https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIYvr6M0G2E&ab_channel=DrivenCH

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:01:00.000
when you met laila i remember
you guys got married
not because you guys were in love yeah
it was like a business transaction can
you talk about that yeah like in the
beginning i know that there's a lot of
times where like you said you don't want
to live anymore yeah you're really
stressed out
and you get down to your last penny yeah
do you think that's important for
somebody to go through that and come
back up
really make it or be in the position
where they're gonna continue to make it
yes and no so i don't think that
suffering is a requisite for success
but i do think that it
is very likely
and i think that
when
i think what it does is it gives us
evidence like when you get into hard
times it doesn't change who you are it
gives you evidence of who you are you
can extrapolate any negative experience
to give yourself a shield against any
new negative so it's like i'll give you
a different example since let's say
you've you haven't you're new to
business which a lot of people may be
listening to this are yeah but you might
have had a tough upbringing which a lot
of people listeners probably have if you
think to yourself like man

2
00:01:00.000 --> 00:02:00.000
like
none of this is nearly as bad as my dad
whooping the [ __ ] out of me the business
requires these functions to occur
and whether it's mixed between me and
layla or
layla's cause like we talk about like
what if alex dies because you know we
think about like you know what happens
after that same scenario well she might
have to find two or three people
to do the functions that i'm doing and
so i probably can't find one layla but i
might be able to find like two or three
people who can fill the holes that she
leaves to make sure that the functions
get done if you can get that that's that
founding team in place
of talented people who who have
complimentary skill sets and for anybody
who's watching like the three kind of
big ones and you alluded to it was like
you've got your acquisition side which
is power the promoter who's gonna bring
people into the door you've got the the
operation side the the product side
right uh which is what are we gonna what
how are we gonna fulfill the promises we
made on the front end right and then the
third one keeps the other two out of
jail which is you know hr finance legal
i.t

3
00:02:00.000 --> 00:03:00.000
taxes you know accounting all that stuff
and so those are kind of the three
elements that we see within within the
business you've got your product you've
got your acquisition and then you've got
all the stuff to keep yourself out of
prison what what is the biggest lesson
you think you learned
and do you think maybe if you would have
known what you know now you could have
been
with more money
earlier it took me it took me five years
to learn focus
learning about leverage
was the thing that took me a long time
to understand in terms of what boat i'm
in so i'll give you the quote from
warren buffett but he said and that's
when i learned that it wasn't about how
hard you row but what boat you're in and
so there's a lot of really really hard
working people out there who are really
smart they're just not the thing that
they're missing is ignorance of
opportunity it's the ignorance of
leverage and so if you can get into a
better leveraged opportunity the same
time or same effort or same intelligence
can yield you a 10x 20x 000x return
which is hard to conceptualize but still
true
[Music]

4
00:03:00.000 --> 00:04:00.000
hey guys i'm here with uh alex hormozy
and really excited welcome to driven
channel i'm really pumped up about this
um interview because uh me and my wife
we talk a lot about you guys we're like
damn usually we're like the young
entrepreneurs that are doing good and
making money and and and everybody's
older you know but but with you guys
we're like damn you guys make us feel
old so like i know you're 31 your wife's
29 and you guys have a an incredible
story that reminds us a lot also of our
battles like when you start a business
you go broke you don't have money you're
barely surviving
and i know you sold businesses for a lot
of money you made some some good money
yeah and now you're uh ceo of
acquisitions.com um
so uh alex uh first of all thank you for
being part of this and uh if you could

5
00:04:00.000 --> 00:05:00.000
get started with maybe your story of how
you started in the entrepreneurship and
and who is alex or moses for those that
may not know you thank you for being
here i know 100 thank you guys for uh
for having me um very excited to be here
and uh for everybody who's listening or
watching you know very honored that
you'd lend us your time and your
attention i'll do my very best or i know
we will both do our very best to give
you a high return on it um so layla and
i so i was i was a management consultant
right out of college
at a boutique strategy firm which did
space cyber intelligence for the
military seems like a completely
different life than i live right now
did that for a few years didn't
particularly enjoy it sounded cool at
dinner parties but that was about all it
really gave me was a cool dinner party
line so maybe some of you guys are in
that same situation where
your job sounds cooler on paper than it
does in reality
um and then uh it was kind of
i'll bring this up and it sounds kind of
morbid for the first like 60 seconds or
two minutes of a podcast but uh it was
only when i was really contemplating
like not living anymore because i hated
it so much because i'd done all the
decisions i had in my life up to that

6
00:05:00.000 --> 00:06:00.000
point because of what i thought my
father wanted me to do um for him you
know what i mean and so he was an
immigrant came here when he when he was
in his mid-20s mid late 20s
he had me a few years later um
and you know
i always had a lot of respect for that
and i wanted to like honor the sacrifice
that he had you know coming here with a
thousand dollars and building what he
built for himself just through his
education and working hard and so he
wanted me you know to be a doctor in his
footsteps i decided not to be during
college because i was like i really
don't like this
i really like business better he's like
fine then this is the path you have to
go do the two years do the nba you know
but um
it basically came to a decision where i
said i either have to die to my father i
have to die to myself
and so i figured well i might as well be
alive and die to him and so that was
kind of that was like kind of the
turning point for me when i was able to
quit my job and start pursuing what i
really wanted to do so i quit my job i
drove to drove across the country from
dc slash baltimore all the way to uh to
la it was actually chino hills i was
inland empire we were just talking

7
00:06:00.000 --> 00:07:00.000
before this about sandbag tiara so
um i showed up at sam's doorstep
he uh
had no idea why i was
but he offered to uh to like let me do
his mastermind even though i didn't have
a gym um and kind of like showed me the
ropes in the beginning so i immediately
and this is some of the advantages i had
i think and i was able to move so
quickly like if you think about an order
of sequence like i went from
having a job straight into a mastermind
like the first thing i did was i bought
into a mastermind because i figured and
this is from the consulting world the
fastest way to learn anything is is by
consulting experts is by um
learning from people who've already
consolidated information for you because
like you've got google it's like sure
you have everything that's available to
you yeah um but trying to pull that
together in one place like sifting that
is the hardest part right
um all right sorry my add was killing me
um and so the that was the first thing i
did and then from there um i started my
first gym i was sleeping on the floor
there uh it took me nine months to get

8
00:07:00.000 --> 00:08:00.000
it kind of built up and outsourced and
then from there we opened a new gym
every six months uh and then sold that
uh chain uh and then retained the ip and
we started flying out doing gym
turnarounds that's when i met layla
and that was kind of like a brief story
of like oh this is gonna be awesome and
then right after that i lost everything
again
[Laughter]
speaking of layla i know when you guys
met
and and also like i like when you get on
the good uh a good talk good story just
keep going because
i'm not an interviewer no like it's like
more i'm more excited about this because
like you're a business guy i'm a
business guy and i just i'm just curious
about like how you did it what did you
do but when you met laila i remember um
you guys got married
not because you guys were in love yeah
it was like a business transaction can
you talk about that yeah 100
um i mean we talk about it a lot because
i think i like our dynamic a lot um and
it it's not normal because most people
and every relationship i had prior to
this it was like you meet somebody you
feel some chemistry
and then it gets hot and heavy really

9
00:08:00.000 --> 00:09:00.000
quickly
and then it starts to cool down a little
bit and then you kind of like get into
this cruise zone and then you look up
and you're like you know we actually
don't have a lot of things that were in
common besides the fact that we're
opposite which is why we attracted to
begin with but like we're opposite like
you like you know you vote for this guy
but for this guy you know you like these
things i like these things like it's
just it's just so many differences and
so
we had a different experience where like
we went on our first date and we ended
up talking about business for four hours
and i was like cool and i didn't like
have any romantic anything but i was
like she's cool
um and so i felt myself kind of just
like wanting to see her again so i was
like hey i mean i remember the next day
i was like hey i'm working all day um
want to come work with me like it wasn't
a date i was like i'm just gonna be
working at my place or at the library
whatever and she said sure and so then
she just like hung out with me and then
we were
just both worked together after that
that was kind of like the the theme of
how like the vibe of how things start is
like whatever i was doing i'd just
rather do it with her
um and so it was much more companionate
uh rather than like
uh like love like capital l you know

10
00:09:00.000 --> 00:10:00.000
what i mean love relationship that but
then i think the the shared mission and
shared values of like this is what i
want to do with my life she's like me
too i want to do big [ __ ] and like up to
that point
the the i had definitely dated people
who want to do big things but like the
types of big things they wanted to do
were different than the types of things
i wanted to do and so we weren't mission
aligned and so what and i think that you
know probably you feel this way too like
when you want to do big things like it's
rare air like not a lot of people
breathe that air and what you have to go
what do you have to go through to get
there
is hard
and i knew that where i wanted to go not
a lot of people would be able to hang
and that might be from childhood from
whatever you know i mean whatever it is
but like i just knew that i was willing
to go through a lot of suffering to get
there and she was too and that was um
and like there were a couple i'll tell
you the two key moments in our
relationship that did it for me but the
first one was
when i lost everything
the second time for me the first time
for her
when i lost everything um she uh i kind
of sat her down i was like hey like

11
00:10:00.000 --> 00:11:00.000
we're cool like if you leave right now
like
all respect like we're like i won't
blame you i will
like we're cool
and uh she was like
no i'm here she's like if if if i have
to sleep with you under a bridge i will
and uh i remember being like man that's
that's awesome like that's really cool
that she just like was there even though
i gave her like an out card and then the
second time was we really needed this
money uh to come in
and i said listen like i have to do i
have to just sell my ass off at this
location and you need to go to this gym
in hawaii
and you need to crush it because it
costs like 10 grand for her to get there
and it was like about the last 10 grand
i had and she needed to do a hundred
thousand in net sales cash collected in
30 days in order for us to like
cover all these bills that were coming
in from these other directions
and right before she left we like took a
break because i was like it was i was
just too stressed out of all these
different things that were going on
and
she flew out there and she killed it and

12
00:11:00.000 --> 00:12:00.000
she didn't have to she wasn't
technically associated with me anymore
and she like she could have just left
and be like i'm just going to go back
and just do my own thing whatever and um
and then she when most people would
crumble she just like stood tall and got
harder and that was when i was like
she can go through everything that i can
go through and so it was like those two
instances is when i knew that like that
i was that she was going to be the
person who was going to come with me to
where i wanted to go do you feel like
you have to get
to that darkest moment
uh to become
somebody really successful so
like you're you're really successful i
see you guys especially with the age
you guys have done a lot
but um
like in the beginning i know that
there's a lot of times where like you
said you don't want to live anymore yeah
you're really stressed out uh
and you get down to your last penny yeah
do you think that's important for
somebody to go through that and come
back up to really make it or be in the
position where they're going to continue
to make it
you think you guys you think you could

13
00:12:00.000 --> 00:13:00.000
have done it differently without having
to go through all that pain
yes and no so i don't think that
suffering is a requisite for success
but i do think that it
is very likely
and i think that
when
i think what it does is it gives us
evidence like when you get into hard
times it doesn't change who you are it
gives you evidence of who you are it
just it should it displays it
demonstrates who you are so some people
are like you know when the
when the going gets tough the the tough
you know whatever whatever the saying is
but i think that a lot of times it just
reveals our character it doesn't
necessarily create it because it might
have already it might have already been
there that whole time and then we just
get the environment in which to prove it
to ourselves but i think it goes from
the man with the opinion to the man with
the experience which uh lh hardwick said
uh no man with an experience is ever at
the mercy of a man with an opinion
and so like somebody could be like oh
man like 2008 wasn't that bad like
somebody who's younger hasn't gone

14
00:13:00.000 --> 00:14:00.000
through it but like
man with an opinion man with an
experience who went through it he's
never had that guy's mercy and so like
there's some some like soul hardness
that i think comes through that because
you have evidence in your past of like i
have been through worse that being said
i think that you can you can extrapolate
any negative experience to give yourself
a shield against any new negative so
it's like i'll give you a different
example since let's say you've you
haven't you're new to business which a
lot of people may be listening to this
are yeah but you might have had a tough
upbringing which a lot of people
listeners probably have right because a
lot of people suffer because we're kids
right
if you think to yourself like man
like
none of this is nearly as bad as my dad
whooping the [ __ ] out of me
all of a sudden it just gives you a very
different context to what heart feels
like yeah right or or mom or whatever it
is right and so or my brother it doesn't
matter who it is but the point is is
like we've gone through hard [ __ ] and i
think that what hard feels like is the
same whether it's a business heart or an
emotional heart it feels the same and so
i think if you can take these past
experiences that are hard before and

15
00:14:00.000 --> 00:15:00.000
extrapolate them onto your current
situation
you realize you've been through so much
more than this and then you can look
back and say like
to use the morpheus quote from the
matrix like i stand here truthfully
unafraid not because of the path that
lies before me but because of the path
that lies behind me yeah and so i think
that those hard times give us
evidence of who we are yeah and i think
it's the stories that we tell ourselves
that create you know the futures we're
going to have alex what do you think if
you wouldn't have met leila yeah and
maybe you meet uh kyla or somebody else
where are you kayla
where do you think you are at this
moment do you think you're as successful
less successful because let me tell you
something uh the reason why i asked this
because me and sale are really different
yeah like i'm i'm like the visionary the
recruiter the sales guy and she's the
operator so she operates everything like
like um if we have an event
like if she didn't have me i yeah we
wouldn't have any people yeah but if i
didn't have her we would have people and
we would lose all the people because i
don't know how to operate and organize

16
00:15:00.000 --> 00:16:00.000
i'm horrible at that so like my job is
to bring in agents and their job is to
keep the agents yeah i don't know that
makes any sense totally it's the same
dynamic yeah we have the identical
dynamic
between layla and i
how does that work and and where do you
where do you think you would have been
without layla
so um of course since layla isn't in the
background in the audience i would be
homeless under that bridge that's what i
would i would just be there just without
anything um no but we we actually have
this conversation a lot like if i were
not in her life she would probably just
find someone who's similar to me and to
have find a complimentary skill set and
like if she were not in my life i would
prob like
the business requires these functions to
occur
and whether it's mixed between me and
layla or
layla's cause like we talk about like
what if alex dies because you know we
think about like you know what happens
after that same scenario well she might
have to find two or three people
to do the functions that i'm doing and
so i probably can't find one layla but i
might be able to find like two or three
people who can fill the holes that she
leaves to make sure that the functions

17
00:16:00.000 --> 00:17:00.000
get done
and so it's like
so why combinator has put out a lot of
research on the fact that like three
founders is the ideal amount of people
for a business and i think that that
just happens to be like there are kind
of buckets of activity that must occur
in order for a business to be successful
and it's just more difficult for a
single founder to do that on their own
where all the hats learn all the things
or find find and incentivize someone
who's good enough to be like owner level
of give a [ __ ] i don't know like the
cussing words on this but like
yeah
the owner level of give a [ __ ] in a
company when it's early days and so i
think that's why it gets so hard for
people to get going because especially
if you're a solo you own 100 et cetera
if it's just you like we both have the
advantage of two owners just right off
the bat and i remember when we were
coming up and competing against other
people i always used to think like even
if i'm toe to toe with this guy i was
like i've also got her
and he doesn't i was like it's two on
one
like with every every business you know
competitive space i thought i was like
it's two on one
like we always come to the with an
advantage and so i think that if you can

18
00:17:00.000 --> 00:18:00.000
get that that's that founding team in
place
of talented people who who have
complimentary skill sets and for anybody
who's watching like the three kind of
big ones and you alluded to it was like
you've got your acquisition side which
is how the promoter who's going to bring
people into the door you've got the the
operation side the the product side
right uh which is what are we going to
how we're going to fulfill the promises
we made on the front end right and then
the third one keeps the other two out of
jail which is you know hr finance legal
i.t
taxes you know accounting all that stuff
and so those are kind of the three
elements that we see within within the
business you've got your product you've
got your acquisition and then you've got
all the stuff to keep yourself out of
prison what what is the biggest lesson
you think you learned
and do you think maybe if you would have
known what you know now you could have
been
with more money
earlier
is there one big lesson that if you can
go back you'll change yeah it took me it
took me five years to learn focus
it took me five years maybe 10 depending

19
00:18:00.000 --> 00:19:00.000
on what do you mean about focus picking
one opportunity and and ruthlessly going
after that one thing i think a lot of
people
i mean me yeah um
i get so like i get excited i'm opera
you know i love opportunity i love
seeing with the unseen seeing where
things can come together they see your
mind going like like i could tell like
from far like when you walked in the
first the first time right here and we
met back in bradley's event yeah but but
um
you you just i could tell that you have
so many ideas going on i don't know if
that's true but you seem like you're
thinking like 100 things at once and so
like you talked about focus yeah um
does that also mean
how you manage your time because i know
in the beginning part you give everybody
your time and then after you start
growing then you stop giving people time
and then some people just get uh
insulted and they get mad and how do you
how do you approach that
so two so two separate one is one it
sounded like the networking and people
thing and the other side was like the
business focus side so on the business
focus side um it's it's really

20
00:19:00.000 --> 00:20:00.000
it's accepting the fact that there are
always many many 10 out of 10
opportunities so the first thing i did
was i was picking bad opportunities to
go after you know what i mean like you
know opening a dry cleaning store
or rather i'll walk up the opportunity
ladder this might be interesting for
everyone so like
opportunity level number one is that
you're working at a dry cleaning store
yeah right like and you're just you're
cleaning the clothing right that's like
lowest level opportunity you're training
time for dollars you have zero leverage
one level above that is you're managing
at that store so now you you in some way
have some leverage but you're not still
owning but you are you're operating
right level above that is you own the
dry cleaning store okay that's cool but
your leverage is you got five mile you
know radius of people that you can serve
out of the entire world
and the only level of
leverage you have there is labor that's
all you have is you have leverage over
other people's time
the level above that is you franchise or
you you sell other people
your business model for how to do it now
all of a sudden you've got capital and
you've got leverage you've other
people's money and other people's time

21
00:20:00.000 --> 00:21:00.000
so all of a sudden that thing can go
from being a maybe a 1 million
opportunity to 100 million opportunity
right and then all of a sudden if you
aggregate franchises right now you're at
a billion dollar so it's like each of
these things we and if let's say you
created a software that made the whole
thing faster it's like now you're using
code and that and then you associate
like kylie jenner's brand with like
highly clean whatever yeah and so then
you're using media to get even more
leverage on the opportunity and so um
learning about leverage was the thing
that took me a long time to understand
in terms of what boat i'm in so i'll
give you the quote from warren buffett
but he said
i'll give you the full quote so he had
his closest friend from columbia
business school who went to school with
him they were really smart really hard
working liked each other a lot when they
finished one his best buddy went to to
do into steel business manufacturing
steel and then he started berkshire
hathaway you know 30 40 years later
this guy the steel business is a tough
business right he didn't i mean he's
like he made an okay living he's like
but he didn't do anything really
exceptional and then warren built
berkshire hathaway and he said and

22
00:21:00.000 --> 00:22:00.000
that's when i learned that it wasn't
about how hard you row but what boat
you're in
and so there's a lot of really really
hard working people out there who are
really smart they're just not the thing
that they're missing is ignorance of
opportunity it's ignorance of leverage
and so if you can get into a better
leverage opportunity the same time or
same effort or same intelligence can
yield you a 10x 20x 000x return which is
hard to conceptualize but still true and
so understanding the leverage of the
opportunity
and then from a character perspective
understanding that i have to pick a high
leverage opportunity and i must stick
with it for an unreasonable amount of
time
i have to just keep doing it and the the
outside returns the compounding of the
opportunity comes from the depth of the
experience which comes through
repetition and so a lot of people get
you know whether a mile wide an inch
deep rather than a a mile deep an inch
wide and most times that kind of depth
of experience is what gives you the
compounding outside returns in the
longer haul and so i think if i if i had
known one how to pick the right
opportunity and two said okay if i did
just this thing for the next 10 years it

23
00:22:00.000 --> 00:23:00.000
would be unreasonable for me not to be a
billionaire
then nothing else matters so even if
somebody's like dude i've got this new
tech thing it's going to be huge i could
say totally understand
but if i do just the thing i'm doing
right now i'll get to a billion which is
right now the current goal right yeah
and so that's it
like and i could have 20 other things
like dude we got to do this building
together like i bet you i could make
money on that but if i do nothing else
besides this one thing that i am focused
on i will get to a billion and so
everything that is not that is a
distraction from that yeah
what do you think keeps people from
not doing that because like there's so
many opportunities that that come up and
especially now with uh how much you're
known now a lot more than before right
yeah you probably get a ton of
opportunities or people pitch you like
hey i got this i'm gonna make you we
could make millions with this yeah um
but why do you why do you think
let's just say
scott yeah why can't scott just focus on
mortgages or real estate why does he
have to do events why does scott have to
go out there and do like this other side

24
00:23:00.000 --> 00:24:00.000
business and this other side business
and then they just get
diluted yeah and then they don't when
they could just go out there and make
millions in real estate or mortgages
yeah what's what do you think is is what
gets people to do that yeah it's kind of
frustrating yeah cause i have i i i you
know i lead a lot of people and then i
find them like hey you know what it's
cool doing the little uh swing and dance
tick-tock and yeah but but what is that
like focus on what you're doing yeah
yeah
so i think it's human behavior and so
the the way that um we describe this is
local versus global benefit
and so a simple example is like
if i want to have a six-pack right why
does sarah go grab a piece of cake
rather than grabbing a piece of chicken
breast because the local benefit the
acute benefit of having a piece of cake
is higher in the small in the local
region but the global benefit for her
body is lower and so humans in general
will tend to optimize for local benefit
rather than global and the people who

25
00:24:00.000 --> 00:25:00.000
can simply optimize for global benefit
for their system-wide benefit are the
ones that get the biggest compounding
returns over the long haul it's the same
thing as in a business setting why don't
the sales guys leave notes in the crm so
that when the customer service dropper
the onboarding rep can see the notes to
you know have a way better experience
have you know way better ascension rates
way less churn drop out all these other
great metrics that would improve the
overall business because the local
pain right of writing the notes in is
harder than not doing it but doing it
gives the global benefit that is worth
it right yeah and an interesting one
from an operational perspective
ever because like i'm sure you've also
had the flip side of people who over
operationalize things they over process
[ __ ] and then it gets too hard is that
the point of process is to give a global
benefit and so you can measure is there
a global benefit from this thing if
we're having people do lots of stuff but
it doesn't have a global benefit or the
global benefit does not outweigh the
cost like for example let's say that one
of the benefits is if we could have
people walk through a 20-step sales page

26
00:25:00.000 --> 00:26:00.000
thing
so they could finish all of that without
the finance department hopping on sure
that might be a benefit globally
but the global loss might be that we
lose sales by like 70 because it's such
a pain in the ass right and so
you have to look at you know global cost
versus global benefit on any kind of
initiative and so to to get back to the
why does why does johnny have a bunch of
side hustles is because the local
perceived benefit of a shiny object
sounds exciting
even though globally we could make a
very easy argument that if you took all
that time all that attention all that
wasted energy and just put it into the
thing that is his main vehicle you get
outsized returns because the thing that
johnny doesn't understand and this is
alluding to the lesson that you you
mentioned earlier is that like all the
gains come at the end
you know what i mean and so so many guys
are like they're doing 80 effort
in three things where if you just did
that extra 20
for the one thing yeah you would get
more on that 20 than you would on
everything else yeah it makes a lot of

27
00:26:00.000 --> 00:27:00.000
sense and so it's it's a it's a
diminishing marginal return with an
outsized absolute return and so i'll
give a different example to drive this
up sorry just for like loading the
examples
if i'm a runner
and i'm in the olympics and i ran and i
train and i train on a train the amount
that an extra
you know
two hours a day of training does for me
the amount extra speed i get is might be
this much
right the last two hours compared to the
first two hours i might get this much
extra but this most extra
is the difference between first and
fourth and so what's the absolute
difference of that marginal return it's
everything yeah and so i think that when
we when we're trying to compete in the
space we have to understand like you are
going to have
less return on your time in an
opportunity but the absolute return of
being that much better than everyone
else makes all the difference in the
world if you're a really good sales
trainer versus the best sales trainer
you'll make 10 times more money being
number one yeah and that's the absolute

28
00:27:00.000 --> 00:28:00.000
versus marginal difference and alex when
you guys were growing and you guys made
a certain amount of money where you've
never made that money before yeah you
guys are both good looking really good
shape
uh you guys look like models
when when people did you ever have
people and having mv tour to you like
when you started growing maybe you had
your your sec your right hand person or
your left hand person and then they're
like wait a minute if they could do it i
can do it maybe i'm gonna go out there
and start something and be their
competitor did you ever deal with people
like that
so to so peeling the pieces apart
there's the envy side and then people
you know copying and do things like that
yes i think the last time i counted we
had over 20 people would work for me who
tried to start similar companies so yes
to that to that question in terms of
envy
i don't know i i don't i don't know what
their their primary motivation was it
might have just been like wanting to do
more for themselves like
and that's
and that's fine you know what i mean um
but at the same time like now we will
compete and like and i will do
everything i can to win yeah um and so

29
00:28:00.000 --> 00:29:00.000
you know are any of those companies
bigger than the company that we had no
or all of them together not bigger than
a quarter of what we had no
is there something that you guys do to
keep to to maximize uh all the people
that you have so that yeah that's that
was a good lesson that from what you
were asking earlier about like any
lessons that i learned i think that um
letting other like i was so early on it
was just like every dollar has to be
mine you know what i mean i think that
giving more slices of the pie to people
you get you get so much more
you net
like jeff bezos right now owns 10 of
amazon right elon owns 17 of tesla
warren buffett owns 38 percent of
berkshire hath or
his stock or whatever
and so
these these huge guys understood a
concept which is like the more money you
can make other people the more money you
make even though if the pie is not 100
yours and it took me
that was that's a lesson that took me
too long to understand because if you
give other people slices of the pie

30
00:29:00.000 --> 00:30:00.000
then you can gain your time back
disproportionately and so it's like it'd
be better to have
51
of 100 businesses you know what i mean
then 100 of you know what i mean and
because you can just give the
opportunity away but the problem is that
everyone thinks that the boat they're in
is the only boat they'll ever be in for
the rest of their lives not to say you
shouldn't focus on that boat but i'm
saying like we think so small and are
you talking about equity-wise or also
compensation-wise both
yeah but i just mean in general just
like however you slice up the pie you
know now getting back to the whole
fitness part i heard somewhere like i
don't believe it but maybe
you could convince me otherwise but but
i heard you say that you work out twice
a week and and that um
that
you
you have a way of eating where you get
all your food in the beginning and is
that is there a science that you
mastered it's the end so it's it's the
it's the end of the day mostly but um
but yeah so there's there's
in order to have there's minimum
effective dose right um and then there's

31
00:30:00.000 --> 00:31:00.000
mrv which is maximal recoverable volume
all right so those are the two extremes
from a training perspective so the
amount that it takes to maintain the
amount of muscle mass you has is
typically significantly less than most
people expect and the amount that it
takes to grow and to get an adaptation
and then the maximum amount that you can
do
and recover from is usually much further
down the volume spectrum than people
expect and most people are just in
between those two things so they're
above the amount to maintain but not
enough to adapt so like they're just
doing more work than is necessary to
just basically stay the same yeah right
and i think that that happens with a lot
of systems in terms of like let's say
you're working on sales it's like they
read their sales script every morning so
they're enough to have to maintain they
do the minimal amount to maintain but
maybe they do a little bit more but it's
not enough to drive adaptation to drive
growth right and so
with from i mean the fitness example
works for life in general but um
if i want to grow then i will train like

32
00:31:00.000 --> 00:32:00.000
90 minutes six days a week
so every day and i'll train maybe even
two hours a day and i will force the
muscle to grow like you will either
break or you will grow because there's
no way you can stay the same given the
amount of punishment i'm putting on this
muscle right and it's not about even the
intensity it's like if i do legs every
day for six days straight my legs will
grow if your your arms are small and you
train arms every single day your arms
will grow i promise you and so then what
happens is if i know that i have the
work ethic to do this level of volume
then it comes to okay what actually not
to get too tactical here but like what
exercise selection can i do that does
not give me joint pain because if you do
that much volume joint pain can start
coming an issue so then it's about
finding the exercises that you are
really biomechanically advantaged for
that give you the least amount of stress
or rotating between two to three of
those throughout that six day cycle so
you might go like exercise abc and then
abc
for that six days and that way you get a
little bit of variety on the joint while
still maximizing the amount of volume
you do that's the training side the
the

33
00:32:00.000 --> 00:33:00.000
the food side is i know that you've
you've alluded to the video that i had
which is calories and protein is pretty
much all you have to do which is why we
eat dessert every night and
we do that because like if you could
have rice and potatoes uh or just like a
big ice cream sundae i'd rather have a
big ice cream sundae but that's me
uh are you still on the clean uh
drinking uh diet or do you drink
uh
we do not drink much
i would say like layla has one drink and
i will have some of it sometimes yeah
yeah um but it's definitely not with the
intention of getting drunk it is um
because i know i saw a video where you
posted you didn't drink for a while yeah
it
how how did not drinking for a while how
did um
and how does your uh health in general
like staying in shape working out how
does that uh contribute to your
business's successes i think at that
time when i stopped drinking it was
really important i think that now it
would it would matter less because the
things that i was
i would drink i'd like i never had a

34
00:33:00.000 --> 00:34:00.000
drinking problem you know what i mean um
it was just like
i would be str you know i'd be stressed
from work or whatever and i would just
like want to have
a shot or two at the end of the day or
three shots or four shots to just like
take the edge off right
um
but the thing is is like when i when i
forced myself to stop drinking i did it
cold turkey because i was like what's
the point it's like if you're going to
do it sooner or
so i stopped drinking the later that we
decided to
without really any any prompt and then
what happened is for the next six months
i was like
i would feel this like itch like
whenever i was stressed like man i could
really use a drink
and but i couldn't and so it forced me
to confront the things that i wasn't
confronting which is like decisions that
were unmade hard conversations i needed
to have relationships that needed to be
cut out or brought in depending on you
know what they were and so it basically
i had all these unresolved loops that i
needed to close and then once i closed
all those loops
once i closed all those loops my desire
to drink uh went down dramatically and
then when i did decide to drink two and

35
00:34:00.000 --> 00:35:00.000
a half years later you know
it wasn't like ah you know i had to like
you know guzzle down five bottles of
liquor because i wasn't drinking for a
place of stress i was just i was like
okay things are good and so we're in the
same place now where as long i think as
long as you don't drink to
to run away from anything yeah yeah then
i think it's it's much less likely that
you'll do it in excess yeah but most
people do it to escape and i did too
yeah yeah do you have any fears
uh probably lots i haven't thought about
them lately um
uh let me think
probably the the
the main human ones you know uh
fear of
failure i suppose
i think a lot a lot of that has just has
become less but it might just be because
i have all this evidence that i haven't
failed so i don't know um but i think
that if i were to like if all that were
to be removed from me today or tomorrow
um i think i'd be okay do you ever feel
like a fear of being broke again

36
00:35:00.000 --> 00:36:00.000
um and let me explain a little bit more
yeah because uh for example
you guys live a really um
like a simple
way of living like you you know you had
you bought a car because yeah because
because bread yeah yeah
and so you got a bentley then you sold
it then you sold everything yeah you you
uh you got your cash put aside and you
got your money put away your your means
of living are not that high yeah um but
then i think about because because i i
agree with that yeah but then i think
about like what if i die tomorrow and
and i didn't i don't drive what i want
to drive i don't travel the way i want
to travel
how do you process that on on how are
you going to spend your money great
question yeah um i think that
to what you said like drive what i want
to drive liver i want to live fly where
i want to fly
we do that
i just don't want to use someone else's
drive what they want to drive
and so i realized for me when i had the
bentley that it didn't make any
difference in my life like i didn't i
did it because i thought it was cooler
what other people would think like you

37
00:36:00.000 --> 00:37:00.000
know i mean i literally did it because
brad was like dude go buy one i was like
all right fine i went by and it didn't
it didn't do anything for me yeah and so
like what are the things that that we
find valuable like we enjoy going out to
dinner so we we've gone out to dinner
every night for
ever
we haven't used our kitchen um and and i
like that you know what i mean and like
when we go out we get whatever we you
know i mean like it doesn't matter what
like we get whatever we want i get two
entrees last night two entrees free
desserts like i just like that and it's
cool like i enjoy that um you know we
you know we fly private a lot uh because
we enjoy that and we get returns from
that um we bought like i'll just say a
big number worth of big homes uh
recently after having sold everything
and then
you know as soon as we got there we were
like oh
i don't want to deal with all the i
don't know that the housekeeper the av
guy the the lawn care of the pool guy
the the decorator that like all of this
stuff and i was like i just don't give a
[ __ ] and so we have like a 3 000 square
foot you know apartment that we can lock
and leave and go wherever we want and so

38
00:37:00.000 --> 00:38:00.000
i think that the point of money is to
buy us options and so i want to have the
option to work because if i can't work
it's just as bad as having to work
and if i
want to go fly private i want to have
that option to do it i don't want to
have to do it and so i think it's for
for us we've we've optimized towards
optionality rather than
then quote freedom i've always said um
and i've always screamed to the world
i have this so i'm gonna have this
before i have it yeah and then it
becomes a reality yeah maybe not maybe i
don't reach the number maybe i don't
reach 50 million but i reach 36 million
yeah and but i've always been like that
and that keeps me pushed it it motivates
me and uh you talked about private
private flying i never imagined i would
fly private yeah like i never imagined
it and then i screamed to the world like
we're gonna fly private i swim to the
world we're gonna buy a jet we haven't
bought the jet yet but but we but we
will yeah but but um when i flew private
the first time with sill yeah and it
felt it's just a different of amazing

39
00:38:00.000 --> 00:39:00.000
feelings because you you know where you
spend your money you spend your money on
things you love so like flying
can you talk has did that change
anything in your life or how was your
first experience flying private
um it was just it was just
i've said this before like it just
transforms what is normally a painful
experience than to one that can be
enjoyable like going from economy to
first class i don't think makes the
flight enjoyable i think it just makes
it less painful i think flying private
does make it an enjoyable experience
that being said to what you were saying
earlier
about like casting it out in the world
and trying to make it to reality like
this is me just throwing it out there
yeah i think you would be just as
successful if you didn't do it because i
think it's who you are like you're going
to win because winners win like that is
innate and so if someone put duct tape
on your mouth and took away your social
media you'd still [ __ ] kill it and so
you know like on the flip side like
they've seen people who set really big
goals and then they go after them and
that's what drives them and then you can
also set goals that you never miss and
you always keep over delivering on that

40
00:39:00.000 --> 00:40:00.000
that incremental goal
i think either way the winners win
because of the activities that they do
that drive the result and so i think you
would
i'm less spiritual about my about women
are there certain traits that you see
like when you see somebody yeah um can
you tell like in five minutes if they
have what it takes to win big or does it
take time for you to analyze a person
do you know a lot of people [ __ ] yeah
i think talking to people you get it you
get a vibe for how you know like
how sharp they are some level of
character i mean there's the whole like
thinking fast and slow like you can make
you know yeah 30 i mean because i just
know from selling and you've done a lot
of sales too like when someone walks in
the door i usually had a pretty good
idea of whether i was going to close
them not before they even like started
talking you know i mean like you just
start seeing patterns over and like this
person i know how i'm going to you know
what angle am i going to come from to
like you know unlock this
um
but i don't you know i don't want to
sound um
arrogant like i can just i can i can

41
00:40:00.000 --> 00:41:00.000
read everyone but
i think it's when you get these unique
pairings of people like what because i
was trying to think of like what is what
is it factor what is like x factor like
what is it what makes someone special
what is why do some people raise get
raised up right and i think it's when we
have
patterns we don't recognize
and so for example
if um
like like if you look at this outfit
right yeah a lot of times in my videos
i'm wearing a wife beater and i look
like i'm in a basement right that's just
being real right i was gonna go there
yeah right
and i think
people have an expectation of what i'm
going to sound like
whatever my level of intelligence is
whatever level of success they're
expecting
and then
and then it's it's not met
and so i think that when people can and
i think that those patterns where people
what happens is people are like wait a
second what happened here and then all
of a sudden the brain goes into learning
mode because normally it's like pattern
recognition pattern recognition and then
you don't actually have to consciously
think because it's just all

42
00:41:00.000 --> 00:42:00.000
unconscious like you're just i know what
that person is i know what they're about
because people usually grab their
identities off the shelf they say oh i'm
going to be a country boy and then they
just adopt the country boy
outfit or i'm going to be the influ the
you know instagram influencer avatar
right and then they put that put that
outfit on and they believe those things
they do those things
and and then they become just like
everybody else and so i think a big part
of kind of like the quote authenticity
is like everybody has had a unique
experience but they don't express that
and so they just conform and so
if like there are
i think if you can if you have true
alignment of what you really deeply
believe and what you say and what you do
and how you act
then that is the authenticity but i
think most people are afraid of doing it
because they're afraid of being rejected
and so it's so much safer to pull an
identity off the shelf dress like a goth
dress like a punk dress like a corporate
dude dress like the real estate guys
right
rather than
just have something that's a little bit

43
00:42:00.000 --> 00:43:00.000
different and that's what i think gives
people pause and i think that's what
makes that's what gives people
you know it factor x factor yeah
speaking of that the the branding
because you're a genius marketer and and
uh you and you know exactly what you're
doing
i could tell you know exactly what
you're doing like there's always a
strategy because i think the same way
there's always a reason why you're doing
something so like for example like let's
say if you look like me like if you buzz
your hair and you start dressing like me
and then i switch it up and i start
i i dress the same way and and you know
i get
a bit bigger
um
do you think people are going to be like
wait a minute that's not albert wait a
minute that's not alex do you think it's
important to have a look
that separates you and it gives you that
unique identity
i think how you dress as a part of your
identity whether you like it or not even
even someone who like
i mean candidly probably dresses like me
it's like i might be trying to
communicate something which is like
i'm dressing for comfort and function

44
00:43:00.000 --> 00:44:00.000
function matters more to me than form
like that would be a value that i'm
communicating with how i dress it's also
true now if it if if that weren't true
then it would be silly for me to dress
in a way that would communicate that
like layla probably dresses the exact
opposite of me she usually dresses it
like her her outfits probably cost more
than our rent every month um and
every day
but like because for her that
communicates something else which for
her is like i i am excellent everything
i have is always dialed in like from
every every aspect of what i'm doing
like was was was curated was thought of
and i'm here to to present my best self
for the day for the opportunity for
everybody in the room and i and i want
to respect and honor them by how i how i
show up
not that i don't feel that way i just do
it differently you don't mean it but i
think people like you because because of
the way you
look like yes you have that look and
feels the same way she always has to be
ready her nails her eyelashes she needs
to put up and and she's the one because
i i dress we don't dress that much
differently i'm pretty casual but i used

45
00:44:00.000 --> 00:45:00.000
to dress more casual and she's the one
that forced me to like hey you can't
look at that
you can't look at that casual when when
you run a mortgage company or a real
estate so she got me to looking a bit
more professional yeah but this is me
like you have trainings on tuesdays
wednesdays yeah i'm dressed like this i
dig that i i don't when when i you know
sometimes people expect you because
you're the owner or whatever title you
have they expect you to be in the suit
and the tie yeah and i i i don't like it
i'm comfortable like this too yeah is
that one of the main reasons why you do
it comfortably it's not the main the
main reason is because it's just what i
generally like i am
this is what i wear i go to the gym with
this i go out to dinner with this i go
this is just how i dress um and like
all right i'll go deep on this with you
for a second so i just uh bought 40
pairs of white tank tops
to figure out what was the best white
tank top
i bought
probably 25 pairs of barefoot shoes to
figure out which was the most
comfortable when i worked out which was

46
00:45:00.000 --> 00:46:00.000
the easiest i could put on or off which
was the one that didn't bother my foot
when i cause we walk like two hours a
day um and so
putting all those things together so i
could pick
the right one so that i just don't have
to think about it ever again and so so
like in terms of that's for me because
that's just like i tend to operate that
way like when i would i used to eat the
same sandwich every day and lately used
to joke about it because like i had
a bagel with this protein cream cheese
and lox that was low-fat lox because the
whole meal was like 100 grams of protein
and she saw me every day experiment with
a different way of eating it which is
like okay i'm gonna put the locks the
cream cheese and the thing and i'm gonna
toast it and i'll do
glop glop and then take a bite the other
way is like i put the cream cheese on
and and the salmon on and do that
another way is i chopped it all chopped
all the salmon up so it was mush so i
didn't have to like have pieces that i'd
pull off because you know like half the
sandwich is missing yeah you like got a
piece and so it's like just continuing
thing like is there a better way i can
do this and i think that like we all
have these kind of innate questions tony
robbins talks about this which like we
have this like unstated question that we
we ask all the time i think he says his

47
00:46:00.000 --> 00:47:00.000
is like can i make this better um and
when i was at the tony robbins event i
was like i wonder what my
my question is that like the one in a
question you repeat over and over again
um
and i think mine is like how can i use
this
yeah and his was like how can i make
this better for me like it's so it was
like if i you know if i meet and it
probably sounds really utilitarian if i
meet someone like how can i use this um
which probably sounds bad but like i
think that's what like if i have a bad
situation like how can i use this i
think it also saves you a lot of time
right when you just you know you're
going to wear the same thing exactly the
same thing 100 and so that's how can i
use an outfit well this outfit is
optimized for working out i can change
my temperature really easily because if
it's too cold in here i can roll and
button and if it gets hot i can roll it
up if it gets way too hot i can take it
off and i'm just in a beater right i can
do the workouts with this and i can if i
button it up and go out i can go walk
into any restaurant if i take these off
because these are not sandals because
i've gone to the nicest restaurants if i
put my sport mode on no one stops me
right um four wheel drive uh and so like
anyways all that to say i think

48
00:47:00.000 --> 00:48:00.000
this represents probably a lot of the
values that i have in terms of like i've
thought of all of these things for me of
what is convenient what is functional
what is comfortable and then this is the
end result of that
on a quick quick questions on the 100
grams of protein can your body process
that at one setting or is or because i
heard that you could only process like
30 40 grams at once so 100 grams protein
is good you get it out of the way it's
not that so there's a nuance to that
there's a nuance to it
you can't do 100 grams of protein
it's it's 30 to 40 per hour
but
you would eat 100 and you'd process the
first 30 to 40 in the first hour then
you process the next 30 to 40 the next
hour and then like it's in your gut the
whole time yeah so
you can i mean it like thinking that
that would limit your protein intake
because you have to space it out
throughout the day would be like saying
a caveman isn't going to get his protein
if he kills an animal and then eats 200
grams of protein in one sitting because
he's [ __ ] starving that he only eats
the 30 grams the other 170 are thrown
out like you know what i mean so it's

49
00:48:00.000 --> 00:49:00.000
just you're going to get the first 30 to
40 now and then in an hour you get
another 30 40 just like and so you have
nutrients that are going through your
system yeah yeah now alex go into your
uh work uh yeah uh where you work from
like the the cloth is it a closet yeah
it's a closet and you and you always
have no strips what are those nose
strips do they make you smarter or what
are those what's special about this i
i've like i've had two operations on my
nose i can't breathe too out of my nose
um and so that just like it just
it just you know keeps it keeps it open
for me
um which is why i wear them and i
because if i don't i do this all day
long which i hate doing so it just keeps
it open um that was a no strip thing and
then the i i like the
being in the windowless
closet because if i
have a like i love views to look at but
if i look at views while i'm working i
will stare out into space for
you know hours and then i'm like oh
where am i and then 25 minutes went by
so if i have like a like i'm just very
scattered i think by nature and so i try
and

50
00:49:00.000 --> 00:50:00.000
control as many environmental
uh conditions as i can yeah
when they met you you had a long talk it
was like i think you stood for like two
hours
because i i didn't know you right so so
i see you speaking and i'm there and i'm
like 10 15 minutes in and and then it's
like 30 minutes in and then i'm like
damn he's uh he's still on yeah so so
i'm like and and and you're you're like
a lot about value yeah you're just
you're you're you're talking about the
boring stuff not in a bad way but that's
the stuff that people need to listen to
yeah people people you know people get
uh they want the entertainment and all
that stuff uh but
i stepped out got a drink came back in
and it's like an hour and fifteen you're
still there
and and then it goes on and on and then
i see i met you after uh when you came
out and we're at the bar but um
my question is um
on the on social media yeah you
you got into social media not too long
ago right because you weren't that known
before and i think was it eight months
ago or a little bit more 18 months is
when i made my first youtube video so in
18 months you just blew up and got a

51
00:50:00.000 --> 00:51:00.000
bunch of followers got verified
was there
was that your priority that you wanted
to do or did you have a game plan on
that or how did you do that yeah um
so there were there were a couple of
things so
dean graciosi who's tony robbins
right-hand man who's become i was with
him i know him yeah yeah he's become a
close friend
um
i asked him you know is fame worth it
because i i was like i was very big on
the like just be rich and anonymous like
i liked just being rich and anonymous
and he um
he said you know
alex i get people who send me weird
messages and threats and threaten my
family he said but if that's the price i
have to pay to make the impact i want to
have i'd pay it i paid every day of the
week
and we said that it really hit me
because i was like man i guess i'm you
know i'm trying to stay in this hole and
not be known because i because i was
kind of
shunning all that and he's like but if
you want to make the impact you want to
help the people that you say you want to
help like you have to become known and
so that was kind of like one of the big
things that that started me on the path

52
00:51:00.000 --> 00:52:00.000
that was probably the last push that
that got me into like all right i'll
start making content and whatnot and
then from a business perspective um you
know we're looking for internet
businesses that are doing you know 3
million to 30 million a year um to you
know take a a meaningful staking so we
can help scale them um and so that's
what acquisition.com is and so
the best way to do that type of
structure is to have inbound deal flows
to have people see stuff and then decide
to walk towards you whereas the rest of
my companies i've always built off of
paid ads affiliates um
you know cold calling manual outbound
things like that and so but i knew with
this process you know going getting a
proprietary deal structure set up
with trust at the onset where we've
already provided value we've already
helped someone 3x or 10x their business
before they start working with us it
just it just speeds up the process so
much more and we operate from shared
trust from the beginning and it just
makes for what i would hope you know
what i what i hoped and now i i can say
is true a much more enjoyable experience
for both people and it makes the

53
00:52:00.000 --> 00:53:00.000
diligence much shorter and so it just
makes for an overall more efficient
growth process
and also because we we come in as a
minority partner with these companies
like i have no legal strong arm i can't
say i'm going to kick out the ceo it's
his it's his company and so it all has
to be from a position of like influence
and trust and so like recently we just
pulled the stats on the portfolio but
like the average company that we've
worked with um increases their revenue
by 80 and their and triples their profit
within the first eight months which is
pretty cool
but you can only do that if someone
trusts you to like make major changes in
the business
and like i still have to have some calls
with them like it's okay yeah we're
going to increase this price or we're
going to change this continuity we're
going to eliminate this product line and
if if it was a traditional kind of like
private equity or family office
relationship they would probably be much
more resistant to those things and so
all of this branding stuff um has the
function of you know generating uh
inbound companies for us but then also
if we zoom way way out

54
00:53:00.000 --> 00:54:00.000
i like the idea of just helping a lot of
people for free without really selling
anything you spend a lot of money on ads
right now i spend zero dollars on ads
zero zero and you give a lot of value
and you have that that uh phrase where
you say i have nothing to sell you yeah
was that is is that a strategy or or is
that does that happen on accident yeah
it happened on accident well i was
really frustrated because people were
like this guy's gonna sell us something
i was like i have nothing to sell you i
was like go to the website what can you
what can you buy there's nothing to buy
um and so you know because we're we're
an investment company like that's what
we do so we we buy into companies you
know we're definitely a private equity
company so that's what we do so if you
were like where when's the ten thousand
dollar course coming out it's like it's
not like here's what you would get for
the ten thousand of course and i'll just
give it to you and you can just consume
it and crush it and the idea is the
strategy behind the business is get as
many people as i possibly can into the
world help as many of them as i possibly
can with the best stuff out there and
then the people who are hyper executors
will self-select because they can
execute without hand-holding
and then they will they will you know
seek us out and say hey
i've used all your stuff we three extra

55
00:54:00.000 --> 00:55:00.000
sales we 10x our profits whatever it is
and like now i want to go from you know
5 million to 50 million i want to go
from 10 million to you know 100 billion
whatever it is so wrapping up alex uh uh
to close out
i know that you sold your your uh you
sold a few companies right and you made
a you made a lot of millions can you uh
share a little bit of of
the details maybe as much as you can and
then how did that change
your life in layla's life
um
it so the money didn't change so i'll
tell you some things that so we sold the
the we sold two of the companies for
46.2 million it was an all-cash deal
there was no seller financing no earn
out no consulting back
which was which was great which was jim
launch and prestige labs we still
retained uh 33 of the company so we
still like we still believe in the
company we just wanted to exit from the
majority position so that we could do
acquisition.com which is the goal
we sold allen last year as well uh which
we were not at liberty to say what the
price was i can say it was a 12 million
top line software company um what we had

56
00:55:00.000 --> 00:56:00.000
done in 12 months prior so we sold all
three of those companies last year
and the the thing is is that like we
we've always run really high cash flow
businesses and to your point about um
living really pretty modestly compared
to our income um layla and i already
taken about 45 million in dividends out
of the businesses just in the five years
leading up to that and so
you know the the
you know the 46 million price tag on the
sale was not like life changing yeah and
i can say this
is that
when the wire came in
i did not feel the money that came in
but i did feel the stop in cash flow and
so you're just accustomed to a certain
amount of cash flow that comes in and
for me that's like almost my
like my thermostat for like how i'm
doing and all of a sudden that my big
cash flow pose got dropped down to zero
but then i got this big lump but i
didn't feel the lump and so i feel
poorer now
building acquisition.com than i did
uh with jim launch and procedure which
is kind of interesting yeah i'm just
saying like it was something that i

57
00:56:00.000 --> 00:57:00.000
didn't expect because most people most
people um they think about oh i'm gonna
sell i'm gonna get this much cash yeah
but then they don't realize the cash
flow yeah you you went through that so
so
is
is that so that really is important yeah
cause then you have to take that money
and then go recreate the cash flow you
once had
right
and so that uh so then it's like and
then you have to put an entirely
different hat on because we've been like
you and i too both have been in the
business game rather than the investment
investing game right i'm not i'm not
i'm not a
experienced investor
i have a by by sheer amount of money
that i can invest i am probably a high
percentage investor by net worth but
investing is not how i made my money
like i made money in business what i
mean and then i translated it into cash
um and so still to this day like we're
like acquisition.com is the thing that's
going to get us to a billion the money
that we took out is just put in really
safe stuff that
we don't want to lose like we don't need
to take big risks there because like
this is how this is how i'm going to

58
00:57:00.000 --> 00:58:00.000
make everything
to get past the billion um and i say
that often mostly because it's like a
fun goal and i'm dedicated to doing it
but it doesn't really matter can you
share of uh acquisition yeah.com the
like the company what what do you
exactly do yeah and and and how does
your your day look like now what's your
typical you could answer that either
last before or after but how was your
what's your typical monday through
sunday and laila's typical monday
through sunday for like for example us
we're we're always together like we work
out together work together have a life
together yeah so i think it's kind of
similar but i don't know maybe you guys
separate and and do different like
different things how how is your days
and and how and what is acquisition.com
so so we take internet businesses from
usually three ish you know three to ten
million is the range that most of them
come in at and we take them to you know
30 to 100 and that's kind of the
incubator spot and it's always internet
it's it's almost all been internet
businesses that we've taken on um

59
00:58:00.000 --> 00:59:00.000
and it's really we have a it's called
value acceleration method so vam is the
kind of the shorthand for it um but we
reverse out how we're going to get to 50
million in terms of what does the
enterprise need to look like right what
is the what's the leadership need to
look like what what team needs to be
there what strategy and what
monetization vehicle does this need to
be in to get the multiple that it's that
it's going to yield right and so we work
backwards from that kind of we put it as
a 36 month goal um
back to the present and then we start
chipping away at it 12 weeks at a time
and so in the beginning a lot of people
come to acquisition.com and they expect
that we're going to go
go do a ton of acquisition but the but
most of the times we have to fix the
back end we have to get customer success
metrics in place we have to get get them
on a crm that tracks everything from
click to close end to end so we can have
metrics to make decisions um
from there usually we can you know two
three five x the customer lifetime value
um and that's where we get the really
huge outsized returns because all that
drops the bottom line and so then we get
this massive boom in profit uh that we
can then once we've

60
00:59:00.000 --> 01:00:00.000
improved the customer experience
increase the the reputation in the space
then we have all this excess you know
net free cash flow that's pump getting
pumped out of the business that we can
then go spend on recruiting high level
talent go buying into networks or
acquisition channels that we couldn't
otherwise afford and so it's really we
we go back to front so we fix the back
end fix the product fix the experience
get the customer suite right make sure
customer segmentation is being tracked
appropriately so we can we can figure
out where we have the most leverage
on profitability we pull that as hard as
we can once we've pulled all the levers
we can on the back end then we go and
say okay well we're getting all of this
is from cold calls but do we have a cold
email team do we have do we have an ads
team do we have a tick tock team we have
an organic team do we have a partnership
and affiliates team so like all of a
sudden then we can start expanding the
amount of channels that we acquire and
when you do this is it just you and
layla or do you have like a cfo no we
have a team yeah yeah
everybody analyzes the business together
yeah exactly so we have also so like our
cfo for example
uh she's she's done 16 sell side exits

61
01:00:00.000 --> 01:01:00.000
so she was on the team that did the sale
um the biggest one she sold was 15
billion uh and then the last you know
she sold the last two companies with us
and then before that was 750 million
before that was a billion and so she's
very accustomed to
walking through these transactions not
not cheap right no not cheap she's a
partner um and so
what we do and we have you know our
portfolio operating partner who's really
specialized in customer success and
doing kind of what i just outlined
layla's really good at getting the
operational team the culture uh the
leadership in place um and so and you
know i'm pretty good at pricing and
product and getting the messaging right
and whatnot and so we think about as
like an on-demand c-suite it's like a
company comes in and let's say we know
that a company at 10 million needs to
look like this right and the company
currently looks like this yeah and so we
match what our reality is to fix this so
that it matches so we basically copy and
paste our expertise into the team so
that it can get to that level and then
maybe at 10 million we might have to
swap out two and get two different
people in or move two people uh above

62
01:01:00.000 --> 01:02:00.000
them unless they have the ability to
grow and so like you know at three
million you might need a staff account
in that at 10 million you might need a
controller and at you know 30 million
you need a cfo and so it's not just
knowing like okay this is what we need
to do to get there but we this is what
we need to do
right now in this business today to get
to the next step and so i think a lot of
times it's
the people will take something from two
steps forward and it's not the right
sequence even though it's the right move
yeah
okay so uh i want to respect your
timeout alex uh one one last question
and um
when
i realized uh like you talked about
controller then cfo ceo how important
they are yeah so when you start a
business you kind of want to have all
the control
and uh and you want to and you want to
say the last word and everything but
then then when you start doing good yeah
then you want to let go of the control
because you want to get smarter people
than you to run it for you so that you
don't have any control yeah um i know
you went through that whole process so
so
was is that how it is how you see it

63
01:02:00.000 --> 01:03:00.000
yeah i think entrepreneurship in general
is a continuous and unrelenting
relinquishing of control
and so like most people want freedom
right so it's like we have these these
polar opposite these contrasting values
that we are after
we're entrepreneurs so we want absolute
freedom and then we also want absolute
control and you can't have both and so
if you want true freedom you have to
give up control if you want true control
you have to give up your freedom and so
if everything's dependent on you
then everything's dependent on you and
so for me i value freedom more than i
value control
and i think that
the leveling up that happens in
entrepreneurship at least in my journey
has been what my expectations of talent
look like
like i remember when i got my first 50
000 a year employee and i was like whoa
this is awesome because i was used to
like
10 an hour you know so i was like this
is unbelievable like this is this is
where it's at and then i remember i got
my first seventy thousand year point i
was like this is where it's at then i
got my first six figure employee and i
was like okay
now we're talking and then i got my
first two hundred fifty thousand your
employee and i was like that's what's up

64
01:03:00.000 --> 01:04:00.000
and then i got my first million dollar
year employee and i was like okay and so
i think that what happens is it's like
it's continually leveling up what what
talent exists and i had a mentor say
this to me he said you have to remember
that the best talent isn't even on your
team yet yeah they're in the future you
haven't even hired them yet and so i
think that's been probably the biggest
thing because if we're if it's a
continuous process of relinquishing
control then it means it's a continuous
process of of leveling up the people
that you can give the control to
alex something that the audience doesn't
know about you something you never
shared in anywhere
man
uh
french is my first language
awesome thank you appreciate it thank
you guys hopefully it was valuable for
for your time as well
i had so many so many more i could have
kept going but
i know you gotta go

