David Royce - 4x Exited Entrepreneur ($500M) | Following Your Dreams Can Keep You Broke

I'd say in sales isn't just like what you say it's how you say it becoming an expert something to try to follow your passion I think that's a tough sale because number one there's a lot of passion industries out there the average person Those industry doesn't make a lot so following your passion can actually be dangerous I wasn't passionate about pest control in the beginning, but I was really good at it Go out and get an experience and try things when you're young. This is David Royce He didn't raise a single dollar adventure capital. He didn't follow Silicon Valley's playbook and yet He built not one not two but three multi-million dollar companies including active environmental one of the fastest growing Past control firms in America everything is hard before it is easy. I don't care how smart you are If you work eight hours a day and I'm working 16 you're not gonna catch up to me What do you think one of the most important ideas that helped you succeed? I think Smart this is in a story about business. It's a story about systems belief and a sixth grade teacher who changed everything And this is the conversation that might just change how you see discipline, success, and what it really takes to build an empire from nothing I don't think being an entrepreneur is about an investigation It's not about a building and exit. It's the journey. I feel like our education system needs a remake At this point, I feel like the first two years of GE's I think we should be able to pick whatever classes we want to take If you're learning it's inspiring you can take control of your life that way There's so much great knowledge out there You David You've said that you were the accidental entrepreneur. So explain to me what that means You know, I'd say it's something that I just kind of fell into So it starts it goes back to what I was in college Like I'm a college student and I had a friend come to me and say hey, I made 25 grand last summer You know, since 25 years ago, so it's probably like 50 grand today And he goes, you know, I went out and sold pass control and I had never I didn't really hear anything that he was actually saying I just wrote the 25 grand and that was it I'm like tweet by grad in the summer like in between college breaks to make that money. That's insane So I drove out to Sacramento, California I had an apartment, you know, start going out and selling it for the first five days. I sell zero Accounts, you know, other guys around me are selling one before accounts and I'm going what is wrong with me? Are you just going door to door? Going door to door selling pass Yeah, and just residential neighborhoods You know, and it's hot sticky, you know, and it's a new new field. I was working as snowboard shop before Nine bucks an hour, you know, very different mentality so That weekend I went out and I Went to like a Barnes and Noble, you know, and got a bunch of books and just started studying 90 minutes a day The thought was I had to did have those thoughts in my mind and maybe I should go home But I'd already got an apartment. I'm like well, let's yeah, just this is for the rubber of its road We got to do what we got to do So at 90 minutes a day like every day for the rest of that summer studying and by the end of the summer I was the top sales rookie and the whole company out of like come 100 people So what was the I mean, you're studying a lot Great, but what was the thing that actually if you look back because hindsight's always 2020 out of all the different things that you studied What was the thing that actually allowed you to be successful even as like a sales guy? was it just like pure tenacity showing up was just understanding the product better than everyone else like what was the sort of the x factor? Was it a whole bunch of different things? Yeah, I think it was a combination of really being invested right being all in going I'm going to figure out this no matter what constantly reading and constantly working constantly training Trying to get better on a daily basis and I think you know everything's hard before it's easy You know, it's like it takes practice and Perseverance is genius in disguise, right? Like you just keep working at it and working at it I'd say in sales, you know a lot of it Isn't just like what you say, but it's how you say it And so learning body language like parable communication all those types of things I had a lot of sales people I worked with they're like man What are you doing? This is this is incredible and they would say can you go over an objection for us like you know I have this issue, you know, tell me how you would say it and I would say it and they're like why say the exact same words And I'm like, but I think it's how you say it and not what you say I want to talk we can talk about sales in a bit But I think that the one thing that I think is really interesting is the idea of following your passion And I don't think anybody's passion is pest control. No, so probably not when somebody there's a few sick people out there But yeah when somebody is trying to figure out where to start so A lot of people who are listening to this are probably at the same level as you in your career Maybe you're in college maybe you're in university If you're listening to this show you probably are a little bit entrepreneurial you're trying to figure out like what to do And the prevailing wisdom is sort of follow your passion or follow what you're interested in And I think that there's some wisdom in that If you've already lived in an industry for a period of time and you have access to information that gives you a competitive advantage So for entrepreneurs that are starting a little bit later on not right out of college university And they've worked in industry for 20 years and they understand it industry better than anyone else I do believe they should go build in that industry But when you have no experience at all How do you figure out where to spend your time? I mean you kind of lucked into it because your friend said I just made 25 grand But what's the wisdom for somebody that has no direction Doesn't know if they should really follow their passion or should they just try and figure out something that's highly lucrative kind of like what you did Like what do you tell that 21 2021 22 year old entrepreneur Yeah, so I got lots on that so one You know, I think it was cynica that said luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation And so number one I'd start to I If you're if you're in school and you're trying to figure out what am I going to do I started looking for opportunities like how to learn how to identify an opportunity that could make sense Right, if you look at pest control you could go okay recurring business model or recurring revenue model You could say you know, it's growing in X per year The way my particular marking angle was growing seven the 10 times as fast as the traditional marketing model And so I'm like well, that's that is a great way to grow Um, and I would I would argue go get experience Which is really what you did which is what I did yeah I just happen to have that experience and then I leveraged being a top sales rookie to being a sales manager became a top sales manager and then took over an entire sales program and developed the sales program wrote training manuals to create a training videos for that program I was managing 100 people by the time I graduated college and so becoming an expert something To try to follow your passion I think that's a tough sale Because number one, there's a lot of passion industries out there, right? Like so a lot of people want to get into restaurants or Hollywood or music or whatever it might be and The average person those industry doesn't make a lot Right, and so following your passion can actually be dangerous So I wasn't passionate about pest control in the beginning, but I was really good at it And I got passionate initially about sales and then I got passionate about management and training and then I I took that next step where I said well, what if I own my own business in this and then I could You know get really great operations and understanding financials and all that sort of a thing And then you know that it was like can you scale from here to here So it was kind of baby steps along the way and I think people like I'd certainly be more excited about investing in somebody if they had experience versus somebody has You know just passion to go into something and they have no idea what they're getting into because One, they don't know if they're going to be any good at it too. They don't know if they're even going to like it Right, you may go out and you're like, oh, this isn't what I thought You know, I mean like like eating chocolates, but I don't want to make them That's fair. Yeah, so yeah, it's I go out and get experience and try things when you're young You can you can experiment all that you know for many years You know if you don't have you know a wife and kids or a family or whatever You know you've got lots of time to figure out what it is that you want to do When did you choose to move from employee to entrepreneur? What was the what was the inflection point? So I was uh Leading about a hundred people over this training program that I developed for a company called moxie And I have a studying finance in school I thought I was going to go into investment banking I was like the top job you could get you know That's one that turns a lot of people out too. It's you know, it's it's a it's a total grind And on my head, I'm like, okay, I'm already working 14, 16 hour days and sales you know and training and all this stuff I was doing Six days a week, you know, I've got I've got the work ethic to go into investment banking And then you know studying finance or whatever and I thought I'll go to investment banking and then maybe go into private equity, you know You know, maybe I do my inference a day, but you know, that was so far out. It just was hard to even think about Um and I went to my boss and I said I need a letter of recommendation for me. I needed to be really good Like this is like one of the hardest jobs to get You know, but I need you to explain, you know, how I was top in sales and like managed all these people And I was you know leader blah blah blah and he just looks me and goes What are you doing man? I gotta go work 80 100 hour weeks for somebody else and like you're in the top one percent of one percent What you're doing here should go start your own company And I had never even realistically thought about it He kind of intimated that before and said oh, if you ever want to start your own company someday You know, you can kind of learn here and go do your own thing and I was just like I'm I'm in college like this isn't a very sophisticated industry. I'm probably gonna you know go do investment banking or something else But it hit me at that moment and I just thought Yeah, I'm making 225 grand The summer at that point probably a half a million dollars almost in today's money And I'm gonna go take a 70k a year job and work those hours all year long And actually know this industry pretty well like I've I've knocked 60,000 doors You know, I talked to all these people I understand what they want. I have an idea of what we could do better And I worked at a big company my first year of Like 130 million dollar company And so I understood what they were doing at a bigger scale and then this other company is working It was a startup But only been in business for four years And then my boss goes you know, and by the way, I'm selling my company for 10 million bucks or whatever And I'm like wait a second four years then my business for four years and I was here three of those years And you're telling me I should go start my own thing and I thought okay If I go do this for some reason I don't like it I can always go back to MBA school This will be kind of like my three four-year deal of work experience before I go back to school So that's what propelled me to get into it and I had saved about 300 grand Um, and then my boss is like I'll invest in you if you go do it He's like I want to be a silent parker and not do anything, but Cal invest in you And so I had money and yeah, I jumped in there was never There was never a chance for you to take over his business So um, I actually unlicensed so he sold off his business and he didn't have any brand Recognition and so um terminax did not want the the name moxie And so I licensed the moxie name from him As well and when you first build Like a service-based business What are the main things that you have to think about because now you're moving from employee and you were just sales To you know now you have to go zero to one you have to figure out the entire business model And I'm assuming when you're first starting out you are the salesperson you're the one selling everything And then what are sort of the main moves that you make to get like a service-based business off the ground You know, there's a there's a list of things you got to do and I'm sure any industry in terms of how do you open up a location and that sort of thing And because I had him invest in me. I could ask him questions along the way Um, you don't say hey, what do you think about this or what do you think about that? The other thing I did is before I started I sat down with him for many hours and asked him questions like What would you do with the business if you could fix it if you actually had the time he had multiple kids and you know He was very busy at that point in his life What what would you change about the company and there's about 30 things that I wrote down And so it was it was an opportunity for me to go to work and start solving problems And he gave you the blueprint. Yeah, it was like an experiment right like um the first company I was involved in the day-to-day We had one location and we're running like 65 trucks out of that single location by the time he sold And then I'd open up another location to understand what is it like to scale Multiple locations where you can't be there every day, you know and run it um So yeah, it really was a great hands-on experience. I I really also um, I never sold knocked the door myself I never went out um, you know and serviced homes on my own I was very committed to not getting involved in the business too much like where I had to be there um And really that was like the step to go become a regional company with the next company after that Do you believe Just looking back at sort of your own Is it your own story? Do you believe that people are born as entrepreneurs or is it a skill set that you can really develop And I I really don't believe that people are really born At all with anything in particular, you know Unless you're gonna be seven feet tall. You're gonna have an advantage in basketball or something Like I think everybody's got to practice practice practice same thing to tell my kids Um, you know and everything is hard before it is easy, you know It's you've got to get that 10,000 hours rule in or that principle right from Malcolm Gladwell Yeah, and I think that's the beautiful thing kind of about the American dream, you know You do have that ability to grow you may have to go find money somehow, you know Whether that's in sales or investors or whatever it might be But if you go out and you work hard get education get experienced people will want to invest in too Um Do some people have it maybe a different hard drive like well I look at information and knowledge just like software Right and like you're just constantly upgrading your software as you read more books You get an education whatever that is Just do some people have maybe have a better hard like a better processor, you know or hard drive or whatever Maybe maybe the there's the you know some argument whether Some people like QIs are a little better or maybe someone Has ADHD and they can hyper focus or the neurodivergent or whatever it might be So maybe there's a little bit of a gift that way out listen a whole other conversation But I think a lot of people now are just so heavily influenced by social media And so heavily influenced by these perceived overnight success stories that are either fake or not overnight success stories Because that doesn't even exist Um that expectations are not aligned so then when people won't be the entrepreneurs They think that it's going to be a lot easier than it actually is and that that hurts and that If you don't set the right expectations when you're starting yet if you think you're gonna make x million dollars in year one or year two And that's you know Again 0.001 percent of people actually become successful that quickly or whatever it is their building Then all of a sudden when you don't hit that then it's a little bit harder to to keep going But if you set expectations properly from the get go and you realize okay I'm gonna be in this for the next 10 to 15 years I think that regardless of whether or not you have an aptitude for entrepreneurship You'll find a way to become successful just because you'll stay in the game long enough. Yeah I'm a 20 year overnight success right like 20 years Yeah, so I can give you dozens of examples of friends I have Who are wicked smart they just intellectually You tell them once and it just sticks and that can be a gift But I was never that way it I have to reread things over and over to you it's sticking my brain and To me, it's it's more about ours. It's just like how much you will need to work and how passionate and how obsessed Can you be about something so that you're just constantly It's like I don't care it works 14 60 hour days and then you know that's actually your competitive advantage because I don't care how smart you are if you work eight hours a day and I'm working 16 You're not going to catch up to me. Yeah, it's just it's like Maybe there's a few people out there, but the majority of people can't It's just it's too much. Yeah, if I was working 10 you're working eight. Yeah, maybe even 12 You were doing eight, but you're not if I'm doing twice the amount of day work in a day where hours dedicated to something I'm gonna beat you So you nearly went bankrupt at one point. Yeah, first year first year So this is what entrepreneurship really looks like yes, so explain to me what happened and sort of how you recovered because Everybody has these sort of shit hitting the fan moments in their business. I'm sure you've had lots Over 20 years, but when it happens really early on Sometimes a lot of people like you know what this is not for me. Fuck this. I'm out I'd rather learn early on than later, right? That's true, too. Yeah, it's like fail small fail fast And so that you don't make those mistakes later at a much grander scale. So it's almost like a pilot Our first year what I had forecast like even with my my finance degree You know, we've gone. Okay, well if we do this well, we're gonna need X amount of money And if we do what in my mind was the the high Well, we'll need this much, but I never forecast it up here And so we had a good problem um the way that we paid out ourselves commissions is you're paying out the The commissions in advance of all the revenue coming at You're paying like a percentage of the overall contract value for the first year of a client And then we just know that a certain amount of customers are going to stick on You know beyond that and we'll make our money that way long-term And so what I had to do is we did so well that first year we thought we're gonna put on you four thousand accounts five thousand accounts We put on 7500 and it was like okay I've got to go talk to my very top people who are making the most money your sales managers or whatever And ask them if they hope the wait a little bit for that money to come to you have a cash flow Pay you you know 10% interest on it. Yeah. Are you okay? We just we did way better than I thought we're gonna do and I had been you know in the trenches with them training And you know, we had they had an amazing summer made way more than I thought they're gonna make and they're like yeah That's fine like totally understand so they gave me a few months to be able to catch up And then the next year I sculled back a little bit. I'm like okay We're not gonna although we could recruit more people you know and grow even faster I'm gonna have to put on the brakes a little bit make sure that we're actually gonna be okay And then after that is like okay We've got this dialed in now we can scale I need to understand the business a little bit more because this seems like a wildly successful year one Like objectively compared to a lot of the people that are just struggling trying to figure out how to get their first 50 customers You're talking about 7500 accounts in year one Yeah, I mean that's that's I don't think that's normal for like in terms of like entrepreneur success Not everybody heard about like in my industry or was like what the hell is going on out but still 7500 customers in year one is an insane amount For any business Even if you were a great developer and you had a software product I don't think many people have 7500 customers in year one So What was it that allowed you to have 7500 customers for somebody who's just starting out was it Great product. I'm sure that has to that you have to have the great product But Strong sale strategy The ability to recruit and train like even to have the the the the people power to do 7500 accounts That's a massive recruiting training HR operation Um Was it commission base like how do you like ask commission base was commission base so it wasn't like there was any sort of risk in hiring these people um To get 7500 accounts Out of all the things that I just mentioned and maybe there's a few others I'm sure what do you think was the the biggest x factor in achieving such quick success? We'll go back to what we talked about before experience It was you just knew this better than anything number one. I had experience and so I knew I could for not only forecast Correctly even though I under forecast how many I thought we're gonna do yeah I can still just change the model and go okay if we do this much how much are we gonna be in them like oh okay That's the problem yeah Yeah, and I waited till the end of the summer to do that I shouldn't been doing that kind of along the way to go hey, we're actually growing faster than we need Um, if you ask me in the particular model what what is the x factor that the training was the key thing you know my Horrible experience that first summer That was that's what led me to build a really great training program Because I didn't want any my friends I was recruiting a lot of my friends to come out and work for me And like I didn't want anybody to go through that otherwise it was my reputation that was gonna be on the line So I created this really great training program And then our sales reps and only that like it's one thing to Do okay or you know have rhetoric about how great it sales you do It's another thing when you're actually the numbers the data is real And my my strategy was if we're better at getting ourselves people to sell Over time that will everybody will figure that out and they'll want to come work for us But it can't just be flash or whatever else it read the data really has to be there has to be about the earnings Um, and for a lot of these uh, college students that we were recruiting This life changing for them right like that amount of money and that was what really got me excited about the job Like pests themselves It's okay. It's not that hard to treat for pests But changing people's lives like training people developing them and then giving them opportunities to scale kind of like I had to be able to sales managers and then make commissions off everybody else is you know They had because they were training them and overseeing them So um to give you an idea Sales people who switched over from another company to work for our company sold uh 70% more Then they did for their previous company the previous summer And so it's a combination of better training Uh better work ethic, you know, we worked really hard And so that's another part of it's like it's one thing just to be good at sales It's another thing to actually work hard and work extra hours Relative to the rest of the industry and being on a team where everybody's doing the same thing Yeah, it's kind of being part of a championship team It's not for everybody. They may work crazy crazy hours and train crazy hours You you you get paid accordingly if you if you if you listen If you're the right fit if you're the right personality you'll make more money than anywhere else Yeah, so that was the culture that we built out and then it was very uh Help each other out. It wasn't like if you do well keep it close to your chest and don't tell their people Um, it was very incentivized to be like hey if you're the top person like we want to get you on video And then share it with everybody else And so it was more like a badge of honor like to to get on the training videos I love that I think listen I think the way there's there's such huge opportunity If somebody does want to start a service-based business especially with that model because that model that you adopted There's a lot of industries that adopt that model where you're doing commission only door-to-door sales I mean if I think about like going back I did like the door-to-door painting and like the lawn erration and all the uh Hey, those are tough jobs great experience. So I better taught you resilience, right? I mean a lot of resilient to taught me sales I worked listen I did not have to do cardio or go to the gym half as much because I was I wasn't working I was you know doing probably 30,000 steps today going door-to-door and selling and I think that um, if I think about the companies I worked for It was kind of just like be through you out there and hope that you close something. Yeah, it's like I went like It's this wet rag mentality. That's what I call it's like throw it against the wall see who sticks Yeah, which is like, you know, and what a waste. It's like your company would do So much better you have worse, you know, employee reviews or I'm sorry better employee reviews If you actually just train them and you really showed how Vest you were with them and wanting them to do well and then even if they don't do well Well, they did everything they could yeah to help me get to where I needed whereas when I got in the industry I'll do this form of marketing had been around for about 10 years It was still more focused on the product, you know, it wasn't as focused on sales And it was kind of like oh just go on and see how you do type thing as opposed to like hey you're required I got yeah, yeah, you're required to have to go follow a manager and just watch what they're doing You know for several hours and then the next week they have to follow you And watch what you're doing and then if you want you can switch back and forth or whatever but You want to feel like you're taking care of that sweet is a success story partner No, what does the future hole for business if you ask nine experts are going to get 10 answers full market bear market rates will rise rates will fall honestly I just wish somebody would invent a crystal ball but until then over 41,000 businesses a future proof their business with net sweet Bi Oracle the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting financial management inventory and HR into one fluid Dynamic platform with real-time insights and forecasting You're peering into the future with actionable data and when you're closing the books in days not weeks You're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next if I had needed this product This is what I would use whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions net sweet helps you respond to Immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities and speaking of opportunity download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning The guide is free. 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There's no need to wait any longer Speed up your hiring right now with indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility You just go to indeed.com slash clary right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast Indeed.com slash clary terms and conditions apply if you're hiring indeed is all you need you've mentioned There are three phases to businesses so start up scale up and then screw up So talk to me talk to me about talk to me about these three phases Just for people to understand like what's the revenue numbers or the head count or the or the size of the business where these The fits into these three phases and what is the what is the screw up phase? So You know a startup could be yeah, I think it depends on the industry Right and the size and scale and all that kind of thing But um, you know startup it just early days it might be let's just say one location or maybe two locations But you're you're an entrepreneur you're involved in the day-to-day and you're very very hands-on a scale up some more like you've got You've got systems of processes down training manuals and you're trying to perpetuate a culture and A business across multiple states But initially might be just with one state, but as you start to scale and grow bigger The screw up phase is when you start to say you know what we're we're one of the biggest in the industry We've always done it this way, you know, we're good enough If you start to arrest on your laurels, that's where the screw up starts to happen the cancer starts to set up. Yeah, right? It's um, you've got to be Entrepreneur you can't lose that entrepreneurial spirit It's got to be like hey, we're still willing to pilot new ideas. We're still you know We're gonna Continue to get better and better like we can't just say we're good enough I found that many of the best ideas come from those on the front lines Yeah, and the problem is is you get bigger and bigger those at the very top They're not really communicating with people at the bottom anymore And so when people at you know at the ground level have those epithemies of genius That you have to find a way to get those up to the top up to the executive team and then pilot them and you know and then roll them out Uh, and so I think a great brand's a story that never stops Um, like evolving right like yeah, it just keeps going keeps it folding And if you're not growing, you're dying that has to be the mentality to stay Competitive with everybody otherwise you become a dinosaur right like gonna go go away at the way of the dodo Yeah, well the blockbusters of the world and all the other companies that I feel like the ego gets involved And they don't modernize they don't change they probably don't listen to the the people that are on the ground level And I think entrepreneurs too like if they are less involved and you know you if you've had some financial success You're on a lot of vacations, you know My experience is a a founder CEO chairman It it's slowly evolved and I started to take more time off there I mean there was a time when I could never take time off like it was just impossible or if I went on vacation I'm waking up at 5 a.m. To work until 9 and then I'm trying to hang out with my kids so that kind of a thing I know what was the thing because even even when you did remove yourself from the business um I mean you had you had you had what four successful exits over your career So you you've found a way to still stay in touch and still listen to the you know the people that are dealing with the customers I think that's one of the most powerful things you can do as an entrepreneur even when you have the opportunity to take a month off And and be the chairman and remove yourself out of the day today um So what is the strategy that you have to constantly have this feedback loop From the front lines so that you don't lose track of what's going on and that you can actually still scale even if you're not involved in the day today Yes, there's a couple of ways to do that one. We did a lot of surveys You know at least a couple per year we're asking employees about ideas about what you know how they're like in the job areas That we can improve for both them for the customers and then the second thing is um you can actually incentivize your employees You can say hey, we'll give you five hundred bucks a thousand bucks for any idea you send into the survey email box Yeah, you know That we implement company wide and so we might get we'll get some really good ideas Yeah, we get different we get lots of different ideas and like oftentimes your skit you're just trying to find like the top 10% of those ideas Maybe top 5% that you can actually implement and pilot and then of those that get piloted a certain amount well You know get implemented But it's really cool to have everybody be entrepreneurial right um like the Japanese have a philosophy called kaisan You know where everybody in the company is looking for ways to constantly improve You know from the very basic entry level all the way up the executive team. So it's because same mentality Explain to me You sort of the evolution of the four different businesses because there was a point where you sold your first business To get capital to grow properly. So I want to understand Over the course of these four businesses. I think the obvious question is why didn't you just scale the first one So strategically you thought through okay, when do I sell when do I start something new? So walk me through that because that's also very and so you You built the four businesses where they all in the same category all the same field. Yeah, all in this all in so It's a unique thing. It is It's not something you can do in every industry and you didn't have non-compete when you'd sold so you can't Start something right away. I did the first time, but it was just a geographic not compete So it's like I couldn't go back into the same zip codes where I had sold pretty easily So okay, so walk away. So first business you scale it up You sell it and then what's the next play and why did you want to sell it and not just continue to scale it great great question So the um, I learned really quickly that money's important to have right Because I almost big drive for sales the first time and we scale into two locations. I'm like look I can scale slowly over time But what if I sold my business you know and had Many millions of dollars as opposed to maybe 600 grand to invest Then I could I could grow faster and I didn't want to disrupt momentum and how we are growing and You know for these bigger public companies that are in pest control You know, M&A is a very big portion. It might be 60% of their growth annually, and they've got a you know, hit the quarterly You know targets and all that kind of thing and so they wanted to buy just the customer base And so what he did was asset deals where I just sold off the customer base with the corresponding technicians and then A lot of the customer service people But I kept the golden goose the golden goose was the sales force And the executive team and then a key operator in each location So I sold my first company was flush with cash and like all right We could do the two locations. Let's see if we can do we'll start out in four different states Let's see if we can pull that off and that was fun. That was like the next challenge for me You know, and then with that company eventually we were in nine states, you know, we just kept rolling out And expanding then I'm like all right cashers getting low. What do we do? Let's see. Let's see if somebody wants to buy us, you know, and sure enough. Yeah, we're happy to buy you Sold to sold that business when I sold that one. It was different I didn't I said I'll sell to you, but I'm not gonna you know do a geographic non-compete We have to be able to go back in the same locations We have all the customer lists. So we're not allowed to ever go after those customers for the next five years But um or three to five years whatever the deal was I structured at the time It would vary from year to year as we got bigger Uh, but then yeah, I kept each key operator Let the technicians and the customer base go But kept the golden goose and started again and each time it was how do you uh Because I worried about the idea of Our our people going to be as excited about the next one And so we just kept coming up with new ideas. We had that money. What would we do to make it better So that way nobody would ever want to go back to hot was previously I think if you ask anybody in all the four companies would you ever go back to what it was like the the previous company? Yeah, no, no, no, you this is much better. You were super innovative always entrepreneurial because You know, I listen If you know private equity or you know publicly traded companies The second they acquire that asset. They're not innovative. They're not doing anything different than they were last year they're they're At a bare minimum, hopefully keeping things as good as they were But they're not going to do anything radically different. So now you have this influx of cash You have all your core people still So then you're like, okay, what are we doing now? How are we going to how are we going to you know Break this industry all over again And that's a good point you mentioned private equity and By selling the business I was able to keep all the equity Right, so like as opposed to going otherwise it would to keep growing at that rate I would have had to have gone and got investors. I also may have lost control of the business over time And I'm like I want to do it the way I want to do it You're selling the book of business really yeah, if I'm doing the work I might as well make the money and if I have the ability to sell and then just throw it back in the You know back in the company and then that's great I can take a little bit of chips off the table maybe But we're flush with cash and we're not really in a different position So it made more sense for me to do it like that. I've never heard of anybody selling a company like that Yeah, it's a smart It's very smart So is this something that other people can emulate like I'm trying to think of just selling your book of business I don't think out of every single exit story I've ever heard It's you know selling a percentage of equity you sell a piece of the bit you sell you don't just sell your book of business You sell a piece of the whole business And was there a way that you negotiated this or is this just like an industry status quo that like works really well in this particular industry um You know and initially the companies didn't want the sales force because they're like it's too hard to figure out We know this is a very difficult model In fact the bigger companies they had even tried doing it on their own and failed and were like we don't want that part of the business And then later they did want it but then we're like well, we don't want to sell it So you can keep buying it the way you're buying it um And there are other industries that do this, you know, for example um alarm systems is a business is a business solar energy Um people sell um even like trash services door to door roofing There's a lot of different types of business that use the employ the door to door marketing model A lot of people think it's antiquated, but it's it's incredible if you can get the right sales force to do it You know if you look at the statistics majority of businesses fail You've built an exited four times. So what do you think was sort of one of the most important ideas that helped you succeed those four times? I'm going to keep going back to experience Experience right because I think so many people they hear about something and they're like well I don't want to take the time to go learn an industry I just want to jump into it right out of college or whatever And if you have that experience and you're really good at something And you keep building on that foundation of getting better and better and then you're just getting for me It was more capital to feel it to grow even bigger Um, that's key one um What's your advice for somebody who is looking to hire out the They've they've built the business to x point How do you know when it's time to To Move on to a new executive team even replace yourself as a founder like what is the signal that you're looking for is something breaking is Is it I guess that would be it really something there's there's a lot. So yeah one You know, let's there's if for you know, I'll start off by saying that so there was three executives I had to replace that had been with me for a long time one of them was a first employee ever hired Amazing individual um incredibly creative You know, he he'd only had a semester of college But worked harder than everybody else helped this build so much and um It's kind of like Jim Collins says and good to great you know, he has the bus analogy where it's like you got to get the right people in the bus The wrong people off and then everybody in the right seats Same thing uh and all three of those individuals still work for our company And so if you have great people you don't want them to exit oftentimes it's just getting them in a different position And for us when we were starting to get to 200 300 million it revenues were like okay We need some new ideas something that's fresh and so if you're I mean you could be missing forecast right for a CFO you could be Um, not you maybe they're just all out of ideas in terms of how to to save money because the bigger gets the harder it is right even more and more overhead um It could be that you're at the executive you're at the executive table and you're just not getting ideas anymore From the guys or the ideas you're getting maybe they're just They're not leveled up or where we need to be for that size of a company Um, so there could be lots of different ideas, but um Yeah, it's it was it's really hard to have to go to them But you're also thinking about everybody else in the company if you've got thousands of people working for you They are dependent upon having the very best people in the executive leadership And so you've got to go out there and the way we did that we you know, typically higher executive search firm to go find the very very best Typically people who are working at billion dollar companies So like because we we're starting to approach 500 million. We're like How are we going to take it to a billion? Well, let's bring in people who already have that experience So that we don't have to sit around and just keep trying to figure it out on our own I'd rather have them save us the dumbtacks Yeah exactly At the time, you know, let's pay for that once it buys them correctly You know, and if the company gets to X then they get paid X you're they get big bonuses and equity your stock When you think about hiring people that are at that level that obviously in their respective field You know, no way more about that thing than you will ever know How do you gauge how do you gauge whether or not they're going to be effective at their job? And I'll tell the reason why I ask this is because I know several people who have hot that again in the two three four five hundred million dollar range When they start to hire executives They say it's very difficult because some people are just professional executives and they're actually and they have a great resume But they're not actually that effective Because they're so far removed from the day today And it's almost like this minefield of okay, I know that you work for a big company But like if I take you out of the big company and I put you into like a two and I say big company like pub publicly traded company I put you into a two to three hundred million dollar company are you going to be more of a Like are you up? What's the word like You're good at you're good at talking about the thing or I actually good at doing the thing And I think that that's a difficult thing to hire for because You don't have the experience and you've never played at the level at some of these executives were played at So when you hire these executives what's the strategy so you make sure that they're actually effective and the size of company that you're in right now Yeah, so you know, I think you got a 50 50 shot It's choosing the right executive and I know it's not what people want to hear But and I've talked a lot of other entrepreneurs. They're like that's kind of what our odds are And um we had something somewhere to that where we brought in a CFO and he'd been CFO of a billion dollar company and um He just it felt like he was too removed from the day to day and he was building out his team But he really didn't have his head wrapped around every little detail and how you know each lever worked For each you know each financial lever and um are it erect our financials for the year and uh it was a lot of tough learning experience to go through that um But you I mean everything from looking at a resume I've even if there are not in the exact same industry that you're in you're trying to find an industry that rhymes Maybe it's another you know blue collar dirty jobs sort of business or something like that um With with a CFO it probably doesn't matter as much that way it can be helpful But depending upon the type of job that you're hiring for uh, there's there's gonna be different things that you're gonna actually Look for but you're not gonna you're never gonna get it right and it's it's tough You're you're hoping that because of the experience. They've had it that larger scale. They've seen things that you have it But we got much more um in depth and meticulous about who you're hiring in our interview process In fact to replace that CFO I think it took us nine months to find The right CFO because we're so scared based on that first experience like we've got to find this a lot I've heard this like there's there's at no point does it become easy To hire executives at that level. It's it's never easy. I've just heard of horror stories of like you know Executives from brand names that people on this podcast would know That you hire them and they are They are so far removed to your point from the day to day That That they're they're they're not gonna take you to where you need to go. They gotta be willing to get their hands dirty I'll really get in there. Yeah, you know, I and granted if you can find the right one who's actually worked in the industry before I mean that's incredible But it's a lot of times as industries they have non-compete or whatever um and it makes it tough Tough to hire. I just want to take a second and thank cornbread ham for supporting today's episode now Cornbread ham CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit I don't use them every day just when I want to win wine after those extra busy weeks But they're perfect for those moments when you want to take the edge off and just find your balance really just shut off from work Now what makes them special is how cornbread ham crafts them They only use the flower of USDA organic hamplants. 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I want to take a step back this season of my life is over I think it's it's going to be different for everybody right um for me I'm everyone at first guy in the business some people said hey how long are you going to do this for and as i sold businesses Some people got worried that you know i might sell and then be done But it was always hey we're selling but we're starting up a new company We're just this is just a way to get capital that kind of a thing Um for me personally I told people initially i said hey as long as this is fun for me I better keep doing it and For me what i what i learned is that it was really about learning it was about growth You know i don't think Being an entrepreneur is about an destination, you know It's not about a building an exit or building a unicorn or whatever I think it's the it's the journey right it's all the learnings you're picking up along the way It's the it's the character you're developing During that time um and i when i look back at my favorite moments in the business it was actually the earlier years Where you're just grinding like crazy. It's like 16-hour days like the whole team's just completely focused and in on it And you're learning every day um or every week There's something new and you're implementing and you're grow you're piloting you're you know It's exciting and when i got to um Like we did our third company we We put out all this money into like really amazing headquarters They're sort of setting like Silicon Valley companies. Yeah, because past control just wasn't You know it just kind of was what it was and i'm like well what are other successful things You know tips i can learn outside of the industry and like we built this really beautiful Building with the NCAA basketball core and you know pool tables ping pong foosball, you know Movie room a golf simulator. You're really looking like a Yeah, so when people walked in they thought we were a tech company and i it was more about as we're scaling And we're trying to you know grow nationally, you know into like 5,000 cities like how do we get the Um the humid that the talent like to come in and also to make them know we really care about them Um, i was really struggling that with that with my second company because as we were growing i had i realized i had I wasn't able to be everywhere all the time and let people know how much i cared about them and you know rock and give them pretty super excited and so Building all of those things and it was fine. It was always something new building out a company culture building out technology You know to help support the business and improve sales productivity or what it might have been All those things were very exciting and and at the end of my third company I just said, you know what i'm i'm not learning that much now It's been a cut we're in a couple thousand cities You know i think i want to step back out of the CEO role and replace myself And my produce a best person he'd been with the company for 10 years and him very very well He started as a top sales rep top sales manager It was a very similar trajectory to me When he graduated college, I put him in charge of the sales program. I made him president And Over the next you know six years you get to know the company even better and eventually and then I wanted to replace myself And so i put vassus CEO and i was the founder and chairman and then i could just focus on strategies So my days went from like our weeks were like eight hour weeks down to maybe half that And i could just focus on strategy hiring key executives You know eventually learning how to run a process to find a buyer for the business Um and all that sort of a thing And so if i'm not learning and i'm not growing like growing that way I get bored So interesting. I always wonder like when is enough enough And i think that's a question that a lot of people struggle with Especially entrepreneurs because we we achieve whatever does you want to achieve and then we just kick the goalpost back further And see if we can do a little bit more i know because you keep thinking okay well because At that point You've had more success than you ever thought possible like you never when you start something you never expect it to It would be nice Nobody expects to build a unicorn and i mean at that point You know whatever you sell it for you never have to work again So it's more of like this internal discussion you have with yourself about Okay, I've built what i want to build Am i am i happy with this should i move on but also i think For high performing people you start to think like what's next in life i'm curious was Outside of you feeling like You stopped learning and Because you you could still build it bigger if you wanted to you could you could you could you could Oh, wait you could at this point you could do a lot of different things Was there was there There was never any friction between Business and family it wasn't like you wanted to spend more time with the like what was the is there anything else outside? Of Not learning That made you want to actually exit out of the business I felt like i wasn't needed as much anymore Like the company got to a point where we had Put in place all these great executives. Yeah, it was a safe in my mind. It's a safe time to go to market Timing is everything too Yeah, and it was it was a good time in the sense that i knew the company could continue on and do just fine without me Uh I never really wanted to be a public CEO to be a sort of public chairman My wife is a securities fraud litigator. So maybe that may make me think twice about that idea And then i've got dozens of friends who are CEOs Yeah, the company isn't like don't do it man. Don't do it So we were we were getting so big that We're getting we're getting to a point where it's like hey if we go to sell again like after this time You there might only be a dozen buyers potentially on the private equity side But more likely we're going to have to go public and i was just like yeah It's just not really my thing at that it was easier for me to to sell get all my money out And you know have to have a good steward in place good private equity firm to Have the you know continue to build a company Can you shut off as an entrepreneur like did you think about this when you were selling it like am I able to actually shut off Relax take a step back and i just say this from personal experience. I say this from a lot of my friends Um, they can't they can't shut off and people sell for different reasons sometimes it's like it's strategic buyer right timing But on the other side of that sale They're like okay, what do i do next and did you ever have this existential crisis moment like The past 20 years of my life. I've put into this company. So what do i do after So i Wean myself off it. I'm still not perfect But um becoming chairman gave me a chance over the course of eight years to you know slowly Do less and less work where i didn't need to be involved Um, and it was really hard at first going from i would say 80 down to 40 hours a week Was the toughest part versus like i'm i want to be busy Um, but you i also was starting to have my family then And my priorities were shifting You know, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's a beautiful thing. It's part of life You know, and you want to be able to dedicate time to your family um my dad was gone like five days a week Uh as a consult as a consultant and an executive for hire um and For me i didn't i didn't want to do that to my kids Um, my mom was literally like a single mom like for a bunch of years and so uh Yeah, I really wanted to put more time into my family I would say that i have a laser like focus, you know, this obsessive personality uh it's Whatever i focus on i can typically do really well at because i just keep researching and research and researching and so now my focus is more on things like exercise, sleep, nutrition longevity Uh, and just other fun things you know that yes things that are more creative Um things that are philanthropic and so i'm just starting to research and figure out maybe what's next for me Uh, no, i love that i just think it's important to I think a lot of entrepreneurs have a tough time shutting off And and turning off and i think that you've done a very good job of finding a way to sort of Point your passion towards something else but I think i think that listen i think we mentioned before even before we started recording I think that a lot of entrepreneurs are neurodivergent to a degree I think they get obsessed about building and i think that they wrap their identity Into building and entrepreneurship and i don't necessarily know Well, it's it's not healthy i know for a fact it's not healthy But i think it's really hard to unravel that and unwind that i agree Yeah, i went through that phase Yeah, i'd say as i became chairman and i just started to like we myself off of it um I always saw the businesses just a symbol of who i was Um, and my reputation it felt like my signature was on everything and so to have it Maybe not do as well you start to feel that a little bit as you scale it gets harder to have the same Level of excellence everywhere and you have to be okay with a little bit less You know, and that's why there's so many small business out there i think like two-thirds of america's small business And you know like how is that possible like they can't you know get both pricing that you know that just but it's Excellence yeah, it's that customer service right because oftentimes like on a mom on pop business like The owner is right there with you and they really really care and so it's a very unique competitive advantage But as i started yeah little by little Is the business isn't quite doing as well it was hard for me and then Over time i just had to say look i am not my company. I'm just the same old Dave Then it was what i was in high school or college, you know, it's just a little bit smarter And then the older you get the more you realize how You're really an educated about a lot of things right like you thought that smart you become more humble is so true It's funny that word i mean Entrepreneurship is you know, you can get addicted to it and for sure um You know you spoken about being addicted sort of the dopamine hits of entrepreneurship Even on vacations. I mean, I don't know when i've taken a vacation like a true vacation I don't remember last time i've taken a true vacation. I'm i mean It's it's very difficult to shut off. It's very very difficult to shut off For somebody that is sort of looking at Looking at how you've been able to step away Somebody that really is addicted to building and and putting themselves into their company Is there anything that you'd advise them to do to help them sort of Understand that there's more to life than just building because i think this is it's beautiful how you've been able to Somebody who again you said you get addicted to the entrepreneurship rush which i get i feel it but Stepping away. It's very difficult. You've done it. You said it was difficult. Was there a strategy? Was there a practice? Was there anything that you did that really helped you remove yourself mentally? You know, I think some of the things was i just noticed that i wasn't i was starting to lose energy especially as i got my early 40s and And even before that i remember looking in the mirror once and i was starting to become more and more overweight And i just thought i've got to do something and i always did just the bare minimum like i wasn't wanting to Work out i wasn't willing to quite eat right i just ate tried to eat less less of sweets or whatever else Um but when i got my 40s i got really serious about that and Part of that was like hey i have the time now i'm stepping back. I want to focus on being more balanced more well-rounded Completely weaning yourself off of it is is it's tough um I think the obsessive personality I don't know if that's just something that you have initially or if it's something that you develop over time Because you realize that if you're not if you don't if you're not completely assessed about the business and evolving that the competitor is And your existence Is dependent upon that right you have to like evolutionarily continue to evolve and get better and better Otherwise you become a screw up and you start to go the other way. You're not growing. You're declining. Yeah So when you look at sort of moving on from Business to the next stage in your life uh Tell me how your definition of success has changed over uh over time So obviously when you're building a business what it success looked like to you then But now how have you sort of reinterpreted your relationship with success and what's meaningful I think that once you've achieved something Maybe it seems less meaningful Two degree where you're like oh i worked all those years and this is it Right Not to take away from you know entrepreneurship and like the thrill of it But i think it's it's being in it That's what's so exciting, you know, and it can be anything It could be you know being a great musician or a great artist or whatever you might be doing um As far success though goes like i think success is you know, it's more about goals like what do you What do you want? You know, and that's different for everybody That's a beautiful thing about our world is I don't really wants to work crazy hours as an entrepreneur You know, a lot of people are happy just attaching themselves to a really great mission You know with a company that has a really great culture and good people and and that sort of thing And they can be entrepreneurs like within the business But they don't have to work as much or take on the financial stress and all that sort of thing Yeah, I think that I think that We over glorify entrepreneurship Like i really don't think that everybody has to be an entrepreneur I also feel like But I also feel like at the same time people don't Pause entrepreneurs or otherwise. I feel like people don't pause enough and understand Why they're even doing the work that they're doing or why they're even on the path that they're on I feel like everybody's like running so fast and Whether or not you start a business whether or not you work in a company I always try and encourage people just to take a step back And pause and understand is what you're working on actually aligned with your personal north star Yeah, it's really wise advice. I mean for me Uh, yes, some people said oh, you're gonna Sell like what's next and I'll like slow down I'm like I ought to be super intentional about whatever's next and it may not be scaling a business Like I'd probably rather do something more creative or something more philanthropic You know, maybe a different challenge than just scaling something or maybe i'm scaling something in that field but Yeah, I think there's uh, we kind of joked about this earlier, but There's probably some shadow work to be done right to look back at your past and understand um, I have this Idea that I have this hypothesis that all entrepreneurs have a chip on their shoulder about something Yeah, you kind of have to right because you're you're saying I want to go into A career or an industry in my likelihood of success as an entrepreneur statistically it gets worse every single day like if 95% of businesses are out of business within just 10 years Like you've got to have something to live for and something to prove like there's something inside you that really wants this um, you know, it's a place for um Gladiators not definitely want to be right like you've really got to want it bad And so what is it that's driving you you know if you analyze that you know, are you not the cool kid growing up You know to parents, you know Something with your parents or Whatever your upbringing was um, see how like I'm diving into a lot of that. I have been probably last five years I've been thinking a lot about it and Do you think that's a do you think that's a blessing or a curse to have that chip on your shoulder? I think it's a gift Yeah You know, yeah, I think you could probably look at it in a bunch of different ways But then the real question is like what I have done what I did I didn't have that chip on my shoulder look at all the beautiful things that came out of it And um, there's reading a book called bittersweet recently It one of my friends recommended to me and it talks about how you know a lot of different whether it's trauma or difficult times Um, artists for example are able to Write better music or create better things or entrepreneurs, right? Like that the joke But she always writes better albums when she's when she's single and Get a bad breakup. Yeah, absolutely You know, I think it's those emotions that somehow we're more creative and I really do believe entrepreneurs are artists You know, artists probably would laugh at that comment, but it's it's it's creating something and building something beautiful And if you've had some difficult times or whatever You can throw yourself into something and build and I think you're actually even more motivated and more creative If you're coming from those circumstances This is why I think that um I think throwing yourself especially when you're young And to as many experiences as possible is so important Because it just gives you all this lived experience that you can take into whatever it is you want to build I think that You know, I just mentioned that not everybody has to be an entrepreneur should be an entrepreneur But I am a big fan of people at least trying it out Because when you try out entrepreneurship You'll learn so much you'll get exposed to so much It will make you a more creative individual not in a traditional sense But just because of the exposure to all these different experiences that you've had Some good some very bad some very stressful, but I think it just makes you I don't even know the word for it. Like people that are like a problem-solver like solution oriented Like you've seen more of the world so you can just Even even in non-entrepreneur discussions When you speak to an entrepreneur about any subject they just seem to have this more Interesting perspective on it because they've just their lived experience has just sort of opened their mind to all these different possibilities So I think you're right entrepreneurs are creatives for sure you have to be and the more things you expose yourself to I mean forget Forget you know a traditional definition of entrepreneurship Just if you expose yourself to more things in life if you travel if you meet more people You will become a more effective entrepreneur You will always become a more effective entrepreneur if you spend time overseas and you see how different people do business Now different people operate can't agree with you more You can take that stuff into your own business and your own culture into your own world view And I think that that just makes you a stronger stronger entrepreneur So yes, and a lot of entrepreneurship is creative and I need to too many people and I think that sort of the gay way Drug I don't know also describe it the the entrance of the rabbit hole um in entrepreneurship is just In life is just to try and build something and take risk and and fail And expose yourself to more things and I think that that's just setting yourself up for a more fulfilling life Whether or not you choose to build a large company or not, but I don't think that I don't think the true fulfillment in life Is I don't know I I personally don't agree that just taking a job when you're 20 and working it until you're 60 I feel like you're missing out on a lot of life. Yeah, how many people love their job You know, I don't think many I really think about how many people switch jobs Right continually now what are they looking for really what are they looking for And it's not usually I think there's even like data that when people switch jobs. It's not about a bigger paycheck It's sometimes just for sure sometimes, but there's there's there's at least on a list of like 10 things Pays probably you know number four. Yeah, so then what are you looking for and I think that you're looking I think that you're trying to figure out Like what does my life mean and why am I doing what I'm doing you're looking for novelty and you're looking for excitement and you're looking for all these different things that You're not getting just by working a nine to five So I think that especially when you're young take advantage of that take more risk Throw yourself into more things experience more of the world and then and then when you're 30 Then you can consciously make a choice to I want to be an entrepreneur To I want to work in a company and be an entrepreneur because That's another option and you could also make the argument for you know in the future Where AI is going to take away a lot of the very basic jobs To be successful even within a company you have to be Entrepreneurial slash Entrepreneurial So I think that listen this is why again entrepreneurship isn't for everyone, but I think everyone should at least try it Yeah, try it while you can't feel you know while you're young, you know take some take some classes in college or whatever It might be I couldn't agree more through you on the travel side There's a good argument that I may have done everything I did just be able to travel I do we didn't travel a lot when I was growing up and I just love the ability like you go to a different country And you see the world differently through a different lens right look so the architecture, you know the language This spirituality like there's all these the food. There's all these different things that Help you to think different like I remember going to Spain and like this idea of a siesta right after noon or At midnight seeing families walk around together because they you know We'll go out to eat like a 10 like later in the evening and then people go to the club Like for midnight to six in the morning. Yeah, it's like wow. This is so different than you know the states Go to LA and things are probably closed by two or something right like nobody's out that way Super rare one thing that you speak about a lot is is learning And you mentioned how important learning is and how like if you want to accomplish anything you have to lean into learning um Now you More or less adopted a systematic approach to learning over your life Um, uh, you have 80 HD, but you've consumed over a thousand business books and you read about two books a month So talk to me about your approach to learning and how you actually um Because I think there's also There could be an addition to learning and not implementing So there's important to learn, but it's also important to execute So knowledge is power, but without action. It's exactly. It's not actually So talk to me about your approach to learning. How do you read so much? But also how do you actually use that knowledge to actually to build your business to improve your life Yeah, so one to be fair Basically reading a book is pretty rare for me. It's always unottable um To it goes back to that idea of always evolving and always growing Uh, you know, just stay ahead of the curve uh, and then you develop that skill set and then you start to apply it to other aspects of your life um The Reading for me like education like you think about how much you really learned in school and college right like our school before I feel like our education system Could needs needs a remake, you know, it's like at this point I feel like the first two years of GE's I think we should be able to pick whatever classes we want to take so you can figure that out You're spending the money Figure out what you what you like and what you dislike and then you choose a major and then You know, you go forward um, you know, I think if I had had four or five years of Business classes how much better what I've been at what I did and how much more thrilled would I've been About college and want to even donate more You know that it's like hey, you really helped me out. Whereas I felt like I was limited Um, in what I could study and when Um, but you know our college the knowledge what we learn in college is it's probably irrelevant in what five 10 years after You know, it's even faster now with technology everything just keeps changing if you go back to college like Facebook was even out of college that shows how old I am but you know everything from Snapchat to slack to Instagram to ename. There's all these different things that maybe businesses use today Um to brand or whatever uh or to you know, increase productivity and they just weren't even around So like you've got to stay ahead of the curve. I learned that and then now I'm just applying that To my own life. Do you feel like do you feel like college university is still useful? I feel like it's still useful in terms of Having you sit in a chair and go, okay, you got to learn these things You know for some people they can maybe go do it on their own Um, but I I do feel like when you're younger like you want to go out and just have fun No, I know that's the so if I think about if I think about my my college experience I did not take it seriously at all it was it was it was a lot of parties a lot of party and a lot of drinking like but um We were talking about this for the press record I think that I think that there's so much information out there You do have to you have to you The word is auto-diadact right like a self-taught individual if you can take if you can take you know Even a fraction of the information out there and and truly study it and implement it I mean everything you need to know is available in podcasts and youtube and books I think that it's just understanding that you have to not just consume and accumulate knowledge But actually action it and do something with it but Does you know does traditional university have a place I'm sure it does I mean I think that you know you can always make the argument that the network that you build through Education is phenomenal and that's that's probably only going to be a certain subset of of schools It's not going to be every school you go to where you have a significant network but I don't think that people should depend on traditional education And for it and and traditional school. I think they should I think There's a lot of people that could just be successful by learning online But they have to actually action and do something with that information Yeah, I think network is critical like you do top them. Yeah, I don't know if it's up 30 schools now or whatever It might be it used to be like top 10 schools the reason you go theirs because You know your network like I when I talked friends who went to those schools Like they're still in contact with many and many of their friends that that's a good reason to go to school But In terms of the actual information that you learn. Yeah It gets out day to quick and then the recruiters whoever like the very best firms are probably going to those top 30 schools or whatever it might be And so I think that could be helpful. You're looking for a job after you're going to be an entrepreneur You know, it's kind of a different story. Have you thought about have you thought about you know What When you when you build a business like this You never thought about passing it on to your kids to some degree or trying to get them to To take it over I have two daughters. I'm not sure if they want to go into pass how excited you want to impress in it I'm not I'm not huge on family business some people can pull it off But it is extremely difficult to pass something on right like maybe the next generation they're they're not excited about that industry or You know, what made you You know, they're not going to have a lot of the same experiences like usually entrepreneurs Come from some sort of tough experiences. I found Or to tough circumstances and they're going to have probably a cushier life Right like vacations or you know best schools or whatever it might be and I'm not I'm not even trying to create trust funders. I'm going to give all my money away to charity Are you yeah, and so I'm I'm being very upfront with them. I'm saying hey like You've got you've got me you know, you're gonna have the ability to go to if you if you work hard in school Whatever school you go to I'll help you with your education But after that you got to grind on your own you got to make it happen So I don't want them to lose that incentive to work hard and to go do whatever it is that's I also feel like it's Maybe it's an equity thing. It's like fair like I They're gonna have what I you know could have you know They're gonna have that ability to to do whatever they want ask questions go to the best schools. That kind of a thing I would rather give my money to people who maybe have worked really hard in school But they don't have the financial means to get through it. You know and get those people. I got Do you think that Do you think that you would prefer if they were entrepreneurs themselves or have you never I don't know if I thought about that far into I just think for people who didn't grow up with the right role models and then they're That incentivized to get out of whatever that situation there and I love that to me like somehow perpetuating an American dream. I think it's a good thing. What is next for you? I mean we spoke about you know, we spoke about Your focus on your health on your family You give back Have you thought about anything to do with the next chapter or what you want to what you want to do in the future? Yeah, and I'm really just taking time to think about What I achieved why I did it What made me happiest you know when I was doing it to figure out what that next thing is and I think whatever's next I really don't have something in mind other than you know, maybe something creative or maybe something philanthropic In my mind. It's it I have to be able to grow And then too. I want there's some maybe be some sort of a service aspect or I'm giving back and and helping people If people want to keep up where would they where would they go and connect with you? Lichten the last question I like to ask so you've given over a lot of wisdom But if you could distill all the lessons that you've learned over your life Into one of the like one major most important lessons say the lesson that you could pass on to your kids if you could only pass on this one lesson Um, what would that lesson be and why Always be learning right because um, you know, they want to say leaders or readers. There's a lot of quotes around this concept But just if you're learning it's it's inspiring. It's exciting like you can take control of your life That way, you know, there's so much great knowledge out there and kind of like you said earlier right like knowledge is power But it's only potential power if you don't actually apply it But yeah, it gives it gives me a lot of confidence to know that Whatever you really want life you can setting up research it become an expert at it and then hopefully go do it