way I started dealing with it was like 5 years ago my jaw started clicking on the right side and I was like okay. >> I think my mom got this like you get it like temporarily sometimes, right?

39:04 Stress and things like that can bring it up. >> Is it just annoying or is it dangerous? >> So the the clicking um if it's painfree often times it's it's just annoying. Some people say up to like one in three people have this at some point in their life. But for me it started getting worse. It started click on the left and then my jaw started like locking closed and then that would happen like once a month and at once a week then once a day I would wake up and I couldn't like brush my teeth.

39:26 I couldn't >> What causes this? >> It's a good question. Like a lot of different things can cause it you know like clenching for example. A lot of people have a clenching issue clenching grinding at night. Um some things is like you know a lot of looks maxing can actually end up causing this. It could be trauma to the joint. It could be all this for for lockup specifically.

39:45 There's like a disc in there and you know it can displace. >> And you put this on your jaw how often and how long? >> So the idea is uh a couple things for for the musculature right like most people's pain actually ends up coming from like the muscles and because it's overcompensating that kind of stuff. Um so you're using it as like a scraper, a heater once a day uh or like a couple times a day, 20 minutes a day.

40:05 That that's what the research says you should do what the doctors say. But honestly, it's just like a hey, I am I have a flare up. My my head hurts. Uh you go in, you you work on the muscles or you just have like instant heat in your pocket instead of >> close to half a million a month. >> Uh yeah. >> So you sell like 5 million a year of this. >> Uh that's uh annualized.

40:26 >> Annualized. [laughter] Yeah. >> And it's it's called your TMJ pen. >> Your TMJ pen. >> How much does it cost? >> So we're we're normally $2.49. Uh right now there's like a clearance sale. >> And did you raise funding? >> No. No. No. It's No. very much fully bootstrapped. Yeah, >> this is uh I feel like I would see this on Tik Tok shop. I would see this like on IG ads late at night.

40:45 >> Yeah, listen it I I wish I wish the guy behind I am that guy. I am that guy on Instagram. I'm the TMJ guy. >> I have seen you. You're you're the face of this, right? >> I am the face of that. >> I think I've seen you a lot of rage bait on Instagram. I love I love it. >> So what what's you said rage bait? >> Okay, so one of our like big most viral videos is like I'm on this plane, right?

41:05 And uh I this this you just went into >> this absolute Karen next to me starts like calling me out. She's like it's like hey you can't be vaping on a plane, you know, and I like get really flustered. I'm like no no no it's it's it's not a vape. Um wait let me explain. And I'm like I'm like flustered trying to like explain this that it's like my invention.

41:21 Like I made this. It's for people to drop in. It's not a vape. >> Um and that concept got like 100 million views. So really wow. Uh awesome. >> How did you think of that? Just to go with the Karen on the plane where where >> it's mostly the vape. vape on the plane really is >> it looks like a vape. Everyone tells me that. So, >> right. >> What's going to stop every Chinese knockoff from coming after you?

41:43 >> I mean, listen, at some point like they're going to come. But the reality is like when I when I started this, like I I I looked I looked it up. I was he and massaging myself like every day with like a mug of water. I microwave it, whatever. And I I would look it up and um there wasn't a heated massager for the jaw that there were no products period sold for people with TMJ problems like not a single one which was baffling and so I like not there was no brand there was no developed the actual I developed this and

42:11 yeah like I I'm the first brand. >> Did you say you 3D printed this? >> Yeah. So the way I started the business is cuz like dude listen hardware used to be I think one of the most risky things you can get into making like a hardware device. Like you'll look at Shark Tank like people are like yeah I spent like a h 100red grand making this and it's like that was a big mistake.

42:32 >> How much did you spend to make the first handful? >> I spent less than $3,000. And the idea was like there are like three things that like aligned in this age we're living in that makes it probably now one of the least risky things that you can do making like a hardware consumer product. First having all the access to like information like engineering at this point is like low-key kind of easy like okay don't clip that but with chatebt with YouTube like I didn't know how to make electronics.

43:01 I didn't know how to make a PCB. >> What were you doing before? Looked it up. I was I was a mechanical engineer. >> I was in college like >> how old are you now? 24. >> How old is this? >> Three years since I started making it and then two years of selling it. >> And so you're like I'm an idiot. So you have a 3D printer at home. >> Yeah. >> And you're on Chad GBT at the time and you're like teach me how to like >> you're like give me a >> Well, chatbt back in the day was not good enough.

43:25 >> But then like there's a motor. I mean I don't know how electronics work. >> So what did you do? You're at home. You never made >> So what I did I So uh I wrote out what do I need this thing to do? I need it to heat. I need vibration. I need you know it to charge. It needs to be portable, whatever. You write out what you want. The obvious thing that it needs is like a PCB.

43:41 It's a printed circuit board. So, it's it's those little green things. Yeah. It it looks like a chip. It has a bunch of things, a bunch of lines on it. Um, so to design that, like I I didn't know what to do, but I looked on Reddit. I asked for advice. I I went on YouTube. I figured out how to design this thing. Um, that was like the first thing I did.

44:00 Then you design the casings. You look up potential motors. You buy them all, test them, and and uh >> so you ended up making the assembling the thing yourself for V1. >> Yeah. So for I was assembling these things myself up up until literally a year ago to the day. Um we we got up to like 80K a month. I was assembling, shipping, I had two 3D printers running my closet in like in my apartment.

44:23 And then I I kind of went like Alex Herozi mode. I was like, "Wait, what if I just, you know, do this but more, you So, I found like a 3PL. Uh, and normally a 3PL, I mean, you know this, but um they just ship stuff for you. Uh, they like fulfill your stuff. But I was like, "Hey, let me use your employees. Like, I'll put my 3D printers in your place.

44:45 You guys can use them." And >> made them on the spot there. >> Yeah. You can make them. And so, now my 3PL makes it. And that's how we were able to grow to this point. >> So, you're flying to China tonight? >> I'm flying to China tonight. >> You're going to You already have because this is made. >> Yeah. So, we made a prototype. You found somebody on Alibaba.

44:59 What' you do? >> No. No. I I did not do that. That would be risky. Um, no, I I got connected. So, I I'm like pretty big on Instagram now and like YouTube. So, I I I made sure to like get connected via word of mouth. Um, so I found a factory together with them. We we designed this thing. I flew there like a couple months ago. We um we got to this sort of like golden sample and now production is like sort of done.

45:22 Like the molds are doneish. So, I'm going there now to like get the final samples and then we'll be able to >> How many employees do you have? I don't have any like like fulltime employees. Uh I but I have like you know contractors. I have like um five contractors. >> So have you taken money out of the business yet? Are you like took a million bucks out of the business last year?

45:41 >> So like this year it'll do let's say let's say hypothetically you do 5 million in to total revenue in 26. How much cash flow per like how much uh profit? I don't know if you measure >> uh yeah it's around like 20% like net um income. I don't know. I I kind of look at it. This is just like my business. It's like some of it's in the business bank, some of it's in my Vanguard, some of it's in my personal bank.

46:00 I don't know. I just kind of like take it as I see fit. [laughter] >> And do there's no repeat purchase, right? Like nobody's going to buy >> Yeah. There's no >> Yeah. >> But what did like uh I remember years ago when uh the you know the Yeah. >> Like my I have a Hypervolt that I use forever. I love it. And I remember they came out and people were like, "Dude, like all the Chinese companies are just going to knock this off."

46:19 But they they did. >> They did. >> They did. But they did do a good job of like kind of branding it where I I am like into my hypervolt. But then they also came out with like 30 products. There's like the things that like do my legs and I love all of them and it's become my routine. >> Is there like a other things that you're going to you can do? >> I do have this vision of being like a a brand specifically focused on making products for the TMJ community.

46:42 The brand is like your TMJ. >> So it's like your TMJ pen. Then I'm thinking like your TMJ band. >> We had this guy in the podcast named David. Yeah. >> And his whole company and like we started out as a shtick but it wasn't entirely a shtick where it was like Sam doesn't believe that picking an important name is actually important. And this guy's whole job he makes a lot of money naming companies.

47:05 >> Blackberry and Swiffer and >> Sonos Fabreze. He named all this stuff. And I am totally on board with what he's doing now. And his whole I actually just hang out with him the other day. His whole thing is like if you're a young entrepreneur start your company. Who cares? But once you get some traction, consider making it a name that can last forever because it actually does matter.

47:21 and I buy into that. I would highly consider keeping that as maybe the TMJ pen, that product, but having like a proper company name. >> Yeah, that's that's possible. I don't know. I feel like it's just like >> not the main like concern right now cuz like for for this product Yeah. Like people it's like this is like the TMJ pen, you know? It's like it's like when people say TMJ pen, it's this like there's no other thing.

47:45 So it's like I think that's a pretty good name. But yeah, for the company like >> Well, you said you did have a question. Well, what was your question going to be? >> Well, yeah. My question was going to be like, listen, you're going to you're going to be like, "Oh, money doesn't matter." Da da, but >> No, we won't say that. >> We won't say that. [laughter] >> It's called My First Million, not just 1 million and stop.

48:05 >> Listen, I've [laughter] heard a lot of guests come on the show. It's like, you know, they've made it and it's like, oh, I was like, no, I want a couple mill in the bank, right? >> I want that. So, I get this urge to like sell in maybe two to three years or something. >> Sell the company. >> Yeah. And I don't know what therefore I should like really be focusing on cuz like if it for me like the obvious thing right now is like hey what's the like main constraint?

48:27 It's uh you know going and solving the supply the supply issue then it's going to be like demand short-term constraint and then you have your long-term constraint in this in this scenario. >> Yeah. And and I don't know what the like long term like maybe it is a long-term constraint to not have other products but the issue is like I don't know like what would be super important then to weigh against like losing focus on just like cranking up more ads now.

48:47 So maybe it's uh recurring revenue, right? Like maybe I should get into TMJ like supplements and and oils and creams and stuff. Or maybe it's having uh more products on the consumer side. Maybe it's having IP. Maybe it's having registration with the FDA. Maybe it's having >> you have three options. >> Yeah. >> And you don't have to decide right now, but it's good to know what they are cuz then when you're doing the business, you'll look for clues that support one of the three options.

49:12 >> Either you can go wider or TMJ. So you could say, "Great TMJ, this helps, but it's not a solved problem. I can sell the creams, I can sell the oils, I can sell the supplements, I can sell the whatever. So you go wider TMJ, you can go wider pain relief. So maybe heated massage for other conditions, other parts of your body. The kind of hyper rice model, the um the gun model where you're going to create, you know, righty company.

49:36 >> Yeah, they're a recovery company. And you would be a pain relief company and you would say, "Okay, cool. I'm going to go find all the different types of pain. I'm going to create like specialty products. I'm going to run the same playbook across them." And so like right now the those slide heated heated vibrating slides is like the big one that's going viral right now that I think someone Nike is doing or somebody's doing.

49:55 >> Yeah. >> So you could you could go wider in that direction of pain relief. Heated maybe heated massaging pain relief. >> Or you could just say actually I just got good at doing this model of like contentbased selling of products. cuz I now know how to do a little bit of supply chain, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but I'm really good on the marketing side.

50:12 And and I'm fundamentally limited by category and product. And if I just take, you know, I'm a I'm a 9 out of 10 entrepreneur. I just need to find a nine out of 10 opportunity. TMJ is just a two out of 10 opportunity because of the nature of what I'm doing. And you just take your highly transferable skills of creating content, selling through content, you know, and you just apply it to a better category and you that has tailwinds.

50:34 you don't fight the the small TAM problem that you >> potentially have liquidity already >> and you're so young, you're going to have money in the bank and you're going to have like a bunch of lessons learned that with a clean slate like this can be your starter business. Like most entrepreneurs have a have a starter business, have a thing that they did early that wasn't their lifetime business.

50:54 And you know, so that's the other possibility. >> So you you you know, you don't know which one of the three it is right now. Maybe you should write down a hypothesis as to which one of those three it is. And then as you operate the next six to nine months and you're focused on growing this business, you'll at least be aware of and looking for clues as to which one this might be.

51:10 Maybe you launch a little test in one of those one of those three areas. You figure it out that way. >> Yeah. I mean, I think I think it's what it is is like I I like to use the business as like a learning opportunity uh like as just like a personal growth thing. It's probably going to be like, hey, is there more juice to squeeze out of that in in the TMJ space?

51:28 Whereas >> It definitely is. I got it because >> I think so, too. And I a few a handful of years ago I had Lyme disease and I like would look on like Reddit and stuff and I noticed the the very clear trend and amongst some other friends who got sick with different illnesses or injuries. There's dozens or hundreds of injuries or illnesses where people feel like no one's listening to me.

51:48 No one takes me seriously. What the hell? But I know something's wrong. I don't feel good. And so they go to these communities and they buy these products where it's like finally I'm being heard and I'm being catered to. And it's I if I had to guess, this is one of them because I've heard that word TMJ, but when you see it like clicking, I'm like, "Oh, that can't be that bad."

52:05 And then the person who has it like it's horrible. You know what I mean? Uh >> and if you go to the doctor, they're just like, >> "Well, you know, just >> stressed so much." Like, "Yo, I'm kind of pretty stressed because this hurts every day." Also, in addition to whatever caused it in the first place, >> my first my first uh specialist I went to prescribed me like 2,000 milligrams of Tylenol a day.

52:21 I was like, >> I would, if I had to make a guess, this will you're going to grow a lot over the next three years and sell it. And I think that would be pretty cool. These are fundamentally pretty tough businesses to sell. Um, you know, non-recurring niche product heavily based on your marketing genius. So, it might be that like optimizing for the exit sometimes looks different than optimizing for cash flow.

52:42 And so, you want to kind of weigh those. You don't even again you can go look at some comps and be like, is there any who's done this before and exited? Well, let me go talk to them and understand like does the factors that made that a successful exit match what I what I have fundamentally in my business. But if it's just a cash flow business, that's great.

53:00 Cash business can be awesome. >> Have you ever talked to any bankers or brokers? >> I haven't. >> A lot of times people only do that when they're ready to sell when you should have done it three years earlier and you find out you're like, I have a number in my mind. Just tell me what I need to achieve to make that number possible and I'm just going to go do that for two years.

53:16 >> Tell me three companies you looked at that are like this. What did they sell for? why did they get that model they got? When did they do it? >> And you're like, "Okay, it could be like this revenue, this cash flow, and you know, these are the the five or six other metrics. I'll just do that for 3 years and and then I'll look up and be like, okay, >> okay."

53:31 Yeah. I If you guys know any I I had some people reach out on LinkedIn about it, but they seem kind of skezy, so I was like, I'm good. >> Yeah. No, I would. So, I would talk to Quietite. They're more of a online brokerage, but they're easy to talk to. go to they if you go look at their thing they they have a lot of these like FBA businesses that they sell that like are kind of like I would say >> lower durability lower quality businesses overall but they seem to be selling so like they know how to package those what

53:57 type what business is working >> quietite brokerage >> yeah.com so go to them and then go look up brokers in your space maybe like you know you just have to Google and like tell chat GB go do deep research on who s you know who are bankers that sell products like mine like I don't even know what the name of this category is, but it might be like >> noness non-medical wellness devices.

54:18 Okay, cool. And >> you can you email the founders of people who have had exits and you say, "Who did you who all did you talk to?" Cuz everyone who sells at a company will talk to three or four. They'll say, "I used this person. They were great. These two were kind of good." >> But I would not delay this. What Sam said is absolutely right. You don't talk to them when you're it's time to sell.

54:34 You first talk to them a year or two before to actually understand what you need to do in the next 24 months to be a sellable business in the end. And it the good thing about a sellable business is if somebody else is going to want to own it, it's probably the same like reasons you would want to own it. So there's no harm in building a very sellable business because at the very least you made a business that's higher desiraability to own for yourself or for somebody else.

54:56 >> Yeah, dude. Thanks for doing this. You're awesome. >> No, of course. Thanks for having me. >> Good luck in China. >> Yeah, [laughter] >> all right. That is part two of Shoot Your Shot. We got one more episode coming out of the San Francisco location. We got three more founders coming up on the next episode. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, on Spotify.

55:13 We looked at the data. I think 80 90% of you guys are not subscribed who watch the episodes. What are you doing? Subscribe so you can watch episode two. >> And do me a favor, whether you're a listener, then you're going to go to Spotify or if you're a watcher, go to YouTube. Put in the comments the city that you want us to go to next. Right now, we're doing this in San Francisco. We've already done New York. We'll go somewhere next to it. So, let us know in the comments right now.