A lot of people are looking for passive

income from side hustles. Yeah, it's the

financial ompic and it's more accessible

than ever. Like 90% of the ideas I talk

about can be launched with $500 or less.

And there's enough time in the day to do

these on the nights and weekends. So in

these three suitcases in front of me, I

have three different amounts of money.

And during this conversation, I'm going

to pass you a box at random. And your

job is to tell me what kind of business

you would start with that amount of

money. Sounds good. Let's do this. Known

as the king of side hustles, Chris

Kerner has launched over 80 businesses,

earning millions in the process. And

now, the serial entrepreneur is going to

teach us how to adopt a business mindset

>> and launch simple, overlooked, but

profitable ventures with little money.

>> Many of us struggle financially and they

see a side hustle as a solution to that.

Like for me, growing up kind of poor,

business allowed me to take hold of my

life and make it what I wanted it to be.

And it started when I was 9 years old

and wanting a Red Schwin bicycle. My

friends had a bicycle. My neighbors had

a bicycle and my parents didn't have

money for it. But I lived across the

street from a golf course and these golf

balls would fly in my yard and I would

go to my neighbor's yard and go across

the street, dig through the ditches and

I'd pull out all these golf balls and I

started selling them. That was my first

business. That taught me that business

is approachable and we all have ideas,

but we usually don't do anything about

it. Why? I think number one, they're

afraid of what people think. Number two

is they don't have the tools or they're

not connecting the tools with the ideas.

If we can get over those, the world is

our oyster at that point. I have $1,000.

What side hustle would you start?

>> The first thing that comes to mind is my

favorite business idea of all right now.

This is a zero employee business. It's

highly profitable and that would be so

how important is it for you to love the

thing to be successful at it? Ignore

passion. Follow the profit until you can

afford to follow your passion. Do they

need a business partner? No. If you look

at the stats on business failure rates

with companies that have co-founders,

it's significantly higher than companies

that have solo founders. And how does

someone validate a business idea? If I

had to pick one tool, it's one that one

in four humans use every day.

That's everything you need right there.

I see messages all the time in the

comments section that some of you didn't

realize you didn't subscribe. So, if you

could do me a favor and double check if

you're a subscriber to this channel,

that would be tremendously appreciated.

It's the simple, it's the free thing

that anybody that watches this show

frequently can do to help us here to

keep everything going in this show in

the trajectory it's on. So, please do

double check if you've subscribed and uh

thank you so much because in a strange

way you are you're part of our history

and you're on this journey with us and I

appreciate you for that. So, yeah, thank

you.

Chris,

>> who are you and what is the mission that

you're on?

>> I am a father. I am a husband and I'm a

serial entrepreneur and I love talking

about business and starting businesses

and inspiring other people to do the

same.

>> Why business has given me everything.

Um, growing up kind of poor, it was my

outlet. It was my way of just kind of

taking hold of my life and making it

what I wanted it to be. And I have

immense gratitude for that. Um, and I

love I just love talking about it. I

it's the only thing I know you I can't

talk to you about history or nutrition

or anything, but when it comes to

business, I just love it and I want

other people to love it as well. How

have you made your name in the world of

business? Because I've heard your name a

lot recently. People call you the king

of side hustles.

Where has this come from? I think I just

published my life on the internet now.

Um, I I'm always testing and launching

and starting businesses, but only over

the last couple years have I started

publishing that. And

I didn't try to be like the king of side

hustles. That's not something that I've

ever like intentionally tried to brand

myself as, but I think people see what I

do as a side hustle and they call it

that. But I think that anything is

scalable. Any side hustle could could be

a multi-million dollar business. Um, I

mean, we we live on a planet with eight

billion people and we're all connected

and anything can be scaled.

>> And you make a lot of content now, so

you've probably had a bit of a feedback

loop in terms of understanding what it

is that you say and do and create that's

resonant with people and also why it's

resonant like what is the crux of what

people like my audiences are are looking

for. As humans, we all want a silver

bullet. We want a solution to our

problems and many of us struggle

financially um and they see a side

hustle as as an outlet to that or as a

solution to that. I think everyone has

ideas. um most people are very hesitant

to execute on those ideas. And so when

they see someone like me freely

executing on all the ideas, it hopefully

it opens their mind and helps them look

at their ideas in a different way or a

more approachable way and maybe gives

them confidence to do the same. In the

boxes in front of me here, I have three

different amounts of money. $500, I

think I have $1,000, and $5,000. And

during this conversation, I'm going to

pass you a box at random. And your job

is to tell me what kind of business you

would start with that amount of money

because I know my audience, you know,

they're many of them are interested in

starting their own business one day. And

I use specifically sort of low amounts

of money just to make it as accessible

to them as possible. So, we will do that

at some point. I'll pass you the boxes.

You give me three business ideas. You'll

start with $500, $1,000, and $5,000. Um,

but I want to get a view on on you and

the businesses that you've started and

the sort of the variety of success

you've had. So, can you give me an

overview?

>> Yeah. So, I was 9 years old living in

Utah and I lived across the street from

a golf course and these golf balls would

fly in my yard and I don't know what

gave me the idea, but I started selling

them. Um, I just wanted money for a

bike. I wanted this Schwin bicycle and

it was red and my friends had a bicycle,

my neighbors had a bicycle and my

parents didn't have money for it. And so

for whatever reason, I connected that

white golf ball in my grass with money.

And I would go to my neighbor's yards,

I'd go across the street, I'd dig

through the ditches, and I'd pull out

all these golf balls. I'd wash them. And

then I put up this huge piece of plywood

in front of my house that said golf

balls three for a dollar. And that was

my first business. And at the time, it

was just normal. It was natural. Uh I

didn't know any different. And now I

have a 9-year-old, and I was nine when I

did that. And we live on a busy road

today. I lived on a busy road then. And

the thought of him like negotiating,

haggling with grown-ups wearing polo

shirts on our doorstep is unfathomable.

But that's what I was doing. And that

planted the seed that kind of taught me

that business is approachable. Um,

preferably it's approachable.

Approachable and scalable can be the

same thing. They don't have to be at

odds with one another. So, and how many

businesses have you started since then?

>> I lose count. I have a spreadsheet. Um,

but it's at least 80.

And what's the what have the outcomes

been? How much money have you made? What

kind of how has that changed your life?

What freedom has that given you?

>> Yeah. So, cumulatively uh all of the

businesses have generated low hundreds

of millions of revenue. Um low tens of

millions of profit. Um but on a real

number basis,

the majority of them have been abandoned

or fizzled out or failed or there was

too much opportunity cost so I pivoted

to something else. Um, it's just a

numbers game.

>> And how has that changed your life? What

does your lifestyle look like?

>> My life is awesome. Um, we built our

dream house in our 20s. Uh, we had all

four of our kids in our 20s. We travel a

lot. Uh, we're I've been married for 17

years. We're a very close family. We

take a lot of trips. Um, we live in a

good school district, but my kids go to

public school and, um, we have

everything we need and more, and we're

very grateful for that.

What is the overt sort of underpinning

mentality that's required for someone to

be successful at starting businesses in

the way that you started them? Starting

these side hustles at volume and seeing

success. Is there like a foundational

mentality or personality or character

trait required before we get into the

tactics? Yeah, the

I should say that the the pain of your

problem needs to be greater than how

much you care about what people think

about you. It needs to get to that point

because by far that is the biggest

roadblock to success is people caring

too much about what people think about

them. And so they don't want to do the

thing or they don't want to talk about

doing the thing because some random

person from high school follows them on

Facebook and might comment something,

right? Which is really silly, but I I've

been there. I get it. Right? If we can

get over that, if we can just flip the

switch in our brain that says people are

thinking about me, people are caring

about me and just switch that to off.

Right? Because the world is our oyster

at that point. And in terms of where we

sit at this moment of time with

technology, with AI, with in fast

internet, with mobile phones, do you

think this is the best time for people

to start something to to start a side

hustle or to try? Every day that goes

by, the timing gets better for people,

right? Things are getting more

competitive, but there are more tools

than ever. Um, 10 years ago, if I wanted

to start a business, and this is like

the internet's in full swing, social

media is in full swing, I probably had

to spend a lot of money or move to San

Francisco or raise venture capital.

That's like I I would love for you to

try to convince me. Try to give me an

idea where you have to raise money or

where you have to go allin or where you

you have to quit your job. It doesn't

exist. With all these AI tools, software

tools, you can make a website with one

prompt. You can make an app with one

prompt. You could post to Facebook

Marketplace and have hundreds of

inquiries within an hour. You could post

Facebook ads. You could go to

Craigslist. Like, you could put a sign

up in front of your house. You could go

launch a survey to people. Like, there

are so many tools for testing and

validating and experimenting with these

concepts that it is more accessible than

ever. Why don't people?

I think number one is they're afraid of

what people think. Number two is they

don't have the tools or at least they're

not connecting the tools with the ideas,

right? They'll use Facebook Marketplace

to sell a sectional, but then they won't

think to use it when validating their

woodworking idea, right? They're just

not connecting the dots. There's too

many tools in a sense, so we don't know

how to tie them all together. Um,

they also probably don't know

like how much the law of abundance is a

real thing, right? People think business

is a zero sum game. What does that mean?

>> Well, they think that things are

oversaturated. They'll have an idea for

a product or a service and then they'll

get really excited and then they'll go

Google it and then we'll see it exists

and they'll move on. And when I do that

and I see it exists, I'm like, "Yes,

this is it. Someone someone went to the

front lines of the battlefield and

validated this for me." And then I'll go

to the web archive. I'll go to who is

and I'll go look at what their website

has looked like over the last decade.

See where they started. Maybe their

product was $99. Now it's like 49 every

2 months. Interesting. Okay. I'll look

at the the copy of their headline. I'll

look at like how many tabs they have on

their website. Do they post their

Instagram feed on? I'll look at all

these things and see how it's evolved

over time and think awesome. I'm going

to start where he's at today. like this

guy already proved it out for me. He

took all the risk. This is amazing. This

exists. I don't need to like do it

better. I don't need to do it

differently. I just need to do the same

thing. Um and the market is big enough,

the world is big enough to where I can

win as well.

>> You said um web archive. What role does

web archive play? What is that for

anyone that isn't familiar? And how do

you use that?

>> Yeah, it's just a tool that shows

snapshots uh over time of what a website

looks like, right? So, it's a great way

of kind of reverse engineering what

businesses have done to be successful.

And then there's another tool called

Similar Web where you can see what their

traffic has been over time. And you can

kind of overlay the two and you can say,

"Oh, interesting. When they when they

redesigned their website to be more

mobile friendly, their traffic went from

3,000 a month to 4500 a month.

Interesting. I'm just going to make it

mobile friendly from day one." Right? So

we are at a great advantage when we

start where our competitors or our

future competitors already are instead

of starting where we think we need to be

starting like trying to be different or

innovative or unique. In my experience,

that's more of like a signal of our

pride or our ego. We feel kind of like

weird or odd or even dirty or unethical

if we're just like copying and pasting a

business. Even if we had the original

idea ourselves when really there's

nothing to be ashamed of. We don't want

to steal their intellectual property or

their logo or anything, but copy what's

already working.

>> People think, you know, people don't

think that that's a thing because they

think if I copy a business that's

already working, then I'm not going to

get any customers because that this

existing business has all the customers.

>> But it's interesting. I had someone on

the show where they talked about how

some of the greatest entrepreneurs in

the world basically just copy 95% of the

blueprint. I think it was Walmart. I

think he was talking about Walmart, but

yeah, they copied other like regional

grocery chains. Mhm. Copying as a

strategy.

>> Yeah.

Have you done that?

>> Oh, absolutely.

>> Give me an example.

>> Okay. Well, I I had a phone repair

business in when I was in college, 2010,

and I got a call one day from someone

that said, "Hey, Chris, I want to buy

all of your broken iPhone screens." Do

you have any broken iPhone screens?

Sure. We don't throw them away cuz we

think it's bad for the environment. We

just have a box of them. How much will

you pay me? three bucks a piece. Why?

Why? Why will you pay me $3? It's just

broken glass. And they said, "Well,

there's actually a way of

remanufacturing these. We can send them

to China. We can remove the broken

glass, put new glass on them, and then

we can resell them as a remanufactured

unit." And that was just like a light

bulb, right? So, most people, I think,

at this point, would say, "Yeah, like,

yeah, where do I ship these?" You know,

but I was like, "Oh, I need to be in

that business. I want to copy that guy

who called me." right now. I don't know

what his website was. I don't know. I

don't know what the name of his business

was. There was no web archive at the

time to look at. I just wanted to copy

the business model cuz I thought this is

going to be a thing. I'm in the

industry. I know the industry. I'm going

to do this as well. We did 2 million the

first year, then five, and then nine,

and then we exited a few years after

that.

>> It's interesting, but you know, you

often don't think that

everyone's in search of a new idea.

>> Mhm.

>> And it's tough to find new ideas. Yeah,

like I think was it Einstein that said

there's no such thing as a new idea?

Sounds right. But you have an

orientation just to look at existing

models and to replicate them. Do you put

a spin on it at all? I'll develop my own

spins over time. Right. Because we're

all a product of our environment. And so

in in the case of this business, I

started copying. Exactly. Right. Um I

went and found people in China. I just

went to Alibaba. I messaged a ton of

people that sold iPhone screens and I

said, "Do you recycle? Do you recycle?

did you recycle? And like five or 10% of

them said yes. So then I shipped them

samples and then they shipped me some

back and and then over time I started

like taking some marketing principles

principles from previous businesses like

Facebook ads, cold calling and I started

applying them just cuz I didn't know how

this other competitor was finding

success. I knew he was cold calling and

that was working. That's all I knew.

Remember I didn't even know the name of

his business. And so over time, you

start using your previous experiences to

apply these tweaks to the business and

to make it your own. But if you do that

right at the outset, right? Like if I

got a call and he said, "I want to buy

your broken iPhone screens." And I said,

"Okay, I'm going to do that, but I don't

want to just sell iPhone screens. That's

lame. I'm going to do Samsung." Right?

Pretty good chance there's not even a

market for that or there's not even a

method for that. And because of my my

ego, my pride, my unwillingness to just

copy what's already working, I wouldn't

that I wouldn't have that successful

business in my back pocket. Right?

>> So, if you do twists in the beginning,

it's kind of like your um I'm kind of

thinking of an analogy like if you're on

a long road trip and you start taking

detours early on or if a flight is on a

flight path and he starts like getting

off track just a little bit at the

beginning, he's going to end off he's

going to end up hundreds of miles away

from his destination. But if he starts

making tweaks along the way, then he'll

be much closer to where he would have

been anyway.

>> Mhm. And you might reach a better

destination with some of those

>> tweaks because you're blending it with

your your experience, what you know

better than the person that you're

copying.

>> And so it's important to to copy the

model exactly at the beginning because

you're also going to learn what it is

about that existing model that works.

Yeah.

>> And therefore what you can iterate on,

change, expand. If you if you didn't,

then you might miss something. Exactly.

Cuz so often I made the mistake of

looking at another business and saying,

"Oh man, why are they doing that? Why

are they charging like that? Why? Like

they're charging all these different

things. That's so confusing." I made

this mistake. I had a an e-commerce

fulfillment business where brands would

send us all their products. We had this

big warehouse and we would ship all all

of their stuff out, right? And I was

like, "Why do they have storage fees,

pick pack, and ship fees? They they

charge fees for tracking their

expiration dates. They charge extra fees

if there's five items in a box versus

four. Like there's so much friction

there. That's so messy. Like we're going

to make this simple. We're going to just

one flat fee, no storage fee, and that's

going to be our differentiator, right?

And then over time, over the course of

months and years, we learned, oh,

storage fees. It's because sometimes

your customers go out of business and

then you're left holding the bill and

like your storage costs are actually

very high but there's nothing to pass

on. Oh, pick back and ship fees because

you learn all these things and you're

like, "Okay, I wasn't like this genius

that had an MBA. I was just like trying

to put my own spin on it cuz I thought I

was smarter than that business owner."

Turns out someone that's been doing this

for 15 years versus 15 days knows a lot

more about the industry than me. And I'm

much better off just copying his

pricing, copying the layout of his

website, copying the size of the

warehouse he has, copying the same niche

that he's going after, cuz that's

clearly working for him. So, I don't

make that mistake anymore. I don't I

don't assume that other competitors are

idiots, right? Yeah.

>> I've been proven wrong too many times. I

assume that they're doing that because

they've learned the hard way. Yeah.

>> And if I copy them, then I won't have to

learn the hard way.

>> I had um several of our executives over

at my house over the last couple of days

and we were looking at different models

of so basically we're looking at other

companies that do similar things to us

that have been around for a long time.

And the question that I ended up asking

at one moment when I was had the exact

same epiphany. I was like why do they do

it that way? Isn't that shitty?

>> And there was a second where I think we

were tempted to try and reinvent the

wheel. But the question I ask myself now

with the wisdom of like many years of

business is like why did it end up that

way?

>> Which is why did our competitor who's

been doing this for 50 years end up

there?

>> Because that as you said there's clearly

a set of things that have happened that

have made them conclude whether it's at

scale or some other factor that's made

them conclude that this is the best way

of doing it. And just like you I've been

wrong so many times where I've thought

they're just idiots. That's why they

they they can't see this obvious thing.

But actually their model is stress

tested in the market much more than mine

is. So maybe I should

>> I should put my ego aside and at least

start how they start as you said which I

think is really important advice.

>> Yeah. Well, there are times when a

company just keeps doing something

because it works.

>> Yeah.

>> And so they don't take the time to test

something that works better,

>> right?

>> But it's almost impossible to guess what

that is, right? Like if a if a clothing

brand is growing their business entirely

through Facebook ads um and they've just

never tried Google ads, maybe Google ads

could convert twice as better. Twice

twice better, right? But I don't want to

guess that. I just want to start with

Facebook ads and then I'll still take 5%

of my budget and start testing other

concepts. But nine times out of 10, I

ended up just coming right back to

Facebook ads. It got me thinking about

how in business basically everything,

again speaking broadly here, can be put

into one of two categories. either like

old problems where thousands of people

have come before you and the same

solutions and same thinking is still

relevant and then new problems you know

things like AI have created a set of new

problems new opportunities as well and

what I tend to find is that like 95% of

the things in business are like old

problems like hiring cash flow how

finance is done legal all those kinds of

things

>> and the and when when you're dealing

with a new an old problem expertise is

usually the answer which is like find

someone who knows hire someone or mentor

or whatever and then you have these new

problems where

>> there is no blueprint in our industry.

It's a new new challenge. So

experimentation is the answer. Does that

like broadly hold in your in your mind?

>> Oh 100%. Yeah. I I like to say test

everything except drugs.

>> Like we're always testing. Um it's the

basis to everything we do.

>> But do you test when it's an old

problem?

>> Can you give me an example? So

like things like cash flow management um

>> hiring principles around like probation

and uh notice periods

um a lot of legal structuring and deals

things with like a wellestablished

president

>> well established presidents where like

nothing has fundamentally changed in the

world that makes that invalid. Yeah, I

think if it's an old problem, I look to

an example of someone within the last

decade that's solved it in an

interesting way and I'm more likely to

copy that. Like in hiring, traditionally

companies will they'll spend hours and

weeks or days hiring, going from round

to round to round, person. And if you

look at Y Combinator, arguably the

greatest, you know, startup incubator in

the world, they have seven-minute

interviews. Um, and they said they would

make it five minutes, but it just felt

rude, right? and in their interviews,

they really know in the first three

minutes if it's a fit or not, and then

the interview's done. Like, they're

either in or they're not. I I approach

hiring the same way. Um, I would much

rather um take a like a a law of large

numbers approach to it and give five

people 30 days to show what their skills

are as opposed to spending 30 days going

all in on one person. Because in my

experience, that one person that I spent

30 days on is not any more likely to

succeed than those those other five

people that I might be testing.

>> Okay.

And your example of that storage company

you started.

>> Mhm.

>> It sounds like you hit an old problem.

>> Yes, very much so.

>> And you tried to innovate and

experiment, but this was an old problem

where the laws of human beings and how

they behave and businesses going bust

was still pertinent.

>> Yeah. And at the end of our our 2-year

experiment, like we look just like all

of our competitors, right? So, if we

would have started there, we could have

saved two years.

>> And this is what I find is founders

waste years trying to experiment where

old problems are still um strong and

still hold.

>> Yeah.

>> And this is what I the mistake several

of the mistakes I made in my company was

I should have spent all of my time

experimenting on the new problems.

>> Uhhuh. and should have hired people to

tell me um how to navigate the old

problems.

>> Yeah.

>> What what was your um I think one of the

videos that made you go pretty viral was

your story of

>> BIES. We don't know what BIES is around

the world. I think it's a US brand.

>> Yeah.

>> But this shows I think how you've always

had an orientation to think slightly

differently or in innovatively.

>> Yeah.

>> What happened with BIES?

>> So this was during the time when I was

running that business shipping products

for other companies. Right. Bies is a

gas station brand uh with only 50

locations. And from those 50 locations,

they do billions of dollars of revenue.

I say gas station, they're between

40,000 and 80,000 square feet. Wow.

>> They're massive. They have an amazing

brand, an amazing logo, and they just

have a lot of trust from their

customers. But these gas stations are

like they're on the way out to these

road trip destinations. They're out in

the middle of nowhere. And so if you're

if you live in Dallas and you're driving

down to the beach, you're going to stop

by Bies on the way there and on the way

back, and you're probably going to spend

hundreds of dollars, right? You're going

to fill up the tank, then you're going

to buy shirts and snacks and all that

stuff. So, at the time we were running

this e-commerce fulfillment business, we

went to Buckies. I brought my cousin, my

business partner, um, just to kind of

show him the experience. And we were

just having a conversation. I remember

exactly where I was. I was like under

this underpass, this huge under pass in

DFW. We were driving home and I said,

"Man, these guys must kill it online.

They must sell so much stuff." Um,

>> why?

>> Because I knew that Disney sells like

billions of dollars of t-shirts on their

website, right? I read a stat recently.

So, I kind of just took that data point,

connected it to Bies, and said, "All

right, Bies is a fraction of the size of

Disney, but they have the same amount of

brand loyalty. People love their shirts.

You'll see their shirts all over the

world, even though they only have 50

locations like in the Southeast, right?"

And so we went to their website and

there was no shop button. There was no

place to buy their stuff and I was just

like like all the light bulbs were going

off at once, right? It was like, "Oh my

gosh, okay, we need to reach out to

them. Like we need to bring them

online." I just had all these ideas and

my cousin is is much more balanced than

I am. He's like the the operator and I'm

like the ADHD crazy guy, right? So his

role is to like calm me down and he's

very good at that. But I just couldn't

be calmed down from this. I'm like, "No,

no, no. We got to do something here.

We're going to buy one of everything.

We're going to hire a photographer to

take pictures of it. We're going to

launch our own BIES online store, and

we're going to try to go viral." Like,

it's viral or bust, right? If we don't

go viral, then I'll just be eating these

unhealthy snacks for the next 3 years of

my life. And so, we did. We bought one

of everything. Uh, it cost thousands of

dollars. I brought all four of my kids.

And, uh, we brought it back to our

warehouse. We took pictures of it. We

launched a website. Um, and I emailed

all the reporters I could find. Uh, and

one of them just loved the idea. He ran

with it. And so he reached out to BIES

for comment cuz they wouldn't respond to

my cold emails. I wanted to launch this

like with them in tandem, but who am I?

They didn't care about me. And I don't

blame them. And so he wrote this big

article about me. Millions of people

read it. All these other news outlets uh

wrote about it. And we did hundreds of

thousands of of dollars in our first 30

days organically from that.

How did Bies feel about that?

>> They wanted us to make some key changes

to the website. They wanted us to like

basically put disclaimers everywhere

that said we are not Bies. We're not

affiliated with Bies. They wanted us to

change the name. It had the word beaver

in the name. That's their mascot. They

just they didn't want it to be confusing

at all. So, we made all those changes

and then we got like the unofficial

thumbs up from them. They said, "We're

not going to sign anything, but like you

have our blessing. Um, have fun." And

did that website make you a lot of

money?

>> Yeah, it still is. It's been 5 years. We

still own it, 100% of it, and it's going

great.

>> And it's made you millions.

>> Uh-huh.

>> What can someone listening take from

that in terms of applying that to their

own life, finding opportunities like

that out in the world, or is that just a

oneandone? Is there only one opportunity

like that? Okay. So, specific, I get

asked that question a lot. How could

someone do that with another brand?

I don't know. If if there was another

brand out there like that, I would be

doing it, right? Trader Joe's is

similar, but they're very ligious. Um I

think that was kind of lightning in a

bottle for that particular experiment as

in launching an online brand for an

in-person business. Okay. But people

should not be disheartened hearing that

because on a macro level like people

should take their curious ideas very

seriously. They need to shorten the

amount of time spent between having the

idea and doing something about that idea

>> because that will strengthen their bias

for action muscle, right? We all have

ideas, some of them good, some of them

bad on a regular basis. We usually don't

do anything about it. It's just a

passing thought, right? Whether it's a

business idea or a hard conversation I

need to have with something, any idea,

right? But the the the more we shrink

the amount of time between doing

something about that idea and having the

idea that that idea, the more often

we'll do that. And it becomes this

self-perpetuating snowball that just

compounds. And then before we know it,

we'll get more ideas. We'll do more

about those ideas. We'll be testing

things. We'll be learning tools. We'll

be experimenting. And we'll have a whole

portfolio of businesses. Is there

something in your mentality or

perspective though where you walk into a

Buckies and you even think about how you

could do something whereas most people

walk into a Bies and buy their stuff and

leave? Like is there something

foundational in the way that you're

looking at the world? Yeah. But I don't

think I'm any different. I think um I

think a lot of people have ideas like

that. Like you walk into a BIES and you

see something about something that could

be improved and people have these

passing thoughts and they move on. I

think that you become an expert at doing

something about those ideas. When you do

something about those ideas, you just

you get better at at what you do, at

what you test,

>> cuz you've built up some kind of muscle,

which means that you don't really care

about it seems failure as much as the

average person. And also in that

particular case,

>> the average person might think, well,

I've got no experience in doing that.

>> Mhm. No, no one has any experience in

anything until they do it, right? Like

every every expert started out as a

beginner, right?

Sometimes though, people try this and

they learn h doesn't give them energy.

It's not for them. That's okay. Now,

when they have ideas, they can know, all

right, box checked. That's not really

for me. That entrepreneurship thinks

someone else needs to do that. And

great, good. All the power to them. I

just want people to answer that question

for themselves. I hate seeing regret in

people's faces. Like I have friends that

want to start a business. They've always

talked about it and I know they would be

good at it and I know it just eats them

up and they have really really good

ideas objectively and I I just hate

seeing them have that question for the

rest of their lives. I just want them to

to taste entrepreneurship.

Is it for everybody though? You know,

you can think think of all your friends.

>> Yeah.

>> You can probably put them in groups of

this person should, this person

shouldn't. Mhm. And what defines who

goes in which group?

>> To me, it's how far they go in doing

something about that idea because I will

have friends that will text me ideas or

talk to me about ideas and then I never

hear from them again about that thing. I

don't worry about them. Right? I I feel

like there's a selection bias at play.

Like if they really wanted to do

something about it, they would get a

little further down the line. They'd

follow up with me. that's, hey, I did

this thing. Cuz I'll always give them

tips and feedback. You should do this.

You should try this. And they'll follow

up. And then, you know, at some point

along the line, it'll die, right? But if

they don't get any further than just

telling me their idea, then

I don't I don't lose sleep over them.

>> So, it's kind of surviv. It's kind of

sort of self- selecting itself anyway.

>> It is entrepreneurship.

>> Yeah. Absolutely. But then I have other

friends that are like they'll follow up,

they'll follow up, they'll follow up,

and then and then it dies, which is

okay. A lot of my ideas die, too. And to

me, that's a signal that it was supposed

to die, right? I'll just move on to the

next thing. Um, so it's those people

that maybe I'm just biased and they look

more like me, you know? Um, maybe that's

not an accurate signal or not, but if

they look more like me, then that's a

signal that they they should get further

down the line and actually launch

something that gets to revenue. Yeah.

>> In your head, think of one person you

know that should never start a business.

>> Okay.

>> Why did you think of that person without

telling me who they are? because they

make a lot of money at their job and

they like their job well enough. They're

not miserable. Um, and they're in their

late 40s and they probably feel like it

would be too big of a risk to start

something.

>> And do you objectively agree that it

would be too big of a risk for them?

>> I do.

>> So, you're looking at that on a

risk-reward basis thinking the reward

doesn't out outweigh the risk here for

you?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Cuz people come to me like

hoping that I'll encourage them to quit

their job, right? Like begging me to do

that without actually begging me. And I

don't want to do that. Like I I've never

had to quit a job. Like I I started with

entrepreneurship, right? So the thought

of being 48 with four kids and quitting

my $400,000 a year job to test

something. It just sounds crazy to me.

>> On the other hand, think of one person

you know that isn't an entrepreneur, but

definitely should be, but you always

think, "Why don't they do it?"

>> Yeah. Why did you think of that person?

>> Because it's a person that comes to me

the most often with ideas and they're

really, really good ideas. He's an

engineer. Um, and so he sees the world

in that way. Engineers make great

entrepreneurs. Um,

and he has a great work ethic and he's

like mid-career but not not so far

along. And I know objectively that he's

not

he's actually quite miserable in his

job. And I hate that for him because I

see the talent that's there. And I want

him like I think he would excel and I

want to see that dream come true for

him.

>> Why isn't he doing it?

>> I think it it's insecurity.

>> Fear.

>> Yeah. fear of

probably fear of just letting go of

something certain that's provided his

family a nice lifestyle and not getting

that back again ever. Um

I think that insecurities are at the

root of our best and our worst selves

and it can drive us to be our best or

worst selves um depending on how

self-aware we are about those

insecurities.

Is there a little bit of a flaw in his

thinking in your perspective? Like why

is it you you still even though what

he's saying there about you know what

you think he believes there about the

security for his family is true you

still think he should

>> which suggests that there's some kind of

flaw you see in the way he's thinking

about it.

>> Yeah.

Because he doesn't have to quit his job.

um there's enough time in the day to do

this on the nights and weekends to to do

enough of it to really prove itself out.

Often times like

whatever our side hustle is, uh it has a

very low ceiling if we're only working

on it um after hours, right? Let's say

we're spending 20 hours a week on a side

hustle and it makes us $50,000 a year,

but our job pays us $200,000 a year and

we spend 40 hours a week on that. One

thing that I've noticed, which is kind

of contradictory to how I feel about

quitting something, um, is when we go

from 20 hours a week on our the $50,000

a year side hustle to 40 hours a week

and we quit the full-time thing, that

$50,000 a year goes to 500,000, right?

We double the amount of hours, but we 10

times the amount of money that comes

from it because of the fact that we burn

the boats that it has to work. I just I

don't want people to burn the boats too

soon, right? Like there has to be a

pathway. Like let's say our Facebook ads

are converting really well. We've tested

scaling it and they're profitable and we

know what that would look like. But if

we scale it, then we're going to have

more customer service complaints. We're

going to have to do more architecture of

the website. But we like we see a path

to scaling and it's already profitable

and we know that like probably my boss

will take me back like we have kind of

these uh safety nets. That's like the

perfect time to really burn the boats.

Not when like we have an idea or we've

tested it a little bit but not

thoroughly. Um that's too soon in my

opinion.

>> And but by burn the boats you mean the

analogy of I guess some of the the

wartime leaders who would pull up on an

island that they were invading and burn

the boat so that they had no plan B.

>> Mhm. Exactly. Yeah. to quit.

>> Do you think that really matters? The

whole idea of a plan B. Do you think

people should have a plan B when they

embark on entrepreneurship?

Can I contradict myself 100%. All right.

So, the rational Chris, the Chris with

four kids says absolutely like you got

to be a dad, you got to be a husband,

you got to provide for your family,

right? Um, and again, there's so many

tools out there for testing, for

scaling, for outsourcing. We could find

a business partner to help pick up the

slack. We could use our kids, we could

use our spouse, whatever. There's so

many ways to really vet something out

before quitting that we don't have to

quit.

But

the other side of my mouth, there's been

um two times in my entrepreneurial

career when someone burned the boats for

me, right? I pull up to an island and

it's I've got my plan B. I'm testing

this business. This business is

profitable. It's paying the bills. And

then someone else in the middle of the

night, they snuck out. They burn my

boats and I wake up and I'm like, whoa,

where's my plan B? I wasn't ready to

burn those boats yet. Um, and plan A

just freaking thrives, right? And it's

not so much because of the fact that I

don't have a safety net anymore, but

it's because that event put a chip on my

shoulder that makes me want to to prove

those bad guys wrong. Right. To

oversimplify, those guys that burn my

boat.

>> Toxic motivation.

>> Exactly. That's a that's a good way to

put it to show them I didn't need those

boats. I'm not going back, right? This

island is better than where I came from.

>> I remember reading about a study on Plan

B's where they got a group of students,

two groups, and then they told them to

do a puzzle to win a treat. And then in

one of the groups, they told them that

they could get this treat at a vending

machine down the hallway if they if they

wanted it after. And the group that

didn't understand they could get the

same reward from a plan B

>> worked significantly harder to complete

that puzzle.

>> So there's something in the human psyche

of know when you know that you could

>> get the reward in another way. When you

have a plan B, we work less hard at the

plan A.

>> Logically, maybe we should, you know,

practical and

>> unresponsible

remove the plan B from our mind.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah, I just like I I can't think

of any stories from people in my sphere

of influence that have tested something,

quit the plan A, and then plan B just

failed and like they just lost

everything. Like surely that's happened,

right? That does happen when people like

prematurely quit, but in my experience,

it just it doesn't happen. Like it it

has the opposite effect. It becomes this

huge motivating factor. And when they

quit, I ask them like, "How do you feel?

Are you freaking out?" And it's always

always, "I'm so excited right now. Like,

I'm going to go all in on this. Like,

this has to work." And it does. It just

does.

>> A lot of people are looking for passive

income from side hustles. And I wondered

what your your op opinion was on passive

income because it's a word that comes up

so often in the comment section of this

channel, but when we're doing sort of

sentiment analysis and what people are

what they're interested in. Passive

income seems to be a bit of a buzz word.

>> Yeah, it's the silver bullet, right?

It's like it's the uh it's the financial

oic you could say.

>> What is passive income? How would how

would one define that? I would define it

as income that you receive um that you

don't have to continually put effort

towards like uh buying treasuries,

earning 4% on on your money and you

don't do anything and you just get paid.

And it's it's very hard to find

especially early on. Like we have to be

willing to create active income, sweaty

income, ugly income, like by whatever

means necessary. And the more we do

that, the longer we do that, the more um

realistic true passive income actually

is.

Sweaty, ugly income.

>> Yeah. Give me an example of some sweaty,

ugly income that anyone listening right

now could could create. What are your

favorite examples of non-obvious

businesses that people have started that

have resulted in passive, sweaty, ugly

income?

>> Yeah,

I mean, most things that I've started

have been just that. I had a uh a

concierge car buying business. Um

>> a concierge car buying business.

>> Yeah. What's that?

>> So, picture a traditional car

dealership, a used car dealership. You

got to get your dealer's permit. That uh

enables you legally to go to the

auctions and buy cars at wholesale, put

them on your lot, and sell them. So, I

did all the regulatory stuff. I got my

my dealer's permit, but then I would go

to individuals and they would say, "I

want a 2024 Seoia. I want it to be blue,

under 30,000 mi." and I would just go to

the auction and buy it for them for like

$700 fee. So, they get wholesale, they

save money, I make money, I don't have

to bear the inventory risk and I can buy

exactly what they want. Um, that sounds

great, right? On paper. People do that

business successfully. I didn't invent

it. I copied it, right? I hated it. Uh,

I was breaking down on the side of the

road driving these things back from the

auction. I'm not a car guy. I don't care

about cars. I don't work on cars. It's

not my passion. That was ugly. It was

hot in Texas. I was standing out on the

black top. I was making money. It was

profitable. And I got to the point where

I just like quit it. I just shut it

down. Moved on to something else. Um

that was very active. It was not

scalable on the surface. It was ugly. I

hated it. And so I pivoted because I had

a plan B. I didn't have to do that,

right? Um that's one example. Uh if

someone likes cars, it's it's a actually

a great business. Like I know a

gentleman in Alabama that makes a lot of

money doing that, right? For me it was

it was not great.

>> So how important then is passion in this

equation? Like how important it is for

for you to love the thing to be

successful at it in your view? I think

you need to fall in love with business

with commerce and if you can love

entrepreneurship turning $1 into two and

that like if you could focus on that

being your passion then anything that

falls underneath that you should win at,

right? But I I like to say

follow the profit. pro fit T. Um, until

you can afford to follow your passion,

right? Because if we're trying to follow

our passion from day one, we're probably

not ever going to get there because the

statistical likelihood that what we love

and what makes us money overlaps in the

beginning is almost zero. So, ignore

passion for a time. Try to build your

passion around commerce. Um, and then

start anything. And then once you're

able to have more passive income, then

start things that you're passionate

about like in the in the actual industry

that you're passionate about.

>> Persistence.

Persistence is obviously going to create

repetitions to like understand the

problem to learn more to, you know, so I

wonder as it relates to passion and

persistence, they seem

>> sort of inextricably linked. Something

I'm more passionate about, I'm more

likely to continue at even when the

rewards don't show up. Yeah, like my car

my car business, right? I had no passion

for cars and I had another business that

was doing great. So, so I abandoned

that. Um, but people think that like

people sometimes look at themselves as

lazy or they're not a hard worker. And

so they're just they're not confident

that they could do this. But there's

like everyone is a hard worker. Everyone

on this planet has the same DNA that

enables them to work hard. But the

problem is what they're working on

probably gives them no energy, right?

They're probably not passionate about

it. So, what am I passionate about?

Well, we got to we got to test

everything. We have to try new things.

We have to take that curious question

and turn it into a business. Maybe

that's fun. Maybe it's not. Right? We

need more surface area for finding what

our passions actually are. Cuz we might

think that like like I love woodworking,

right? I don't have to build a business

around that cuz I love business, right?

So, I can build a business around

anything. But if I got super hung up on

like I cannot make a profit from this

woodworking business um then I would

fail at entrepreneurship if I started

there, right? Whereas if I approached

this from um the angle of all right, I

like woodworking. What else do I like?

Maybe I like running, maybe I like

cooking, maybe I like short form videos,

and I just start trying all those new

things. Then eventually I'm going to

have enough surface area for testing

that I'm going to find things where um

you've heard of the eeky guy principle.

>> Mhm.

>> Right. So what you love, what you're

good at, what the world needs, and what

you can charge for, right? The overlap

of that is the sweet spot. That's what's

scalable. That's what you can do until

you die. But if you get super hung up on

that on day one, like I'm just not

passionate about that, like you're never

going to find it. Like you're going to

be in that job forever. My career

follows the same same arc which is I

tried tons of things and then I built

this marketing business and then that

became more of a product business and

grew and I didn't love it. Like it

wasn't my passion to do um to help like

Coca-Cola sell more cans of Coke or like

you know Uber sell more Ubers

necessarily. That wasn't like my passion

in life. However, it taught me a bunch

of skills

>> which then in when I quit that business

and I spent some time in psychedelics,

DJing, building software, web 3, you

name it. Um I came out on the other side

and could ask myself that guy question

which is of all the things that I have

tried what is the thing that I would do

like really irrespective of money. Now I

had that luxury to do that and actually

in 2020 the answer was this.

>> Mhm.

>> Like this was the answer. This answer

was I I literally moved to London from

New York and found a place without

viewing it properly that looked like

this because I thought this would be a

good podcast set and moved into that

place called Jack and then we started

about five five years ago um doing doing

this weekly

>> and it's become a business off the back

of it.

>> But I didn't have that luxury at the

start. If I tried that from day one, I

wouldn't have had a the skills to know

how to scale an audience. Mhm.

>> I wouldn't have had the flexibility to

buy all these cameras which cost like 50

grand or whatever at the start. Um so

and I do think some people sometimes get

that inverted.

>> Yeah. And you you're not distracted

anymore, right? You're not looking for

the next DJ thing or like you found it.

You're here right now. You're focused on

scaling. It's like people get so hung up

on focus or lack thereof and they just

beat themselves up over it. But in my

experience, like a lack of focus is a

signal that there's something else out

there, right? right? Then maybe we

shouldn't be focusing on that thing cuz

you've probably worked on things that

had perfect product market fit and were

just crushing and you weren't thinking

about starting a DJing business at that

point,

>> right? You were all in on this one

thing.

>> But in the times when you were working

on something, you're like, "Maybe I'll

try this. Maybe I'll try this." And you

beat yourself up. You're like, "Oh, and

focus, focus, focus." Like, "Let's

actually pay attention to those signals.

Why am I distracted from this thing?" So

that's I don't know if that's just me

coping with my own ADHD or if that's

actually a true principle, but I I try

to lend some credence to those signals

of distraction that I get on a regular

basis.

>> Yeah, I have a a Sunday shelf,

>> which is just a digital board on my

Monday board where when I have ideas

that like captivate me at 11:00 p.m. at

night one night, instead of trying to

act on them immediately, cuz I think I'm

in some respects like you, I put it on

the Sunday shelf.

>> Mhm. And um I wait and see.

>> Yeah.

>> I wait and see how much it pulls at me

to come off the shelf.

>> And then sometimes it comes off the

shelf. I get a little bit of the way

down. I discover that actually there's

something I didn't realize. And then I

quit. But then there's this, you know,

when you think about the like the

excitement arc of a new idea. You have

the like initial surge of excitement

like this is the best thing ever. I'm

going to become a billionaire. Why has

no one ever thought of this before? And

then you kind of get into it and you get

into that sort of valley of oh this

is a terrible idea. I'm an idiot. Yep.

>> If I can come out of that valley, if if

something pulls me up out of that

valley, then I think it's worth

pursuing.

>> Yeah, that's a good way of looking at

it. The the valley of despair or

something that's what they call it.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Do you follow a similar sort of path

with idea your ideas? It's funny cuz I

my kind of framework is

if I have an idea, am I thinking about

it still two weeks later? For whatever

reason, that's just my timeline. Two

weeks. I had an idea yesterday and I was

at the airport. I was excited about it

and I was doing research. I like forgot

about it, right? Who cares, you know?

But I have ideas where I just cannot get

it out of my head and I'll see something

out there in the world that adds to the

idea and I tell my friend about it and I

I send these manic voicemails or these

manic voice notes to my friends about it

and I'm still thinking about it 2 weeks

later. That's my signal that there's

actually something here. Um,

>> you used the word validating earlier on

when you're talking about these ideas

and I I think this is something that

could really really help a lot of people

who have a lot of ideas is this idea of

trying to validate your ideas as fast as

possible.

>> Mhm.

>> How might one validate an idea and can

you give me an example of an idea that

you have validated? What does validation

mean?

>> Mhm. Yeah. So, I like to see people get

joy from my product or service, right?

Not just like, well, it's good. Like

let's say I'm selling a food product. It

tastes good. It's good. Okay, people

might buy this, but I'm not going to

have product market fit. I'm going to be

pushing a boulder up the hill, right?

But if people are like, "Oh my gosh,

this is the best thing I've ever had.

Where did you make this? How did you

make this?" It lights up in their face.

That's an example of a validation in my

case, right? Same industry, food

product, completely different reactions,

right? So, one specific example is um my

wife has a cookie bar business, right?

Square cookies, and they're amazing. And

we're not trying to scale it. We don't

want to scale it. It's a way to teach

our kids entrepreneurship, and we love

it. But the best way to validate this

was going to our local farmers market

and just posting up and just giving

people samples and just watching them,

right? What do they say versus how do

they react? And is it the same?

>> What do you mean by that?

>> Well, sometimes we try to use the

internet in places where it's it's not

needful, right? She sold these online,

right? She shipped them to friends and

family across the country. Like, they're

great. We love them. Okay. I didn't see

you eat it. I don't know how you

actually love it. Are you saying that

because you're my mom, right? Or you're

my friend. But when you solicit feedback

on your product or service in person,

even if it's like an internet tool or an

app, in person makes all the difference.

You want to take note of what they say

and take note of their body language and

how they react when they experience your

product or service, right? And if all

three of those things overlap, then

either they're a psychopath and they're

just lying for no good reason or you

have something really special on your

hands. Uh, and so that's what we did

with her cookie bar business. And um,

and they loved it. And you can do that

with any business. It doesn't have to be

food.

>> And what does validation mean? is it's

checking if the market gives a

about the thing you're making as fast as

you can. Yeah. Yeah. Um I like to kind

of picture a you know a boulder up a

hill, right? And most people in their

businesses, even businesses that are

working, there are two steps forward,

one step back. Two steps forward, one

step back. And that's okay. Like that's

not a bad thing. But in my experience,

5% of the time I'll have a business

where the boulder is chasing me. Like

I'm trying to not die because this

boulder's chasing me down a hill. And

that boulder in this case represents

customers demand, right? Like I can't

sleep because I'm fulfilling orders. I'm

answering emails like I'm not getting

distracted by the next shiny object.

That is validation. That's product

market fit in my experience. You don't

have to have that to launch. I don't

want people to misunderstand. Um but if

you have that, like you have something

very special and you need to go all in

on that thing. There was a book

published uh several years ago called

the lean startup which talks about this

idea of just like testing an MVP as

quick quick quickly as you possibly can.

>> Can you explain that to the audience who

probably have ideas but in their head

are thinking I've got to quit my job.

I'm going to have to raise money. I'm

going to have to spend two to three

years building something to figure out

if this is a good idea or not. What is

the alternative approach that you adopt

when you're trying to stress test an

idea quickly?

>> Yeah. So, if I had to pick one tool, I

mean, it's one that one in four humans

use every day, and it's Facebook, right?

You've got Facebook groups, you got

WhatsApp, um, Instagram, Facebook

Marketplace, Facebook pages, uh,

Facebook ads, right? Let's just say

there's six different meta products,

Facebook products. That's everything you

need right there, right? Why why don't

you give me an example of just a random

business and I'll I'll tell you or the

the audience how they could validate

that with a Facebook product.

>> Okay. Um

I'm thinking of starting a

creatine brand for women that has makes

creatine taste good. Okay. All right.

Are we talking powder gummy? What form

factor?

>> I don't know.

>> Okay. Well, let's let's try both. Okay.

So, I'm going to do something that seems

very non-obvious and probably won't

work, but it's the lowest amount of

friction. I'm going to take a

description for that and I'm going to

use Nano Banana, Chad GBT, any of the AI

image generators to come up with what

the product could look like, right? In

both a gummy form and a powder form.

Okay. Then I'm going to go to Facebook

Marketplace. You You're just going to

post a photo.

>> Yeah. I'm just going to say like women's

creatine brand actually tastes good.

tastes good, right? Like, did you know

that creatine and improves cognitive

function or whatever? Just your standard

pitch. I could even use AI to generate

it. It doesn't really matter at this

point and I'm gonna post it to Facebook

marketplace simply because that's the

lowest amount of friction to get some

level of validation or not, right?

Because in my experience, focus is

overrated and momentum is underrated,

right? And so you could have told me any

idea and my first step that I tell you

to do is going to be something very very

low friction because I want you to get

something back from the world, right?

Cuz the most likely way to sell that

product is with meta ads, right? But

there's a lot of friction there. Like

it's it's hard to use. So you're going

to be like, "Okay, you're going to go

choose met ads and you're going to burn

out and you're going to have be on to

something else by tomorrow." But that

might be an amazing idea, right? So, I'm

going to tell you to go to Facebook

Marketplace, even though people don't

sell creatine on Facebook Marketplace.

And then we're going to see, you know,

Facebook gives us like three stats when

you post something to Facebook

Marketplace clicks and then how many

people that reach out and then how many

views. Okay, so I'm going to post one

Facebook Marketplace ad for the gummies.

Different picture. It'll look like

gummies. Um, basically same headline,

same benefit, same description. post to

Facebook in the same local market with

the same radius. Don't want to change

any variables. And then I'm going to

open a Google sheet and I'm going to say

how many views, how many clicks, how

many messages for that ad. Then I'm

going to do the same thing. Take the

same features, the same benefits,

different picture cuz this one's powder.

Post it in the same market with the same

radius to Facebook Marketplace and have

a new column um views, reachouts, and um

clicks, right? And then I'm going to

watch and I'm going to see what's

getting more clicks and I'm going to

know within two hours where there's more

demand. Now, does that little sample

size indicate like what form factor I

should go all in on? Not necessarily,

but it's something. It's a relevant data

point, right? There's not very likely to

be a large amount of people searching

for creatine gummies on Facebook

Marketplace, but it doesn't matter

because there's two billion people using

it, right? So, we're just trying to

capture some of that traffic. So, I'm

going to do that with two ads. And then

after a day or two, I'm going to boost

those two ads, put $10 behind each of

them to see how my results differ. Does

it make any difference? Do I get a lot

more clicks, a lot more views, or is it

just wasted? And then I'm going to um

I'm going to probably post like 10 more

ads of like different photos, different

headings, different descriptions,

different price points, and then put all

those in a Google sheet and track it.

All right. Now, I have a lot of data.

Now, concurrently, so while I'm doing

all these things, I'm going to go to

Facebook groups and I'm going to join

Facebook groups like moms who work out,

moms who love creatine, moms who love

rucking, ultrarunner moms, like healthy

moms, whatever. I'm going to join all

these groups and just start doing

searches for creatine, gummies, powders,

price points, vendors, websites, and

just start like pulling pieces of data

out of out of the atmosphere, right? and

I'm gonna put that in my spreadsheet and

I want to wait till the Facebook

marketplace tests are done. I want to do

that at the same time. Then I'm going to

start learning Facebook ads because

everything I've told you to do so far

takes like 2 hours. Let's say we have an

afternoon to dedicate to this, right?

Then I'm going to learn Facebook ads and

I'm going to watch a YouTube video

about, you know, how to get Facebook ads

up in 10 minutes. How important is it to

understand Facebook ads and how long

would it take me to get a sufficient

understanding of Facebook ads? you could

be proficient in a couple days if if you

had like one thing to sell and you just

wanted to go all in on that thing. Um,

and you actually learned by launching

ads and not just learning, not just

endlessly watching YouTube videos, you

could be fairly proficient uh within a

couple days easily. Do you think that's

the skill everybody should have?

>> Absolutely. I mean, Facebook ads are

like the infinite money glitch. It's

just like a a magic money machine. It's

the reason they're a trillion dollar

company. Um, it's like a cheat code.

Yeah. It's a We should know Facebook ads

like we know how to write emails. Like

we should know Facebook ads like we know

how to build websites or to do anything.

It should be foundational.

H

I wonder how many people actually have

that skill. Very few. That's why there

are so many ad agencies charging a lot

of money.

>> And then so you've got the data back

into your spreadsheet on this creatine

situation. How do you then make a

decision whether this is something worth

pursuing?

>> Yeah. Then I would go find like a a

c-acker that could

>> it's a company that will take my idea

and put it into a physical form, right?

Um I'd find like a supplement company

that could actually make this and I

would tell it roughly like what I'm

thinking and then ask for samples and

then I would use those samples to go get

feedback from people in person, right?

But I wouldn't get those samples until I

got feedback from all these Facebook

tests telling me what form factor, what

price point, what color, what flavor,

um, etc. And then I would go to a

farmers market and actually have people

try it. I've had so many founders speak

to me and say, "Why didn't this

particular ad that I ran on this

platform work for me?" Maybe the copy

wasn't good, the creative wasn't strong,

but usually the problem is they're not

having the right conversation because

that ad never reached the right person.

And if you're in B2B marketing, that is

much of the game. And this is where

LinkedIn ads solves that problem for

you. Their targeting is ridiculously

specific. You can target by job title,

seniority, company size, industry, and

even someone's skill set. And their

network includes over a billion

professionals, about 130 million of them

are decision makers. So when you use

LinkedIn ads, you're putting your brand

in front of the right people. And

LinkedIn ads also drive the highest B2B

return on ad spend across all ad

networks in my experience. If you want

to give them a try, head over to

linkedin.com/diary.

And when you spend $250 on your first

LinkedIn ads campaign, you'll get an

extra $250 credit from me for the next

one. That's linkedin.com/diary.

Terms and conditions apply.

>> I've heard you say that there's various

types of entrepreneurs. There's the sort

of zero to one entrepreneur who's good

at starting things. There's the

maintainer. And then there's the

finisher.

>> Which one are you?

>> I'm a starter. Yeah. Through and

through. I

if I stay in a business too long, it all

falls apart, right? Just objectively.

So, I need to hand off the reigns at a

very specific point or I need to have a

partner from the outset that knows me,

my strengths and my weaknesses um that

just takes over at a certain point. So,

I like to say there are starters,

maintainers, and finishers. A starter

could be called like a visionary and not

as like a backhanded compliment way, but

someone an idea guy, right? Not just a

business idea guy, but like a marketing

idea guy. Uh, let's change the subject

line to this idea guy. Like a an idea

machine, right? That's a visionary. And

then you have the maintainer, which

would be an operator. That's a guy that

just wakes up every day and loves

tweaking little things, making small

improvements. uh process oriented,

someone that loves growing something and

just fixing little problems all day,

right? And then you have a finisher,

which is like a deal guy, right? That's

the guy that's a super connector. Uh he

likes to, oh, you need to talk to Barry.

And then he calls him, he connects them,

and like he just gets a lot of energy

from connecting deals, coming up with

creative deals for an exit, for a sale,

putting people together, hiring the

right people, um seeing something to its

completion. Um, but I'm definitely in

the first camp.

>> Is it possible to be all three?

>> Yeah. When you're all three, you're Mark

Zuckerberg. I mean, truly, like you

start something from scratch and you see

it to a trillion dollars. Um, there's

been like I think there have been three

people on the planet that have brought

something from zero to a trillion.

Jensen Wang, Nvidia, um, Elon Musk, and

Mark Zuckerberg. I think like even Bill

Gates, even Steve Jobs, I might be

wrong. Yeah. But even Steve Jobs got out

long before they hit a trillion market

cap.

>> But a billion, a lot of people get zero

to a billion.

>> That's not nothing. Also very

impressive. But when you get all three,

that's what you get.

>> One of the things that I find really

interesting about your story is you

you've started what is it 75 80

businesses.

>> Mhm. When I speak to people like Kevin

Olirri who have worked with some of the

greatest entrepreneurs to ever live like

Steve Jobs and he's very familiar with

Elon Musk, they talk to me about focus.

>> Mhm.

>> And he says to me that the great thing

about Steve Jobs is he was 80% signal

and 20% noise. I.e. 80% of his time he

was focused on the most important thing

and he was brutal about not entertaining

anything else. M

>> Johnny Ives has famously said that the

one thing Steve Jobs was most known for

is his remarkable ability to focus. He

would literally ask you what have you

said no to in order to focus on the most

important thing.

>> Uh I think about Mark Zuckerberg and his

unbelievable ability to focus. I

remember uh several people at Meta but

also I think it's a public story telling

me that when he realized he was late to

mobile he refused to take any meetings

about anything other than mobile like

extreme levels of focus.

>> And then Kevin Olirri from Shark Tank

said the same to me about Elon Musk. He

says Elon Musk is the only person that I

think operates close to 100% signal

which is he and I interviewed Walter

Isaac and his biographer and he said

Elon will sit in a meeting and if people

aren't talking about something that is

the most important thing he'll

completely zone out and then the minute

he hears something that he considers to

be the most important thing it's like he

snaps into reality and he takes control

and he's deep into the detail and I it

sits in contradiction to a lot of the

the narrative of like lots of side

hustles, lots of businesses, do as many

things as you can. How do you but you've

both kind of you know you've managed to

create a life for yourself where you're

you're a millionaire and you're free in

that regard

>> but when I look at the biggest companies

in the world there's this like there

appears to be obsessive focus.

>> Yeah.

>> I love that question. I I think that all

else equal the guy who focuses more is

more likely to be a billionaire. But

back to momentum, right? The person that

keeps and has and mo maintains momentum

and has gets energy from what they do,

they're more likely to be a millionaire

by the average than the average person,

right? I I genuinely have no desire to

be a billionaire. Genuinely, if I get

there, cool. But I don't want to leave

my kids tens of millions of dollars

anyway. I know where I get most of my

energy from. I have a lot of surface

area for this. I've tried the focus.

I've tried having a board. I don't want

any of that. Genuinely, I don't. Right.

So, if my life with hyperfocused Chris

looks like billion-dollar exits, uh,

reporting to a board, uh, being chairman

of the board, being CEO, um, sitting in

meetings all day, that's miserable

Chris, right? And if I'm not going to,

if I don't want to leave a ton of money

to my kids anyway, then why am I making

Chris miserable so my fourth great

grandkids can be rich instead of just my

second great grandkids? Like that's

that's genuinely how I look at it. I'm

one of my superpowers is my my long-term

perspective, right? I think of things on

an eternal scale. And if I have to have

a miserable life so my kids in year 2300

can still be wealthy, forget that. Like

I don't I don't I don't want them to

have all that money anyway, you know? So

I want to live an awesome life where I'm

a good and present father. And to me

that looks like focusing less, not more.

What if you focused for the next 10

years? You made it to a billion dollars

on one thing

>> and then because you've done that you

can take even more sort of experimental

bets

>> with higher risk and more enjoyment and

more sort of pleasure ccentric bets over

the next 40 50 60 years of the rest of

your life.

>> Yeah, I just don't think that that juice

would be worth the squeeze. I think that

those bigger bets that I take will just

amount to more meetings and more travel

and more time away from my kids. And I

don't like it might sound controversial

like I'm I'm not trying to change the

world. Like I want to help people start

businesses and I can do that with my

iPhone. Uh and that will change the

world, right? But I'm not trying to

solve world hunger. I think that's

someone else's problem to solve. And so

I I just want to be a good dad and work

on really cool things. And it's been a

it's been a grind to get here, right?

Like I've had more years with zero

income than I've had up years, right?

But my up years have more than

compensated for my down years. So what

you're looking at today is the end

result of 17 years of a lot of testing.

Like a very patient wife that was

unquestioning and unwavering and

extremely loyal, which I could not have

done it without. Um, and so there were a

lot of periods in my life where I beat

myself up over that lack of focus. I

went and got my MBA because of my lack