The Next Generation
By Connor Gross & Giovanni Armonies-Assalone
The Next GenerationMay 11, 2022
Ice Machines, School Bus Companies, Billions In Tax Credits
Episode 1: Business & Banter
• Business of Ice Machines
• School Bus Routes
• ERC Tax Credits
• Shutting down LLCs
• Loyalty Brands
Re-Launching The Podcast
We got bored.
So we're back.
We're rebranding the show next week. Stay tuned if you don't see our faces in the cover are anymore.
Now we're both in NYC full time, so we'll be recording more episodes with great ideas & mediocre hosts.
#110 | What do Boring Businesses, Selfie Museums, and Personality Businesses Have In Common? - Connor and Gio
This episode was a fun one with Connor and Gio together. They discuss some fun brick and mortar businesses and potential business ideas that anyone could start right now.
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#109 | 400 Off-Market Real Estate Deals By 24 - Cole Ruud-Johnson
Cole has done more before turning 25 than most guys do their entire life. From the exact framework to wholesaling to growing profitable businesses, we get a tiny peak into the genius behind Cole Ruud-Johnson.
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#108 | Building a One Person Business doing $500K/year Profit at 28 - Sean O'Dowd
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@SeanODowd15
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#107 | How to Generate Millions From Databases, Doggie Daycares, and Single Name Domains - Connor and Gio
Today is a fun episode. Connor and Gio sit down together to talk some fun ideas they've found recently and are super interested in. The conversation ranges around some really fun business ideas, why billionaires should be partying more, and how single name domain companies are taking over and making TONS of money. If you want to see more of these episodes, be sure to drop some love on the show via Twitter and let us know more topics you'd like to hear us discuss!
From the Show:
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#106 | How To Build a Profitable Newsletter and Compete In A Crowded Market - Tyler Denk
Today we got to sit down with Tyler Denk, the co-creator and CEO of Beehiiv. The newsletter industry has plenty of competition, but Tyler saw something that no one else did. With his experience at Morning Brew and Google, he was able to launch a newsletter company that is designed for the creator in mind. In this episode we walk through how he did it, where he thinks the newsletter industry is going, and how YOU could launch your own successful newsletter.
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#105 – Podcasting Since 2009, Building a Life of Wealth, and Whether You Should Build to Sell - Dan Andrews
Today we have Dan Andrews on the show to talk about his career in podcasting, generating wealth, and building location independent businesses. We learn about his biggest regret selling his valet parking podium business, making good financial deals, and what it's like selling a business. Dan is absolutely a LEGEND in the space of online business and it was an absolute honor to sit down and have a conversation with him. You're gonna love this episode because we both left feeling educated, entertained, and connected!
Mentioned in the show: https://ofdollarsanddata.com/ by Nick Maggiulli
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#104 – Building Three 7-Figure Companies, and Finding The Best Real Estate Deals - Jon Rivera
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@JonathanMRivera
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#103 –How To Build A Great Life – Advice On Health, Relationships & Money with Kevin Dahlstrom
Today we have on Kevin Dahlstrom, CEO of Swell
We discuss advice on health, relationships, money and more.
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#102 - From Door-to-door Perfume Sales To a $1.5M ARR SaaS Business - JK Molina
Today we have JK Molina on the pod to discuss all things Twitter growth, SaaS, cohorts, and courses! JK has grown a very successful coaching business and previously built Tweet Hunter, an AI powered Twitter growth tool, to $1.5M ARR. We kick things off at the beginning as JK shares how he got started selling perfume door-to-door in Guatemala and how, over time, he progressed to AI and SaaS, before going on to launch his ‘likesaintcash.com’ Twitter leads course.
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#101 - Self-made with MaidThis, Quitting Private Equity To Launch A Remote Multi-Million Dollar Rental Cleaning Franchise - Neel Parekh
Neel Parekh is the founder of MaidThis Franchise, which helps homeowners and short-term rental hosts with their cleanings. We get into why he quit his high paying Private Equity job to start his own business and some of the biggest challenges he’s faced. Neel launched his business as a way to travel and work remotely, fast-forward to today, he has generated millions in revenue while having a fully remote team and wants to help other people achieve the same. MaidThis now covers all of Greater Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and at the end of 2020, they launched their first branch location in Denver, Colorado. Neel is now focused on growing the franchise model out and getting branch owners to provide the same high-level quality he has been doing in California.
Connect with Neel:
@NeelBParekh
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#100 - Special Episode: Past Guest Superlatives, Podcast Lessons & Mistakes, Future Plans
For our 100th episode we wanted to do something special, today we’re looking back at what launching the pod has taught us and how we plan to propel it into the future. Plus, we reflect on some of our favourite guests and place our wagers on which guests we think are set to achieve Billionaire status!
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Connect With Gio:
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#99 - How Buying Old Businesses Can Make $30M/yr - Reg Zeller
On today’s episode we have Reg Zeller, Founder and CEO of CaneKast, a company revolutionizing the foundry industry through a coast-to-coast network of non-ferrous casting facilities that provide quality products, on time. Before purchasing the first foundry, Reg worked at four Fortune 500 companies in everything from engineering to M&A to general management. Here we jump into Reg’s background, his business, and the tactics he’d use to get ahead if he was starting out today.
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#98 - From Corporate America To Exploring The World On Real Estate Income - Brian Luebben
On today’s episode we sit down with Brian Luebben, a successful Real Estate Investor, Podcast host of The Action Academy, and Entrepreneur out of Atlanta, Georgia.
We discuss Brian’s early start building a company, going on to climb the corporate ladder, and why he left. This one is a real gem for those looking for inspiration to get started and need actionable insights to take the leap.
Hit play now to learn more!
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#97 - Why Buying A Franchise Is Better Than An MBA - Brian Beers
In today’s episode we have Brian Beers! Brian is an entrepreneur and investor, with years of experience growing multiple revenue streams. Brian got started by growing his small family franchised auto repair business with 6 locations into a $36,000,000 enterprise with ~30 locations.
Here we discuss Format franchise business models and unit economics, how to get started, ghost kitchens, and much, much more!
Hit play now to learn more!
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Brian's Newsletter: https://brianbeers.substack.com/
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#96 - The Business & Tactics Of Building A Personal Newsletter Company - Jack Raines
In today’s episode we have Jack Raines! Jack is a writer for Litquidity, and well known for his finance blog ‘Young Money’, think Tim Urban’s ‘Wait But Why’ and Packy McCormick’s ‘Not Boring’ rolled into one…
Here we dive into Jack’s background, making $400,000+ in the markets before 24 years old, how he got started as a writer, and where he plans to take the blog and it’s 18,000+ readers from here!
Hit play now to learn more!
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#95 - Should You Start A Shopify Brand or App? - Dennis Hegstad
In today’s episode we sit down with Dennis Hegstad, Co-Founder of LiveRecover, an SMS marketing company that focused on Shopify merchants, scaling from 1,000s of merchants with no outside capital while driving over $100million in additional revenue to merchants. Dennis is also Founder of OrderBump, a pre-and-post-purchase upsell App for merchants using Shopify, where Dennis made a multi-figure exit within 100 days.
Dennis is a real DTC polymath, with a wealth of experience across e-comm and Shopify Apps. Here Dennis breaks down e-comm vs. Apps, brand building vs software development to uncover where the best opportunities are today.
Hit play now to learn more!
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#94 - $50M In Sleep DTC, Party Buses, And Juice Stores - Aaron Spivak | RE-GEN
Introducing The RE-GEN Series, where we take a look back at our earlier conversations with The Next Generation guests.
Today that’s with Aaron Spivak from episode 11! Aaron is the Co-Founder of Hush Blankets. At the time of recording Hush were on track to hit $50 million in revenue, selling weighted blankets and sleep accessories. Before hush blankets, Aaron ran one of the most popular party bus companies in Canada, and also launched a successful retail fruit juice business that is still doing well with multiples locations.
We dive into a lot of awesome topics. So stick around and don't forget to subscribe and leave a review if you liked today’s episode.
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#93 - Building A $2.5M/yr Cashflowing Machine - David Riggs
In today’s episode Connor sits down with David Riggs, the founder and CEO of web development agency Pneuma Media. David breaks down how to spend money scale your business, how to delegate, why a good website is one of your greatest assets, and the story of how his business came to work with billionaire Mark Cuban. If you own, or are looking to launch, an agency this one is for you!
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#92 - Raising $3.5M for $10M of Real Estate at 24 - Dante Belmonte
Today we have Dante Belmonte on the podcast. Dante is a Real Estate powerhouse, at only 24 he’s won multiple awards, sold 100+ investment properties, and worked with 100+ individual investors! Dante’s Victory Capital Group now manages a portfolio of over $10,000,000+! Here we discuss how Dante got his first deal, his deal fee breakdown, how he raises capital and more!
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#91 - Selling $100M+ Online, Exit From An 8-figure E-Comm Store, And Giving $10M+ Away - Jony Volk
On today’s episode we catch up with Jonathan (Jony) Volk, CEO of AllGuard, LLC, a portfolio of e-comm companies in the automotive space. Jony is the founder of carcovers.com, a DTC e-comm site that offers form-fitting products tailored to a range of vehicles. Jony has 20+ years of experience, has sold over $100M+ online, as well as 1 bootstrapped exit from an 8-figure e-comm store. Hit play now, this one’s wild.
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#90 - Building a $50M+, 90 Person Agency + Owning 8-figures of Real Estate at 29 - Daniel Snow
On today’s episode we catch up with Daniel Snow. Daniel is CEO and Founder of The Snow Agency, a performance and social media marketing agency in the Ecomm DTC space. Daniel is a proven expert, generating over $50M in revenue.
Prior to launching The Snow Agency Daniel had immense success with two social media based companies he founded while still in college, Caffeine Digital and Snow Media. Caffeine Digital, a self serve ad platform tool geared towards influencers on Instagram and Twitter to monetize their followings, generated nearly $7M in revenue and registered over 3,000 affiliates in its first year of business. Daniel founded Caffeine Digital in August 2014 during the summer of his junior year of college, while studying for the Dental Admissions Test. Snow Media, the holding company for Daniel’s numerous social accounts, with a combined following of over 20 million+ followers across Twitter and Instagram. Daniel is a Forbes Contributor and Council Member. This is not one to be missed.
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#89 - Early Career Advice, Why You Shouldn’t Be A Jack Of All Trade - Moses Kagan
On today’s show we have Moses Kagan, co-founder and partner at Adaptive Realty. Adaptive Realty has purchased and renovated more than 100+ apartment buildings in the LA market and currently owns just over $200MM in real estate. Here our conversation focused on career paths and how to get started as a 20-something today. This is not one to be missed.
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#88 - How To Get Wealthy (Connors Rant)
In today’s episode Connor breaks down the fundamentals of wealth and his 3 rules for wealth building. This podcast exists for the 20-somethings out there and we know many of you, ourselves included, have not really lived through a market downturn so today Connor shares his tools for not only how to survive but how to continue to thrive.
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#87 - DTC Done Right, From $0 to $32,000,000+ In 3 Years - Ron Shah
In today’s episode we catch up with Ron Shah, CEO & Co-Founder of Obvi, a DTC collagen supplements brand for women. Ron breaks down his trajectory; starting at Deloitte, before going on to grow his own agency. We discuss how his past experiences led to founding Obvi, where he steers the ship as CEO. This episode is FULL of actionable insights and Ron gives an honest breakdown of how he and his team took Obvi from $0 to $32,000,000+ in revenue in just over 3 years!
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#86 - Lessons From Buying and Building $400M of Real Estate - Levi Benkert
In today’s episode we chat with Levi Benkert. Levi caught our attention on Twitter, where we learned about his crazy Real Estate stories during his early years. Levi has bought, managed and developed over $400M+ in real estate properties. We revisit how he got started and breakdown how anyone can do the same. This isn’t one you want to miss!
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#85 – This 25 Year Old Built 7 Cabins Making $550,000 A Year – Isaac French
On today's episode we have Isaac French, a 25 year old Short Term Rentals assassin! Isaac got an early start, at 19 he was a Project Manager in construction overseeing multi-million dollar developments. Fast forward a few years and he's built his own portfolio of luxury cabins, making millions in the process. We cover all this and more as we dig into all things STR and breakdown Isaac's forward-thinking tech stack to further improve booking success and guest experience (cabins cooling and warming to set temperatures automatically hours prior to guest arrivals...).
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#84 – How To Buy A Business In Your 20’s Without $$$ – Ryan Condie
Ryan Condie knows a thing or two when it comes to purchasing businesses...Ryan has started 8+ businesses, bought 4, and sold 2!
Ryan joins us to discuss how you can do it too, with minimal cash. Ryan goes deep on past experiences and the strategies needed to pull off, not just the best purchases, but also when and how to exit for live changing money!
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#83 — Selling Morning Brew For $75M + How To Use Content As Leverage With Austin Rief
In today’s episode we have non other than Austin Rief, the Co-Founder of business newsletter Morning Brew. The company started in college while Austin and Alex studied at the University of Michigan and went on to take the world of newsletters by storm.
In this episode, we spoke about how Austin got started, where and how the company developed, and what’s next.
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#82 – E-commerce Tactics To Build A 7 Figure Tea Business noonbrew – Andrew Case
We discuss how to manage inventory and selling out of stock, and why the messaging in your marketing can make all the difference in how customers respond. How Andrew and noonbrew are thinking about the current state of e-comm. As well as the mental models Andrew uses to find high potential e-comm startup ideas.
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#81 Building A Short Term Rental Airbnb Portfolio With Taylor Jones
Connect With Taylor here:
Twitter @MrJonesSTRs.
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#80 Buying Off-Market Deals & Making $40k/Mo On Vending Machines - Quinn Miller
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#79 Lessons from Buying 14 Co’s Doing $100M+/year with Xavier Helgesen
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#78 The Magic Of Real Estate – 5 Reasons Everyone Should Buy A Property In Their 20's
We’re back! (Well Gio is…) We’ve been busy in the thick of it with all that we’ve got going on in real estate but I’m here to share an update! In today’s episode I dive into where we’re at, where we’ve been, and where we’re going with all things RE! Why you should get into real estate when you’re young and why, even without savings, real estate can be one of the best investments you ever make. Here I dive into the numbers and give you a complete breakdown of our finances to help you better navigate, as well as other tricks and tips to get started!
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#77 From Bankruptcy To 6-Figure Agency — Josh Durham
Josh Durham knows the downside of entrepreneurship, In 2015 he founded a weighted blanket e-commerce company and quickly grew revenue. Then it went out of business.
Fast forward to today and Josh has bounced back bigger and better. He launched a successful marketing agency, Aligned Growth Management, that builds on his e-commerce experience, a growth firm helping young DTC brands scale into big brands profitably. In today’s episode we discuss his journey, from early success to bankruptcy and back.
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#76 From A $34 Blog To +$32 Million Flipping Websites — James Camp
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#75 Rob Fraser — The Difference Between A $1M, $10M, and $100M Ecomm Brand
Socks were boring, but Rob Fraser is proving they can be a viable business. On today’s episode we sit down with Rob Fraser, business founder and ex pro-athlete, who in 2015 enrolled in Camosun College with the goal of learning how to make a career in sports management. “When I was retired and went to school, I was the kid that always wore funky socks. I just kept wearing them,” Fraser said. “I was literally, ‘the sock guy.’” In September 2016, Fraser founded the athletic apparel company endūr, now Outway. Fraser saw the opportunity as a way to stay in sports and create a brand that helped athletes express their own creativity. He also saw a lucrative chance to carve a niche in an industry that wasn’t keeping up with a changing athletic apparel industry in the 2010s. In five years, endūr has grown from a company that began with an initial $1,000 investment into one that has earned millions. Connect With Rob: Twitter Want to hear about new episodes? Subscribe via email and check us out on Twitter: @TheNextGenPod
#74 Adam Hascall — Turning A D*ck Prank Into A Multi-Million $ Chocolate Business
Sitting down with Adam Hascall, Founder of Rain Parade, we discuss launching a prank company that, well, sends dicks to people’s doors anonymously as a prank — Dick At Your Door. What started as a joke turned into a multi-million $ business generating over $125k/month.
Adam also talks about the restrictions he faced due to his company's name, plus the hardships of starting a perishable-goods company.
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#73 — Brainstorming Niche Business Ideas with Johnny Robinson
In this episode we go back and forth on big potential niche business ideas with good friend of the podcast, Johnny Robinson AKA @SqueegeeGod. Johnny has made over $1.2M in the last 3 years while still in college and is currently scaling his window cleaning business to $10 Million in revenue and has a depth of knowledge on home service businesses.
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#72 Over 15 Ideas For How To Use a Virtual Assistant — Bryant Sullentrop
In this episode, we talked about the in-and-outs of hiring worthy and top talented virtual assistants. From measuring their knowledge in building Notion Boards, screening candidates, job postings, and appropriate compensation. Aside from business, we discussed Bryant studying for being a Duolingo, he’s learning Spanish which I found interesting.
Quotable Quotes:
“We have a series of 200 tests in this software that we use that we can give to them. And so like all of our everyone that like we vet, they take a personality test, an IQ test, and a test on the actual and then a test on the actual things that they'd be doing.” (12:33)
“When you're looking for contractors, look in either local Facebook groups or Facebook. Facebook marketplace type stuff for Craigslist, because there are a lot of contractors that they don't have websites, and I'm nothing like unless you wouldn't know that they exist.”
“We have to do more to figure out and make sure that they're actually going to be good, you know, a good fit” (12:08)
Don’t Miss:
Book Keeping (9:42)
VA Compensation (25:52)
Getting Reviews in Local Businesses (34:01)
Connect With Bryant:
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#71 Nathan Resnick — Building Boutique Bubble Hotels And An 8-Figure YC-Backed Sourcing Platform
Any time is a good time to start a company. In this episode, I talked with Nathan Resnick who started young as 15 for being a businessman and entrepreneur. After graduating college in 2017, he founded Sourcify - an international sourcing company that has remarkably brought approximately 10% of savings on costs and production to hundreds of brands around the world.
Nathan Resnick is the founder and CEO of Sourcify, a platform that simplifies manufacturing. Throughout his career, he has developed dozens of products. He’s now running his 8 figure company Sourcify and Bubble Hotel. In this episode, we discussed hows the supply chain internationally during pandemics, his a venture into real estate, and many more.
Quotable Quotes:
"We're always looking to help our customers cut costs, while also improving quality and lead time. So those are kind of the three main pillars, we look at cost, quality, and lead time. (15:17)
“I was never a good writer, like, I got to actually D in English. My junior year of high school, I was like, so bad in English class, my teacher was like; “Hey never going to publish, never going to be an author or whatever.” (11:08)
“In real estate, in general, it's all about finding the deal. You know, it doesn't matter if you're doing duplexes doesn't matter. If you're doing storage units, it's literally all about finding the deal.” (29:10)
Don’t Miss:
- Nathan’s E-commerce Journey when he’s 15 (1:26)
- Supply Chain Difficulties during pandemic (12:24)
- Unique Glamping Hotel Experience with Bubble Hotel (19:55)
- E-commerce to Real Estate Venture (21:55)
- Hospitality Business (27:44)
- Nathan’s Bussiness and Personal Goal (40:47)
Connect with Nathan:
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#70 Dan Soviero — Making Millions Dominating The Sport of Business
Dan founded Signature Lacrosse in 2015 with the goal of creating the first "premium" lacrosse ball. His athletic ball brand is now used by more than 300 college lacrosse programs worldwide. Over the years, Signature has expanded its services beyond lacrosse to include the customization of team apparel and equipment through an easy-to-use process.
Quotable Quotes in this Episode
“I was pretty good at inside sales, I learned how to, build the call scripts, build the touchpoint processes, train sales reps, hire all of that. So that felt like the most natural-like growth strategy for us.” (31:01)
“But the biggest changing point for me was like learning that I always was very competitive. And I always had goals.” (47:29)
“I was a freshman. And I was like, why am I depressed? Like, I have all these, this amazing family, all these amazing friends. Like, I've been lucky with the ladies like no reason at all to be depressed. But for some reason, like, I feel like this. I don't know what it is.” (47:58)
Don’t Miss:
Dan’s Sports Background (1:35)
Sales Gig over College internship (14:50)
How Dan sold his Lacrosse Ball (23:41)
Freshmen Dan Mental State (47:07)
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#69 Oliver Brocato — This College Sophmore Is Selling $400k+ In Sex Chocolate
For the past series of episodes, we had amazing people with small businesses, real estate, software, and other forms of entrepreneurship. We're excited to bring you Oliver Brocato, a 20-year-old Sophomore at the University of Michigan who’s building a million-dollar sex chocolate business.
Usually, people start off selling t-shirts or trying to build websites. Thus, Oliver's entrepreneurial venture didn’t start with sex chocolate. In this episode, we unpacked his business ventures and how Oliver come up to build a sex chocolate business. Challenges, pros, and cons of running food-based products and how they market them online in spite of community guidelines experiences, and other problems. We also discussed ways and funnels to win the marketing campaign.
Quotes from this episode:
- "Not being able to run PPC, we thought it was gonna be like, pretty brutal, but it actually ended up being like a blessing in disguise. The reason why it's because it made us focus on the fundamentals and made us focus on organic.” (22:06)
- “So I love working with micro-influencers, like Tiktoker with 200,000 followers to 600,000 followers. For me, that's kind of the sweet spot where I think you're able to extract the most value from a brand perspective.” (39:45)
- “Instead of selling like 50 chocolates in a box, we sold three, this creates like scarcity and value, we sell it, we put in a super sexy and luxurious box,” (18:11)
Don't Miss:
- Business venture before Sex Chocolate (00:50)
- How Sex Scholate Business Ideas Come up (16:44)
- Shitty PArt of Business (20:13)
- How Mobile-Only Website work for Oliver’s business? (29:19)
- Funnel of getting the right Influencer (45:55)
Connect with Oliver:
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#68 Colin Landforce — Building An 8-figure Cannabis Company
In this episode, we have Colin Landforce, CTO for a publicly-traded cannabis company, UnrivaledBrands. Colin has built a career hustling to build one of the biggest names in the cannabis industry and still finds time to work on miscellaneous projects from selling physical goods to even building software. He loves the play of building an agency and then building SaaS and all the systems behind it.
We discussed how Colin started becoming an entrepreneur and its challenges especially he built a Cannabis Brand where there are a lot of regulations needed to follow to operate. How to market high ticket sales like firearms amidst the digital marketing environment.
Quotes from this episode:
- “The way you make it work with any partner, even if they are a friend; you communicate clearly and you set expectations with each other, you speak candidly with one another. Put people in roles based on their merit not based on it being the homie.” (7:15)
- “Cannabis hasn't even come close, like entering pop culture and culture in general in the future, I see tons of loads happening.” (20:47)
- “I think focus is a little bit of a scam. I jumped into this business, I had my moment of I'm finally going to focus on something. But I did not get outsize results out of it.” (32:26)
- Colin Landforce
Don’t miss:
- First Dollar Income Stream (1:22)
- Why Agency is a Trap? (3:14)
- Marketing high ticket sales like Firearms (9:17)
- Will Cannabis catch up to alcohol sales? (18:31)
- Business idea in Cannabis Space (23:53)
Connect with Colin:
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#67 — How To Sell A 7-Figure Agency & Brainstorming Business Ideas - Marketing Max
In today's episode, we are joined by Max Bidna who goes as “Marketing Max” on Twitter. Max is the previous owner of a seven-figure agency Hell’s Creative that helps brands get more out of their ad spend by generating high-performance videos and graphics to turn prospects into buyers' results averaging 4x return on their ad spend. Currently, Max is imparting hacks among entrepreneurs through GrowthHacksWeekly.com – a weekly newsletter where he shares his best growth hacks.
We unpacked the ins and outs of building an agency including finding top talents across the globe. The system that lies in the hiring process such as screening their cover letter and interviews.
Find out more about Max here:
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#66 — Unconventional Advice For Entrepreneurs In Their 20’s - Michael Girdley
In today’s episode, we are joined by Michael Girdley, an entrepreneur and investor who buys, starts, and operates companies in San Antonio, Texas. His ventures include everything from tech and software companies to coffee shops and even to fireworks. Yes, you read that right, fireworks!
Michael shares with us how he takes business concepts and turns it into reality by incubating or putting up businesses. Though he’s no longer 20-something, his age and experience have helped him amass a huge amount of wisdom and experience over the course of his career, including how his early entrepreneurial beginning led him to where he is today, the struggles he faced on that journey, and some very important lessons. Listen to find out more.
Quotes from this episode:
● “Nothing gives me more joy than that process of creating support and then supporting the right team as they go on.” (6:44)
● “That's ultimately the number one thing. How can you find that culture of people that are pursuing entrepreneurship?” (14:36)
● “What I learned over a number of years is this roller coaster, you need to make it like a sloping road that you're going up and down. Never get too high. Never get too low. I don't take the good things personally. I don't take the bad things personally. Just keep it all in perspective.” (22:37)
● “The core of every great business person is a combination of curiosity and humility.” (30:44)
-Michael Girdley
Don’t miss:
● What Michael does (1:09)
● The advantage of having an entrepreneurial family (10:30)
● Building strong and solid relationships with business partners (25:57)
● How to become a good entrepreneur (30:43)
● Sound advice from Michael (40:240)
Find out more about Michael here:
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#65 — Going From 0 to 18 Rental Units At 24 Years Old – Grace Gudenkauf
Grace Gudenkauf is a 24-year-old who originally worked as a mechanical engineer then switched careers and founded Good Morning Investments, a real estate business in Eastern Iowa. In an amazing feat, Grace was able to acquire 18 rental properties, and she shares how this career change and founding a business happened accidentally, which she explains more about in this episode.
Grace talks about creative financing and what it means, the huge impact getting a mentor had on her business, mistakes she’s committed that you should avoid, and so much more. She also offers great advice for anyone who’s starting out or interested in the real estate industry such as how to find your first house and tips on negotiation and community engagement. You won’t want to miss this episode.
Quotes from this episode:
● “Do you want to do a little bit more work and hopefully get a better deal? Or do you want to take maybe a little bit of an easier way, maybe pay a little bit more, but somebody is doing a lot of that work for you? So, there's no right answer.” 8:37)
● “When I was only three months into real estate, I decided to enroll in a mentorship that was $5,000, which is a lot of money, and that exponentially grew my business.” (12:12)
● “Under promise and over deliver to yourself, to your investors, to your team.” (22:44)
● “If you're a newbie, start with a cosmetic rehab. Look for that orange shag carpet and the pink painted kitchen and the oak cabinets… That can be a great first deal to start out with.” (40:59)
-Grace Gudenkauf
Don’t miss:
● How Grace got into real estate (2:24)
● Lessons learned from her first sale (9:15)
● Creative financing (14:14)
● What you need to know before getting into real estate in Iowa (26:22)
● Streamlining operations through apps and tools (36:46)
Find out more about Good Morning Investments here:
Connect with Grace here:
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#64 — Building A Community For Your Festival Brand – Tom Worcester
Based in Washington, D.C., Lunchbox went from $0 to $40k+ MRR in a matter of months and is the only festival hydration bag you'll ever need, designed to prevent the top issues facing festival attendees around the globe, pickpockets. The Lunchbox is the most lightweight, military-grade, compact festival bag available, with unique, personalized aesthetics that allow each user to create their own Lunchbox experience.
At the core of Lunchbox’s mission, Tom and the team want to improve the festival experience by extending not just their product, but also their operations to bigger horizons. “We want to be partnering with these festivals, take over their operations, take over the Lunchbox water line, put these bags in the hands of medical and security for visual identification.” With big ambitions in mind, the best of Lunchbox is yet to come.
Connect with Tom here:
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#63 Codie Sanchez — Building Wealth Through 26 Businesses; How To Buy, Build, And Sell 8 Figure Cos
Meet Codie Sanchez, a self-made contrarian investing guru who wants to help you get rich. Codie is a reformed journalist turned investor who over the course of her career has bought and sold 66+ businesses, built x2 8 figure and x2 7 figure businesses and now runs a portfolio of 26 companies, ranging from car washes to laundromats to a paid newsletter business. It may not sound glamorous, but you can earn a healthy income from owning trailer parks. Or maybe investing in laundromats, car washes, or tiny home Airbnbs is more your speed. These are the kinds of straightforward, but perhaps overlooked money-making ideas that Codie Sanchez both practices and preaches. The 34-year-old self-made and self-styled investment expert is the co-founder of Unconventional Acquisitions, an educational provider that helps people learn how to buy small businesses. She also founded Contrarian Thinking, a newsletter that discusses investment themes and trends, as well as offering a “how-to playbook on ways to cash flow.” But she quickly shifted her professional focus from journalism to the world of high finance — working for Vanguard, Goldman Sachs and State Street, and becoming head of Latin American investments for First Trust. She also served as a partner at Entourage Effect Capital, investing in the growing cannabis industry. We caught up with Sanchez and asked her to explain a little more about what she does and how she became an investing expert.
Connect with Codie here:
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