14 Business Ideas We'd Start If We Wanted to Hit $100M, Again
Two operators with $250M in combined lifetime revenue trade the seven businesses each would start tomorrow, and the selection rules behind every pick.
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Interview
educational
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57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
The businesses that reach nine figures fastest pair a fragmented, ad-reachable market with high lifetime value, so the winning move is copying a proven model into a better market rather than inventing a new one.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
An info, coaching or agency operator doing seven figures who keeps wondering what a second business or next vehicle should look like.
A founder with a working sales team who wants to see where that skill transfers, from DTC supplement brands to equipment sales.
Someone weighing a first business who wants concrete models with real price points, margins and team implications instead of vague advice.
A buyer looking at acquisitions, franchises or roll-ups who wants operators' honest takes on where those plays break.
A marketer curious how event funnels, low-ticket tripwires and high-ticket backends fit together inside one customer journey.
SKIP IF…
You want a step-by-step launch guide; each idea gets 5 to 10 minutes of discussion, not a playbook.
You need verified financials; most revenue figures are secondhand estimates about other people's companies.
You're looking for low-capital side hustles; several ideas assume millions in cash flow or an existing sales org.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Two operators each name seven businesses they would start if their current company vanished. The selection logic repeats: pick a fragmented market you can reach with paid ads, prefer supply-constrained problems where buyers feel urgency, and stack lifetime value until you can outspend competitors. Picks include copying a proven recruiting-plus-training model into HVAC, financial info businesses that monetize through funds and insurance, event and mastermind funnels built on a personal brand, lead-gen buy-sell networks, high-net-worth services, home services, emerging-tech equipment sales, pet e-commerce, DTC brands with high-ticket sales-team backends, real estate stacking, temp staffing and franchise roll-ups. The practical conclusion: copy what already works, run it back in a better market, and let economics beat marketing.
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The setup: seven ideas each, all models they have seen scale to eight or nine figures.
00:38 – 13:44
02 · Idea 1: HVAC recruiting and training
Instead of moving upmarket, copy the existing sales recruiting plus training model into HVAC, chosen for fragmentation, ad reach, supply constraints and openness to consulting.
13:44 – 24:23
03 · Idea 2: Financial info business
Break even on a front-end info offer, then monetize through funds, whole life insurance, done-for-you services and newsletters. Tripwires fix pixel optimization.
24:23 – 32:55
04 · Idea 3: Fame funnels
Two personal-brand models: the event-driven ladder ($5K event, $40K and $150K upsells) and the mastermind continuity model fed by YouTube.
32:55 – 39:06
05 · Idea 4: Lead-gen buy-sell network
Sit between media buyers and call centers, reselling leads and calls at a markup. Lean teams and huge spend, but ad-account and legal risk.
39:06 – 43:17
06 · Idea 5: High-net-worth services
Tax, asset protection and family office services combine a broad market with money and low churn; specialization plus real customer service is the edge.
43:17 – 45:54
07 · Idea 6: Landscape and snow removal
Start where you already have knowledge. Private equity roll-ups are paying big multiples in a family-business industry.
45:54 – 55:51
08 · Idea 7: Home service company
Recession resilient, financed and AI-proof, but labor constrained. The opening is education-based marketing to problem-aware and unaware homeowners.
55:51 – 1:02:47
09 · Idea 8: Buy then build
Acquire small online businesses and pull pricing and marketing levers, plus where acquisitions break: sub-$10M dumpster fires and financing at the top.
1:02:47 – 1:08:04
10 · Idea 9: Equipment sales
Sell a $70K financed product to a fragmented market through ads and a sales team; start as distributor of emerging tech, then integrate vertically.
1:08:04 – 1:10:45
11 · Idea 10: Pet e-commerce
Pet supplements and red light therapy for pets: emerging tech, recurring supplements and nine-figure exits driven by private equity interest.
1:10:45 – 1:16:41
12 · Idea 11: DTC brand with a high-ticket backend
Run a proven DTC model but add setters and closers selling $5K to $10K programs to buyers, then outspend competitors on LTV.
1:16:41 – 1:21:37
13 · Idea 12: Real estate stacking
An info business teaching real estate that redeploys profits into property, shielding income through depreciation and getting deal flow from students.
1:21:37 – 1:29:41
14 · Idea 13: Temp staffing
Temp staffing is 86% of recruiting revenue, recurring and valued higher; start in a fragmented niche like dental hygienists and float net-60 receivables.
1:29:41 – 1:33:53
15 · Idea 14: The franchise machine
Own many franchise locations or become the franchisor; plus the billion-dollar play of buying out every franchisee and centralizing operations.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Copying a model you already run into a new industry beats inventing a new business, because the processes, hiring and expectations are already known.
Recruiting for supply-constrained roles is easier to sell than recruiting for sales roles, because companies feel more urgency to fill fulfillment seats than growth seats.
Recruiting firms struggle with small businesses because one placement ends the relationship; adding training and consulting is what keeps those clients paying.
Spending $500K a month in one market for eight years eventually pulls in the biggest companies through word of mouth, even without an enterprise campaign.
Financial offers combine break-even front ends with the highest back-end lifetime value in direct response, through funds, insurance and done-for-you services.
When a pixel won't optimize for a high-ticket purchase, a low-ticket tripwire on the second page gives it a purchase event to learn from.
A personal brand works like insurance: even if the main business disappears, it can produce $100K to $200K a month on demand.
Event-driven funnels pull buyers who already trust you, while cold ad funnels push skeptical buyers through setters, closers and onboarding just to keep convincing them.
Mastermind businesses fed by YouTube can run near 90% margins with tiny teams, matching the profit of e-commerce brands doing $200M or more.
Lead-gen networks can win spending $100K a day to make $110K back, because they carry almost no overhead between the money in and the money out.
Problems that wealthy people share, like tax and asset protection, give you a broad market with money plus built-in retention.
Home service companies market almost entirely to the most-aware buyer, leaving problem-aware and unaware homeowners untouched by education-based campaigns.
Private equity learned in the COVID buying spree that home service roll-ups collapse when the founder leaves and technicians follow.
Below roughly $10M in revenue, an acquired company usually needs so much rebuilding that starting from scratch is often cheaper.
Selling a $70K financed product instead of a $5K one cuts the team needed to reach $100M by more than ten times.
Emerging technology is the wedge into equipment markets; established products are commoditized and controlled by a few manufacturers.
Given the same business, the operator maximizing lifetime value beats the operator minimizing acquisition cost almost every time.
Temp staffing is about 86% of the recruiting market by revenue and trades at roughly twice the exit multiple of permanent placement per dollar of EBITDA.
Temp-to-perm contracts create leverage: when a client loves the placed worker, you can charge a buyout of around 35% of first-year salary.
Takeaway
Pick the market first, then copy what works
WHAT TO LEARN
Across fourteen ideas the pattern holds: fragmented markets you can reach with ads, real urgency to buy, and stacked lifetime value beat novel ideas and clever marketing.
02Idea 1: HVAC recruiting and training
Copy a model you already run into an industry with the same traits, because known processes and hiring make the odds far higher than a new model.
Score markets on four traits: fragmented and reachable by ads, supply constrained, facing structural labor shortages, and open to buying training on top.
03Idea 2: Financial info business
Break even on the front end and earn the profit on the back end, using funds, insurance or done-for-you tiers to make ad spend effectively unlimited.
If the ad pixel can't learn from rare high-ticket purchases, add a low-ticket tripwire so it gets frequent purchase events to optimize toward.
04Idea 3: Fame funnels
Event funnels sell to people who already trust you; mastermind continuity fed by YouTube can run near 90% margins with a small team.
Treat a personal brand as insurance that can produce income even if your main company disappears.
05Idea 4: Lead-gen buy-sell network
Lead-gen networks profit on thin spreads at huge spend because overhead is tiny, but one shut-down ad account can stop revenue overnight.
06Idea 5: High-net-worth services
Services for problems wealthy people share give you a broad market with money and low churn; specialization and real service are the edge.
07Idea 6: Landscape and snow removal
The best first business usually sits where you already have insider knowledge, like a family trade you grew up around.
08Idea 7: Home service company
Private equity pays well for local service platforms but learned that removing the founder drives technicians out and the business collapses.
Home services market only to most-aware buyers, so education-based campaigns about symptoms or new technology can open the untapped majority.
09Idea 8: Buy then build
Small acquisitions often need so much rebuilding they cost more than starting fresh, while big ones create a financing problem.
Below roughly $10M in revenue, keep the founder in place or expect to rebuild most of what you bought.
10Idea 9: Equipment sales
A higher price point with financing shrinks the team needed for any revenue target, improving labor efficiency across the company.
Enter equipment markets through emerging technology as a distributor, then integrate vertically once cash flow allows.
11Idea 10: Pet e-commerce
Pet products combine emotional buyers with recurring purchases, which is why private equity is paying nine-figure exits in the category.
12Idea 11: DTC brand with a high-ticket backend
Adding setters and closers who sell a $5K to $10K program to existing product buyers raises LTV enough to outspend competitors on ads.
Given the same business, maximizing lifetime value beats minimizing acquisition cost, because acquisition cost can only fall to zero.
13Idea 12: Real estate stacking
Real estate info businesses redeploy profit into property, offsetting taxes through depreciation while students bring deal flow.
Real estate tax treatment for ordinary businesses requires most working hours in real estate, so it usually only works when a spouse runs it full time.
14Idea 13: Temp staffing
Temp staffing is the largest slice of recruiting revenue and earns higher exit multiples, but net-60 payment terms mean you must float payroll with capital or loans.
Temp-to-perm contracts let you charge a buyout when a client wants to keep a placed worker, adding cash on top of hourly margin.
15Idea 14: The franchise machine
Franchise ownership follows an existing playbook and scales from one location to hundreds, but depends on unreliable frontline staff.
The largest franchise play is buying out every franchisee and centralizing operations, which needs enormous capital but can multiply company value.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Perm placement
A recruiting model where the client pays a one-time fee when a candidate is hired as a permanent employee.
Temp staffing
Supplying contract workers who stay on the staffing firm's payroll while working for a client, billed hourly with a markup, often for a fixed project term.
Supply-constrained business
A company limited by how much it can deliver, usually because of labor shortages, rather than by how many customers want to buy.
Auto webinar
A prerecorded webinar played on a schedule to cold traffic, usually selling a low or mid-priced product that funds ad spend before a higher-ticket upsell.
Tripwire
A cheap first offer placed right after opt-in so new leads become buyers quickly and ad platforms get purchase data to optimize toward.
Liquidation
Recovering ad spend on the front end through low-ticket sales, order bumps and one-time offers so customer acquisition costs roughly nothing.
Agora-style publishing
A financial newsletter model built on many paid publications with different writers as the faces, cross-selling subscribers into higher-priced products.
Lead-gen network
A business that buys or generates leads and calls through media buyers, then resells them to call centers or businesses that convert them.
Hot transfer
A live phone call passed directly from the lead generator to the buyer while the prospect is still on the line.
Awareness pyramid
Eugene Schwartz's five stages of buyer awareness, from unaware of the problem to most aware and ready to buy.
Platform deal
In private equity, the first larger acquisition in an industry that later smaller add-on companies are bolted onto.
Second bite of the apple
When a founder sells a majority stake but keeps equity, then gets paid again when the investor later sells the larger company.
Real estate professional status
A US tax status that lets qualifying people use real estate depreciation to offset other income, requiring most working hours to go to real estate.
Net 30 / Net 60
Payment terms giving a client 30 or 60 days to pay an invoice, which forces staffing firms to float payroll in the meantime.
LTV
Lifetime value: the total revenue or gross profit a customer generates across every purchase they make with the business.
CAC
Customer acquisition cost: the total marketing and sales spend required to win one paying customer.
“I wanted to focus on a supply-constrained business, fragmented, that I could target through ads.”
a complete market-selection rule in one line→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
09:57
“The run it back framework is you find something that makes you a ton of money and then you scale it up and then you sell it and you just do it again.”
named framework, self-contained→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
22:48
“Out of any direct response industry, financial is king. It always has been.”
short contrarian claim→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
26:55
“It's just a very push versus pull approach, so that model can print over 100 million and do it with insane profits.”
contrasts event funnels with cold ad funnels→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
29:16
“The thing I do like about the personal brand is I view it as like insurance.”
1:16:41 – 1:33:53denseReal estate, staffing and franchising
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Between Ryan and I's companies, we've done over 250 million lifetime, but as we've run our companies, we always see other businesses or offers out there that we think are absolutely fire. And we think to ourselves, man, if we didn't have our company, we would start a business like that tomorrow because we've seen it scale to eight, multiple eight, or even nine plus figures.
What we're gonna cover is we each brought... seven offer ideas slash businesses that we either wish we had or that if our business went away, we would start tomorrow. So if you're somebody who is just starting off looking for a business idea, or if you're advanced in the space and you want to see some of the best stuff that's working right now, you're going to get a ton of value out of this podcast.
So you ready? Ready. All right.
So I'll start first with mine. And so this idea is actually something we are doing in November. So this is a business idea.
Anybody could do it, but I'm actually launching this as another company. It's a subsidiary of my holding company in November, which is basically the same exact business model that we have at closers .io where we, we basically place people and we train them, but it's for HVAC technicians. Okay.
So do you remember, cause in our last podcast, just square the circle, you remember how I was talking about how I wanted to go up market? Yes. So basically here's what I kind of learned trying to do that.
Number one is trying to go up market. If you're trying to go true up market, like mid -market and enterprise level, the issue number one is, is it's very hard to access those people with ads. Like I tried like a million different ways to do it.
It's very hard. If you go to the more cold outreach method, you're in a red ocean competing with everybody else. The other thing is that the way our company is built and our value proposition is like not necessarily aligned with what those companies want.
So like kind of what I learned essentially. You know, those companies, they're looking for mainly, to be honest, in the mid -market and enterprise level, they're looking for temp staffing. So they're looking for like temporary staffing or like they're looking for a placement, but like you have to be a global firm.
You have to go through an RFP process. So the way I looked at it is the acquisition is entirely different and the fulfillment is entirely different. Therefore, it's an entirely different business.
But then here's the other thing I realized. is you know we mainly have owned the sales recruiting market for info coaching agency right well pretty much every big like some of the companies we were talking about a couple companies right before this that are doing over 100 million a year pretty much all of the biggest companies in the space have become our clients so instead of trying to like create a campaign to just get those people as well i know if i just run ads to a market long enough and spend enough i will get those people because i've already gotten those people the real issue is we just weren't charging them the right way so that's a totally different story so we didn't have any like enterprise pricing i mean that goes back to what we're just talking about with your content because like if you think of like a like a mosey right like all those guys are in that room because he goes large scale like like broad business right so like not even just paid as being able to be a growth lever but like he's got hvac guys in the room they've got dennis in the room they've got like all these different types of like traditional smb which i think you would dominate well so the the thing is too is so we i realized if i spend you know 500k a month for eight years which is what i've done basically in one market
I'm just going to get the top of the market naturally through word of mouth, right? The issue was is I didn't have enterprise pricing to capitalize on that market. And we were pricing them like small businesses.
And that just wasn't for them. And they would like churn or whatever, right? So we fixed that.
And then, so I'm thinking, okay, how do I go up market? Yes, still. But also like, instead of trying to change my business model, why don't I just take the same model and copy it into an industry with like the same characteristics?
So what I did is, is I thought to myself, like if I had to start a recruiting slash training business, which is what I have all over looking at first principles from a market perspective. what would I want? Like if I had to start this business all over, like what industry would I actually go into that fits this business the most?
And so I looked at like a variety of factors. So number one was, is I have to be able to run ads to the market. So in other words, there has to be a lot of fragmentation in the market.
Number two is, is I wanted to place a position that essentially by the nature of placing the position, it means they're supply constrained, not demand constrained, right? So the issue with sales is, is naturally you go for more demand -constrained businesses because that's why they want sales.
They want to increase sales. But which hires do you usually have more urgency to fill? Is it sales or like, oh my God, our sales are popping off.
We need fulfillment, right? So I wanted to focus on a supply -constrained business, fragmented that I could target through ads. And also I looked at, okay, what are the worst structural labor shortages in a variety of these different positions in different industries?
Then the fourth thing was I also wanted them open to training and consulting because the issue of why all recruiting businesses don't work with SMB is because the LTV is terrible. You give them a placement, they're gone. But we retain people for a long time because we give them the placement, but then we teach them how to actually grow their business so they can get more placements.
That's what's really made my business model different and unique. So instead of running away from that and doing enterprise, I'm like, let's just double down on that. So what we actually decided to do.
was an HVAC recruiting company because technicians are technicians and installers, which are on the more fulfillment side, but they also sell not installers, but technicians do is probably the worst. It's up there, but for small businesses, probably the worst labor shortage in the entire United States. Interesting.
So like, I know the ads are going to rip. I know the sales, we can charge a lot. I know the demands there.
I also know they're not going to fix the problem themselves. So our followup pipeline will be really good. The hard part will be fulfillment.
Because it's like, we're going to have to like go out and poach these people because there's no unemployed pool, right? It's all the employed tech pool. But basically that's the business.
So that's my first business idea slash like business I wish I had, which is the business I'm going to start here soon. I'm curious your thoughts. Should you just buy one?
Should you just own? So yeah, I thought about that, but there's no, there's no business. Like you got to think like I'm.
going for, like, I have a model in recruiting that nobody has ever done before. Cause I just stumbled. It wasn't because of like, I'm a genius or something.
Like I just sort of stumbled into this fucking model. Right. And so my idea was, is I was trying to go up market to almost get away from my model.
And then I'm like, dude, but this model is like unique. Nobody does it. It's a Why don't I just double down on what we're already good at?
Which is doing the training, doing the consulting, running ads. Recruiting companies aren't good at that. Why don't I try to compete with what they're already really good at, opposed to doubling down on what I'm good at?
So that being said, why didn't I not buy one? Because there's no other business that I saw out there that really is running this model at the level where it would warrant an acquisition. Yeah, because your last round of...
from your content and us talking was about how you basically went for a version of the whole co -model but you did all of the basically acquisition right all the marketing and all the sales and then it broke semi do the fulfillment and just spread focus and all the different things yeah so you think that's not going to happen because you're going to you're going to Limit what you do in terms of the fulfillment and because you're not going to expose well the difference with this is is It's not like okay, so I had two different companies outside of closers slash sales team accelerator Which is my company now the b2b sales recruiting or pretty company obviously the medical company was different everything, right?
So there was that the the b2c company was still I mean we centralized marketing finance ops But it's still different everything. You know what I'm saying?
This, all we basically, everything will be shared except we'll have its own sales team. and its own fulfillment team. The recruiting team will be shared, but we'll have a different pod.
And then also, I own 100 % of it. It's all in my control. I can run it the way I want to.
I'm going to take it from zero to one, too, which is the other thing, is I'm going to take some of these sales calls, figure it out, sell these guys. Because you don't really know. You can have a plan, but you have no idea what the fuck's going to happen until you get on the calls.
So I'll rework the offer there. But really, it's like the main difference between those other things, which in hindsight did work, like we were talking about before, we just kind of like lost the management capacity to manage all of the chaos is I think really what happened.
But the biggest difference is, is that this is literally like the same business model, just. copied into a different industry yeah so it's like i can take people from over here who already know what to do and place them over here or i can hire people who i think would be good here maybe they have a home service background they're a really good salesperson and i already know like there's no guesswork in the processes like we already know how to manage accounts how to do recruiting how to set expectations you know yeah so it's actually crazy so on the wop side so They have this, right?
And like, we literally just got off a meeting about this yesterday because they have like business types and then you have industry types inside those. So examples are like services, info coaching, physical products. Like those are the top categories.
And for the longest time, it was like the sales side, fulfillment side. I mean, fulfillment's obviously. it's it's like software it's tech it's code uh instead of it having to be humans and like service yes um but on the sales side and then the account management side which is a bit of fulfillment uh or like the ramping side so you have cs uh and uh ams and then you have aes like the sales zone and they had them broken out for the longest time where it was like by different industry type um and then on the other side it was like one big pool and like that didn't really work then from a leadership standpoint it was like oh we're gonna put them all together into one under one head of business type so they have one person who leads this so call it like hvac in your example and then that person manages the full stack so they manage from like you know, click to close on there, which is like a pretty interesting, like pod structure essentially.
And then in there they go like geos get broken out. And of course, cause it's like a different set, but yeah, that's how they do it too. And so one of the frameworks I really like, by the way, I think this would be valuable for everybody is I just call it the run it back framework.
So the easiest example of this and you'll know is, you know, our X bar. So he, the guy, I forget his name, but he sold it for 200 million something and he had a two year non -compete just waited. the day it was over started david bar and that's gonna sell for way more i mean that was one where before it even launched i was like how do i invest in that that's gonna fucking bang and i eat a david bar every day yeah you know so um nutrition might not be exact so the run it back framework is you find something that makes you a fuck ton of money and then you scale it up and then you sell it and you just do it again so obviously i'm not selling it but in this example it's like I already know how to run this business.
Like, so my probability of success here is much higher. But I think the other key too is, you know, back in the day when we had those multiple things, like I was saying before the podcast, we just grew shit way too fucking fast. And, you know, cause we love marketing, we love sales.
So this is like my expectation for it is the first year we were just going to be fucking around and finding out, you know, if we do a million, a hundred K a month, I'm cool with that. for 12 months right the second year is the year i want to like explode right so that's my expectation okay you think i'm going to go way faster than that no absolutely six months at 200k a month like this needs to be at like dude i'd be i'd be thrilled with 200k a month we've been not next row as right now why would we not add a zero well the thing is is you you gotta understand with recruiting man it duh it is a very structural thing to scale like when we scaled our b2c It went from zero to a million a month in eight months.
When we scaled some of these medical offers, one of them, dude, went zero to a million a month. I don't know anybody else who's ever done this. I'm sure it's happened in 60 days, right?
There was another one did it in like 120 or 150 days. And then the first one we did took maybe a year. So because there was three different offers in the medical company, all doing a million a month at a peak or 800 grand a month.
it all combined to 30 million a year or whatever it was and so um but with recruiting like when we scaled the b2b i mean dude there was a time we scaled too fast and we literally had to send the sales guys on vacation because like it's a real structural thing like you can't coaching you can just tell your account managers to take on more guys who's on vacation fun fact Oh, really?
Back in the day. Yeah. Maybe he was like, I'm pretty sure he's on a forced vacation and I piffed.
So yeah, maybe. Yeah. If you ever wanted to get my one -on -one help in terms of scaling your business and listen up really fast.
So we're taking on a few clients where I can personally one -on -one audit their business across marketing, sales, operations, fulfillment, finance, to be able to tell you what your constraint actually is. And ultimately what are the one to three things you need to do next to be able to scale working entirely one -on -one with me.
So if that's interesting, there's a link in the description that'll say Cole one -on -one that you can go book. But essentially, not only will you get my personal advice, but we'll also be opening up our entire playbooks of my $36 million a year company across marketing, sales, operation, fulfillment, finance.
So you can basically model the best practices of what we've done right into your business. And it'll include the opportunity to meet in person up at an event with me. So if that's interesting, click the link in the description and mount back to the video.
But anyways, that was my number one, which my first idea or business I wish I could start, which I am starting. hvac recruiting let's hear your number one uh okay so these are not sorted in any way shape or form just to say this is number one i'm gonna go tangential to that and also something we talked about in the last one because i think this is like skill set wise and market wise the most in alignment with like what i could do now so uh i'm just gonna call it financial industry info business right for like the the crazy is i just saw one of the you know matt paulson is okay so i just met i i twitter met this guy a day ago on in dm's so i don't really know him but he he likes my content and um i think they're doing like 60 million a year or something yeah so i have no idea how the business works i just know financial i was like oh yeah yeah yeah big industry i was like that's a good industry it's a big industry so uh structure wise so i mean i kind of split these in different ones which is one like based on what i know today
If everything went to zero, if I had to start tomorrow, something new, like this is that category. And the other is based on what I know now, when I started, what would I do? Which is two very different things like in my mind.
So this one falls into the, if it was today, this is what I would do. Your next business. Yes, correct.
So the, you get sued by the FTC, you go to zero. What am I doing next? Knock on everything.
Yeah, no, but this one - We've all thought of it. We've all thought of it. What would we do?
This one has its own tape around it, but the concept here is very, very simple, which the math of this is you can liquidate on the front and the LTV is higher than any other industry, any other anything that you can do. So a couple of examples of this, a company that is no longer really ripping this, but they ran a 2K automated webinar where they were selling basically like - a B2C mass market style thing that was how to get out of your nine to five and retire in X amount of years.
Like that was it. And then it was just, let's break even on the webinar. And this is a big thing right now.
Like there's five different people. I think I've talked about this, but like five to 10 million a month that are doing these 2k auto webinars. Then they send them done with you or done for you.
Yeah. But like, that's it, right? Like it rips, but like, that's where they make their money is on this done with you package.
That's like an Ascension or on a done for you or something. And then they might have some tooling or something else. When you do the same model in this whole like financial thing is what I'm going to over categorize this as.
You have it's like infinite. So this example the company I was talking about would sell an info product They built a cult and then it was like hey, you should use real estate to do this and we have a flipping company So you can buy them done for you, right? You can learn how to do in the course Yeah, or you can buy that or you can invest in our fund Oh, and by the way, you should use a vault in order to invest in these.
Oh, it's a vault Oh, it's whole life insurance. They're all whole life insurance Oh, and by the way where you should manage your money is this and oh who you should use for a state attorney is this and how you should set up your LLCs is this and it's like the monetization just goes And it's Matt, you're talking 20, a hundred, 500 K tickets and whole life insurance, insane commissions recurring.
Like you can start to stack all those in one. So that would be the direction I would start very siloed. So I would definitely start with some version of info.
I'm not, I would have to pull people together. Cause I'm not like the best marketer in the world here, but like the two K thing would and will rip. Like that's the best way.
So you can infinitely spend because you make so much money back. Like you can spend the low ticket. Yes.
I just don't think it works for all markets. It's interesting because I think if you can make that model work, it is the best. We had an issue, and I was listening to that podcast I was telling you about this morning where they were talking about auto webinars.
We had this issue with the Pixel. We didn't get enough purchases on the webinar. You just got to spend more.
Simple. I don't think that's the thing. Yeah.
I just don't know because we would try to optimize for cost. See, the issue is, is we'd be like spending, you know, three, four grand a day, right? I mean, that's our testing budget.
Okay. So already, I mean, I feel like that's a decent amount. You'd spend more.
Yeah. So anyways, to start. Yeah.
Okay. So we were spending three, four grand a day and we would optimize for leads. Then the CPMs would be fine.
And it would, but we wouldn't get any sales. Well, yeah. And then what we would do is we'd optimize for purchases.
First two days, KPI, then the CPMs would go to like 500 and then it would just fall off. You gotta go deeper down funnel. So you're, you're going from A or Z.
There's all. We tried to add to carts. Didn't work.
No. So you can do trip. So like a lot of these guys that running scale.
The trip wire in the beginning. Yeah. So then boom, it's purchased.
So do you know the guy who is a high ticket e -com or something? Do you know who that is? I don't even know the company's name.
Do you know who it is too? Yeah, I know exactly who that is. So that's what he told me.
Because I explained this issue to him. Because I'm not even running that funnel anymore. Name, email, put it in your phone if you want a special gift.
Okay, amazing. Yeah. Boom, second page, thank you.
Low ticket, order bumps, OTOs, liquidation game. So and that's what you optimize the pixel for? Yeah.
Okay. So you have tripwires there. It's so funny because we just kind of gave up on it.
And it's been over like, it's probably been 18 months. Yeah, it's probably only like a half a year. And that's still like...
fucking pisses me off yeah i'm like why the fuck could i not figure out that guy because i i would say i'm like pretty fucking good at marketing correct you know and i'm like why could i not figure out if you ran top five so like your learnings around low ticket that we've talked about in the past one but like if you ran that playbook with that model of acquisition you would clean And then Ascension becomes, oh, hey, the actual thing is, so the math on this, right?
So you break even here is the goal, maybe even profit. Some people can go into the L because it doesn't matter, but like that's around the units. Now everyone's booking an onboarding call.
My understanding and what I've heard from now two or three different people, you're having like a 95 % show rate to this onboarding call and you're getting like everyone to book. They come through, hour long version of like a pitch deck that's like, here's everything you get and here's all this and this. This over here, which is you should get more because this is like just do it yourself like it is and I think you can do it But then the next one is set to close set to close is something that's 7 to 12 K Maybe and in the 7k example, it's like oh, but you already paid to so like it's only five today Yeah, right concepts and then of those in there because everyone's getting the same result right it's just like how do you want it done and then this one is like do you want me to do the entire thing for you and i'll just give it to you once it's making like a thousand bucks a day like you want me to like do this and this and then they stand those up so in my financial example yes back to you you could absolutely rip at this but in my financial example exact same thing and then i know the other version of that which is mass content and like matt because it's all consumption basic because you're getting people who generally speaking like if you're getting the right market you're talking like 40 50 plus right who have
the funds to move. And the biggest issue is the trust asset part. So it's like, you need the consumption, like you just need it.
So getting them to buy something so you can spend into it. Amazing. If not, you've got like this whole game of like, it's going to take you three months to convert someone if they're just like a call funnel or something.
So people do it with community. People do it with these consumption assets, like books, like free courses or paid course. And then all of it becomes like.
Mike wrote like like Ramsey another like example of that where they have on monetization side Yeah, so I tried this so we let's talk about an L here I was like partial in my current main info biz and I had a lot of free time and I was like oh I'll stand up another one of these and I partnered with a guy who is like Amazing him and his family like they're all insurance and we just went straight line to insurance So it was like hide it inside this thing, but it was a book call funnel the leads that were coming through on this thing.
And like, I was, I, again, I'm no marketer. I was running the ads. We were making the things, getting ad accounts shut down.
Like I had no idea what I was doing, but it was like 5 million in assets, like 10 million in assets, 1 million in assets, 500K. And like all these people. And the thing that I now know in hindsight was one, I could have done the entire model different instead of running a VSL call funnel.
But two, it was just missing all the trust assets and like the time to do it. And he was a one man and like, we were just filling his calendar. Right.
So he was a one man shop. Like, couldn't do what you needed to do to build the trust and yeah and i'm imagining if you knew how to do sales and did a three call close or yeah no no exactly and both of us were new to this like he was a referral guy made great money as like doing how he did it but then you introduce a colder lead flow and like i just didn't know yeah but that was like i got 80 of the way there 90 of the way there you made but then then you saw the light you saw the light and so that was huge learning for me so the first one for you you do a financial basically financial publishing company is what yeah i'll take it one little step further which is i know a couple people who are doing this right now that are now doing the full play which is like multi -acquisition model like multiple ltvs so like started as the high ticket call funnel 20 to 30k uh aovs and ripped right got to a few million a month and now what they're doing is like oh we also have this fund also we have this other group also we have these so like these are laying around the back but now on the front they're moving into like a newsletter and they're moving into like straight up agora style yeah true pub
and then they have different products with different faces on the front so like i believe in that so like wholeheartedly is like you just nail one and usually it's going to be a high ticket core funnel because that's the one that can get you you know the highest return and then make the capital to then deploy the others yeah but then you start to stand up these and you start to stand up these and i have so many examples of financial offers but yeah that would be the one that i see all of mine you're going to hear and see are like the hormones version concept of like all of these can be nine figure plus businesses easily like that's my biggest learning to self is like picking the market yeah more than well out of any direct response industry financial is king it always has been for sure it's also the most regulated you know that's my thing and and you're going to see a lot of my ideas they're very clean because i'm in a phase where i'm like i just don't want to you know after you've made a certain amount it's like you just don't want to worry about that stuff you know it's like running a 100 million dr business i'd just be like
I feel like you lost a little bit of the oomph. Like now you have something to lose. Not like motivation or drive by any means.
It's just I have a constraint that I'm like, I mean, look, if I went broke, I would have no qualms about starting a BSC business. I don't think there, it's not that I also, I mean, some are unethical, but it's not like I think they're by nature unethical or anything. It's just that.
you know as they grow and especially as you put leaders in and things get further away from you it's easy for you know sales guys to start saying that they shouldn't be saying or marketing the start writing copy that converts but it's like jesus christ dude you can't say that but like we can't change it it converts so i'm i'm just kind of past a season of those But I like them.
Yeah. I think they're interesting. Yeah.
I think they're fun. I saw a post on X the other day that was like, if you're trying to get into like the peptide space, it was like, if you have under a $5 million net worth, you should do like RUO because they're not going after you. And it's how you actually make all the money, like the fastest.
Right. If you have an over, it's like, go the white hat route. Yeah, you have to do it the compliant way.
Because they're coming for you. So it's like, you just pay. Okay.
Let's move on to my number two. So you'll find this interesting. So again, this is a business idea.
that i mean it's just this is not for everybody but it's genuinely something i would do if like my business got wiped out and i had to restart but i was able to keep my knowledge and my personal brand right what i would do is i would run i call it one of two fame funnels right which is like the two models i see working the best across people who have big brands okay so let's say i sold my business but i kept my personal brand and i had uh Do something I would probably do a different business, but i'd also definitely do this because it's just fun Is I would go I would go way heavier into content i'd make way more solo videos I would overhaul how i'm doing all of this like the content I do.
I think what people don't understand is I tell people we're at like a three out of ten of at least my effort Because i'm trying to launch another company right now right? But if I, let's say I sold my company and I was just starting all over, I mean, I could go 10 out of 10 in this and just try to blow it up as hard as I can, make platform specific content, you know, be posting on X every day, posting on this every day, whatever.
And then what I would do is, is I would run either the event driven model or I call it the Chilean air model. All right. So event driven model is the Cardo Inventors slash Hormozy model, right?
5k you come out 5k event 40k upsell 150k and then you know maybe you could invest in companies i don't even think really you need to if you don't want to frankly i think like you just do 40k plus renewal 150k plus some sort of renewal you have some sort of back end like that that is the most like out of you know i i don't want to share any specific numbers i may or may not know but i'll just say this I know, you know, Andy Elliott runs a version of that.
Um, who else? There's somebody else who does too. Even Patrick Beck David to an extent kind of does it like it's sort of that ecosystem.
And these people are doing massive numbers, you know, in massive profit and their fulfillment is just a day plus continuity. And also when you, when you can meet your customers in person, it's just like a totally different relationship. You know, contrast this between okay you watch my youtube videos for a year right then you come out and meet me in person right you get a ton of value you're you you you're in a room you get the energy like you're so much more likely to have trust in a positive experience then you saw an offer driven ad you talk to a setter you maybe you didn't talk to a setter you get on with a closer and it's just like the ads convincing you the closer is convincing you i mean we're still on the onboarding call we're still convincing you now i mean first month of the program we're still convincing you you know it's just a very two like push versus pull approach so that model can print you know over 100 million and do it with like insane profits so the event driven model is number one the second model is and i like this almost better in some ways is i call it the trillionaire model
Which is the talkie more Jeremy Haynes model, right and it's kind of funny I watched both of these guys and it looks like they both kind of independently arrived on like the same model Around the same time. I mean talk he's been around forever and has had kind of a similar model But I think he's sort of reinvented it several times.
He's a beast by the way Like yeah, I'm not a lot of people maybe in the US follow him. I'm not sure but dude He's been around, you know since I even learned about the space and has stayed relevant and stayed at the top of the game for like well over a decade which i don't think people realize how hard that is like he's he's truly like i respect i really respect uh how he runs his company but the chilean air model is basically instagram youtube or even just youtube and then you're funneling them into rather you know talkies sell by chat i think jeremy has like a sales guy i'm not sure and then from there You're basically putting them into one or two levels of a mastermind.
Like you might have your kind of beginner level and you might have your major level and it's all continuity. But you're going to be more involved. And I think the reason, like I always am skeptical of like monthly payments because of like the look back window and they might be higher to churn.
But I think if like you're quite involved and they're coming from YouTube, I just don't think you have as much churn as you would think. And so, dude, I'm telling you. I don't know those guys' numbers exactly, but from the outside, it looks like they have a really small team.
They're doing a million, two million a month. And I mean, it's a lot of, it could be a lot of profit. Yeah, there's a 90 % margin.
If you're doing insane, you know, I mean, if you're doing a million a month profit, there's, to put it in perspective, some e -commerce companies need to do 200 to 250 million to have the same profit as you. Correct. And you have way less like, I mean, you don't have any enterprise value.
but who cares yeah and that's the one thing that the thing i do like about the personal brand is i view it as like insurance to where if like something happened i could spin i mean i think i could do way more than this but minimum you know i know i'm going to make 100 200 a month no matter what you know what i'm saying yeah and so anyways that's my number two i'm curious no i mean that is insurance is a fantastic way to put that i i've thought about it way too many times and i know like all of those guys and how much money they actually make and there's different ones in different pockets like the the guys who do the um ecom one ecom ads version like all of these guys are 90 plus percent margins they all run monthly mrr of the tune of 500 to 2 million a month And they keep it all.
And they just hang out with their friends. And they're just the pro. And now they have the gravity.
It's unbelievable. The event one is interesting because I could see you doing that with your current model. I could see you layering that in.
I thought about, is there a way to do that? I think you have to have some monster organic presence to do it. I mean, I have seen some people like Jason Wojo, I think, run ads to events.
And I mean, these are cold. And I think he's doing well. Yeah, I mean like the good examples like like sub 2 where they wrap it in it though to get the effect of what you're talking about.
But that's another huge brand. Like Pace is a generational talent. Like he's very good.
So I would just say this. It is probably, you could probably make it work without a brand, the event model. I think that from what I've seen, the people who just destroy are, they're really big.
So if you're not a, if you're more of a niche influencer, I think it's more of the trillionaire model. Does Ramsey do that? I don't know.
He's got to. I think, I think that's more of the Patrick, but David, I'm really, really famous and I have a lot of products. Yeah, no, I would, the common thing I feel like that I've learned over this is like, how do I stack all these together?
And I actually didn't even put that on my list of things because it's more of like, it's literally not one thing. And I have a video where I talked about that, where I'm like, Oh, like how I avoid shiny object syndrome is trying to like. put it under the umbrella of our current business in order to do it.
Like, oh, I want to do e -com. And it's like, okay, we'll figure out how to sell e -com to like your existing. It's still a little shiny object, but it makes sense for your company.
Yeah. But like, I would do that same thing. It's like, oh, the, I view those as two very different.
We're like event -based, like we could almost all roll that in, in some fashion into our current. Like I can think of exactly how I could. Yeah, the way I would do it is maybe fly out your sales team, we'll train your sales team and go broad.
I just still think it works better if you have a brand because you're not, making the mask a purchase i mean it's like you're making them fly out i mean maybe that's a limiting belief on me and i'm just losing out on i thought about this i'm like this is a limiting belief and i'm like losing out on like 100 million dollars because if you get somebody in a room dude it's so much easier yeah i mean they're doing it for your version of industry down the street right now and they're doing like what card adventures no the uh the Elliott team in them.
Yeah, but he has a huge brand. That's my point. But you can, I don't want to say easily, you can simple, there's a very simple formula here for you to have that type of huge brand.
It's literally what we talked about all morning before you got here. Like, I think that that is. Well, no, I agree.
I mean, like I was saying, I think I'm a three out of 10. I'd have to go 10 out of 10. The trade -off, what would I have to say no to?
I'd have to say no to my number one, which is starting this other division. Maybe, maybe you don't think that's the best trade off. You know, I thought about it too.
I'm like, fuck, maybe I should just, you know, cause I know exactly what I would do if I had all my time back and I could just do brand. Yeah. I know exactly what I would do.
And I do think I would do better for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
I can always do that later. Yeah. Yeah.
My number two, we're gonna see how long this is going to take us. We're going to go through all 14. Um, all right.
So this one is a mix of. I wish I would have kind of like back in the day. Yeah, because I knew because I was you'll see a common theme here where I'm like, I knew about these things and I was like around the people who did them.
But I would also do it now is a true full stack like lead gen agency. It falls into your Chillionaire style bucket. I have a lot of these that are like very different than what we do or like we play in.
So the whole Legion game, I know so many people like, and I'm in that. When you're saying Legion though, you're not talking about an agency. You're talking about what?
Paper call? I'm talking about. they technically become agency because you have like a network base more or less.
So you have like buyers and sellers. So yeah, you're doing paper call where it's costing you X, Y, Z, and you're charging this, but not where you're like some solo affiliate where you're just running it on to someone else's network. Sure.
So there are multiple people now, uh, within WAPX, which I found was very interesting as well as like. a ton of friends I had from before that are, oh cool, we either independently or we'll partner with media buyers, which is like your traffic source essentially. And we'll spend 500K a day, a million a day, five million a day towards X, Y, Z.
And so you can basically. there's like three pieces of the puzzle and like you generally aren't the offer owner so you're either the traffic source or you're like the middleman and these guys have the highest lifestyle roi i've ever seen in my entire life and like time freedom wise they have the leanest like most fun teams and they like it's it's a lot of money like it's it's disgusting how does the business model work so Let's use an example.
Are you talking about like, okay, what I do is I have my own brand, I generate leads, and then my whole business is selling leads? No, it's basically like a wrapper. So you are like a wrapper of all of the lead flow.
So it doesn't really matter what yours is. You're a buy -sell network, more or less. And so you have internal team, and then you also generally are partnering and having what you consider affiliates on the other side that are running traffic for you.
You're this conduit, and then you're getting private buyers because you can't get the type of... caps or amount of flow so an example of this josh no publicly post this all the time like that was his thinking that was his win that he posts all the time where he's like oh i sold it for you know i mean he posts it right 50 to 100 million bucks and it was one of those so they basically had their own media buying they had also partners um he went as far to say like at one point they had somebody who they hired that would fly out full time to who they were selling the leads to to call centers and would train them on how to convert the leads better so that like It's a machine, right?
So it's literally traffic generation. You're the conduit. And then you're placing them across where call centers are live.
And you can kind of like, which part of it do you want to own? So those guys, like by and large, live the best lives that I've ever seen. Like literally when it comes to like freedom and this huge cons from a risk standpoint in many ways, both like legally and like that's a very gray space depending.
And then also if like if your ad account goes down, like kind of thing, like you make no money tomorrow. And that's like a very isolated issue. And like at scale, that doesn't happen because you have multiple this and multiple this.
But like if you're starting this and you're like, oh, cool, I'm spending 50 grand a day and I'm making like 100 back, which is doable. But like these guys can spend 100 grand a day. And if they make 110, like it still wins because they have no anything else.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's literally like money in, money out. But tomorrow goes away.
I had a client who did this with orthodontists. And so they owned like the whole brand. And basically what they would just flip the leads to the orthodontist.
And so they would like, like they would handle everything, the booking, whatever. They would make sure they show up. This guy was doing like 600 grand a month.
Yeah. But I remember looking at the model and thinking it was one of the stronger, like I was like, oh, this guy could scale like huge. Dude, I was at Iman's event in Spain last week and I text Gavin this, but there's this kid that was like 19, I think he is.
And he's like. he's just like young and simple and funny and he's just like yeah well so we're doing like we're doing 21 grand a day and it costs us four grand and it's just every day and like we technically could probably scale down to like 2k because we already have this other flow uh and then me and like my buddy that is like my tech partner that's in pakistan we're just splitting it 50 50 and like he used to make like 3k a month and now he makes like 8k a day And I'm like, wait a minute.
Well, and he's just like laughing and like, just has no understanding. I don't think like in a very nice way, like killing it, but like has no understanding of like what he's sitting on and like how basically rare that is. And it's that model, right?
It's like, they know that they can generate them for this. They have a buyer pool that's willing to buy them for this. And they have six of these and they have two of these.
And it's like, that's their game right now. And it's insane. And I know guys who have done this at mass, like mass, mass, mass, mass scale.
So yeah, that one would be extremely fun to me. And I mean, I'm trying to make an expose about this and I couldn't like fit it. So it looked right.
But it's like exactly what you said, where it's like reselling. It's like a lead to you, maybe a dollar and you can resell for two bucks and like, okay, do that infinitely. But that same then lead can be sold for 20 bucks and 200 bucks in 2000, like depending on how you're choosing or who the buyer is, how they're monetizing it.
And I know guys who have created like private deals where they've literally had to like partner with like hedge funds and like these other places to fund spend because it backs out, but it takes X amount of time before it backs out. So you have this trough and spend like it's a whole financial maneuvering game, but it's, it's the mass scale version of arguably like some version of direct response where you don't have to like own anything.
So it's like the nomad life of, of direct response. So I think that would be fun. Nice.
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Okay. I'm going to move on to my number three. So this is, this is the service space.
element of what you said with the financial publishing, which is basically I call it any broad high net worth offer. So if you think about it, usually our space now, I was telling Josh this yesterday, it's since 2023 is bifurcated to where it's like you have to go higher end and sell a service and it's B2B or you're like strong, strong B2C, right?
But there is a few people who have been able to basically combine a broad market with people who have money does that make sense because in the extremes it's either you sell to people who have money you don't have a lot of market or you sell to people who don't have money and it's a limitless market yeah right but what if you can get both right like that is like that the intersection between that is a lot of money yeah and so almost like the market that always gets both is any problem that just generally high net worth individuals have right so a tax business asset protection uh i mean i don't know like high net worth divorce i don't know if i have great ltv um like i work with a family office i work with a virtual family office and i mean dude like their churn has got to be basically non -existent you know and they're pretty expensive yeah so like that's an insanely valuable business and so again it's broad market people with money and then there's built -in retention but if i was to do it
how i would differentiate is what i've noticed with all those companies is they're usually terrible at marketing terrible at sales terrible customer service and then also i think especially on the law side if you could because most like law firms for instance they're like partner models if you could have more of a specialization model to where it's like you're not a law firm that does a bunch of stuff you just do one thing you could really create a factory add a lot of ai uh, push down your margins or not push down, but you could raise your margins quite a bit, specialize it and be a lot more efficient.
And they don't know if you're worked with a lot of attorneys, but usually they're not great at customer service. They're just kind of like, here's, I'll get back to you when I want to get back to you. It's just kind of how it always is.
Right. But like, imagine if you really applied like great customer service to like an asset protection firm, you know, you would have great insane retention. And if you also applied like cross -selling and upselling and identifying new like basic business shit yeah and so i probably will never start this type of business because i do think you have to have like i think it's a tough one to start without the actual expertise unless you had a partner yeah but it's a banger dude yeah like if i i mean you and also if you scaled that to 100 million dollars which you definitely could you could, because of the distribution network, the value on like the multiple value of EBITDA would be really, really high.
So you could have a massive exit. And because there's like very little churn, like it's very easy to exit and nobody applies ads. Nobody applies good sales.
Nobody applies good customer service to any of those businesses. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't want to do it, but yeah, I mean, I would, but I'd have to know what I was doing.
Yeah. Long story short. Yeah.
I mean, the common theme on a lot of mine, a couple of them break but is like the learnings that i've had when it comes to how many people and like how the market of people in remote culture and ai and like all that into like one mosh pit is like i want the ones that have the highest leverage with kind of like leaner teams yeah or fulfillment is not the actual person right like more in that realm um and that feels like it would be You'd have to have a strong long team.
Yeah, but you've got to realize these are my ideas. And my strength is always like I've been fine with people in teams. I've really never had a constraint with people in teams for the most part.
I mean, to a degree, there's challenges and even challenges I'm dealing with now. But yeah, I mean, usually it's like if I can get the demand, I can figure out the people. And so I like supply constraint stuff.
That's kind of my go -to. Because I can market, I can sell. That's usually not going to be the problem.
It's a good one. So that was my, I think number three, your number three. I'm going to try and then lean into the only one here that I have that is very people heavy because you'll get a kick out of this.
So this one falls into the category of not really what I'd be interested in directly today, but like some version of knowing what I know now or the opportunities that were in front of me at another time, like earlier in my life and career. And I'm going to say the landscape and snow removal business. Oh, nice.
Okay. So my family, my dad, big landscape snow guy, like got a lawnmower at 16 and is still doing it today in his 60s, like prime for family business type of energy. And I just like directly never leaned into it.
But this is more of like a beginner friendly one for anyone who's watching that's beginner friendly, which is how do you start like anything? and what you should lean into is something that you already have like proclivity to like that you're around and i knew all types of stuff like i knew i knew math for how things were bid i knew how like to contract like structures were i knew like what margins were like just off the top of my head right now i could give them all to you and like i knew that 15 years ago and so there's so much opportunity in that now with what i know now and when we have these conversations these guys now are in the gold rush oh yeah of the exits and the numbers like we're talking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollar exits and then these private equity companies that are like then you have like a carry so you can go for a second bite of the apple and then they get another round of nine figure exits like these guys are so knowing what i know now versus like okay i kind of understood it didn't really want to be involved in that i wanted to like stand up on my own too and like never really do the whole like from within thing um
And still to this day, I feel that way. I want to stand it up from my own. But if you have XYZ skill set or knowledge around something because your parents are in it or because you're interested in some version of something, that is, in my opinion, the best way to start.
And then now with my understanding of business, et cetera, and the ability to scale some of these things and how other people have done it, not that I've done it, but how others have. and knowing now where it sits in the market with like what happened, what's happening with AI and what's happening with supply issues when it comes to talent, like it just primed.
And there's a clear reason that private equity is just chomping at the bit and just like attacking these things. And so, yeah, it would be very people heavy. Like it requires a lot of different things than anything else that I will have on this list or shared, but because of all the elements.
there's definitely a part of me that's like, oh, I wish I would have. Well, let me just give you my number four because it's basically the same thing, which was my number four was a home service company. Yeah.
So this is like, realistically, I would probably only do this if like there was a massive issue with the economy, like China invades Taiwan type thing, right? Like where shit is really bad because a lot of these home services, I mean, you just got to pay for. I mean, if your HVAC unit goes out, basically, I mean, is you got to get a new one, right?
And there's great financing in these industries too. And so this would be like my doomsday scenario thing. But to your point is I think there's so much opportunity in it.
And the way, the one thing I wanted to spell is I hate this like, okay, so you saw Tommy Mello sell for $2 billion, you know, and then a lot of people are going. oh this is why boring businesses are great and because you know these people like there's so much opportunity because like they almost imply that these home service business owners like don't know what they're doing or they're stupid yeah and don't get me wrong there's tons of guys i'm sure who are more skilled trades guys who don't know how to run a business yeah there's also a ton of coaches who are good at coaching and have no idea how to run a business i mean it's kind of like any business so i think a lot of people think that you know oh that business is easy And those are the same people that get killed.
Yeah. So I just want to say up front, like, I don't think it's easy. And I think you would have to take it insanely serious to get it to work.
Right. I would agree. And in terms of private equity, you're totally right.
But what you didn't say is the private equity is learned the hard way. Like a lot of those private equity firms have got, they, they. spent a ton of money during COVID to acquire these companies.
And then they just lost the founder and then got absolutely killed because all the technicians leave when the culture sucks. And they're like, this place sucks. The price is going up.
My wages aren't going up, et cetera. Now there is companies like Alpine, which is Apex home services that have done insanely well. And what the ones that have done well have learned is that you have to keep the founder in place.
and you know the second bite of the apple and all that stuff you know yeah those are the examples i like that i specifically know and we're talking about is like they're the multiples that they're willing to pay now for what you consider like the platform which is basically keeping founder some version of operator culture as like the core and then they're expanding from there and doing you know basically base hits to add on to the core one it is insanity so like yeah i completely agree like there there is a way to do it and looking back I'm a little torn, but like, I think that you could have maybe made more money doing that.
Oh, for sure. And I know snow removal doesn't sound like a lot, but there's commercial contracts. And then you also got to think, even though the deals might not be large, they're just recurring forever for, you know, and you can get them so easily.
Like the, the competition from a marketing and sales and customer service, uh, retention and upsell Ascension, all that stuff. It is under optimized, right? So the hard thing though, that people don't understand about this industry is that it's very supply constrained.
It's very hard to find good technicians or laborers or people or what have you. And then when you do find them, you know, it's a very special skill in managing those people. And so like, if you were to do it, that's why I think the boring business acquisition people, like, I'm not saying that they shouldn't go buy a business or whatever, but I am saying like, you should get into it knowing that you are going to have to be excellent at those things to keep the business together, you know?
And so let me tell you, um, a few of the things i like about it so you've already mentioned a few no i no ai threat uh really recession resilient like i mentioned great fun like because obviously you know you have to have any uh heating and cooling unit you have to have good electrical in your house you have to have these things the financing is really like the financing in that industry compared to us It's ridiculous.
There's still 0 % financing right now in that industry. So the industry is also growing a 6 % year over year. And then, like I said, a lot of the competition doesn't necessarily run a good actual business.
It's 50 -50. There's people who do know what they're doing. And then there's people who, again, they're more practitioners.
Or they're just cool with doing $3 million with a couple of tax and just chilling. And so I think if you were very, very serious, you could do well and then the other thing that's nice too is the exp like i'm talking about creating a whole new offer for them you know the expansion is just new location which again is not easy yeah that's very hard there's been tons of people who've even i think tommy tells a story where he over expanded locations and it almost like crippled the cash flow of his entire company you know he's like the goat of the industry so it's not like it's easy but if you do want to expand i mean it's geographic And there's also a lot of like opportunity to like private equity comes in.
They're just like, Hey, we're going to do the money in the spreadsheets. We'll give you the money to expand and also all of our connections for recruiting. And then you can continue to operate your business with higher leverage.
Right. So few things I would differentiate though. I think this is a huge thing that people in this industry could do.
For one, I would learn the trade. I would be on the ground. I would learn all the technical aspects of it if I was to do it.
The other thing is I'd be very involved operationally. I already kind of mentioned that. I'd have a pristine sales process.
I'd have pristine retention and ascension mechanisms. And then the biggest thing is I would apply true direct response. And what I mean by that is you're familiar with the Eugene Schwartz awareness pyramid, right?
There's unaware, problem aware, yada, yada, yada. Well, all of that industry, operates off of most aware, right?
Which is my unit went out, it's making a noise, I need to call somebody. My garage door won't open, I need to call somebody. My lights won't turn on, my bathroom is flooded, you get it, right?
But I think there would be a lot of opportunity if you could do like webinars and long form copy and very indirect messaging to basically actually tap into problem aware or even unaware markets. And tap into the 97 % of the market that basically nobody is tapping into. I mean, cause I really haven't seen anybody do this.
I've seen some people doing like Facebook ads and digital stuff, but it's all very offer and demand driven, which is fine. I would run those campaigns too. But like, imagine if you could like call out a symptom.
And be able to bring people in, educate them about a problem they don't even have, and then be able to convert that into a lead. Or even capitalize on a new technology that hasn't all the way diffused into the industry. So there's an example in HVAC, which is like ductless mini splits.
I think that's pretty known now, but probably when it first came out. A lot of people didn't know that. You could have probably ran a campaign, like a self -liquidating campaign basically, to move a lot of those units if let's say people's garages didn't heat properly or their attic was too much or their game room or whatever and their upstairs was too hot.
So I think there's a huge opportunity there. But to do that, you would also have to have a very good sales process. on the backside of that because you're dealing with entirely different prospects so you can't you know it could be something you could bolt on to an existing business without really know what you were doing yes let me stack business models here from what we already talked about so like i have a friend that does the lead gen agency model for that and rips and he does it without paid he does it all organic and so like they'll rank entire sites or like certain other things i'm not going to share like that will literally generate calls and then they just plug them into networks and they will sell calls for 20 to 50 bucks and they're hot transfer calls and then this is you and as long as you have that dialed in sales process it's like boom unlimited client acquisition basically and i i completely agree my my approach when i looked at it from the in the beginning uh was literally like
started to do the internet thing and it was the lifestyle difference it's like the biggest thing and the number one you said on there is like i'd have to get in it and like be boots on the ground and like understand what was happening and all these things to get in it with your current business though yeah but no no i treat it like any business yeah but it's just like in my opinion like having seen it uh i started to see this and was like there's just so much glamour right and everything's all like anything that's outside of it is a shiny object era too where being able to work remote was a novel thing.
That was a very novel thing. Now it's like, if your ad angle is working remote, bro, nobody cares. They're like, I already work remote.
Be silent, quit. Yeah. But like, that was the difference between - Can I tell you something really fast?
Yeah. You know what silent quitting is? Yeah.
i i was talking to somebody on a telegram group chat this is how you know it was like suspect and he was he was like thinking about starting an offer teaching people how to silent quit and i was like it's kind of a shitty thing but Bet it would fucking rip there are offers that teach people how to have four to six like full -time gigs at the same time and People are no joke making like half a million two million bucks a year as like having three different engineering jobs They're like different of these like pretty high leverage things.
I have a friend I have a friend that literally was like crushing it And it basically his entry -level position and had like two or three hours a week because like they were like Oh, we need this output basically and he just figured out how to like automate the output And like a data standpoint. And so he just worked like two or three hours a week and just did whatever.
And we're like, dude, you could like sack this and like do this. And he's just like, not really that interested in it. Cause it's not that guy.
Um, and then you took a, a, a rate or like a promotion basically. And now it's like meetings all day, every day doing this for like X amount of pay bump. And he's like, ah, like the dollar per hour in that you can stack roles like that all day, all day.
It's like, how does your LinkedIn look? I don't know. And like, but it's, it's yeah.
That's crazy. What's your next? I was going to say, so does that mean now?
Yeah. all right um i'm trying to like keep these like kind of in in flow a little and of course like i have like three of them that are very similar so i'm gonna jump because we talked about private equity i'm gonna jump to private equity which is some version of thinking about it as like buy then build model instead i think that me and knowing my skill set at this point like Almost everything is either copying something that already exists if I'm trying to like ideate I'm just not like zero to one like I'm not creating something very new It's always like taking a model that works and I think I'm much more one to end and zero to one and so Now I know a lot of these different ways actually I would try to get into business for the very first time was the very first thing I tried to do was buy a set of franchises and like try and do this whole thing which is a story for another time, but I think that approach for me and for a lot of people is actually quite feasible because you can do it online for much smaller.
So you can buy these online businesses that already have, and like the bigger the business, that's why private equity only goes as low as they go. However, whether you're a beginner or you already have some cash, it literally does work for all. Like you have to have X amount of nest egg of the thing, but you can buy a business and start to just pull on some growth levers and do this.
And like James Camp has an entire offer around this and he like doesn't care about nano flips where he taught this. And it's basically like they'll go through online businesses that are for sale for 12K, 50K, 250K. And they'll go in and they'll pull like pricing levers and they'll pull like different marketing or like whatever your kind of skill set is levers.
And I'd for sure do that. And so I think that's so fun. I think that actually is probably what I will do as my next, like if, if, and when everything works out exactly how I want it to be, which is going to be perfect and to the dollar, I'm sure.
Um, but I will move into some model like that. That's like where I can look at the markets and I can look at the different things depending on when this timing is of it, but be able to pull levers that I actually have skill sets on that. I already know that where there's gaps and instead of like, Oh, we do this exact buy box and this whole thing, I think it'll be a little bit closer, like a tiny where it's.
there's, I mean, they're obviously very founder heavy and like they want to partner with, I think I can probably be more operational and not, Oh, we need 50 companies. But I think there's a few that if I get a meaningful enough stake, that's not majority, but like that I will be able to grow. Yeah.
Or full buy. I mean, I get it. And obviously, you know, you can make a lot of money in a portfolio company, mergers and acquisitions, all of it.
You can also lose your ass. Yeah. I also just lost my ass by the way.
Um, yeah. So again, but My biggest thing that I always struggled with was, okay, it obviously depends on the industry because like, for instance, you know, a dollar in one business is not necessarily a dollar in another business, right?
Like doing 30 million in a service is probably like doing a hundred million in e -commerce, if not 150, it depends on your profit margins, et cetera. Right. So it really matters as profit.
So it depends, you know, it depends on the type of business, but let's call it. Below 10 million for sure in almost any business. If I'm looking at acquiring it, I'm looking at a dumpster fire, basically.
Unless the founder stays on. If they're going to leave or even want to earn out, I'm like, all right, well, this business is not how I would run it. I would change a million fucking things.
And I might as well just start the whole fucking business myself. So that's issue number one. Learn that one.
So then if you go to the 10 to 50 range, you might find something a little bit more valuable.
workable if you go 50 to 100 you know of course you're going to but okay if I'm looking at an 80 million dollar company with a lot of EBITDA you know then I have a financing fucking problem yeah right and that might not necessarily be my skill set so that's kind of and I've talked to her mosey about this as well and he agrees is like it's very this is like and private equity only goes after companies with a certain multiple for a reason.
And then they're really good at structuring deals, especially in like a lot of different businesses to where you, you as the founder, you get fucked if anything goes wrong. Right. So, but they're experts at that risk mitigation and they really know how to do it.
They really know how to vet, obviously getting into it. You know, we wouldn't be experts right away. You know, we could try to learn as much as we could, but that's the biggest thing I found is like to, to get something really worth buying.
I think it's like you have a capital issue because it costs so much. Right. And that's the fundamental problem I've found.
And usually it's like, you know, if I found a $15 million e -commerce business, I'd probably be like, yeah, I'm just going to do it myself. Yeah. You know, even if I, cause you've got to think, even if I hired a CEO and some key team from the beginning, I could probably do that for a million bucks.
Right. That would maybe last a whole year or, you know, nine months or something. So.
Yeah, I failed at doing this when I was 19. And it was a 50 plus million dollar enterprise value thing. And I was straight up reading like leverage pilots for dummies and like private equity for dummies had no idea what I was doing.
It was like ignorance is bliss type of thing. And that's it. deep story for another day, but it ended up falling through.
It was, it was 10 million plus EBITDA. Like it was selling. You were 19.
I was 19. And, uh, this whole thing like came together and we had partnered and this whole, there being like a different issue. Um, but the deal fell through because trailing 12, when they just, when they reran basically for the final, it dipped under 10 million, which was out of basically it working for the whole model.
So I had to like, it was multiple units of like, uh, locations and stuff. Uh, and then I just tried this again at 29 and, uh, uh, way different type of failure on it but failure on it then yeah so i'm like okay cool i took my i took some version of my l's like i have so many buddies that are in private equity that crush it from like they they're like uh employees that have you know risen up through yeah but it's just such a interesting model to me yeah and also a lot of the businesses those guys are acquiring are nothing like what me and you used to operating like they're just like really random like industrial manufacturing equipment which is interesting though because it's like well they're doing it for a reason So then you start to get into like, okay, the skill set that needs to happen to do that is what I'm trying to unlock and like become good at, which is.
Like I always like to think from that lens, which is like, how would a private equity person who owns this company solve this? And it's like, they would not be like, oh, I got to go into the ad account to like fix this thing. Like that's, it's so granular versus like zoomed out.
Like, do they know how the machine works on this machinery? No, but a lot of times they acquire stuff because they don't know those things. They get fucked.
Yeah. Right. So like they have to really put in good people or keep the people.
Correct. And the issue is in a lot of businesses. Like there's certain industries like software where it is such an established industry to where it is much easier to go out and pay corn fairy to find a amazing CEO or whatever, who can run the company who like really knows the granular.
But like, think about like an info or a service business. It's like tough, you know, to find somebody who would actually be able to go in and know those things, you know? So I've always thought.
If I can get my company to like 70, 100 million, I would have so much EBITDA that at that point I could acquire something big enough to where it could make sense. It's actually my last idea, so I'll get to it later. Let me give you my next one.
This one you're not going to think of. I don't know what number we're at, but it is getting into equipment sales. All right.
So I'm going to tell you, or device sales. So I have a client doing 60 mil. He's kind of a stealth guy, so I won't say too much.
But long story short, he sells. a piece of equipment for like i think 70 grand plus to a fragmented market does it through facebook ads and a sales team same model i run and then they have like a small amount of recurring on the back end but it's also financed and the unit economics i mean obviously he's a beast like i mean he's he's a g and he's a really really great guy too um so but in that opportunity vehicle When you're selling something with 70K with great financing to a fragment, you just have great unit economics.
It doesn't take as many units to get to a certain amount of revenue. Because one of the challenges is, this is why the unit economics are so important, is if I sell a 5K thing, to get to 100 million, I got to build a massive fucking team. If I sell a 70K thing, I don't know what the math is, but whatever.
70k divided by five k's i need that much less of a team maybe there's a a bigger you know a bigger infrastructure that i have but still like my lbe ratio is going to be so much better and so it's great unit economics so the way i would do it is i would look for again a fragmented industry that i could run ads i could do a sales team and i would also look for um so like i bet you could do it in home services but If you do an existing piece of equipment that is very established, those are all very commoditized and are run by like oligopolies, basically.
And so I would try to find a new emerging type of technology that I could use as my wedge to kind of get into that industry. And I'm telling you, if you could figure it out and get consistent sales, you would rip. I mean, it would be a $100 million company.
You'd own the whole thing? Huh? You don't know like the whole, like I would try to be as a great question.
At first I would try to be at a distributor. Okay. And then, so what this guy did is he was a distributor first.
And then once they had enough cash, they, they acquired the plant overseas that was making them and they vertically integrated. So that's what I mean. This is like a stupid question, but.
Uh, do you know the gross margin on stuff like that? I'm like this big, like there's machines that are like half a million bucks. It depends on the machine.
Yeah. Right. But yeah, I mean, I would factor that into my decision.
I'm just curious. Like I was dying laughing. I saw a tweet and we were not gonna do call outs here, but it was like a big.
funny viral one that was going on in our zone. And it was like, yeah, well, if you sell something for like 400 K and it like, you know, and it costs 330 K to like fulfill. And then you spent this on ads, like you're in the red.
And I'm like, who is selling something for 400 grand that costs $330 ,000 to fulfill. And I was like, in my head, I'm like, what could, and in my mind, it was maybe like, you know, what does a cat machine have like a 20 % growth? I don't know.
So I, yeah, the thing is, is you would definitely want to capitalize on a newer technology. That's the key because If it is like an HVAC unit, those are such established companies that like the pressure has been put on their margins big time, right?
So you would want to capitalize on some sort of a trend to where like you would want to use problem education marketing to even generate the interest, which I'm obviously really good at. So I mean, this would be like, I'd have to do a lot of research to know the exact idea, but I've always had this in my notepad of like an idea that I could do.
And I started to think about it more. when I started studying all this home service stuff is because I was like, man, these guys have to buy so much materials and tools and equipment and this and that. And these guys respond to ads.
They're all on Facebook. So I'm like, is there a type of, instead of being on the consumer layer, could you be on the back layer? and sell to these companies and be more of like the infrastructure.
Yeah. So I've always thought of that. But anyways.
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All right, I'm going all out of order. So hopefully someone's keeping track here or count. We have two more.
We have two more? I have two more. You might have three more.
Okay. All right. If we're going out here, that was your out there answer.
My out there answer, pet supplement e -comm. Oh, no, that's a great answer. Okay.
I know a guy who's in the process of selling his company for like 250 mil. I know a few of these that have completely shifted their entire business model for this. I would go as far to say red light therapy.
Okay. Now hear me out. Emerging technology.
Wait, what about the pet supplements? For pets. Oh, my God.
Red light therapy for pets? Yes. No way.
Dude, emerging technology. Mid to high ticket. No idea if it's working.
Back to the pet supplement. But you're not going to cancel it, right? You can build in recurring through then supplementation.
We were dying laughing about this the other day. Would it be physical centers? No, no, no, no, no, no.
But that would be. You would sell panels. I would sell panels.
Oh, okay. I would sell panels. Yeah.
i that whole industry and like it's that's kind of two different things but like the supplement there but like the overall health and some version of biohacking for your pets from ecom i think you can i i think you'd rip i think you'd absolutely rip and i can go through different examples of people that are fully taking direct response companies that they've had for years and shifting them completely now into pet oh yeah which is like it's one of the biggest industries and apparently private equity is all over it i believe i know a guy who sold his for somewhere between 400 and 600 bill Pet econ he came from the affiliate world Yeah Dude, just ripped it and I know another guy who was in the process I don't know him personally, but friend of friend and he was in the process somewhere between 200 300 million I don't know if it went through and I and I know his plan was I forget if he was cats or dogs But he was just gonna do the other one right after yeah just run it back yeah run it back i was like that's smart i've met people at these events that are like oh yeah we do like 30 million a year and it's like these like cat houses and then it's like oh they do this and this and it's supplement and like it just it dominates because you can play the direct response angle the running joke of it is you have no idea if it works but like you're never going to cancel it yeah because like you start to give them this joint pain thing and it's like oh i think they're like
moving around more than they were before. Pets is a huge trend because of loneliness. Yeah.
And also in the internet age, it's only going to go up. That's their narrative of why it's so big. I'm big in the pet space.
I'm telling you... it would be a banger dude like a year or two ago i was like you know what sounds like a great idea right now like i'm gonna start up a side quest where i just drop ship some dog stuff and literally like found some toys that and the narrative around it was that dogs can only see the colors like yellow and blue oh okay like but then everything else is whatever and so it was like these dog toys that were yellow and blue and ran up like six figures in a month like selling these things just ad product page, whatever.
And then I was like, this is stupid. What am I doing? I should probably go focus on my main thing.
You got it out of your system. Yeah, it's fun. So this, this dovetails into my next one.
So this is, we're actually at number six. You'll see. So this is an idea that I've had for a long time.
I'm not red light panel, but what you'll get what I'm saying. I've had this idea forever and I probably will never do it, but I know I would do really well, which is I would just. not copy, but I would just look at a winning product in the DTC e -comm space.
So like something like pets is a perfect example. I would just look at how their entire business runs. I wouldn't really differentiate that much, but what I would do is, so I would basically create a DTC e -comm brand and a proven space, like let's say pets, but my main thing would just be adding a back and up sell with the sales team.
I'm telling you, I'm telling you, no, cause dude, there could be a, we fly a dog trainer out to you. Yeah. Right.
And I'm telling you, they'll pay five grand, 10 grand for that. Um, there's also, I had where I got this idea is we had a client one time who sold sleep supplements and we added a backend sleep program, setters, closers, just call the supplement buyers, all that stuff. You also have like committed coaches and there's another one as well to where like.
you know they just do high ticket closing for these heavy hardcore dr guys and i mean they're doing 10 million a month right in this partnership kind of like dr model so these and the thing is is i i learned this at stefi georgia's mastermind in 2020 right before it was two days before everything shut down with covet and i go there and like there's this uh company called like natural health sherpa i think so they get on stage and they're talking about this v shreds talking about it and the big thing was and imagine me coming from my world right i went there to learn cop and direct response yeah but um me coming from my world is high ticket sales and this is right when i i was in the beginning phases of my business i was probably doing 100 grand a month and their big epiphany was guys you guys all got to add high ticket back ends with sales teams And people are like, oh, you know, yeah.
And then also I've seen like, it's one of those things, all these guys now know they need to do it. And like, you know how really hardcore DR guys are? They don't want to do it.
You know, so I'm like, okay, like I could go into a market where I'm a good marketer. I could try, I mean, I would try to do my best to win on differentiation and product and brand and all these things. I try to make a real brand, not a sleazy thing.
But what I would really do. is just have a badass fucking setter team and a great sales team and sell five to 10k stuff on the back end that recurred somehow right and then you got to think i would have such crazy economics and aov and ltv and all these things i would just outspend everybody and also be able to get on ad channels that they can't make profitable and then i would just have that and i just sell it and i just do it again i do the run it back model I literally think that right now, like you are probably uniquely positioned to be the fastest person to run up eight figures a month.
If you did that model right now where you did the bolt on. Dude, I do think that right now, if I did that, my probability of success would be quite high because the thing is, is I already know, like, you know, you got to think in my world, I'm running a call funnel and to a very cold market, like a business owners. And we're so cold now because we've been doing this for eight years.
I was telling Josh yesterday. Some of these people don't even know I'd say half. They don't even know who her mosey is like because there was a rep we had one time and He was trying to explain certain things about how their offer was messed up and he he sort of added into his script Do you like do you have you guys ever read the book a hundred million dollar offers now her mosey and they would go Who's her mosey?
They don't even know who that is, right? So this is how cold we are and we're still able to set these people close on, you know, do our whole operation it's it's what I'm It's like my skill.
Like I have a lot of skills. I'm fucking really good at that. Right.
And I like it too. And dude, imagine just calling supplement buyers. You would literally destroy them.
I would destroy. And I wouldn't have to differentiate on the front end because these guys like, but I understand the marketing as well enough to like, I know how to, you know, scale out campaigns, run creatives. I would, I would try to max out everything and like even brand, you know, so I would be, but I probably wouldn't be like, like some of these guys are so advanced on the DTC e -comm side in terms of marketing.
Like they're the best in the world, in my opinion, I probably couldn't be the best in the world there. I would be good, but I would just beat them on economics. Like economics versus if you try to, like, if you have two people and one person is trying to only lower CAC and the other person is, I'm going to try to maximize LTV.
If you give those two guys the same business, the LTV guy is going to crush them because economics win every time. So that is my idea. CAC only goes to zero, LTV goes infinite.
I even thought too, that is a model where like if I did it successfully one or two times, then I would buy companies. And I would just add on a sales team and then I just sell the company after that. I had the sales team.
I mean, you could turn around the company in 12 months. Dude, I know a guy who was basically just the like marketing engine of a much larger org. So in this example, how I'm thinking about it is if you were like basically just this massive sales portion and on every exit, he was included in the exit and was getting tens of million dollar chunks on exit because it was so integral to the business.
He was, whether it was financially directly structured as he was a partner or an owner or whatever, but like you could do that 100 % right now. that's like an earn in almost based on what it generated for these types of businesses. And like you use coaches as an example, like I know four or five of those.
And then I know hundreds of them that look at us or talk to some of these others and are like, Oh, you guys have this part and that's the hard part. And this is the easy part. And we're like, Oh my God, it's a complete opposite for us just based on skillset.
That's a, that one reps. You do your next one. Trying to think which one will play off that.
That's more coaching -y. So I will kind of go back to that, which I would say real estate stacking. And so like my style, this one's kind of similar to the financial one, kind of, but it is completely based around real estate.
I think that... It allows for gamification. It's like a game to a lot of these guys in their cults and in their communities on how they do it.
And I think that if this one goes back to a little of in the beginning, what I could have focused on and what I already had some groundings around, it allows for you to build wealth the fastest way as a person when you're an expert in it. So you're basically doing all the info side. You have all the different monetization layers, which is similar -ish to the financial one, but you are so honed in on real estate that all of it's then redeployed into real estate.
You're truly professional. So you're basically paying no taxes on your entire climb up. You're making crazy amounts from this front.
You're building a cult of people that then are also like in it. And then you are buying infinite. So it's kind of like - And you also, your customers are giving you deal flow.
Correct. Like this is really the Pace Morby model, which is basically, you got to think, this is pretty wild when you think about it. I don't know like what profit he makes a month or whatever, but whatever it is, It's basically double of what I make because of tax.
Correct. Because he's redeploying it into assets that hopefully he, you know, like if I try to put it into real estate, I'm going to lose my ass. Yeah.
And we talked about that in the last one. I think the same thing. Yeah.
He probably knows how to do it, right? So, I mean, I'm assuming he does. So he's probably putting it into real estate, into good deals, right?
He's basically making double the money because he doesn't have to pay the tax. He's accelerating the depreciation down and wiping off the tax because of that. And then also, I think the big thing a lot of these guys have told me, because I've worked with so many of them, is that they get deal flow, too, from the students, which is, like, the big thing, you know?
So how would you do it exactly, though? You're saying you would just do an info offer and redeploy into real estate, or would you have, like, a specific, like, way you would do it? An example of this, and I already literally, I feel like we've been talking for an X amount of time that I don't remember if I said this already on the pod or if it was right before, but, like, the other example was who just posted about it is, like, Roka.
So, like, Blake, he's a... kind of quiet but like well -known guy in the space um and he started his like world in that so he created like an audience and info around this whole like short -term thing and airbnb was on the come up so like he was uniquely positioned and very educated so he was able to directly deploy he had exactly what we're talking about from this zone but then because he started with that he then now has gone out to essentially like publish or own or whatever be part of other education businesses that are very very large and i don't know how much of those are shared but like top ones and he deploys all that cash back and i literally just saw him post the other day and was like wait do i have like how many friends do i have in here that make like over five million a year in profit from info uh that are like paying taxes like what are you guys doing like i can just because it's just second nature to him because he had stacked it once
Cause he knew the game well enough. You and I talked to us in the last pod. That's like, if we do that, we're probably just going to lose our ass.
Cause like, we're so focused over here. Yeah. It's so hard to pick the right deal.
And so he buys like fricking, he posted the other day that he's got like 50 million plus in Airbnbs and he buys like these unique properties that are like hotels or like multi -unit. And then cause it's all short term, you can get like the crazy accelerated depreciations offsetting all this. Well, yeah.
Short -term rental has different laws. So maybe he's using the SDR loophole by, uh, To be clear, like the info guys get away with this if they teach real estate.
But if you just have a normal business, you got to have the rep status and like you can't, it's not just the hours. It also has to be the majority of your working time. And if you really dig and dig and dig and look into the laws, I have a million times.
I've probably done nine rounds of fuck, I'm going to do it. You know, like something pushes me and I'm like, I need to look back into this because it just. The benefit's so high.
But the really only viable way is if your wife does it. Correct. That is the model.
Carlton, Dennis, by the way, like, that's what he does is they have a huge info business. And then his wife runs all the real estate. She is a true real estate professional.
I mean, she actually runs, I mean, 100 % above book. Like, he does it the right way. And he pays no tax.
He lives in OC. Yeah. You know?
That's how you live in California. Yeah. So to answer your question, like, how exactly would I?
kind of torn because it's like either the model i just shared or the other is like literally just like that is my full -time profession talk info out of it talk whatever it's kind of like split so you could either very easily wrap it do what these guys did and the other is just like i actually just took that serious and that's all i would do uh i know way way way too many people that have basically just made that their craft and have dominated like use my dad as an example in this landscape snow thing like he has made so much off of real estate and like create and like that's just it's just like fun game and like almost a side quest but if you really like 80, 20, look at it.
Like this is dominated for me. Like this is the, you know, every day and the, and in a lot of ways also like a massive win, but this has been so fun and cool. And yeah, so I do that as a fun, a fun play.
So let me give you my last one. And this one, to be clear, I wouldn't do if it was my first business ever, I would only do if let's say I was restarting and I didn't really care about cashflow. Or I would also consider doing this if our company was at like 60, 70 million, 80 million, and we would buy one, okay?
Which is buying or building a temp staffing firm in a fragmented market. I kind of previewed this one before, but let me give you some context, right? So, because I have a recruiting business, didn't come from the recruiting industry, right?
So recruiting is a 190 billion industry. So 8 % of that, Tam, is perm placement.
That's what my firm does. You pay us money, we give you a placement. 6 % is executive search, which is the same exact thing, but instead of, you know, a sales rep, it's an executive, right?
So 8 % perm, 6 % executive search, 86 % is temp staffing, which is basically like the easiest example to give is if you're a commercial electrician and you get a data center contract, you have to 5X your staff. to be able to service that contract so you have to contract out with a temp staffing firm who does temp staffing for electricians and then you know you get those staff and then you can either buy them at the end of the contract or you just the contract ends yeah does that make sense so um i just can't believe that that's 86 percent yes well and It's because it's the biggest market with the biggest contracts.
It's also because you have to think the way the TAM is also calculated that it's on the late, the, the top line labor amount and temp staffing, their gross margins are only 20%. Their net margins, if they run really well would be 10. Does that make sense?
So part of it is inflated because of that. But even with the inflation, I would say it's still half of the market, right? It is like, like when people a lot of people if i tell like a normie business guy that i do um recruiting they think i do staffing yeah but they'll be like oh like you know like if i have somebody come up to me and i've had this several times where they're like yo we're running this event we're short on sales guys can you get me sales guys in 14 days that is like a temp staffing play right and we don't i mean we could maybe do it but we don't really do that and so the huge advantages of this though is the recurring revenue is like ridiculous so for every dollar in ebita you make in perm you make twice as much in staffing on an exit value so there's good recurring revenue it's just month after month after month and the contracts are much bigger and then what happens is yeah in most cases yes and like some contracts will end but usually you just shift that to a different contract if you run it the right way and so um the other thing is too is you can get a lot of cash flow
if they buy out the person and you got to think about it like let's say because like a market I would think about is like dental hygienists because it's fragmented I could get them through ads and you know if you have a lady go on maternity leave or the summer is really insane or whatever right in your certain market you might need more hygienists because if you don't have the hygienists they can't turn it over into like the stuff the dentist sells which is much more high ticket so You give them the hygienist, they grow their business.
Now they need it. They love Nancy Sue. You know, they want to keep Nancy Sue like that, but they're under contract with you.
So you can charge like, you could probably charge like 35 % of their first year salary as a buyout because like they, they want Nancy Sue. You know what I'm saying? Like you, you kind of have leverage over them in that way.
And so I would make a little combination of like temp with perm on the backend. And, um, basically I would. i would start with a fragmented market and just go super deep into that and then try to kind of network slash uh spiderweb my way into the enterprise contracts which is like that's where that's where true enterprise recruiting is yeah it's almost always the temp staffing but i would only do this if i was really trying to hit a recruiting business this is why i said like it would make sense if we got our current thing to 100 mil but then we were like how do we get to a bill this is how you would do it in every ten every recruiting firm in the United States has gotten to a billion by adding temp staffing at some point, or they were just temp staffing the entire way.
So like, I'll give you the, the biggest perm slash exec firm to scale the biggest, they scaled, I think corn fairy hit 300 to 500 million a year. They're the top executive search firm in the, in the world. And to get to a billion, they had to add staffing and they bought, they bought it.
Right. So yeah, it's lower margin, but also like you can have huge Huge contract do that and you can my I would only consider it like I said because this is not my specialty Right and also the way you acquire clients in that industry, especially in a mid -market enterprise is also not my specialty So I would only consider it Personally if a we were it again 70 to 80 mil we had the cash flow We bought something and then that's gonna be the 100 a billion.
Yeah, right or Uh, let's say, you know, theoretically I sold my business or something, or I got a, you know, 50 million cash. And I'm like, all right, like I would maybe consider, I mean, with all the things I probably could do, I probably wouldn't pick this, but I could, because I don't care about the cashflow.
Cause if you start it, the cashflow is going to suck in the beginning. Right. And it takes capital because a lot of the companies are paying you net, net 30 or net 60.
So you take out bank loans to float the cash before the other thing comes in. But if I had like a lot of capital, I didn't give a shit. I could start one.
as just like okay i don't care about the cash but i'm building this to be a huge thing yeah yeah but i mean there's there's temp staffing companies that have hit a billion in two years a billion so and they're at that scale they become insanely reliable recurring revenue which is why they trade a higher multiples and so this is all my side work huh how does it like like so if i like how does the supply side work like how do you build the database database of quality talent for something like that you make calls you market the position i mean it's just like a sales team mass mass mass yeah it's a lot of labor yeah it would be a good thing to buy your way into an existing infrastructure that works well travel nursing was huge yes like that's what really blew up in covid yeah was the travel nursing side but right now the big one is not like every home service or every trade but electricians is really big that's the biggest one right now with the data centers um plumbers is huge but that's a commercial level uh and construction's huge yeah those are commercial level temp yeah i know guys made a killing off that who basically just found as many people as they could and then when tesla was building some of these different like and they're doing another one right now but you know they're willing to pay call it
rough this is completely made up math but like call like 300 bucks an hour and you can get the person for like 60 plus you know you pay for their hotels and something to come out there and do that and these guys were ripping like because they just were the connector uh for what was literally temp staffing for two months straight and then they'd cycle teams out there and millions but the nice thing about this business it's an interesting business because it is a business that can literally scale to a billion in revenue and you can start it i mean you you would have to have the float But I mean, almost anybody could start this business.
Yeah. You know, you could start it. The float thing's interesting.
The bank loan part. Actually, I know another guy who has a version of this now that you explain it. Now I know what it's basically called.
But it was a big topic when interest rates were climbing that they were like, oh, we're getting squeezed now. because their margin was so low. Yeah.
That really good loans because when you're at a certain size, you can loan against your company on it. And the bank kind of realizes like, okay, you know, it's, it's, it's just a net 60 problem. Like your interest rate can be super low.
Um, other people like you just have a war chest and you just have a huge cashflow. Yeah. So that can work too.
But yeah, it's interesting. It's very clean. It's not the DR idea.
Yeah. Very clean. Well, I have a very clean one then to, uh, to tail it off.
This one has a lot of emotional weight though. Um, so I'm just going to call it the franchise machine. And.
take this a lot of different directions first uh scholarship i got was around franchisors made no sense it just so happened to be and i ended up going to like a franchise conference when we tried to do this initial buyout when i was like 19 years old it was a collection of uh franchises now know many people who are either franchisor and also franchisee like owner of locations or who have mass scaled and hit like b status from just owning a lot of franchises and i think that i would i think that falls in both buckets for me which is like something it's a mix of a lot of things i've shared here which is like the buy then build status but like it's a recipe like it is a machine of things that like once you get it and the playbook quite literally is already created there's a human element that's like not super my forte at this time of skill set and like you know what happens when they party the night before they don't show up to like open the doors like that's very real and that a lot of time um but i think that i would be very very very good at that and that is something you can start with
amount of cash like not that much but also something you could hammer if you already had a ton of it and 20 locations 200 locations 2000 locations and then there's like that mix of the franchise or play so that one was uh that was my initial setup like we literally rolled together all these different owners that had multi -location made a big like grouping out of it we're gonna be the largest platform deal i literally know these guys who own i think it's like 500 plus now uh locations and they just stand them up And then we got people in the info space, like Eddie Maloof owns a franchise.
Like he's a franchisor of his, um, Dami Kavone. He's a franchisor and owns franchise locations as well of like in -person clinics. And these guys, like it's obviously vast spread, any of these industries, but like, if you have that model built, well, it's like the location rips.
And you as franchisor owner make your carry no matter what kind of, right? It's like rev shares and you rip from those two. Okay.
Can I tell you an idea that we'll never do in our lifetime? This would be, this is like a 500 million to 10 billion play is in this. I just learned about this recently.
I read about it is, and it's just a standard playbook to where you'd have to have a fuckload of money because you got to buy a huge. company, but you buy a huge franchise and all you do is you just take, buy out all the franchisees and you centralize the entire thing and take it completely. I mean, it's technically private, but you take it completely in house.
And so I forget which recruiting company it was, but literally they brought in like some dude bought it, some private equity guy. And he, he scaled it to, you know, billions and billions and billions. The only thing he did is he just.
it was a franchised recruiting firm basically and he just brought bought out every single franchisee and just brought everything everything in house and centralized all the operations and cut costs yeah there are we'll never do that idea but that would be the the super elitist super rich i have you know unlimited money and i bought a 500 million dollar franchise i want to take it to 2 billion yeah like there's and then different ones have different rules right it's like the chick -fil -a like you have to own or operate for x amount of time before you're even like allowed to own a second one or like You have to have food experience of, like, working in one of these places to, like, own a Taco Bell or own a whatever.
But there's other ones, like these gyms. And, like, the one that we were trying to do was I'll just blanket call it, like, indoor recreational facility. And, like, these things were doing, like, $2 million plus EBITDA.
Oh, nice. right and like it was in a heyday and it probably comes down to like one one and a half but like that is no joke when you stack and stack and stack and stack those with the same playbook and you had regional manager and like it just works yeah it's interesting i don't know you know harmosi knows a lot about franchises and i know he's not a big fan of it yeah unless you're maybe capital constrained is the thing that it allows you i guess to get more distribution quickly but i think that's why that like more than what i mentioned works so well is because like franchising allows you to get the geographical distribution faster yeah and then the buyouts allow you to like take it to the next level once you actually have the capital to do it i don't know not an expert in it yeah i thought it was interesting if you enjoyed this podcast you're also probably gonna like this podcast i also did recently that you can check out by clicking the screen
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