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Transcript

Guest Podcast: From Zero to 22M Podcast Downloads (Rise) · Success Story with Scott Clary

0:00
Today you're going to hear me on the Rise podcast with Gary Lipovetsky.
0:04
Make sure you subscribe on YouTube or go listen wherever you get your podcast.
0:19
I really hope people hear this, especially like for me it's also about creator method because I would say that probably
0:25
a third of our members they haven't started yet and their whole thing is like I can't get started.
0:29
You were such living proof, you literally did it on a laptop on like a makeup table.
0:34
I didn't care. I was like I'll figure it out.
0:36
Right and I I could have taken more care.
0:39
Yeah, like I mean hindsight 20 20.
0:40
Well, I mean you you ended up in the right place.
0:42
Yeah, exactly. That's all the matters.
0:43
That's all the matters.
0:44
I hit up like 200 like relatively famous in an automated way like in a mass kind of you know that made it look like it's personal.
0:50
Correct.
0:51
Because again.
0:52
Yeah.
0:53
Yeah.
0:54
Beautiful.
0:55
So I got a Grand Cardone.
0:56
Yeah.
0:57
Guy Kawasaki.
0:58
And Anthony Scaramucci was Trump's director of communications for 12 days.
1:01
Yeah.
1:02
Well, he fired in the first term.
1:03
Okay, guys, stop, stop, stop.
1:04
I just I want to make it clear what you've done.
1:23
Well, what's up guys?
1:24
Welcome back to rise podcast.
1:26
You know, this shit's getting more and more casual, which I'm really enjoying.
1:30
I'm really enjoying the fact that I've taken this pressure off myself of having to have guests in all the time.
1:37
And I'm simply, you know, when I have either friends or people that I need to become friends on the show, I just find that this is this is great.
1:47
And I think that actually I'm pretty certain that we're going to increase the frequency again.
1:52
And the reason I'm saying that isn't because I'm going to try to professionally produce.
1:57
It's because I am so blessed with the fact that I have a steady flow of just new and incredible people coming into my life.
2:07
With that said, this is not a new and incredible person.
2:10
This is simply an incredible person.
2:12
This is a Scott Clary.
2:13
Scott, how's it going, buddy?
2:14
That's going good, dude.
2:15
Thanks for having me out.
2:16
You know, this was kind of a long time coming.
2:18
So you and I are buddies.
2:19
And it's awesome that we are both from Canada, from the former glorious country of Canada.
2:27
We won't even get into that today.
2:28
But we're both from Canada.
2:30
And we didn't know each other in Canada.
2:33
No, and you're probably maybe 10 to 15 minutes away from each other too.
2:37
Correct.
2:38
Yeah.
2:39
Correct.
2:40
And we only met when we got to the promised land.
2:41
Exactly.
2:42
Exactly.
2:43
Escape Canada.
2:44
Yeah.
2:45
You were silent when I made that just now when I made that sarcastic remark about the great, the former great.
2:49
I was going to say the great, the great socialist country of Canada.
2:52
Yeah.
2:53
I didn't know maybe you were sensitive about it.
2:54
No, I'm not.
2:55
I can't wait till Trudeau's out.
2:56
Yeah.
2:57
Are you kidding?
2:58
You and me both.
2:59
But you know, it's funny.
3:00
It's been like a sliding scale.
3:01
So I think that when I first hated Trudeau, it was when you first got into office.
3:05
Tell me who you really feel.
3:06
Yeah, right.
3:07
No, my thing that I've always been pretty open about this.
3:11
I don't care if you're left or right.
3:13
It doesn't matter to me.
3:14
I have friends who are super liberal, super conservative, aka Democrat Republican.
3:19
But I've always found Trudeau is not a great leader.
3:22
There are much better liberal leaders in the past.
3:25
Absolutely.
3:26
That's my biggest issue with them.
3:27
But when I first held that view at the beginning, it was a very unpopular view because I think when he first got into office, he was young.
3:32
And he was like the good looking fun.
3:35
The good looking.
3:36
He's a handsome guy.
3:37
He's handsome.
3:38
And that always is like, that's not a reason to elect somebody.
3:41
But now, if you don't like Trudeau, you're actually in the majority.
3:44
And actually as we're trying to keep this evergreen, but as I mean, it's been happy for months now.
3:49
But he's like on the on the precipice of leaving.
3:52
Hopefully.
3:53
I mean, it's very, I mean, but he keeps hanging on.
3:56
Well, hold on.
3:57
So depending on when you're watching this, I mean, today is September.
4:00
I can't see so good today.
4:01
No, so what am I talking about?
4:03
Today's December.
4:04
I don't know.
4:06
You lose track of time in Miami.
4:08
No, no, you know why?
4:09
You know why?
4:10
Because I looked at my watch and it says 19.
4:11
And I know that I associate 19 September because it's malaria's birthday.
4:16
Yeah.
4:17
So no, it's December.
4:18
So look, it's December 19.
4:19
I mean, the latest thing.
4:20
And like this isn't the political podcast, but the latest thing is that he's been like asked to resign.
4:26
So other members of the Canadian government of the parliament and everything.
4:29
People are asking him to step down.
4:30
We'll see how it goes.
4:32
But the point is the mass exodus from Canada.
4:35
And that's how we met.
4:36
Yeah.
4:37
And so, and that's interesting.
4:38
Well, hold on a second.
4:39
Let me tell people who the hell you are.
4:40
You're not just like my buddy on a podcast.
4:42
Like you actually do important shit, right?
4:44
So that's in a while, I tried.
4:46
Yeah.
4:47
So it's just easy with Scott because we can get into shit because we're buddies, right?
4:51
So, okay.
4:52
I want to read kind of what I put together for you so people can understand kind of the context of who you are.
4:57
And why you're here besides the fact that you're my boy.
4:59
So today we have Scott DeClaire on the show who has truly mastered the art of scaling influence and impact.
5:08
Scott is the host of the success story podcast.
5:11
A show with over 22 million downloads ranked as the number one entrepreneurship and top 10 business podcasts globally.
5:20
He's built a social media following of over 2.5 million followers across multiple platforms with his insights on sales marketing and entrepreneurship.
5:28
Scott's expertise has been featured on major platforms like cheddar Amazon.
5:32
Sorry, Amazon Prime and Hulu and his career spans helping countless businesses scale with precision and strategy.
5:39
I like that.
5:41
So it's a great intro.
5:42
Yeah, it is.
5:43
It is what I do.
5:44
You're kind of a big deal.
5:45
You're kind of a big deal, my friend.
5:46
I try.
5:47
Well, listen, I mean, it's been a while.
5:49
How long have you been doing this?
5:50
So the podcast, that's sort of the current thing.
5:53
Six years.
5:54
Six years.
5:55
I mean, that's pretty good, man.
5:57
In six years for you to have scaled as much as you have.
6:00
That's how many episodes do you have?
6:02
700.
6:03
So what's the math on that?
6:05
So you're doing about, you're doing over 100 episodes a year.
6:09
Yeah, correct.
6:10
So you're doing on average a little over two or about about two a week.
6:13
Yeah.
6:14
And how is it keeping up with that pace?
6:15
Because that's no joke.
6:16
Yeah.
6:17
So it's a good point.
6:18
It's quick growth.
6:19
I mean, some people grow quicker.
6:20
Some people don't.
6:21
It's good for me.
6:22
I'm happy with it.
6:24
But it's a lot of marketing.
6:26
So a lot of, I think my success has been me leaning on my marketing background,
6:31
content distribution, very similar to what you do.
6:34
One podcast has turned into a million different pieces.
6:36
Sure.
6:37
But it's a machine.
6:38
It's an absolute machine.
6:39
And I mean, from a business perspective, from a scaling perspective,
6:43
I built systems and processes so that it's not me doing everything all the time.
6:46
But yeah, it's very purposeful growth is the best way to put it.
6:50
It's not just ad hoc.
6:52
So you find something that works great.
6:54
But then I'm tripling down on it and making sure that if one thing or if one episode works,
6:59
and I put a lot of energy and time into researching and prepping and bringing on the guests,
7:02
that episode is going everywhere.
7:03
And my whole idea is getting inundated.
7:06
It's the best possible work with clips and newsletters and tweets and graphics and.
7:12
You know, bringing up old library and putting it into my feed as well.
7:15
So yeah, I distribute a lot, which is, I think, very important.
7:18
How old are you?
7:19
I'm 34.
7:20
So you're still a young guy.
7:21
So you started this when you were in your late 20.
7:23
Yeah.
7:24
All right.
7:25
So take me to, I want to dive deeper into kind of what your podcast is about.
7:30
Although like I did, I did read it and I think people get an understanding.
7:33
And of course, and I was on it.
7:35
I was on it.
7:36
Yes.
7:37
And I mean, people can definitely take a look at it.
7:39
I want to dive deeper into that.
7:40
But before we do, how does one get to the point where they're doing this?
7:45
So I want to take it like further back to like young Scott.
7:49
And when he was like kind of deciding what to do.
7:51
So what I want to know kind of what your background is, how you started out.
7:54
And what was the pivotal moment that you, you did this?
7:57
Because I just want to point something out before you tell the story.
7:59
It's one thing to say.
8:01
And it's kind of the obvious road to be like, I want to be an entrepreneur.
8:04
You start a business, you invest your own capital.
8:07
You may be raised a little bit from friends and family.
8:09
But this is still a business.
8:11
It's just now it's become kind of mainstream where people understand the concept of
8:16
investors, people at large understand that podcasters make money, you know,
8:22
how and when they monetize what the different models are.
8:24
But back six years ago, it wasn't what it was today.
8:27
And people didn't understand.
8:29
And the reason why I started it wasn't to make money either.
8:34
Okay.
8:35
So if we go way, way, way back, I know, I know you were always very entrepreneurial.
8:40
I wasn't because my family was super risk adverse.
8:43
So if you go to my dad, he worked for the government.
8:46
He worked for CeCis.
8:47
My mom worked for universities, took time off.
8:49
Sorry, can you back up and explain to people with CeCis?
8:51
I know.
8:52
You told me this story.
8:53
But CeCis is Canadian Security Intelligence Services.
8:57
Basically a blend of FBI and CIA mixed into one organization.
9:00
Your dad was a spy.
9:01
He was a spy.
9:02
Is it okay for you to talk about?
9:04
Yes.
9:05
Talk about my dad.
9:06
We're not in danger.
9:07
No, no, no, no.
9:08
The RCMP is not going to break down our door.
9:10
No.
9:12
The RCMP is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for the Americans.
9:15
They're like our serious police force.
9:17
They're serious.
9:18
Actually, I mean, so he worked in government.
9:21
He actually worked for the RCMP for a period of time.
9:23
And it's actually a cop.
9:24
He was a fancy cop.
9:25
He was a cop.
9:26
So he was cop at a federal level.
9:28
Yeah.
9:29
And then he moved into like counterterrorism at a federal level.
9:33
That was his career path.
9:34
Okay.
9:35
So all government, it was in terms of employment stable,
9:39
but still like risky.
9:40
But not risky is in.
9:41
You're going to get fired.
9:42
Risky is in.
9:43
You're going to get killed.
9:44
You're going to get killed.
9:45
A very different kind of risky.
9:46
But in terms of career, very stable.
9:47
Like you work in government.
9:48
You work for a life in government.
9:49
Sure.
9:50
And a lot of his career informed my,
9:54
let me explain why I looked at what he did.
9:57
And I realized that it wasn't going to work for me.
9:59
So what my dad did, he worked for government.
10:01
He is drawing two pensions right now in his retirement.
10:04
So he's drawing a pension from the RCMP.
10:07
And he's drawing a pension from CCCS.
10:10
Okay.
10:11
And pensions can be for easy math, 70% of your best year.
10:13
So say he made $100,000 for, that was the most he ever made,
10:17
for illustrated purposes.
10:20
Say that he made $100,000 for five years in a row.
10:23
He'd make $70,000 until the day that he dies when he retired at 65.
10:28
And you do that twice.
10:29
You're making $140,000 till the day that you die.
10:32
Pensions only really exist in government anymore.
10:35
They don't really exist in private.
10:36
They used to exist in private as well.
10:38
Right.
10:39
I really hope people hear this, especially like for me,
10:42
it's also about creator method because I would say that probably
10:45
a third of our members they haven't started yet.
10:47
And their whole thing is like, I can't get started.
10:49
You are such living proof.
10:51
You literally did it on a laptop on like a makeup table.
10:54
I didn't care.
10:55
Right.
10:56
I was like, I'll figure it out.
10:57
Right.
10:58
And I could have taken more care.
10:59
Yeah.
11:00
Like, I mean, hindsight 20, 20.
11:01
Well, I mean, you ended up in the right place.
11:02
Yeah.
11:03
Exactly.
11:04
I hit up like 200, like relatively famous in an automated way,
11:08
like in a mass kind of, you know, that made it look like it's personal.
11:10
Correct.
11:11
Because again, I'm a salesperson.
11:12
Yeah.
11:13
Yeah.
11:14
Beautiful.
11:15
So I got a Grand Cardone.
11:16
Yeah.
11:17
Guy Kawasaki and Anthony Scaramucci was Trump's director of communications
11:20
for 12 days.
11:21
Yeah, like fired in the first term.
11:22
Okay, guys, stop, stop, stop.
11:23
I just, I want to make it clear what you've done.
11:26
What's up, guys?
11:44
Welcome back to Rise Podcast.
11:46
You know, this shit's getting more and more casual, which I'm really enjoying.
11:50
I'm really enjoying the fact that I've taken this pressure off myself
11:54
of having to have guests in all the time.
11:57
And I'm simply, you know, when I have either friends or people that I need
12:02
to become friends on the show, I just find that this is, this is great.
12:06
And I think that actually I'm pretty certain that we're going to increase the frequency again.
12:11
And the reason I'm saying that isn't because I'm going to try to professionally produce.
12:16
It's because I am so blessed with the fact that I have a steady flow of just new
12:23
and incredible people coming into my life.
12:26
With that said, this is not a new and incredible person.
12:29
This is simply an incredible person.
12:31
This is Scott Clary.
12:32
Scott, how's it going, buddy?
12:33
That's going good, dude.
12:34
Thanks for having me out.
12:35
You know, this was kind of a long time coming.
12:37
So you and I are buddies and it's awesome that we're both from Canada,
12:42
from the former glorious country of Canada.
12:46
We won't even get into that today.
12:47
But we're both from Canada and we didn't know each other in Canada.
12:53
No, and you're probably maybe 10 to 15 minutes away from each other, too.
12:57
Correct.
12:58
Yeah, correct.
12:59
And we only met when we got to the promised land.
13:01
Exactly.
13:02
Exactly.
13:03
Escape Canada.
13:04
We escaped Canada.
13:05
Yeah.
13:06
You were silent when I made that, just now when I made that sarcastic remark about the great, the former great.
13:09
I was going to say the great, the great socialist country of Canada.
13:12
Yeah.
13:13
I didn't know maybe you were sensitive about it.
13:14
No, I'm not.
13:15
I can't wait till Trudeau's out.
13:16
Yeah.
13:17
Are you kidding?
13:18
You and me both.
13:19
You know, it's funny.
13:20
It's been like a sliding scale.
13:21
So I think that when I first hated Trudeau, it was when you first got into office.
13:25
Tell me how you really feel.
13:26
Yeah, right.
13:27
No, my thing that I've always been pretty open about this.
13:30
I don't care if you're left or right.
13:33
It doesn't matter to me.
13:34
I have friends who are super liberal, super conservative, aka Democrat or Republican.
13:39
But I've always found that Trudeau is not a great leader.
13:42
There are much better liberal leaders in the past.
13:45
Absolutely.
13:46
That's my biggest issue with them.
13:47
I first held that view at the beginning.
13:48
It was a very unpopular view because I think when he first got into office, he was young.
13:52
And he was like the good looking fun.
13:55
The good looking.
13:56
He's a handsome guy.
13:57
He's handsome.
13:58
And that always is like, that's not a reason to elect somebody.
14:01
But now, if you don't like Trudeau, you're actually in the majority.
14:04
And actually as we're trying to keep this evergreen, but as I mean, it's been happy for months now.
14:09
But he's like on the on the precipice of leaving hopefully.
14:13
I mean, it's very, I mean, but he's hanging on.
14:16
Yeah.
14:17
Well, hold on a second.
14:18
Depending on when you're watching this.
14:19
I mean, today is September.
14:20
I can't see so good today.
14:21
No, so what am I talking about?
14:22
Today is December.
14:23
I don't know.
14:24
I don't know.
14:25
Dude, it's.
14:26
You lose track of time in my hands.
14:28
No, no, you know why?
14:29
You know why?
14:30
Because I looked at my watch and it says 19.
14:31
And I know that I associate 19 September because it's malaria's birthday.
14:36
Yeah.
14:37
No, it's December.
14:38
So look, it's December 19th.
14:39
I mean, the latest thing.
14:40
And like, this isn't the political podcast, but the latest thing is that he's been like asked to resign.
14:45
So other members of the Canadian government of the parliament and everything.
14:48
People are asking him to step down.
14:50
We'll see how it goes.
14:51
But the point is the mass exodus from Canada.
14:54
And that's how we met.
14:55
Yeah.
14:56
And so, and that's interesting.
14:57
Well, hold on a second.
14:58
Let me tell people who the hell you are.
14:59
You're not just like my buddy on a podcast.
15:01
Like you actually do important shit, right?
15:03
So it's in a while I cry.
15:05
Yeah.
15:06
So it's just easy with Scott because we can get into shit because we're buddies, right?
15:10
So, okay.
15:11
I want to read kind of what I put together for you.
15:14
So people can understand kind of the context of who you are.
15:17
And why you're here besides the fact that you're my boy.
15:19
So today we have Scott DeClaire on the show who has truly mastered the art of scaling influence and impact.
15:27
Scott is the host of the success story podcast.
15:31
A show with over 22 million downloads ranked as the number one entrepreneurship and top 10 business podcasts globally.
15:39
He's built a social media following of over 2.5 million followers across multiple platforms with his insights on sales marketing and entrepreneurship.
15:48
Scott's expertise has been featured on major platforms like Cheddar Amazon.
15:52
Sorry, Amazon Prime and Hulu.
15:54
And his career spans helping countless businesses scale with precision and strategy.
15:59
I like that.
16:00
So it's great intro.
16:01
It is.
16:02
It is what I do.
16:03
You're kind of a big deal.
16:04
You're kind of a big deal, my friend.
16:06
I try.
16:07
Well, listen.
16:08
I mean, it's been a while.
16:09
How long have you been doing this?
16:10
So the podcast.
16:11
That's sort of the current thing.
16:13
Six years.
16:14
Six years.
16:15
Yeah.
16:16
I mean, that's pretty good, man.
16:17
In six years for you to have scaled as much as you have.
16:20
That's.
16:21
How many episodes do you have?
16:23
700.
16:24
So seven.
16:25
So what's the math on that?
16:26
So you're doing about.
16:27
You're doing over 100 episodes a year.
16:29
Yeah, correct.
16:30
So you're doing on average a little over two or about about two a week.
16:33
Yeah.
16:34
And how is it keeping up with that pace?
16:35
Because that's no joke.
16:36
So it's a good point.
16:37
It's.
16:38
Quick growth.
16:39
I mean, some people grow quicker.
16:40
Some people don't.
16:41
That's.
16:42
It's good for me.
16:43
I'm happy with it.
16:44
But it's a.
16:45
It's a lot of marketing.
16:46
So a lot of.
16:47
I think my success has been me leaning on my marketing background.
16:51
Content distribution.
16:52
Very similar to what you do.
16:54
One podcast has turned into a million different pieces.
16:56
Sure.
16:57
But it's a machine.
16:58
It's an absolute machine.
16:59
And.
17:00
I mean, from a business perspective, from a scaling perspective,
17:03
the build systems and processes so that it's not me doing everything all the time.
17:06
But yeah, it's, uh, it's a very purposeful growth is the best way to put it.
17:10
It's not just ad hoc.
17:11
So you find something that works great, but then I'm tripling down on it and making sure that if one thing,
17:17
or if one episode works, and I put a lot of energy and time into researching and prepping and bringing on the guests,
17:21
that episode is going everywhere.
17:23
And my whole idea is getting inundated.
17:25
It's the best possible word with clips and newsletters and tweets and graphics and.
17:31
You know, bringing up old library and putting it into my feed as well.
17:34
So yeah, I distribute a lot, which is, I think, very important.
17:37
How old are you?
17:38
I'm 34.
17:39
You're 34.
17:40
So you're still a young guy.
17:41
So you started this one.
17:42
You were in your late 20.
17:43
Yeah.
17:44
All right.
17:45
So take me to, I want to, I want to dive deeper into kind of what your podcast is about.
17:49
Although like I did, I did read it and I think people get an understanding.
17:53
Of course.
17:54
And I was on it.
17:55
I was on it.
17:56
Yes.
17:57
And I mean, people can definitely take a look at it.
17:59
I want to dive deeper into that.
18:00
But before we do, how does one get to the point where they're doing this?
18:04
So I want to take it like further back to like young Scott.
18:07
And when he was like kind of deciding what to do.
18:10
So what, I want to know kind of what your background is, how you started out.
18:13
And what was the pivotal moment that you, you did this?
18:16
Because I just want to point something out before you tell the story.
18:18
It's one thing to say.
18:20
And it's kind of the obvious road to be like, I want to be an entrepreneur.
18:23
You start a business, you invest your own capital.
18:27
You may be raised a little bit from friends and family.
18:29
But this is still a business.
18:31
It's just now it's become kind of mainstream where people understand the concept of podcasters.
18:36
People at large understand that podcasters make money, you know, how and when they monetize what the different models are.
18:44
But back six years ago, it wasn't what it was today.
18:47
And people didn't understand.
18:49
And the reason why I started it wasn't to make money either.
18:54
So if we go way, way, way back, I know, I know you were always very entrepreneurial.
19:00
I wasn't because my family was super risk adverse.
19:03
So if you go to my dad, he worked for the government.
19:06
He worked for CIS.
19:07
My mom worked for universities, took time off.
19:09
So can you back up and explain to people with CIS?
19:11
I know.
19:12
You told me this story.
19:13
But CIS is Canadian Security Intelligence Services.
19:17
Basically a blend of FBI and CIA mixed into one organ.
19:20
Your dad was a spy.
19:21
It was a spy.
19:22
Is it okay for you to talk about?
19:24
Yes.
19:25
You can talk about my dad.
19:26
We're not in danger.
19:27
No, no, no, no.
19:28
The RCMP is not going to break down our door of the Walgreens secrets.
19:31
No, no, no.
19:32
The RCMP is the Royal Canadian Mountain Police for the Americans.
19:35
They're like our serious police force.
19:37
They're serious.
19:38
Actually, I mean, so he worked in government.
19:41
He actually worked for the RCMP for a period of time.
19:43
And it's actually just a copy.
19:44
He was a fancy cop.
19:45
He was a cop.
19:46
So he was cop at a federal level.
19:48
Yeah.
19:49
And then he went into like counterterrorism at a federal level.
19:53
That was his career path.
19:54
Okay.
19:55
So all government.
19:56
It was in terms of employment.
19:58
Stable, but still like risky.
20:00
But not risky is in.
20:01
You're going to get fired.
20:02
Risky is in.
20:03
You're going to get killed.
20:04
You're going to get killed.
20:05
A very different kind of risky.
20:06
But in terms of career, very stable.
20:07
Like you work in government.
20:08
Sure.
20:09
You work all life in government.
20:10
And a lot of his career informed my.
20:14
Let me explain why I looked at what he did.
20:17
And I realized that it wasn't going to work for me.
20:19
So what my dad did, he worked for government.
20:21
He is drawing two pensions right now in his retirement.
20:24
So he's drawing a pension from the RCMP.
20:27
And he's drawing a pension from CCCS.
20:29
Okay.
20:30
And pensions can be for easy math.
20:32
70% of your best year.
20:33
So say he made $100,000 for.
20:35
That was the most he ever made.
20:37
For illustrated purposes.
20:39
Say that he made $100,000 for five years in a row.
20:43
He'd make $70,000 until the day that he dies.
20:46
When he retired at 65.
20:48
And you do that twice.
20:49
You're making $140,000 till the day that you die.
20:52
Pensions only really exist in government anymore.
20:55
They don't really exist in private.
20:56
They used to exist in private as well.
20:58
Well, there's the Canadian pension.
21:01
Or RSP contributions.
21:02
Yeah.
21:03
And in the USF 401K contributions.
21:04
Yeah.
21:05
That is never going to be as good as just paying you money until the day you got.
21:07
No, of course not.
21:08
Anyways, the point is, so very early on I was realizing that,
21:11
okay, if I want to work for government, that's fine.
21:13
But if I want to work for private.
21:15
If I want to work for anyone, then I have to find a way
21:18
because I'm not going to get a pension.
21:19
I'm not going to have the same security that my dad did.
21:21
And also my mom, she worked for Ottawa University of Ottawa.
21:24
Also pension, but outside of that, you don't get many pensions.
21:27
So in my mind, my push towards being more entrepreneurial was,
21:31
I need safety.
21:32
To me, working a nine to five in a company that did not take care of you
21:36
when you were 65, 70, that was not safe.
21:39
That to me was setting yourself up for success.
21:41
And I think a lot of people are going to wake up,
21:43
working nine to five W-two jobs, and they don't know how to invest,
21:46
and they haven't saved enough, and they're going to find themselves working
21:48
in something they hate till the day that they die.
21:50
Right.
21:51
And I think that this is one of the first generations that is currently
21:54
dealing with that idea, if your parents worked for a company,
21:57
because your parents probably have a great pension.
21:59
So a younger generation, you're kind of asked,
22:01
you're kind of like, can I swear?
22:02
Sure, you're kind of fun.
22:03
So unless you figure out how to invest, how to save,
22:07
and how this big bucket of money when you're going to retire.
22:10
I had this idea very early on that following the exact path that my dad did,
22:14
it wasn't really fulfilling to go work for the government.
22:16
I didn't want to be a cop.
22:17
But if I want to work in private, if I want to work for a company,
22:20
I better be making a shit ton of money.
22:22
And that was what just to sort of like summarize my career,
22:26
it was work for private, work in tech, try to make money there.
22:29
When I was working in tech, I moved with small tech company in Toronto
22:33
that was acquired by private equity.
22:34
That was my first exposure to exit,
22:39
and ownership, and multiple, and multiple in EBITDA.
22:42
And I saw what the founder of that company made on that exit.
22:44
And that was a light bulb moment for me to want to get into entrepreneurship
22:48
and not just work in tech.
22:49
So it was the stress of me not knowing how I was going to feel safe
22:54
and secure my whole life that pushed me away from what my parents were doing
22:58
for a living into something that most people would consider entrepreneurship
23:03
to be higher risk.
23:04
I find having absolute ownership over the work that you do,
23:09
the money you make, and your future is actually the least risky thing to do.
23:14
Wow.
23:15
There's different ways to look at it.
23:17
So I both agree and disagree with you.
23:19
Because as an employee, your kind of worst case scenario is
23:23
is that if you lose your job due to, I don't know, restructuring
23:27
like a downturn in that particular industry for that particular business,
23:32
you have a period of time where you can then get another job.
23:37
You can't get another job, whereas if you're an entrepreneur,
23:40
and by the way, I've experienced this personally where your shit goes to zero
23:44
for some reason or another.
23:46
I've had businesses more than one that have gone to zero.
23:49
Of course.
23:50
And being in tech, and it's like at that point,
23:53
I just, first of all, thank God that I had made money from before,
23:56
and I didn't squander at all, which a lot of people do by the way.
23:58
A lot of entrepreneurs do, especially when they're young.
24:00
But I was at least, I had some intelligence to hold on to some cash.
24:04
And then when shit went to zero, I was okay.
24:07
And then eventually we were okay, because I had companies that went to zero.
24:10
Before I met my wife after I met my like, throughout.
24:13
And that's the thing with tech.
24:14
It's not like, you know.
24:15
But the skill set you build is the most future proofing skill.
24:18
Let me explain the different ways to counter that point.
24:21
If you work in a company your whole life and your retirement plan is contributing
24:24
to your 401k.
24:25
Okay, first of all, 401k in my opinion is the biggest scam in the world.
24:29
You are put, if you're putting money into a 401k,
24:32
even if the company is matching your contribution.
24:34
Yeah.
24:35
If you actually do the math, you are, your returns are going to be less than
24:39
if you just put money into the S&P 500.
24:41
Well, but hold on a second.
24:42
But the 401k, I'm not as familiar in the U.S.
24:44
But like the same as the same as RSP.
24:46
So the RSP in Canada, it's basically a deferred tax.
24:50
You can still invest that money into the S&P 500.
24:53
That's a TFSA.
24:54
No, no, no.
24:55
I have RSPs still in Canada.
24:58
Yeah.
24:59
You know, and the money is invested in the markets.
25:02
Absolutely.
25:03
And I believe in a 401k, you can do it too.
25:05
It's not a set, it's not a set investment.
25:06
That'd be like a self-directed 401k.
25:08
Yeah.
25:09
And then you can just buy the S&P 500 and leave it alone.
25:10
But these are already, what we're talking about is already more advanced than what.
25:13
Oh, of course.
25:14
90%.
25:15
But you know what the problem is?
25:16
I don't know about, I don't know about the U.S.,
25:18
but I would assume it's similar to Canada, or people don't know.
25:20
People don't know in Canada to max out their TFSA every year.
25:24
They don't know to max out their RSP, which is the equivalent of 401k.
25:28
Yeah.
25:29
And the TFSA is equivalent to a Roth IRA here.
25:31
Correct.
25:32
Yeah, yeah.
25:33
Right.
25:34
And so to put money in there where it's one is, you know, what is a tax deferred vehicle?
25:38
The other one is a completely like tax exempt vehicle.
25:41
You're putting after tax money in there, but the gains are never taxed, you know, in the future.
25:46
It's on a TFSA or a Roth IRA.
25:48
Yeah.
25:49
And if you let those mature over decades, your retirement is set.
25:53
So I agree with you on the concept of, you know, having a pension and having that security,
25:59
how like, you know, growing up, that looked great for you.
26:03
And that looked like that's something to achieve, which at the time, you know, it was.
26:06
But if people even took a little bit of initiative today, and they said, okay,
26:10
I'm going to maximize my contributions to, again, in the States, the Roth IRA,
26:14
and the, and the 401K, and they invest even modestly over like several decades,
26:19
their retirement, they're going to be okay.
26:21
I don't think they're going to be okay.
26:23
Okay.
26:24
Because most people are still living paycheck to paycheck already.
26:26
Well, they don't have discipline.
26:27
They don't have the discipline to set that money aside.
26:29
I have, you know, on each paycheck and put it to where it needs to be.
26:32
But if they do have the discipline, so we're talking about two different sets of people.
26:35
So the people that are, do have discipline, and they're investing,
26:39
and they put money into a 401K, and they're doing it purposefully,
26:42
compounding money over time.
26:43
Yeah.
26:44
My argument would be that there's better places to invest your money than a 401K.
26:49
Because the concept of a 401K is when I take money out in the future,
26:54
I'm going to be paying less tax because my taxable income bracket is going to be lower.
26:58
And I'm going to take money out.
26:59
I'm not as familiar with the 401K.
27:00
If it's like the RSP's in Canada, that means like in the RSP's,
27:03
once you take it out, once you're past a certain age, you just take out less every year.
27:07
So you just, you can decide how much you take out, and then you'll be taxed
27:10
depending on that year, how much you take out.
27:12
Correct.
27:13
It's treated as income.
27:14
But what I would say, what people should be doing is if they are investing for their future.
27:18
Because this is sort of like the rabbit hole of investing in entrepreneurship.
27:21
So if you are conscious enough to put money aside,
27:24
put in your 401K, and listen, I'm not like that financial expert by any means.
27:29
I'm not pretending to be, but I'm just saying the thought process that I sort of think through
27:33
is then if you're okay with investing, setting aside money,
27:36
then maybe there's other ways that you can invest in set aside money.
27:39
So you're comfortable.
27:40
I think that in my opinion, more people that paycheck to paycheck,
27:45
they don't have discipline.
27:46
No.
27:47
They're trying to figure out how am I going to retire, and they're never going to retire.
27:50
And.
27:51
Well, they're going to have to, because they'll be too old to work.
27:53
Yeah, but they're not going to have the money to support the lifestyle.
27:55
So I have to make good investments.
27:56
So just all these thoughts.
27:57
Keep in mind, I'm very young when I'm having this, when I'm having this.
28:00
You are.
28:01
How do you say you are again, 34?
28:02
34.
28:03
But I am thinking about retirement when I'm 19.
28:05
Yeah, no, absolutely.
28:06
You're absolutely right.
28:07
And in my mind, at the time, and I do understand that you can retire
28:12
with a variety of different assets that you invest too over your life,
28:15
but in my mind, at that time, it was, I want to make more money than like a
28:21
nine to five government job will pay me.
28:23
I want to make more money than that's all this big bucket of money.
28:26
And that's what pushed me into tech.
28:28
It was that those are where big salaries are.
28:31
And if I make a big bucket of money that I can invest or save,
28:34
then at least I can retire.
28:36
And obviously my view of retirements also changed a lot since then too.
28:39
I think there's a lot of benefits never retiring.
28:42
And we can try to both that.
28:43
I mean, there's definitely like a health and mental benefit.
28:46
Yeah, 100%.
28:47
So that's where sort of if you're doing the work that you love.
28:50
Amen.
28:51
Yes.
28:52
But that is entrepreneurship.
28:53
Well, for some, for some, most people still would prefer not to be entrepreneurs.
28:59
I don't blame them.
29:00
This shit's hard, man.
29:01
Like, you know, like I stress out over stuff all the time.
29:04
Less lately, because I just, I feel like I feel like starting to ride motorcycles has changed my life.
29:10
I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.
29:12
But you at least have at least in my mind you have you have more control over your destiny than if you work for somebody else.
29:18
Well, no, if somebody hits me with a car, I'm fucked.
29:20
What do you mean?
29:21
Oh, you mean financially financially.
29:23
No, not if you're riding motorcycles.
29:26
But regardless of how you choose to set yourself up for success and retirement and investing in my mind, I was comfortable jumping into my own thing.
29:37
So how did this come about?
29:39
Like how did you?
29:40
Okay, so first of all, so you grew up watching your dad be a cop.
29:43
Yeah.
29:44
You know, which by the way, like here in Florida, it's not a big deal for people to have guns and walk around with guns sticking out of their pants.
29:50
But in Canada, it's very strange.
29:52
It's very strange.
29:53
It's very strange.
29:54
And you're dead.
29:55
I mean, being a member of the police on these elite forces has his service pistol.
30:00
Sure.
30:01
I'm sure he does.
30:02
But like, when your friends came over and your dad has like a gun in his like on his holster or something like that.
30:07
Is it not walking around?
30:08
He wasn't walking around.
30:09
No, no, no, no.
30:10
But in general, like as a kid growing up, having a dad who's who's doing what you're doing is super scary.
30:15
I was super straight edge because I remember he told me I remember this so clearly.
30:23
He told me something like if I smoke weed, he'll be able to detect it on me like a month later.
30:32
And I just believed him.
30:33
He may have been telling the truth because that's some secret spy ship.
30:36
Maybe you don't know that for office Christmas parties growing up, you know what his idea was fun.
30:41
He'd take me into the office and he'd hook me up to a polygraph like a lie detector.
30:45
Nice.
30:46
And this was like for office like a Christmas party and be answering questions about like what I, you know, what did I do?
30:51
What did I lie about whatever?
30:52
He was a fun guy.
30:53
He was a fun guy.
30:54
Okay.
30:55
Okay.
30:56
Can you still get access to that polygraph thing?
30:57
Because that'd be pretty cool like to do an episode.
30:59
Imagine like a podcast where people are going to show and they've done that.
31:03
You hooked up to lie detectors.
31:04
They've done that.
31:05
That'd be pretty cool.
31:06
That would be cool.
31:07
I'm going to look it up.
31:08
I don't think you, I don't think you need a government access to get a polygraph.
31:12
I'm pretty sure if you Google you'd find one.
31:14
You can probably do it on chat GPT.
31:15
You could probably like play a voice note to chat GPT and say tell me if this person's lying.
31:19
Soon, I'm sure.
31:21
That would be cool.
31:22
I'm served.
31:23
Can you imagine real time lie detectors and you have like an earbud and chat GPT is recording the conversation.
31:28
And as I'm talking to you.
31:29
I like that.
31:30
It'll be like K-Scots.
31:31
Scott's lying to you.
31:32
He's not, you know, imagine that.
31:33
That'll happen.
31:34
That will happen.
31:35
And I'll use it for political debates, too.
31:36
Yes.
31:37
That'll be a lot of fun.
31:38
The world is going into a very interesting direction, but we'll get on top of that.
31:42
Okay.
31:43
I want to go back to kind of that aha moment that you had.
31:47
I felt, I felt.
31:48
Yeah.
31:49
And regardless of whether or not I was right.
31:51
That's the caveat.
31:52
Yeah.
31:53
I felt that the path to a good life and how do you define a good life for me?
31:57
It was basically benchmarking the same, the same quality of life that my parents had.
32:02
Okay.
32:03
It was detached home.
32:04
It was family, kids, not to stress that.
32:07
Like just like a good quality of life.
32:09
Because there's another idea that sort of informed how I look at career and what I want to
32:14
do with my life.
32:16
The second idea was, and this has evolved over time and I still believe it, if I do the
32:22
same amount of work and do the same jobs that my parents do, I think my retirement's going
32:26
to be shittier.
32:27
And also I don't think I have the same quality of life as my parents had.
32:30
I'm not going to be able to afford the homes that my parents bought.
32:32
You're right, but that's due to, I think, poor management in the country.
32:37
That's more of a political reason.
32:38
It is, but it still affects me.
32:40
Of course.
32:41
So my dad bought his first home cash in Toronto when he was 23 or 24, sold it and then moved
32:48
to Ottawa and then bought that home cash.
32:50
And that is the house that we were raised in.
32:52
And then it was, you know, I can't remember the square footage, like 3500 square feet with
32:57
a pool in the back.
32:58
That's great.
32:59
I mean, I can't remember what the numbers are, but if you are making less than 200 grand,
33:06
you're not buying a detached home in Toronto.
33:09
Correct.
33:10
And that's, and that's what the mortgage loan is paying cash when they make $200,000 a year.
33:14
So I was upset because there was this gap, right?
33:18
I think that gaps create a lot of, a lot of stress.
33:22
I have this perceived effort that I'm going to put into my career.
33:26
And then the rewards are not matching up with the same exact effort that my parents and a lot of people's
33:31
parents put into their career.
33:32
And that gap was causing me stress and frustration.
33:35
And I don't, I don't blame you.
33:36
I don't blame you.
33:37
But also like, it's also I feel like a natural progression too, because the world becomes more competitive.
33:43
Populations go up.
33:44
Like when, when you were a kid and when your parents were in there kind of like, you know, doing their thing,
33:48
when they were let's say in their 30s and 40s, it was far less competition for, you know, for career, for money, for properties.
33:55
I don't believe that that's the way, it's the way the world works right now.
33:59
I don't believe that the next generation should have a harder time than the previous generation.
34:03
And there's a lot that's going into that statement and there's a lot as to why that is.
34:07
But I feel like life should be getting better.
34:10
Life should be getting better, but I don't necessarily believe that life should be getting easier.
34:17
So I agree that it should be getting getting better.
34:19
I think as a race, we should be progressing.
34:21
But I think life gets better as a result of like technology, like this whole AI revolution is going on right now.
34:27
I feel like that'll lead to a better life.
34:29
But I still think that things will just be harder.
34:32
I just don't think things will get easier.
34:33
I think individuals will have to continue working harder in order to achieve even the same level of happiness that our predecessors had.
34:40
I just think we're going to get better and more efficient at working.
34:44
That's just my opinion.
34:45
Yeah, I think that I think that if people felt like life was easier, they wouldn't be pushing off kids till later.
34:53
They wouldn't like, there's a lot, right?
34:55
There are people that are not comfortable settling down and getting married at the same age as our parents.
35:00
Yeah, for kids till later, I think depression and anxiety and stress and a younger generation are at an all time high.
35:06
So I hear what you're saying.
35:08
But if it was just the case of working a little bit harder, then I don't think that all those other factors would start to come to life.
35:14
It's not just working harder. It's working smarter.
35:16
You've got to be like, you have to be really smart when it comes to this like today's day and age.
35:22
Because of technology and everything that's going on, I just feel like the world's become hyper competitive.
35:26
Like when your parents were younger, they didn't have all of, they didn't have the world wasn't connected like it is now.
35:31
So, you know, your parents were competing in their ponds, you know what I mean?
35:35
Now you and I, you and I are competing in the whole world.
35:39
Like, you know, we're competing with people on the other side of the world for these views and for this attention from global audiences.
35:45
But the flip side of it is we have the technology and now we have access to knowledge.
35:49
You know what I find to be the biggest difference between my generation and yours?
35:53
Because I'm 17 years older than you.
35:55
And where I find that you have a massive advantage because I wasn't as far along as you are now when I was your age.
36:03
And I try not to use this as an excuse or like as a crutch.
36:07
But the fact that you have the internet at scale at your age, the internet that I had when I was your age was bullshit compared to the internet that exists now.
36:15
Of course, but I would say that I mean like you're, I think we are both outliers in our age groups.
36:23
I mean, I don't think we're outliers in our immediate surroundings, meaning the people that you know in your network are either like the same, maybe a little like not where you are yet.
36:35
Or like my tire and that's that's how I feel like my network is.
36:39
I feel that too. And I think that yes, so what you just said is a good point.
36:43
So the barrier to entry is much lower.
36:47
With my generation than yours, barrier to entry is very low.
36:51
And there's a really cool graph that I've seen on the internet and you can Google it.
36:55
And I don't know how to describe what the chart is and if you Google it, I'm sure you'll find it.
36:59
So it shows the amount of employees required to hit a million dollars in revenue throughout history.
37:05
And it will start in like say 1930, 1940 and let's for arguments say it's 50 employees that are required to hit a million dollars in revenue in 1940.
37:14
It's how many?
37:15
Say 50.
37:16
Okay.
37:17
As an example number, something that's not that far from the truth.
37:19
50 employees is a pretty standard amount of employees have a million dollars in revenue in the 1950s or 40s.
37:25
If you fast forward to today, it's one person.
37:29
So it just shows over time that you need less employees because now we have technology, we have tools.
37:36
So the point is the barrier to entry to create and to build something to be an entrepreneur or to do anything interesting is lower than ever.
37:45
But at the same time, the competition is higher than ever because now we're connected to your point as well.
37:50
So I think that yes, the hyper competitive environment, but know that you've never had more opportunity than now to sort of break out of whatever it is you're doing that you're not happy with.
38:02
So again, nine to five W to find for a lot of people.
38:06
Yeah.
38:07
I guess my, my call to action, my, my wish is that more people at least dabbled in building something themselves.
38:17
So why, so you wanted to do it because you wanted to be.
38:20
I wanted safety and security.
38:22
And I felt that there was more safety and security in finding first version of that was a very, very high paying job.
38:29
That was my first version of safety and security.
38:31
My second version of safety and security was equity and exit.
38:35
That's what I thought would be the bigger payout than even a high paying job.
38:39
And then the third version of safety and security is complete ownership over my own life and situations.
38:44
So let me build something for scratch that I control.
38:46
But sorry, on stage two, equity and ownership, that necessarily isn't up to you.
38:50
That's part of a compensation package as an employee that you hope to get by showing enough value in the company that in order to retain you, they need to give you some form of equity.
38:59
And then you still need to hope that the company sells.
39:01
Correct.
39:02
Which it may or may not.
39:03
But what it's doing is it's informing my decision about where I want to work or what I want to work on.
39:08
So if you are in stage two and you do want to have an exit as an employee, you can start vetting companies the way the VCs vet companies in terms of where am I going to work?
39:17
Yeah.
39:18
How much equity?
39:19
What stage are they at?
39:20
What's the revenue per head?
39:21
What's the valuation of their last race?
39:23
You start thinking like a VC when you're mapping out your career.
39:27
And this means that if you join a series D late stage startup that's raised $120 million in capital from angel groups or VC groups, you're not going to have as big of a payday.
39:42
These companies are not all going to turn into Nvidia.
39:44
If you join too early as employee number one, there's going to be that 95% chance that those companies go to zero.
39:51
Sorry.
39:52
Yeah, no, I was going to say so if you if that's your perfect situation where you're not entrepreneurial, but you still want to have potential huge upside, then you find something in maybe like a series a manager director position where you still have some equity, but there's proven product market fit.
40:08
And then that's how you would structure your career.
40:10
But the point out of all of this is there's so many different ways to create safety, security, career, become an entrepreneur become an entrepreneur within a company to build something within.
40:21
There's so many ways to look at career that I think that I outside of the fact that I think most people should dabble in entrepreneurship so that they can learn some of the skills associated with it.
40:34
I also wish that more people would just open their eyes up to multiple different paths through life.
40:40
Yeah.
40:41
So that's really, you know, that's my wisdom after going through all these different types of when you're when you're talking when you're talking about this, you're you're kind of I'm kind of thinking through what I think is a great situation or an ideal situation.
40:56
So like for me, I didn't become an entrepreneur because I wanted to make money. I became an entrepreneur because everybody kept firing me.
41:01
Yeah, I was completely unemployable. Everybody just kept firing me. I was a terrible employee. I sucked.
41:06
And so people would keep firing me. But now that you know, I've been an entrepreneur for many years, you know, I really like employees.
41:16
I like the route of an employment. And like the way I kind of gauge it is what I want for my kids.
41:23
I've talked to people who I just talked to ody ody was here. He was on my show. He was on your show. And those shows are going to still drop in odys.
41:31
He's a he's a he's a very big money manager for kind of lack of a better term and in the billions of millions of dollars.
41:37
And when you know, when he was sitting where you're sitting now and I was talking to him about, you know, the value of entrepreneurship.
41:43
He was like, employment's way better. And I'm like, I was shocked for him to say that because he's been like an operating entrepreneur.
41:49
And then he's he's somebody who provides capital again in the bill. He funds multi billion dollar projects.
41:54
And he said like he started naming some people who are like like famous employees of companies who make tens of millions of dollars every more hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
42:03
So I think it's great that if someone can insert themselves can get into a company because I think that once you're in a company that that company has some kind of value.
42:11
They have some kind of IP or they have some kind of proprietary systems or technology or they have a client base or they're doing whatever they're doing to be able to go in.
42:19
And without taking risk for yourself as an employee and to go in and to leverage your skills and your work ethic to go in and raise that company up.
42:29
I know what you're thinking you're thinking, but then you don't have control. But you kind of do have control because in the right situation you have control.
42:36
You have to have a good relationship with your boss with your employer with the owners of the guy.
42:40
He was an employee at Apple. And he's famous. And even Steve Balmer was CEO. He wasn't founder of Microsoft.
42:48
And he's now one of the richest people in the world.
42:50
How about that guy from Google? He wasn't the founder, which one?
42:53
He's like, he's worth like $100 billion.
42:55
Oh, yeah, yeah. I forgot the guy's name, but that's the thing is I forgot his name.
43:00
But I know that there's a guy who was like really high up. He was there with Sergey Brin and with Larry Page.
43:06
But there was another, there was another like he wasn't a founder. He was like an, I don't even think he was an early employee.
43:12
You know, but then you've got you have guys like who's the guy from Disney? What was his name again?
43:17
Car like Iger something.
43:19
Oh, I can't remember. I can't remember.
43:21
But these guys, my point is that these guys, they do well. And they have the security of making a ton of money like enough money every year that they can retire and live off interest.
43:30
I don't know. I'm just I'm just I'm a fan of employment still.
43:33
I'm a fan of, okay. So I think a couple thoughts on this.
43:36
So first of all, I think it depends on the season of your life that you're in and your risk tolerance.
43:41
That's very important. I think that you can be in a season of your life where it makes sense to try and build something.
43:47
Sure.
43:48
You can be in a season of your life where it makes sense to join an early stage startup as an employee and try and get a nice equity position and hopefully they exit.
43:54
Yeah.
43:55
And there's also a season where you want none of that. And you just want to work for somebody in a very stable large organization.
44:02
So seasons of life do matter risk tolerance matters. I also think that.
44:11
I also think that if you.
44:18
I had a thought and I just lost my thought. It was a really good thought to it'll come back to me.
44:22
Okay. It was a thought about this, but I can't remember what.
44:24
That's okay. It happens to me all the time. I know I just it was a such a prolific idea.
44:28
That's okay. It was like in one at the end. That shit happens.
44:31
Look, I think I think with employment, I'm still I'm still a big fan and I think that I know what I'm going to tell.
44:35
I thank you. This is like, you know, like when you like can't sneeze then you finally see.
44:38
Yes.
44:39
Yes. Okay. That's it.
44:40
No, I'm not going to.
44:42
Sure.
44:43
You know, I have a makeup artist over there for Valeria. So if you want afterwards, but anyway, continue before that before the party tonight.
44:47
Sure. Before you.
44:48
For the podcast.
44:49
Right. That would have been great. Right.
44:50
No, but you look good. You look good. Try.
44:52
Handsome guy.
44:54
So I think that it is easier to earn an above average amount of money and live an above average lifestyle by being an entrepreneur.
45:04
I do not think it is that hard to find a way to package what you know and sell it for a market or above market rate.
45:11
Has an entrepreneur as an entrepreneur and it's higher risk.
45:15
But I don't think it's an insane amount of work to build a 30, 40 or $50,000 a month business as an entrepreneur.
45:23
If you have a high value skill that you can sell into the market.
45:27
And it's not as if you're going to build the next thing Facebook Apple Amazon Netflix Google.
45:32
You're just finding a way to monetize what you know.
45:34
And I think that that has a higher success rate than an higher chance of you living an exceptional lifestyle.
45:42
Then if you're going to try and find a job that pays you 50 grand a month.
45:46
I respectfully disagree with you because I believe if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a solo entrepreneur, making $50,000 a month.
45:55
You don't have a lot of modes because there's depending on what you're doing, right?
45:59
I think that depending on kind of what profession you're in, if you're like, you know, if it's you or maybe a couple of employees.
46:05
You don't have like a sufficient mode.
46:07
I feel that you need to have certain scale, but mind you, even people like their companies at scale, it go to zero.
46:12
So I don't know.
46:13
I just, I think that unless for me, I became an entrepreneur out of necessity because as I said, people kept firing me.
46:20
I couldn't, I couldn't hold a job down. It was just, it wasn't my thing.
46:23
But I believe that people who can be entrepreneurs successfully, I think that, look, sorry, people who can be employees successfully.
46:29
I think that if you want to, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, it's because you love doing it.
46:32
I don't think that people should go into being an entrepreneur working for themselves because they want to make a lot of money.
46:37
Because I believe that, again, and you and I can have a difference of opinion, like I believe that you can actually make more money helping a company succeed
46:46
and making yourself invaluable for that company than you can having your own company because statistically, most businesses fail.
46:53
And so if you're going in as an entrepreneur, chances are you're going to fail.
46:57
Whereas if you enter a company as an employee, you have a much higher probability because that company is already, you know, somewhat at scale.
47:04
Or the fact that that company can afford to pay you, that means they have sufficient scale with which to pay you.
47:09
They have money coming from that scale, or they've been invested into.
47:12
There's been a proof of concept at some point.
47:15
I just like the point.
47:16
And that's fair.
47:17
And why disagrees? Because I think most companies fail.
47:20
I would say there's sort of different categories of entrepreneurship too.
47:23
So there's people that are trying to build an app that has no product market fit.
47:26
Nobody cares about your app. Nobody wants to buy it.
47:28
Right.
47:29
If I've done a job, if I've been a marketer, if I've sold stuff for companies, if I have been a videographer, if I have done social media,
47:38
I can charge five to ten thousand bucks a month per client to do that for a company.
47:43
Yeah.
47:44
And I can do that five times.
47:46
It's not like I'm doing something new.
47:48
I'm completely red-oceanning my entrepreneurship.
47:51
And that's why I think that it's easy.
47:53
Because to make twenty thousand dollars a month as an entrepreneur,
47:58
what, that's four retainer clients, a five grand a month,
48:01
you can't tell me you can't get that.
48:03
That's assuming you have no cost.
48:04
That's just based off of your knowledge and your own execution.
48:07
But that's trading time for...
48:08
That's trading time for money.
48:09
To make twenty thousand dollars in a company, your director, your VP,
48:13
or you're working for a company that has a very, very stringent hiring process.
48:18
I think that it's easy.
48:19
I think that it's easier.
48:20
And I also think that...
48:21
You think what's easier to be an employee?
48:23
No, to be an entrepreneur.
48:24
And to make a little bit more money.
48:25
And I think that most people fail, most businesses fail,
48:28
because people don't play a long game with it.
48:31
I think that people...
48:32
I agree.
48:33
People put a clock on their business having to be successful,
48:37
because they don't de-risk entrepreneurship,
48:39
and they...
48:40
Listen, I'm not a fan of jumping all in either.
48:42
I think you can be working your nine to five,
48:45
while taking clients five to nine on the weekends.
48:47
And you de-risk it.
48:48
And then you're not worried about paying rent or mortgage,
48:51
or you're not worried about putting food on the table.
48:53
And if you can do that for a significant period of time,
48:56
you will build a book of business.
48:58
You learn, and you iterate, and you improve,
49:02
and you build relationships.
49:05
But over time, if you stick with something
49:07
and you're a semi-intelligent person,
49:09
you'll find a way to make money doing it.
49:11
And I think you'll find a way to make a lot more than you're nine to five.
49:14
Listen, I think you and I can agree to this agree,
49:16
because I still believe that entrepreneurship, again,
49:20
for me and my situation...
49:21
It's because you build big.
49:22
I don't know.
49:23
Well, not necessarily.
49:25
I mean, you do.
49:26
Well, I have.
49:27
Or right now, what we do is in big.
49:29
We have 18 people.
49:30
That's not, to me, that's not big.
49:32
That's still considered a small business.
49:34
I've just seen my employee friends,
49:40
you know, be it companies, knock it out of the park,
49:43
and just do incredibly well.
49:45
Furthermore, I've seen my friends who were employees
49:48
who went off on their own,
49:50
and they realized that entrepreneurship,
49:53
the way it was sold to them by the media,
49:55
and now entrepreneurs, like, you know, guys like Vaynerchuk
49:58
and Alex Mosey, and you and Grand Cardone and all these guys, right?
50:04
And the way it's sold to them isn't, you know,
50:07
so I know guys who have worked in media companies
50:10
that have scaled that they were doing great,
50:12
that they went on, they said,
50:13
okay, I'm going to go out on my own.
50:14
They went out on their own,
50:15
and it wasn't what was sold to them by guys like you.
50:19
It wasn't, right?
50:20
I don't mean that in a disparate way,
50:22
and they went back to employment.
50:24
Anyway, so I think we can kind of...
50:26
There's other ideas too that I think are interesting ideas
50:29
about entrepreneurship and employment.
50:31
I think that the best employees could be entrepreneurs
50:33
in a different part of their life.
50:35
I believe that as well.
50:36
I've seen people that have built companies
50:38
and have gone back to work,
50:39
because they just want an income and balance,
50:41
and they don't want to put in more than 40 hours.
50:43
I think that also understanding your personal north star
50:45
is very important.
50:46
So if you want to spend a lot of time with your family
50:49
and you want to spend time with your kids,
50:50
and, you know, God forbid,
50:52
your parents are sick,
50:53
and you need to be going back and forth and taking care of them,
50:56
that's going to inform how you make your life decision.
50:59
I want to do fun shit.
51:00
Like, for me, I want to do fun shit.
51:02
Like, I just, it's funny.
51:03
Right before you got here, I made a post.
51:05
I was recording Valera.
51:06
It was over there getting her makeup done for, like,
51:09
stuff that she's shooting around the house.
51:11
And our videographer was there, Valera.
51:13
The assistant was there.
51:14
The makeup artist was there.
51:15
And, Valera's assistant was telling Valera
51:18
this is what you have going on today.
51:20
I just recorded it, and I just put up a reel.
51:22
And I said, and on top of that,
51:23
I'm filming a two-hour podcast.
51:25
I was on a case study with one of our creator method members.
51:32
I had a call to give direction to our team about a client.
51:36
And I started listing the shit that I do.
51:38
And I have this gala tonight with Luria.
51:40
And I caught myself like I was documenting this
51:43
and I ended up posting it.
51:44
And I realized I wouldn't have it any other way.
51:46
Yeah.
51:47
Because I enjoy this shit.
51:48
And I managed to go for a ride on my bike
51:50
for an hour this morning.
51:51
And I had breakfast with my kids.
51:53
And I drove them to school.
51:54
But this takes a certain, you got to love this shit.
51:56
You know what I mean?
51:57
You got to love it.
51:58
That's important too.
51:59
I think that's the most important.
52:00
I mean, I do love what I do.
52:01
And I work way more now.
52:03
Of course you do.
52:04
But you're talking from a,
52:05
you're talking from a vantage point of an entrepreneur
52:08
of someone who does what they do very successfully.
52:10
And you're also talking from a vantage point.
52:12
And your vantage point is unique because,
52:14
as you mentioned, you've had 700 interviews.
52:16
And you're interviewing successful entrepreneurs.
52:18
Yeah.
52:19
So I would say that you're, you know,
52:20
I would say that you were a bias.
52:21
You have a bias.
52:22
Yeah.
52:23
But it's a good bias.
52:24
Like it's, yeah, I'm not knocking it.
52:25
I think it's great.
52:26
I want to, I want to understand.
52:28
I want to go back to kind of how you started.
52:31
Because it's, like, it's interesting
52:34
because when you started,
52:35
people were like, you're going to do what?
52:37
Right?
52:38
Just the same as you started six years ago.
52:40
Valeria started called seven and a half, eight years ago.
52:43
I'm always like shaky.
52:44
I'm when she started.
52:45
I have to go check that out.
52:46
I have to go see when her first content went up.
52:47
But when you started when Valeria started,
52:50
people were like,
52:51
fuck you doing.
52:52
What is this?
52:53
So how did you, I'll tell you the podcast.
52:55
Tell me because I want to understand.
52:57
So a couple of things happen.
52:58
So you keep in mind.
52:59
So I've, I'm interesting because I've done,
53:02
I've done all types of careers, right?
53:04
I've been employee.
53:05
I've been entrepreneur.
53:06
I've started stuff.
53:07
I've worked for people.
53:08
Like I've done kind of all of it.
53:09
And I've just gone through this natural progression
53:12
of sort of diving into the next thing or diving into a new way
53:15
to make money.
53:16
Yeah.
53:17
Right. So I've done it all.
53:18
And when I started the podcast,
53:21
sort of two things, two things were happening.
53:25
So at the time when I started the podcast,
53:27
I was building a company and it was a software company
53:30
and that company was eventually acquired.
53:32
And how that deal was structured,
53:36
the best way to put it was a company that acquired us,
53:39
which was a large broadcast company.
53:40
We had a broadcast software product.
53:42
And the large broadcast hardware company called Grass Valley,
53:45
it was almost like a tribe before you buy situation.
53:48
So we were working like hand in hand with them
53:51
before they actually pulled the trigger and acquired.
53:53
So I knew that the acquisition was coming already
53:56
for about a year and a half before they actually decided
53:59
to do it.
54:00
And I knew kind of what the number was going to be
54:04
and it wasn't going to be okay,
54:06
but it wasn't going to be never work again.
54:08
And it also wasn't going to be like hitting Forbes.
54:11
Like it was not an acquisition that anybody would ever know
54:14
about outside of, you know, my customers and maybe my mom and dad.
54:18
But I didn't want to start from scratch.
54:23
And at that point, I would have had a small exit
54:26
and a lot of sales and marketing experience.
54:28
I was kind of always my job.
54:29
I was always on the sales and marketing side.
54:31
CRO, CMO, never product or or or or or or attacker developer.
54:37
And I would have to just sort of figure out what to do next.
54:41
So the podcast was a couple things.
54:43
First of all, that's when I started dating Gina.
54:45
And Gina built my therapist says.
54:47
And I saw how they built for business.
54:49
My therapist says, for those who don't know,
54:52
most people do, but I think a lot of men may not know.
54:55
My therapist says is a very, very famous Instagram account.
54:58
What is it like?
54:59
How many followers?
55:00
8.2.
55:01
8.2 million.
55:02
And they are memes, mental health memes.
55:04
Yeah.
55:05
So it's like for guys, it would be the same as fat Jewish,
55:08
a fuck Jerry.
55:09
Yeah.
55:10
All these types of.
55:11
Lad Bible.
55:12
Lad Bible.
55:13
Yeah.
55:14
Yeah.
55:15
This is the kind of stuff.
55:16
So Gina.
55:17
I think she's a big sister.
55:18
And she now has been building it for a whole.
55:19
Much better.
55:20
She's lovely.
55:21
She is lovely.
55:22
She's much better than me.
55:23
Like a thousand percent.
55:24
That's okay.
55:25
But my wife too.
55:26
Don't worry about it.
55:27
And she built that with her two sisters.
55:28
Yeah.
55:29
And a childhood best friend as well.
55:30
There's four of them total that built the company and started it.
55:32
And they were making very good money doing this.
55:35
And that was their whole.
55:36
That was their business.
55:37
That's their life.
55:38
They they post memes.
55:39
They put together some viral campaigns for very big brands.
55:41
Netflix, Hulu, Hinge, Gucci.
55:43
Pick a big brand.
55:44
They've done work for like like hefty garbage bags.
55:48
Like a consumer brand or something that markets to the masses.
55:51
They've done a viral campaign for a launch for them.
55:53
Saw that.
55:54
And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
55:56
So that's they've made.
55:57
They've made their whole career about media.
55:59
And then the second thing was.
56:01
So that was that's what inspired you.
56:03
It was them.
56:04
I kind of I had the notion when you and I first started hanging out.
56:06
And obviously like, you know, we met Gina and we before us hung out.
56:09
I thought it was kind of like you guys already met when both of you were at school.
56:13
I didn't have an Instagram account.
56:15
I didn't know that.
56:16
So you weren't you weren't doing this at all when you met Gina?
56:18
No.
56:19
Oh, wow.
56:20
Okay.
56:21
I thought like you had gotten together and you were like, hey, like I'm on social media.
56:23
Oh, I'm on social media.
56:24
Oh, okay.
56:25
Cool.
56:26
And you guys got together.
56:27
No, she liked me because I didn't have social media.
56:28
Gotcha.
56:29
Gotcha.
56:30
Actually, it's really funny when we met.
56:31
Well, you have 1.7 million followers on Instagram.
56:32
Does she still like you?
56:33
Yes, she does.
56:34
Yes, she does.
56:35
She does.
56:36
Because I use it for business.
56:37
Okay.
56:38
Because I use it for business.
56:39
It's it's a good following.
56:40
Okay.
56:42
Yeah.
56:43
So when I met her, actually, I had no, I had no Instagram at all.
56:45
I had like an Instagram.
56:46
But so that's what inspired you.
56:48
So it was that it was that.
56:49
So it was it was the fact that the company was going to be acquired.
56:51
And I would have to restart with no name.
56:53
Really no name.
56:54
I had a resume.
56:55
No name.
56:56
She built a massive audience.
56:58
And also I loved watching Gary Vee's content.
57:00
Sure.
57:01
And I was looking at the stuff that he was launching.
57:03
And he kept launching all these businesses against his audience.
57:06
So for me, it was a very obvious.
57:08
Okay.
57:09
So she's found a way to make money on social.
57:12
Let me find a way to let me find out what type of content I like.
57:15
Mm hmm.
57:16
What type of content I can create.
57:17
I'm a marketer.
57:18
So I know how to do the things.
57:19
I know audio, video, copyright and graphic design.
57:21
I know I know how to run ads.
57:23
Like I know all the stuff.
57:24
I have a decent network.
57:25
So I can probably get some people to help me co create this.
57:29
And that means that whatever I choose to do in the future,
57:32
I don't have to start from no name.
57:34
If I build something and I don't know what,
57:37
if I build an audience, then a company I launch in the future,
57:40
anything I choose to do, if I choose to work for a company,
57:43
that's going to be a net positive for them.
57:44
Yeah.
57:45
Because I'm going to have this audience that comes with me.
57:47
So it was just a, let me future proof myself.
57:49
Mm hmm.
57:50
And that was it.
57:51
And then the type of content podcast was, well, I can't do memes.
57:54
I can be kind of funny, but I can't be funny like on demand.
57:57
They're very good.
57:58
Yes.
57:59
Yes.
58:00
Yes.
58:01
I want to create content that I enjoy creating.
58:02
It doesn't feel like too much of a lift.
58:03
Mm hmm.
58:04
So let me find a way to do that.
58:05
Conversational.
58:06
Conversational, conversational, long form.
58:07
Yes.
58:08
Yeah.
58:09
That was what started it.
58:10
And then you apply, you apply your years of marketing wisdom to the podcast,
58:14
which is a product.
58:15
Yeah.
58:16
And you find a way to not only create it, but distribute it everywhere,
58:19
just like you would if you were selling any other product in the world.
58:22
Mm hmm.
58:23
And that's, that's really what I've done.
58:25
And so you did that.
58:26
And so talk to me about kind of those early days.
58:28
Like, talk to me about episode like one to ten.
58:32
So episode one, so episode one, I think the guy who came on his name is Mark DeGrasse.
58:38
He's a really nice guy and now we're friends.
58:41
But I just ran a campaign on LinkedIn to anybody that was CMO-CRO.
58:46
Because the first version of the podcast was actually called sales versus marketing.
58:49
Mm hmm.
58:50
And then I changed the success story after.
58:51
Mm hmm.
58:52
Because the first version we were just talking about, the stuff that I like talking about,
58:54
which was me actually discussing content and ideas that I was dealing with in a day,
58:59
on a day-to-day.
59:00
Yeah.
59:01
So the guy's name was Mark DeGrasse.
59:02
And it was just the first guy that replied back to an automated like DM campaign on LinkedIn,
59:08
saying, yeah, I'll do your podcast.
59:09
And I think that he thought the podcast was much bigger or older than it was because he was like going into
59:15
these like deeply, deeply personal things.
59:18
And like.
59:19
You know what I'm shocked by?
59:20
I respect the hell out of Mark and he's a great guy.
59:22
Yeah.
59:23
I had no idea how to react.
59:24
He's talking about his son and all these health issues.
59:26
I'm like, bro.
59:28
You know what's interesting?
59:29
It's interesting to me that.
59:30
And then, okay, so I just, I really want to make a point to the people who are watching, especially
59:34
to the young people who think that you don't have what's required to start something.
59:42
You didn't go to your personal friends.
59:44
You didn't go to like, you didn't go to your network of people.
59:47
And I'm sure you knew successful people to be like, hey, listen, like to be really transparent.
59:50
I'm starting a podcast.
59:51
I just, I need a first, I need a first episode, you know, would you be that person?
59:55
You went to like the kind of like the world at large and be like, hey, do you want to be on this podcast?
1:00:01
You probably put together some materials to make it look cool.
1:00:03
Exactly.
1:00:04
Why didn't you go to, again, to me, it's really interesting because.
1:00:07
I think I, I think when I started it, I think I was a little bit embarrassed about starting it.
1:00:11
And I didn't want to bring my own circle into it till I knew that I could prove that it was good.
1:00:14
Okay.
1:00:15
So I'm different than you.
1:00:16
Like, I'll take the first person.
1:00:17
You know who my first guest was?
1:00:18
Valeria.
1:00:19
That was your first guest.
1:00:20
Yeah, of course.
1:00:21
Okay, good, good, good.
1:00:22
That makes sense.
1:00:23
But you didn't have like, but no, but you had Gina.
1:00:26
I had Gina, but I didn't know.
1:00:27
You had your sisters too.
1:00:28
I could have.
1:00:29
Yeah.
1:00:30
I could have.
1:00:31
I don't know.
1:00:32
But look, the point, my point is is that I think it's a really important kind of lesson for everyone who's watching is that.
1:00:37
You don't need a ton of connections.
1:00:39
You don't need.
1:00:41
You can literally start from nothing.
1:00:43
And like with creator method, like, you know, we have, we have our members now.
1:00:47
And I'm on calls with them like pretty often and I'm digging into it.
1:00:50
And I feel that now there's a certain kind of people who want to get into this.
1:00:55
There's, there's, they fall into kind of two, two broad categories.
1:00:58
They're like, you or it's just like, I don't give a fuck.
1:01:01
Like, I can do this and like, you did whatever it took.
1:01:04
Like, you know, I didn't care.
1:01:05
Yeah, right.
1:01:06
I was like, I'll figure it out.
1:01:07
Right.
1:01:08
And I, and I could have taken more care.
1:01:09
Yeah.
1:01:10
Like, I mean, hindsight 20, 20.
1:01:11
Well, I mean, you ended up in the right place.
1:01:12
Yeah, exactly.
1:01:13
That's all the matters.
1:01:14
That's all the matters.
1:01:15
But it's interesting because there are other people in the other camp.
1:01:17
So one camp is you would be like, you look at it.
1:01:19
It's whatever.
1:01:20
It's easy, man.
1:01:21
I'll just do a thing on LinkedIn.
1:01:22
Whoever's going to come, I'm going to come.
1:01:23
Or I'll call my wife or I'll call my friend.
1:01:24
Then we're just going to sit down.
1:01:25
We're going to rip a podcast.
1:01:26
Yeah.
1:01:27
I'm going to get to one episode.
1:01:28
I'm going to show it to somebody else.
1:01:29
Hey, look at this awesome episode.
1:01:30
You want to be the next.
1:01:31
Exactly.
1:01:32
Right.
1:01:33
And so there's that school of thought.
1:01:34
And then what I'm seeing is I'm seeing a lot of people.
1:01:35
We're like, you know, like, I need to place the shoot.
1:01:38
I need to buy $20,000 on equipment.
1:01:40
I need this.
1:01:41
I need all of this shit.
1:01:43
You know, I had.
1:01:44
I had.
1:01:45
You can go back and look at the first one.
1:01:46
It was, it was full suit.
1:01:47
Yeah.
1:01:48
It was like pandemic.
1:01:49
So I had long hair.
1:01:50
It's like my hair was like kind of like slipped back a little bit.
1:01:52
Like a little bit more because I had a little bit of a,
1:01:54
it was like a gross little hockey hair mallet.
1:01:55
Do you have a mallet?
1:01:56
Yeah.
1:01:57
It was good.
1:01:58
No, that's, that's cool though.
1:01:59
Yeah.
1:02:00
It was your pandemic pandemic mallet.
1:02:01
Yeah.
1:02:02
That's awesome.
1:02:03
And.
1:02:04
And it was just in, it was in, we were in a condo in Toronto.
1:02:09
Close to, close to Yorkville.
1:02:11
Mm hmm.
1:02:12
And it was just, it was so funny because Gina, every time we,
1:02:16
because we were together and we started dating.
1:02:18
Yeah.
1:02:19
And this is actually actually after we started dating,
1:02:21
because obviously we moved in together.
1:02:22
And every place she's ever lived, she'd want, she wanted like one room
1:02:26
to be what she called a coffees, which is like a closet and an office.
1:02:30
Right.
1:02:31
The one with like the full, the full like closet with all the bags and the shoes and stuff.
1:02:36
Yeah.
1:02:37
Like a nice lighting.
1:02:38
And I was relegated to a corner of that room.
1:02:42
And I was just sitting with like a laptop on her vanity facing me.
1:02:47
And obviously you can't see her vanity or all her bags and shoes.
1:02:50
But it's a laptop on her vanity facing me.
1:02:52
And it's just like the, it's like a, it's like the one white wall that we have in the condo
1:02:57
that doesn't have anything else on it.
1:02:59
And that's where I started my show.
1:03:01
And that's the only thing.
1:03:02
And you did it all remote.
1:03:03
All remote when I started.
1:03:04
Yeah.
1:03:05
And I just love, I just, I really hope people hear this, especially like, I'm a, listen,
1:03:10
for me, it's also about creator method, because I have so many people.
1:03:14
I would say that probably a third of our members, they haven't started yet.
1:03:18
And their whole thing is like, I can't get started.
1:03:20
You know, and I just, you were such living proof that you, you literally did it on a laptop
1:03:27
on like a makeup table or whatever the hell thing is.
1:03:29
Yeah.
1:03:30
Yeah.
1:03:31
Yeah.
1:03:32
I mean, I've only just moved it a thousand times and set it up.
1:03:36
That's how I know.
1:03:37
No, I understand.
1:03:38
See, that's the difference between you and me.
1:03:39
When Valeria asked me to move something, I said, we got to call the handyman.
1:03:42
We got to call a mover.
1:03:43
I'm always delegating that shit.
1:03:44
Now I do that.
1:03:45
That's it.
1:03:46
My smarter.
1:03:47
Listen, I'm at a point, we're at a point now in our relationship where she knows not
1:03:49
even to ask.
1:03:50
She just goes directly to the source of the people who could move for.
1:03:52
She is almost there.
1:03:53
With no, no, no.
1:03:54
It's not her fault.
1:03:55
It's your fault.
1:03:56
You, you just haven't set the expectations that you're useless.
1:03:59
You got to set the expectations that you're useless.
1:04:01
Okay, there's certain things that you're good at.
1:04:03
And those are the things you should come to you for.
1:04:05
Yeah.
1:04:06
The other stuff, the stuff that you don't want to do.
1:04:08
Even if you can do them, you got to make it seem like you're useless at them.
1:04:12
And then you'll never have to do them.
1:04:13
I like that.
1:04:14
It's a good strategy.
1:04:15
It's not something I'm going to teach my children, but I'll share it with you.
1:04:18
We've moved so much in the past couple of years.
1:04:20
I don't mind that at all.
1:04:21
That's good life advice.
1:04:22
Yeah.
1:04:23
Well, just don't tell Gina that I told you.
1:04:24
Hopefully she won't watch this podcast and give me shit.
1:04:26
I think she would probably like murder me if I got you into riding motorcycles.
1:04:29
But that's a whole different thing.
1:04:30
Yeah, that's okay.
1:04:31
So you're not going to be riding motorcycles because I want to live.
1:04:34
So that being said, look, so again, I just really want to point out that what I think what you've done, I think, is just it's so incredible.
1:04:42
The fact that you've built this and like, dude, you have a big podcast.
1:04:46
Like when you walk into a room, I just want everyone to know for like for context.
1:04:49
Like, I'll come to like, I'll come to an event where you're speaking.
1:04:53
You know, and you'll be on stage and shit and I'll be like, you know, in the back doing my thing.
1:04:57
And when you get off stage, it's like they just swarm you.
1:04:59
Everybody wants to talk to you.
1:05:00
Everybody wants to talk to you.
1:05:01
They either want to get your advice.
1:05:02
They want to pick your brain, the ever like the pick your brain situation, which I get that to sometimes.
1:05:07
Everybody's like on top of you.
1:05:08
They want to be on your podcast.
1:05:09
They want to get on your podcast.
1:05:10
I see the people you have there.
1:05:11
And, you know, I just, you've built something to the point where, you know, your brand.
1:05:16
What I mentioned, that you're my boy.
1:05:18
People are like, whoa, what really?
1:05:19
And I can see already.
1:05:20
They were like, can you get me on this podcast?
1:05:22
I already see it.
1:05:23
And I only, I've only brought you a very small handful.
1:05:25
But very, very good.
1:05:26
But very good.
1:05:27
I'm very selective who I introduce you to.
1:05:29
Yeah.
1:05:30
But so, look, so I mean, it's, it's amazing.
1:05:33
And tell me about, tell me about like, give me a couple of examples of some like memorable guests who had you just like just blown away with their story.
1:05:41
Yeah.
1:05:42
So, I just, again, sort of coming back to how I started the show.
1:05:48
It was just taking massive action.
1:05:50
And a little bit punching above my weight when I started the show.
1:05:55
So what I did when I started is, I can't remember how I found this tool.
1:06:01
But it was a, it was like, either a tool like, um, like it was some sort of like web scraping tool.
1:06:08
I can't remember what it was.
1:06:10
And I found a way to put together a list of like really famous business people.
1:06:16
And I just scraped the list of business people.
1:06:19
And then I found it was like, what's that duck's duck?
1:06:22
Is it duck soup or something?
1:06:23
Like there's like some sort of like automated tool that if you have a list of people, you can find you their email address.
1:06:29
There's like a million of these.
1:06:30
There's a few of them.
1:06:31
There's like rocket reach.
1:06:32
There's like a few.
1:06:33
There was an email finder.
1:06:34
Anyway, now there's probably a lot of them.
1:06:36
And so you just hit them all up.
1:06:37
I hit up like 200, like relatively famous in an automated way, like in a mass kind of email that made it look like it's personal.
1:06:44
Correct.
1:06:45
Yeah.
1:06:46
Beautiful.
1:06:47
Yeah.
1:06:48
Beautiful.
1:06:49
Yeah.
1:06:50
Beautiful.
1:06:51
Yeah.
1:06:52
Beautiful.
1:06:53
Yeah.
1:06:54
Beautiful.
1:06:55
Yeah.
1:06:56
Yeah.
1:06:57
I hope the rate usually got about 30, 40% open rate.
1:06:58
Doesn't matter.
1:06:59
Well, you're also, you're also not asking them for like money.
1:07:00
You're asking them.
1:07:01
You're, you're, you're flattering them and saying, hey, look, I'd like to have you on my list.
1:07:05
Grand Cardone.
1:07:06
Yeah.
1:07:07
Guy Kawasaki.
1:07:08
An Anthony Scaremuchi, who was Trump's director of communications for 12 days, where he fired in the first term.
1:07:13
I was not ready, bro.
1:07:14
I know, but it's, it's, it's beautiful.
1:07:17
It's like a, it's, this story is a masterpiece because you've, like, the names that you're mentioning, these are very influential people.
1:07:23
These are people with, you know, huge accomplishments, but also respective, like their own respective audiences.
1:07:28
Yeah.
1:07:29
And you simply, like, call it what it is.
1:07:31
You're a dude who went, you made a list, you automated, shot it out, and then you're getting all these people.
1:07:36
And they're like, yeah, we'll do the show.
1:07:37
Yeah.
1:07:38
You're a sudden, you have this clout of, of having all of these people.
1:07:44
You then kind of directly, you're indirectly get access to their audience.
1:07:47
Yeah.
1:07:48
You align your personal brand with theirs.
1:07:50
And all of a sudden, like, you start getting scale.
1:07:52
And it's such an example of the, you know, that, that saying, I think it was Gretzky saying, like, you miss every shot you don't take.
1:08:00
Yeah.
1:08:01
But you were, you weren't just taking shots.
1:08:03
You got like fucking three machine guns and started firing like crazy.
1:08:06
Yeah.
1:08:07
Right.
1:08:08
And then the second one of those people comes onto the show, they're in the email sequence going out to the next hundred people.
1:08:12
Of course.
1:08:13
Of course.
1:08:14
And this is so many people don't understand this.
1:08:16
I'll just, I want to quickly interject with one, like a personal statement.
1:08:19
In a way, bro.
1:08:20
Yeah.
1:08:21
So I had, I had this like in 1999, I started an online restaurant directory back when like, they needed people like, I had to explain what the internet was.
1:08:27
You know, I was walking into restaurants.
1:08:29
And I remember like in early 2000, like maybe in quarter one of 2000, I made my first sale.
1:08:34
And I walked into a pizza by the slice pace on like some dirty part of the Danforth.
1:08:38
Yeah.
1:08:39
And those were from Toronto.
1:08:40
And what I'm talking about.
1:08:41
And it was literally like the slice was like a dollar and ten cents.
1:08:44
It was like Canadian.
1:08:46
Like it was nothing free.
1:08:47
It was free pizza.
1:08:48
Like, you know, these, these weren't those, it wasn't like a sophisticated client.
1:08:51
You know, but he was like this nice dude, you know, this nice older man.
1:08:54
And I came in and I was wearing my sweetened tie.
1:08:56
And I sold him.
1:08:57
It was $59 for the year.
1:08:59
There's a listing Canadian.
1:09:00
It worked with, uh, with tax it worked out to $63 and 13 cents.
1:09:03
I remember the invoice.
1:09:04
And he bought this thing for me.
1:09:06
And I took it because, and this is like a further example of what you did.
1:09:09
But you did it in the age of technology.
1:09:11
And you actually used your brain on like me, which I just used my fists.
1:09:14
I was just going hard.
1:09:15
And I went in and I sold this guy this ad for $59 plus tax.
1:09:19
$63 and 13 cents.
1:09:20
And when he bought for me and I made this nice ad on my, you know, on the website.
1:09:24
And then I went to every neighbor.
1:09:26
I didn't do a radio search on Google.
1:09:28
I used my shoes and I walked to all of his neighbors.
1:09:30
I said, Hey, you know what?
1:09:31
Gus over there.
1:09:32
He just bought the shit for me.
1:09:33
He bought an ad on my website.
1:09:35
You know what?
1:09:36
Well, they're like a website.
1:09:37
I'm like, yeah, it's a website.
1:09:38
It's on the internet, the internet.
1:09:39
And then I would, and so I built that business ended up like 10 years later.
1:09:43
We were making millions every year.
1:09:44
Yeah.
1:09:45
You know what I mean?
1:09:46
And that led, and actually that led to my daily deal site, which I did like, you know,
1:09:50
a raise of $32 million.
1:09:51
I had an exit there.
1:09:52
Like my point is is that that stupid little thing that I did.
1:09:55
From that, that spawned like, you know, it really got me on my path.
1:09:59
But the way you did it as compared to what I did, like you did it in such an efficient way.
1:10:04
And what you've achieved in six years using ingenuity and technology.
1:10:08
And I'm, and I'm not just, by the way, I don't want, I don't want to, this, I'm not saying that
1:10:14
you were able to do it far better than me.
1:10:17
Simply because you had the technology.
1:10:19
No, I honestly think that you're smarter than me.
1:10:21
No, I mean it.
1:10:22
No, I mean it.
1:10:23
Because I'm like an idiot going door to door knocking on doors, trying to get one guy to pay me $59.
1:10:29
You're shooting off hundreds of emails at a time through an automated.
1:10:33
I would never have had to wear with all to do that.
1:10:35
So I'm just like I'm commending you.
1:10:37
I appreciate that.
1:10:38
And I think but, but the, but the lesson is like you just start, you just start and you just start doing.
1:10:45
I mean, there's even the Paul Graham quote, do things that don't scale and find a way to, to scale them.
1:10:50
Yeah.
1:10:51
I just skip the do things that don't scale part, but I still was just doing the basics.
1:10:56
Like, to you, it's the basics.
1:10:58
To me, it's the basis because again, I, I was fortunate to come from a sales and marketing back.
1:11:03
Yeah.
1:11:04
So how do I close the customer?
1:11:05
You were unfortunate.
1:11:06
You earned those positions too.
1:11:07
Yeah.
1:11:08
I worked for them.
1:11:09
I understood them.
1:11:10
You apply that wisdom to the next thing you do.
1:11:13
Yeah.
1:11:14
How I would close the customer was the same way I closed the guest.
1:11:18
And there's other, there's other things now that, well, now the podcast is on to the point where I'm not seeking guests that come to me.
1:11:25
I would think so.
1:11:26
Yeah.
1:11:27
Because every time they put up a list of business pockets, like number one, number one, number one, sure.
1:11:30
Yeah.
1:11:31
But they're, I'll talk about like even like some more useful strategies for people that are looking to connect with cool people.
1:11:38
But one of the companies that opened my eyes to entrepreneurship.
1:11:41
It was the one that was acquired by private equity.
1:11:43
It was a small telecom IT tech company in Toronto that I worked for a period of time.
1:11:49
Started my career with Bel Canada.
1:11:51
And then I moved into the smaller company as leading sales and marketing there.
1:11:54
That was acquired by private equity.
1:11:55
That was like my first light bulb moment into ownership and equity and exit.
1:11:58
Anyways, the whole point of that is that the founder who started that company started it in the 90s.
1:12:05
And he sold to private equity for a lot of money.
1:12:09
But the point is how he started that company was he was walking.
1:12:13
I can't remember which street.
1:12:14
It was a street in Toronto.
1:12:15
I can't remember where exactly.
1:12:16
Yeah.
1:12:17
And he would just go business to business, walk into the business, say, hey, I want to sell you this telephone system.
1:12:23
We just sold a, I nor tell telephone system to the guys next door.
1:12:27
This is a deal I can give you and it will replace your existing equipment.
1:12:31
You can finance it.
1:12:32
But it was him door to door sales.
1:12:34
And he built, it was, you know, it was a, it was an eight figure company.
1:12:39
Yeah.
1:12:40
And he built that just by going door to door for shocking on doors and selling himself.
1:12:45
And that's how he started it.
1:12:46
But with you, I would assume that a lot of this kind of methodology, you're now applying to the monetization of your podcast because you have sponsors.
1:12:54
Exactly.
1:12:55
So now, I mean, you had your first set of call them clients.
1:12:58
They were guests.
1:12:59
So you were able to leverage kind of your method of that kind of asking at scale.
1:13:04
Yeah.
1:13:05
Bringing them in, you know, brand building, aligning your brand with their brand by having them as a guest.
1:13:09
Yeah.
1:13:10
Having those deep conversations, honing your skills as an interviewer.
1:13:13
You were able to do that.
1:13:14
And then once that got scaled, then you started getting interest from sponsors.
1:13:17
Yeah.
1:13:18
So do you use a lot of that same kind of method where you get one sponsor and you'd be like, hey,
1:13:22
Hey, guys, look, I got you see this guy who advertised with me.
1:13:25
Here's kind of his data, not his data, but like, here's the results that he got.
1:13:29
Here's the benefit that he got.
1:13:31
Would you want to advertise?
1:13:32
And now you're scaling that site.
1:13:33
You scale the monetization.
1:13:34
It's the exact same.
1:13:35
How long, how long did it take you from your first guest of your first monetization?
1:13:38
Two years.
1:13:39
Okay.
1:13:40
Two years.
1:13:41
So people should buckle up, right?
1:13:42
People should put their heads down.
1:13:43
You should buckle up.
1:13:44
And also, I probably monetized my show in the least efficient way possible.
1:13:48
So if I was going to redo it, or if I wasn't, keep in mind, when I started my show, I was building a business.
1:13:54
So I wasn't concerned about like, how do I, how do I monetize this immediately?
1:13:58
Right.
1:13:59
I would focus on the business.
1:14:01
If you have a product or service, you can monetize in month two.
1:14:06
But I would listen, I'm selling eyeballs.
1:14:08
Correct.
1:14:09
So you need to get the eyeballs first?
1:14:10
Yeah, absolutely.
1:14:11
Another thing that if you're selling anything, if you're selling an opportunity for somebody come on to the podcast,
1:14:17
or if you're selling an opportunity for an advertiser to sponsor your show, I mean, it's sales 101.
1:14:22
You have to understand the pain point.
1:14:24
What are they trying to achieve?
1:14:26
Why can you, why can you solve that pain point?
1:14:28
Why can you be, why can you be sort of the antidote or the thing that is going to solve whatever their objective is?
1:14:36
And then also not just solving a pain point, which is sales 101.
1:14:39
The X factor in closing deals quickly, getting guests on quickly is something called intent.
1:14:45
So what is intent?
1:14:46
Intent is really, is there a reason in their life that they need to get this problem solved within the next three months?
1:14:53
What do I mean by that?
1:14:55
In terms of guests, what does intent look like?
1:14:57
Well, intent is usually I'm writing a book.
1:14:59
Yeah.
1:15:00
I'm launching a thing.
1:15:01
I need to have publicity around a launch at a specific date.
1:15:03
So what do I do for that?
1:15:04
I would go on Amazon.
1:15:05
I'd go for up and coming, new releases, business category, rank, most popular, find the authors, which are like big business games.
1:15:12
Hit them up, say, hey, I have a podcast.
1:15:14
I know you're writing a book.
1:15:15
Is it what I'm going to do for you?
1:15:16
Beautiful.
1:15:17
I already know you're doing PR.
1:15:18
Yeah, beautiful.
1:15:19
And they're going to say, yes, 99% of the time.
1:15:21
Of course.
1:15:22
With advertisers, are they sponsoring other podcasts?
1:15:24
Yep.
1:15:25
And then that's the intent.
1:15:26
You know that there's a budget allocated, and there's a time when they have to spend it by, could be end.
1:15:30
If Q1, what doesn't matter?
1:15:31
But if you see them start advertising with other podcasts or other brands or other other creators or other influencers,
1:15:40
you know that they have the objective of spending money.
1:15:43
There's been allocate influencer marketing or podcast marketing.
1:15:45
Yeah.
1:15:46
There's intent there.
1:15:47
Yeah.
1:15:48
So what that does is you're not having to warm them up to the idea.
1:15:50
For sure.
1:15:51
They're already working.
1:15:52
Are you able to comment on kind of what kind of what the split is between inbound interest for advertising on your podcast versus your outbound?
1:16:01
Right now it's 100% inbound.
1:16:03
It's 100% inbound.
1:16:04
Yeah.
1:16:05
So my speculation.
1:16:06
So just now, just now, I am building out a sales team like as we speak.
1:16:11
To go outbound.
1:16:12
Yeah.
1:16:13
So that that's really interesting.
1:16:14
And you and I should compare notes on that.
1:16:15
I'll be happy like when you do build that that outbound team.
1:16:18
Yeah.
1:16:19
To one guy right now.
1:16:20
Right.
1:16:21
And he started like a month ago.
1:16:22
Right.
1:16:23
But what's interesting is I bet, and this is something that we actually teach like with creator method.
1:16:27
And this is something that we've really put into practice with Valeria is, you know, people are always asking me especially at really early stages
1:16:33
when they have really tiny audiences, everyone's like talking to me monetization.
1:16:36
And I said, stop talking about monetization.
1:16:38
You should be focused on.
1:16:40
And I believe this is what you do very effectively focus on the content.
1:16:43
Because if the content is good, you know, we always found with direct relation that when content would hit with Valeria.
1:16:49
You know, it's like, it's cyclical, right?
1:16:51
And sometimes we have more views than others depending on how the content's hitting.
1:16:54
But when something goes like something hits big influx of brands, influx, influx, influx.
1:17:00
So I would always tell creators, don't worry about like your outbound strategy is creating content.
1:17:06
Good content that does well.
1:17:08
So keep oning your skill, you know, increase your frequency of content, content production.
1:17:13
Create better content.
1:17:14
Create better content.
1:17:15
Engage with your audience.
1:17:16
Forget about going outbound.
1:17:17
So you, you, you probably saw that early and you understood like the bigger profile guest you get that'll generate more views.
1:17:24
All of a sudden your in bounds go out.
1:17:26
And I think that's the secret sauce that a lot of people in this business, they don't get yet when they're trying to monetize.
1:17:31
I think that listen, two things can be correct at the same time.
1:17:34
So can you make money going outbound?
1:17:36
Yes.
1:17:37
Yeah.
1:17:38
Most creators, podcasters.
1:17:39
Interficient though.
1:17:40
Yeah, exactly.
1:17:41
Yeah.
1:17:42
Like you only have so many hours in a day.
1:17:43
So again, I probably could have made the argument that I could always be running outbound campaigns to potential advertisers because I know how to do it.
1:17:52
Yeah.
1:17:54
I know how to find brands that are advertising on other podcasts.
1:17:57
Then you can make the argument that yes, you should have been doing that.
1:17:59
You should have been doing that.
1:18:00
You should have been ripping those lists and setting up campaigns and pressing go.
1:18:05
I mean, this is a whole other conversation, but it's only very recently that I've only been doing the podcast and not building another business while doing the podcast.
1:18:15
So only so many hours in a day.
1:18:17
And I think that I think that if you are most creators, spending the majority of your day focused on outbound and not focused on getting better at your craft.
1:18:30
Yes, yes.
1:18:31
Amen.
1:18:32
Listen, I have this conversation with our members all the time.
1:18:37
All the time.
1:18:39
I fully believe that I didn't go outbound.
1:18:41
Like when I say I was me who kind of pulled the trigger on the whole outbound campaign with Valeria until years into it.
1:18:47
And the only reason we did it, it wasn't even into increased sales.
1:18:51
It was to have a better control of the flow, right?
1:18:54
Because we wanted certain advertisers like over others.
1:18:58
I don't know.
1:18:59
We just we wanted to target certain advertisements.
1:19:01
Yeah, I understand.
1:19:02
And I think that you, I mean, then you can make an argument for like you can negotiate on your terms and you have like a little bit of understanding of your pipeline and you can forecast a little bit more.
1:19:11
It's sorry.
1:19:12
That that was also the main reason to it was being able to forecast better because when you're relying strict because the thing is is that with content as you,
1:19:19
as you very well know with every episode you put out, whether it's the long form that you're putting up or you know, when you cut it into short form, you cannot control.
1:19:27
You can't even predict how the content is going to perform.
1:19:30
Yeah.
1:19:31
In some cases, you know, you kind of get a feel for it, but realistically speaking, it's hard to make that everything hits.
1:19:36
So you're dealing with kind of these ups and downs on the content performance.
1:19:41
And the content performance is directly how the content performed directly ties into the inbound interest from advertisers.
1:19:47
Yeah.
1:19:48
So how the content performs directly is related to your revenue at any given time.
1:19:53
And so for us, the reason one of the reasons we went outbound is that, you know, our sales continued to scale over time, as I'm sure yours do too.
1:20:00
But it was kind of lumpy and that we couldn't predict when it was going to come in.
1:20:03
And therefore, and the cash from those deals would come in because a lot of the people had terms, which now we've tightened up, but.
1:20:08
Oh, yeah.
1:20:09
So brands, brands will mess with creators all day doing net 90 terms and stuff like that.
1:20:12
Yeah, you got to.
1:20:13
And then you then you have another big business problem with cash flow.
1:20:16
If you have a team to take care of and you have a process and that's a whole other thing that can.
1:20:20
That that is a whole other thing, but I find that I.
1:20:23
So I mean, we're getting kind of into into the weeds of kind of the whole creator space, which, you know, it's that.
1:20:29
The challenge is is that.
1:20:31
Smaller.
1:20:32
I don't like the term smaller creators.
1:20:34
Creators with smaller audiences.
1:20:36
Because there's no.
1:20:37
You can't call somebody smaller.
1:20:38
They're not small.
1:20:39
They're all creators.
1:20:40
They're all creators, but some of them have like larger more reach and some of them have.
1:20:46
So, so creators with smaller audiences.
1:20:48
Because they don't have the wherewithal to stand their ground and demand.
1:20:51
So, and demand kind of.
1:20:53
Yeah.
1:20:54
Both in terms of a rate perspective and terms.
1:20:56
What happens is brands rightfully so take advantage of it and like they'll say, well, we'll pay you 90 days, which gives them a superior cash flow situation.
1:21:03
Yeah.
1:21:04
Right.
1:21:05
But it, you know, it makes it hard for creators to operate, but then over time I'm finding that.
1:21:08
Brands are understanding now because we just started turning people away and they're like, okay, okay.
1:21:13
I think that, yeah.
1:21:14
So, I also think that it just finished up the thought on that last point.
1:21:17
Yeah.
1:21:18
As a creator, the business you're building is, is, is to put great content and attract eyeballs.
1:21:26
If you want to build a business where you have to go outbound, you don't need to focus on creating content.
1:21:32
You can just have a product or service and go outbound.
1:21:34
Yeah, and then go outbound.
1:21:35
But that's not this business.
1:21:36
Well, you're not leaning into naturally the advantage that you have as a creator, which is getting eyeballs for the content you create.
1:21:44
So the product is actually the sale strategy.
1:21:47
Right.
1:21:48
The product is a sale strategy.
1:21:49
In the case.
1:21:50
And you just remove as much.
1:21:52
Listen, in business, it's all about energy management, time management.
1:21:55
So if you're going to be successful, there's a million different ways to build a business.
1:21:59
There's a million different ways to monetize as a creator.
1:22:01
I think that it's really important that you lean into the thing that that stresses you out the least, distracts you the leisure doesn't, you know, doesn't just lead your energy.
1:22:11
And that is just not only putting out content, but putting out content.
1:22:15
You get inbound, not only by putting out content, acting as a sale strategy, you're also putting out content, which is making you become better at your craft.
1:22:22
And another thought about another thought about like sort of the rationale for just mostly focusing on content and not focusing on other stuff as a creator.
1:22:32
All creators will have to go through this really awkward phase of putting out really subpar content before they get to the point where they understand what good content is.
1:22:44
Of course, and I think that that trips a lot of people up because they don't want to put out something that's subpar and they don't want to put out crappy content.
1:22:50
It's required like 100% of create, it's not like it's not like 80% of creators have to put out crappy content before they get good.
1:22:58
100% of creators, if you go back, I don't care if you go on Instagram, you go on YouTube, find a way to go to their first post.
1:23:03
Yeah, it's not going to be great. It's not it's really not going to be great.
1:23:06
So it is very subjective. I mean, the point is you will never be as comfortable.
1:23:13
Like there's there's there's psychological reasons outside of just production value that is going to inhibit the quality of your content.
1:23:19
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Like I tell creators all the time that, you know, they'll be like, they'll be like three months into it and they have a couple of thousand followers.
1:23:28
And they're talking to me about, well, I have to like, you know, I have to change. I have to pivot because if I do a video like this, it performs like this.
1:23:34
I get this many views, this many followers and they're so deep in the metrics that even like a thousand followers.
1:23:38
And I say to them, stop, stop views and follows and likes and shares. That is not your success metric today.
1:23:47
Your success metric today is putting out content is the your success is the experience you're gaining.
1:23:54
You're in school right now. And it's the it's the experience that you are gaining by creating content by putting up content.
1:24:00
The time management, the honing your skill, being able to speak better, you know, all of that.
1:24:06
So yeah, I agree, but that's something that people are learning and people are getting better at it.
1:24:10
I think they have to be okay with sucking.
1:24:13
Yeah, sure you have to, but that's what anything. I agree.
1:24:15
I suck at most things. I agree.
1:24:17
So why do you know how scared I am writing these motorcycles? Like I still suck at it. I'm only eight months into this.
1:24:21
So, but I will be good at it. I know you'll be good and you're not bad.
1:24:25
Well, I'm okay. I'm okay at it. Slow speeds are difficult, but that's a whole other thing.
1:24:29
I want to say something about podcasting.
1:24:31
And one of the reasons why I love podcasting as a business is like for my like as a content creation business is because of the efficiency of it.
1:24:41
Right. And if you have content that can be conveyed in conversationally like you and I are talking now, the fact that you and I can sit down for however long we're going to sit here an hour, two hours, whatever.
1:24:52
And we can have a conversation. The audio goes to multiple audio platforms like like Spotify and and I want me to tell you my breakdown.
1:25:01
Well, I think I think I have an idea. Right. So the audio goes to audio. The video goes to YouTube.
1:25:06
Yeah, yeah. And you cut it into reels. And so you get so much utility and newsletter and new tweets.
1:25:11
Yeah. And now with AI, you take the transcript and AI can make all this stuff for you.
1:25:15
Yeah. Oh, it's wonderful. That was also I was thinking that way when I started. Yeah, I knew that.
1:25:21
Again, when you know blank slate day one, they zero really, I was like, okay, I don't want to I don't want to be thinking of new concepts across every single platform every single time.
1:25:33
Now, there's a there's a positive and a negative to repurposing by repurposing. It'll never be optimized and the best content for every platform.
1:25:43
Like in terms of yeah, no, I can't be good enough to achieve the objective, which is the main thing.
1:25:49
So I kind of disagree with you. And I say that knowing that you've done 700 episodes and I've done like 50.
1:25:54
But I kind of disagree with you because I believe that a lot of those optimizations isn't up to the talent.
1:25:59
I believe the optimization is in post production. So I believe if you have salt because I've seen both right.
1:26:04
I've had external editing teams. I've had now now we took everything in house for Valeria.
1:26:09
And it depends it depends on the team who does it that the post production could be.
1:26:15
It can feel native. So we are very into the weeds on this. So that's fine because it's a smart audience.
1:26:21
So when I said what I just said, I was comparing the majority of people's like derivative.
1:26:29
So when you create a podcast, say you have video content and you use using editor, you use a tool like Opus,
1:26:36
you use a combination of editor plus which is an AI tool for clipping videos.
1:26:40
You can use a combination of both, which is what I do.
1:26:45
Usually most editors are not good enough to take a clip from a podcast and make it perform as well.
1:26:52
As if I had scripted a video for TikTok or I'd done some sort of challenge for whatever.
1:26:59
So more often than not, it's slightly underperforms content that's created natively for the platform.
1:27:05
But there's way in post production, there's a couple strategies.
1:27:09
First of all, if you have a really great editor and they find the most prolific points of view in the conversation
1:27:15
and you can edit them in a way, also another strategy is if you have a conversation like this
1:27:20
and I say something, but you need a good hook,
1:27:24
or you can re-record after I leave asking the question that ties right back into this really spiky point of view that I have.
1:27:31
That's another way to do it. So yes, there are ways I think that we're talking about people that are super deep into the weeds
1:27:37
and have figured out the perfect team versus somebody who's just starting out
1:27:42
who's trying to figure out why they're content that they record scripted talking heads
1:27:47
overperforming. It's iterative, man.
1:27:50
You've got to keep going with it.
1:27:52
But I think that your viewpoint is obviously super valid,
1:27:56
but for your type of content, the business, the long-form conversational,
1:28:02
I tend to agree with you that you have to do it so that it'll perform natively
1:28:07
when you record it, but for Valeria, we've pulled out parts of vlogs that have gone crazy, super viral,
1:28:14
and we do it pretty often. We can pull out stuff from six years ago
1:28:18
from when we're messing around with the kids in one of our vlogs and clip it in such a way that all of a sudden,
1:28:23
but there's also another, again, we're getting really deep into the weeds,
1:28:26
but when you've built that personal brand over time,
1:28:29
at that point, your success rate is a lot higher
1:28:34
because if I pull out an old video from six years ago,
1:28:37
and my kids were really small, and it's like a funny little piece,
1:28:40
and we put it now to Valeria's audience into a smaller degree.
1:28:43
My audience, the people who are watching now, they have the context of the last seven years,
1:28:48
so those aren't just random kids messing around. Those are the kids that grew up in front of their eyes,
1:28:53
and that they have the context of all of the events that happened from that moment.
1:28:57
And that's why they're engaged.
1:28:59
And I would argue that even for your type of content,
1:29:02
which is just, it's far more straight to the point,
1:29:05
it's not like this family stuff, but for your content,
1:29:08
I also feel like if you were to go back into your old stuff,
1:29:12
and you were to pull, which I'm sure you do all the time,
1:29:14
and you were to pull and add additional context,
1:29:16
because you know what would be cool for you?
1:29:18
Again, I'm just kind of spitballing, right?
1:29:20
I like it, not like that. I'm just kind of spitballing.
1:29:22
So if you had a guest, let's say, who was on your show six years ago,
1:29:25
that guest since being on your show has experienced some massive success,
1:29:29
and they've hit some big milestones,
1:29:31
it would be interesting for you to kind of narrate a hook in the beginning,
1:29:35
like maybe, I don't know, five, ten seconds, saying, you know...
1:29:39
I asked this person, blah, blah, blah.
1:29:41
And now, kind of making that little storyline, I think,
1:29:45
would be really interesting.
1:29:46
So like, you had me on your podcast,
1:29:48
and in 20 years, when I'll only be in my early 70s,
1:29:51
assuming that we continue on the trajectory that we're going,
1:29:55
you could say, yeah, I talked to Gary 20 years ago,
1:29:57
and that would be cool.
1:29:59
That is the cool thing about podcasting,
1:30:02
and you'll only be 54, by the way.
1:30:04
I will only be 54.
1:30:05
You'll be still a young man.
1:30:06
I'll have a couple more grades.
1:30:07
That's okay.
1:30:08
You can join the club.
1:30:10
You can join the club.
1:30:11
I'm already getting grades, actually, I was looking...
1:30:13
Shut up.
1:30:14
Stop.
1:30:15
People like you in your age who complain about getting old,
1:30:18
like, you're just implying that I should commit suicide,
1:30:20
because like, I'm on death's door.
1:30:21
No, bro.
1:30:22
You're a young man.
1:30:23
Don't worry about it.
1:30:24
You're going to lift 120.
1:30:25
Don't thank you.
1:30:26
Don't worry about your gray hairs.
1:30:27
You're good.
1:30:28
What are we talking about?
1:30:29
Trying to think of...
1:30:30
It's easy to get off track.
1:30:31
It is easy to get off track.
1:30:32
Because this is a problem when you know the person,
1:30:34
and then you just shoot the shit.
1:30:35
Oh, I saw the problem.
1:30:36
I know what I was going to say.
1:30:37
I know what I was going to say.
1:30:38
I love the way you always come back.
1:30:39
You can forget.
1:30:40
This is the second time you've done it.
1:30:41
And I appreciate it.
1:30:42
Because it's like, suspenseful.
1:30:43
You forget.
1:30:44
I'm like, is he going to remember?
1:30:46
I always get it.
1:30:47
I always get it.
1:30:48
It's also been a long day.
1:30:49
This is the second thing that I've recorded.
1:30:50
It's also very draining.
1:30:52
It's very draining.
1:30:53
It is.
1:30:54
It's very draining.
1:30:55
I think that people sometimes...
1:30:56
They underestimate it.
1:30:57
...underestimate how much it is.
1:30:58
People think Valeria just prances around all the endos nothing.
1:31:00
No.
1:31:01
It's very draining to perform.
1:31:03
But you have to be 100%.
1:31:04
I agree.
1:31:05
But I was going to say the advice that you're giving about...
1:31:08
Can you find the post-production, the right clip?
1:31:12
Yeah.
1:31:13
I think that advice is great for somebody who has help.
1:31:16
So there's a difference in advice that I give for somebody...
1:31:18
Who is solo printer?
1:31:19
Yeah.
1:31:20
...versus somebody who has a little bit of help and support and has a smaller team.
1:31:23
Because again, you have to think about what's the value of your time.
1:31:28
So is it worth spending two hours on a reel?
1:31:32
Or is it worth using Opus and getting a 75% of the way their result?
1:31:37
And having slightly underperforming content?
1:31:40
You know what the thing is, is that even when you do have the team...
1:31:43
And if you have all this infrastructure, it's still going to be 75% of what you would...
1:31:47
I feel as an entrepreneur, you have to come to terms with it.
1:31:50
Like there are certain employees, certain team members I've had,
1:31:53
like even before this company, that it took years to get them kind of to align with.
1:31:58
And it's not just...
1:31:59
It's not a matter of them coming to the way I want to do things.
1:32:01
It's a matter of two people coming together...
1:32:03
And coming up with the most kind of efficient and best way to do it.
1:32:06
I would pick to get things...