Mowing Down Barriers to Build a $30 Million Tech Empire with Bryan Clayton

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Ever wondered how a teenager's lawn mowing side hustle could blossom into a multimillion-dollar landscape empire? Brian's extraordinary journey from pushing a lawn mower to piloting a tech startup unveils the untapped potential within the entrepreneurial spirit. Today, he sits down with us to map out his path to building a $10 million business, then goes on to build a $30 million dollar business, sharing insights on the pivotal shifts from manual labor to strategic sales, and the cultivation of a vibrant company culture.

Venture into the world of small business growth with us as Brian elaborates on the strategic choice to operate debt-free and the liberating experience of bootstrapping a venture from the ground up. His story is a masterclass in the value of hard-earned independence and the entrepreneurial core. We also peel back the curtain on the transition from traditional business to a tech company, discussing how Brian's hands-on knowledge laid the groundwork for innovation in the tech space with his GreenPal platform.

Finally, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom on the importance of continuous learning and the art of effective delegation, especially when navigating unfamiliar territories like web development. Brian's candid reflections on the challenges and successes of his entrepreneurial voyage offer a robust guide for anyone looking to carve out a similar path. Join us for a conversation that's much more than a business success story—it's a lesson in perseverance, self-education, and the sheer grit it takes to turn dreams into reality.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello and welcome to Underdogs, bootstrapers and Game
Changers.
This is for those of you thatare starting with nothing and
using business to change theirstars, motivating people who
disrupted industry standards.
This is the real side ofbusiness.
This isn't Shark Tank.
My aim with this podcast is totake away some of the imaginary

(00:24):
roadblocks that are out there.
I want to help more underdogs,because underdogs are truly who
change the world.
This is part of our Content forGood initiative.
All the proceeds from themonetization of this podcast
will go to charitable causes.
It's for the person that wantsit.
Hello, everybody, and welcome toanother episode of Underdogs,

(00:48):
bootstrapers and Game Changers.
Maybe I said it in the rightorder, maybe not.
The premise is still the same,so I have an amazing guest today
.
If this is the first timejoining in, I really look for
stories that I think are goingto help you.
This channel is all abouteducation and awareness, knowing
that you can defy the odds.
You can do anything you want todo.
Brian's story is perfect totell you this.

(01:11):
Sometimes in the world, itgives you what you need to help
you present the messages youneed.
Brian's one of those stories.
Nothing against the people thatwe have apply to be on the show
.
I look for a very particulartype that's literally going to
help you start your business,start your life, be motivated
that sort of story.

(01:31):
Great to have Brian on the show.
Welcome, thank you so much forbeing here.
Well, thank you for having meon.
It's great to be here.
Yeah, your story is likethere's some things in life that
I couldn't write any better.
We have a docu-series where wetravel the world for seeking
founders of organizations.
The person we just visited inCambodia.

(01:54):
It's like you couldn't write abetter story for what the story
we're trying to tell for thatdocu-series.
I feel like your story isperfect for what we're trying to
do here.
Starting the way you started, Ididn't want to give too much of
your background and yourcompany yet because I want you
to lead us down that journey ofwhat it was like to start where
you started and go where you are.

(02:15):
Now we're going to jump rightin.
The first question I have foryou is talk about what initially
got you into your firstbusiness, if you don't mind.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I actually started mowing yards in high
school as a way to make extracash.
I think my dad got tired ofwatching me play Nintendo all
day.
He said hey, get off your butt.
I lined up a gig for you.
You're going to go mow theneighbor's yard.
This was not a request, thiswas a direct order.
He made me go cut theneighbor's grass.

(02:45):
Luckily he did, because I madelike $20 for an hour worth of
work.
I was hooked.
I was just hooked on owning myown business.
From that day forward.
I never had a job since 14years old.
I always just stuck with my ownthing.
I saw that as the vehicle tocarry me places in life that
ordinarily I wouldn't be able todo.
I just stuck with that lawnmowing business for 15 years,

(03:09):
just grew it year by year,little by little, eventually
getting it to about 150employees, around $10 million a
year in revenue, and then wasable to get the business
acquired by a big nationalcompany in landscaping.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, it's so impressive Starting from a
one-man lawn mower operation,and that's the pivotal point of
where I wanted to be on this.
I know a lot of people areasking you about your tech and
we'll get there.
My main interest is you go fromone-man lawn mower team to $10
million company.
I want people to know that theycan get off their butt and stop
playing Nintendo and they canstart with a lawn mower right,

(03:44):
Totally.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think there's actually, in my experience, the
least sexy and glamorous thebusiness, the greater your
chances of success.
That certainly has been thecase for me.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
You say it really well because unfortunately, I've
chosen the other path.
I've chosen a couple businessesto be in that literally my
competitors are billionairesthat are okay with losing money.
Please, folks, don't do that.
Unless you absolutely want alifestyle business, choose the
less glamorous, because that'sthe one that you can really set

(04:17):
things off.
Brian, like shining example,can you walk me through some of
the process on how a one-manoperation becomes a $10 million
company?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, I think it's important to have big goals and
to have dreams and to visualizethose to begin with the end in
mind, so to speak.
I really wanted to build a biglandscaping company and maybe
the biggest one in my market.
I just had a chip on myshoulder to do that.
That's important, that's yourNorth Star and why you want to

(04:48):
do.
It changes and evolves alongthe way, but it's important to
have that.
But then I think you need toset that aside and don't even
worry about it anymore and thenfocus on the routines, the
processes and the habits, thedaily habits of what you're
doing as a person, as anindividual, because you are your
business, your business is you.
How are you are conducting yourpersonal finances, how are you

(05:10):
showing up for the business, howare you taking care of your
customers?
And just modifying andimproving those daily routines
and habits on a daily basis,working your way towards that
big goal and is focusing onreally small micro goals along
the way.
For me, it was okay.
I'm mowing 10 yards a day.

(05:31):
How do I mow 20?
Okay, now I'm doing 20.
I want to do 40.
Now I got to hire an employee,and that's a big moment in any
founder's journey is hiring yourfirst employee, because you're
basically doubling your businessin one swoop, just figuring out
every little level of the game.
And after I got one employee, Igot three or four, and then

(05:54):
after I got maybe five or sixemployees, I thought, okay, now
I don't want to mow yardsanymore, I need to manage all
this.
How do I get to that level?
And that was another couple ofyears and I guess maybe year
five.
I realized that I wasn't in thelawn mowing business at all, I
wasn't in the landscapingbusiness at all, I was in the
sales business.
I needed to create some sort ofkind of sales engine at the
core of this business.

(06:14):
I needed to create a processthat was better for sales than
my competitors were doing, andso that took about three or four
years, but that wasn't unlockedto get from 500K in revenue to
a million, to two, three, four,five, and then after year five I
mean after five million dollarsa year in revenue I started to
realize, okay, this is no longerabout me and my ambition and my

(06:36):
chip on my shoulder.
This is more about the peopleand the culture that depend on
this business.
There's 50 or 60 employees nowand I have to create a place
where they can thrive and try toget where they're going in life
, and so that was kind of a nextlevel of the game.
So you really do work at, likea video game, almost just one
level at a time.
Don't worry about Bowser,because you're not on level 10

(06:57):
yet.
Just focus on one level at atime and get to that level, and
then at the end of every levelthere's a new final boss.
Yeah, because you solveproblems Doesn't mean you're
done.
That means you get to solvemore problems.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, just embrace that.
I think there's incredibleopportunities in the service
industry, especially like themaybe some somewhat would say
the less glamorous side of theservice industry.
But, like you probably see,like I do online a lot, it's
like just buy this smallbusiness that's in the service
industry, put a manager incharge and all it's going to do
is crank money for you.
Tell me about your thoughts onthat.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, no, so thank you Most of the time.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
You know it's like I see this stuff too.
You know, like on Instagramreels or TikTok.
You know it moves from onething to the laundry mats.
You can go buy laundry mats andAirbnb.
Yeah, you can make millions ofdollars sitting on the beach.
Just go buy a bunch of laundrymats.
And it's like one of two thingsEither that's true and and and

(08:02):
they're doing that, or I'mstupid and it's one of the two.
It's like either.
I'm an idiot or that is true,there is no, it's like one of
the two, and it's usually youtook the words out of my mouth.
Yeah, so, no, the thing is is becareful of any anybody that's

(08:23):
selling you advice on how tomake money, because it rarely
works out.
The people that are out herehustling and grinding are busy
doing their thing.
They're not.
They're not selling systems orsecrets for that.
So, at my, you know, I thinkI'm obsessed with the idea of
the, the blue collar millionaire.
And because I was growing my manyes, yes, thank you as I, as I

(08:47):
was growing my first business, Iwas, uh, surrounded by people
that were no smarter than me,that didn't have any skills that
I didn't have, but were like,hey, eight-figure net worths and
they moved dirt for a living.
They had dump trucks, or theywere plumbers, or they owned a
home cleaning company or theylaid carpet or all these

(09:11):
different kind of trade servicebusinesses.
They were crushing it and theywere buying real estate and
doing all sorts of things.
They're like they had moremoney than some of my customers
who were doctors, lawyers,dentists, who sometimes would
write me a check that wouldbounce, and so it's just kind of
funny.
I loved the guy that would showup in a beat-up pickup truck in

(09:32):
overalls but had a bigger networth than the guy wearing a
suit.
So, that inspired me you know,Absolutely.
Being surrounded by that stillto this day, 20 years later,
influences how I make decisionsand look at businesses.
So yeah to your question canyou buy a system in a

(09:53):
service-based business and thenput a manager on it?
Probably not, unless there'ssomething really unique or some
kind of proprietary thing.
Most of the time, proprietorsof service-based businesses
basically have just created ajob for themselves, and it might
be a lucrative job, yeah, butit's really hard to break out of
that self-employed paradigm andget into the business owner

(10:16):
paradigm and it takes years.
It takes years of reinvestingback in the business.
There was many, many years mebuilding that first company and
also with building GreenPowell,where I paid people that made
more money than I did.
Yeah, but I saw it as anecessary thing to do to kind of
get through that level of thegame, because I knew, if I could

(10:36):
just get over to the nexthurdle, that eventually we would
create more profit at somepoint.
And so the shorter answer is no.
You can't just buy a system orgo into the carpet cleaning
business and pay a manager andthen pay techs, because there's
proprietors, there'sself-proprietors out there who
are going to out, hustle you,outwork you and do a better job

(10:59):
for less money, so don't go downthat path, yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
I knew we were going to get along, but you've taken
the words out of my mouth like amillion different times.
These are some of the samethings I say and that's why I
was really curious to hear yourangle.
I'm all about the blue collarmillionaire too.
I think the world gets a littlebit better.
I've worked in when I was kid,in college and stuff.
I worked in country clubs andhigh-end restaurants and things
like that and I always loved thedirty cowboy at the bar that

(11:26):
you never knew was thebillionaire.
You'd have him.
Like one restaurant I worked atreally high-end Like.
You'd get the guy with thefancy Rolex and car.
He'd come in and he'd treat youlike crap.
And then this cowboy that hadbeen at the end of the bar for
months that you'd met and alwaysasking how you're doing.
You find out later that he hadgotten trouble and banned from
the restaurant for years forlanding his helicopter in the

(11:46):
parking lot drunk.
You know it's like and I lovethose stories, right.
So and like-.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
And that guy owns land.
Oh yeah, he owns houses.
He's got multiple properties.
He's got four or five differentbusinesses going on.
He's got his hands in so manythings.
He's a far more interestingdude to hang out with than the
other dude in the suit and aRolex.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Oh, I couldn't agree more, and I think the world gets
better.
And that's part of the premisefor what we do and like this
show and everything is because Ithink we need more underdogs
making it, Because then you havethe cowboy at the end of the
bar who's caring, who's usuallygiving to some charity, doing
some sort of good work on theside with his money.
You know a heartfelt humanbeing.
You know it's like we need moreof those people into their
success, which is why we do whatwe do.

(12:28):
You know, and so includingtelling stories like yours so
people know, it's possible.
If you were to like dwindledown and tell me like one key
factor that like is the key toanybody out there that's
starting from nothing, and liketrying to get to like a $10
million company or we're gonnaget to your next company next,
what's the underlying key,what's the secret?

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, it's okay.
So if you take, like your week,seven days, first off let's
just say seven days, because ifyou're going from zero to one,
this is a seven day a week thing.
And I'm not saying you gottawork a hundred hours, but I'm
saying you're always on, you'realways thinking about your
business, you're alwaysreturning customer phone calls,
you're all.
When you're in the showeryou're thinking about it, when

(13:11):
your head hits the pillow you'rethinking about it.
And so it's seven days a week.
So if you can take those sevendays a week, and then you gotta
divide those days into threebuckets of things you're gonna
do, and the first bucket isyou're gonna work in the
business.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
You're gonna be answering customer phone calls.
You're gonna be making sure thetrains run on time.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
You're gonna be making sure customers are happy.
You're gonna be making surevendors are paid, employees are
paid, the shop is clean,whatever.
You're working in the businessand it's like you're a one-armed
paper hanger and you're doingthat ideally Monday through
Friday, Then Saturday is all daylong, ideally six, seven, eight

(13:55):
hours Really intense, difficultwork.
You're working on the business,so you're gonna be working on
what's my marketing system?
How am I getting new customersin the door?
What's my employee trainingsystem?
We have really high turnoverhere and by the time I train
somebody they leave and it's apain in the ass.
And so what do I do?
I need an employee trainingsystem.
I spent a year building lawncare university because it took

(14:17):
six months to train a lawnmowing tech, and after I got
done with lawn care university,we got it down to six days.
Six days is a boot camp.
Boom, you know more aboutmowing yards than 99.9% of
people.
That's awesome.
And so you're working on thebusiness.
What are the systems andprocesses to get me out of
self-employed and get me intobusiness ownership?

(14:40):
And then in the seventh day,Sunday, maybe three hours you'll
give yourself half a day off.
You're working on yourself.
You're taking time to read thebooks you gotta read YouTube,
university listening to thepodcast you gotta listen to
taking the courses online thatyou gotta take.
I mean you gotta be good atlike 30 different things to pull

(15:00):
off running a business.
You gotta be a good manager.
You gotta be a good leader.
You gotta be a good copywriter.
You gotta be a pretty gooddesigner.
You gotta be a pretty goodaccountant, legal All of these
different things you gotta be 80, 20 good at.
And so nobody teaches us any ofthese things.
So you gotta set aside time toteach yourself these things and
you can learn anything.

(15:21):
You gotta learn for free onlineon YouTube.
And so you're doing these threethings, these three buckets, and
so in the first year one, twoor three, maybe 80% of your time
is in the business, 10% on thebusiness, 10% is on yourself.
And then year three, four, five, maybe it's half and half.
And then year six, seven, eight, nine, it's more like 90, 10.

(15:43):
The other way, yeah, You'vedeveloped so many systems,
You've learned so many things.
You've evolved into a whole newperson, unrecognizable from
where you were five or 10 yearspreviously.
So now you have all thesecapabilities you didn't have
before, and so now it's 90% onyourself on top of the business
and then 10% in the businessmaking sure it's running.

(16:04):
That's how you go from 100K or$100 to 100K to 250 to 500K, to
a million, to three million, to10 million.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
You know, folks, if you watch the podcast a little
bit, I did not meet with Brianbefore and pay him to say these
things.
So now you're not just hearingit from me, you know, and like
the other people that have beenon the show, but that's Brian.
That's part of this too is likeI feel like there's a lot of
bad information out there and Ifeel like we got to hear from
people like you the truth aboutit.

(16:35):
You know, it's like it's not a$99 course and you're making 10
grand next month.
It's a lot of hard work, it's alot of after it's learning,
like you're saying.
But here's the thing, and Idon't want to jump.
I have so many questions foryou.
We could do this for five hours, but would you say that I want
to jump to the tech company forjust a second?
Would you say so?
Obviously, just to give youfolks a little bit of background

(16:57):
.
Brian started the landscapingcompany, worked it to 10 million
from a one man operation, soldit right, and then he gets into
tech and I want to ask you, likehow much of the skill set from
your original company has helpedyou in your tech company?

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, so I think it can help any new founder to try
to hit a single or a double anda more straightforward business.
No business, almost that's easyor simple business.
No business is easier, simple,but a more straightforward
business, a home clean service.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Let's call it a smaller business.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, and it's like you see all the inputs and you
kind of can look at biggercompanies doing what you're
trying to do and you can kind ofrob and steal from their ideas
and just how outwork them out,hustle them, yeah, and out serve
your customers better than theyare, and you can kind of like
will into existence, aprofitable business that way.
And I think it can really behelpful for everybody to start

(17:52):
with that and spend five or 10years doing that and grow it
into something real and thenmaybe get it acquired or give it
to your kids or something.
And so then you learn a lot ofthe basics about what goes into
running any business.
So employee recruitment,employee retention, employee
training, being a good leaderfor your people because that's

(18:13):
what business ownership is andleadership is, it's servitude.
And so learning and honingthose skills, learning
management, learning, customerservice, learning all of these
things you can learn in a homecleaning business.
You can learn in a home paintingbusiness and then.
So then now you know a lot ofthese things about what it means
to be a founder and how that'sdifferent than like running a

(18:36):
career and cause.
A lot of people don'tunderstand those differences,
and so that's my advice do thathit a single or double and then
you can swing for the fences onthe really big idea Maybe it's a
big tech company, maybe it'ssome bigger idea that you're not
very well equipped for startingoff as a first time founder.
Yeah, that's kind of how Iexperienced it.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
And so I agree completely, and a lot of people
see it as a bad thing.
They have to start with noinvestment, no mentor, anything
like that.
And cause, there is thesepeople that go out and they
build a business plan, theyraise a couple of million
dollars, they get to jump into abig business, right.
And so my point and it soundslike you agree with me is it's
okay that you have to start atthis smaller business because

(19:22):
you're gonna learn everything.
And then even when you get andplease vouch for me here if you
agree it's like, even when youget into the big business, the
tech company, how helpful is itto know every little part of
like marketing and accountingand like, don't you manage these
systems better in this biggercompany?

Speaker 2 (19:38):
now, exactly, and so then I was well equipped to
start swinging for the fencesbuilding my tech business
GreenPowl and it's noteverything ported over, but
probably half did and I was ableto kind of start on first or
second base and not have tolearn all of these things all
over again.
While some things were different.
I was managing laborers andmechanics and machinery and

(20:00):
things like that in the firstcompany and the second business.
I'm managing developers,designers, engineers, things of
that sort.
So those are very, verydifferent but a lot of things
were similar.
So start a straightforwardbusiness, start a blue collar
business, if you will get somereps in, get some experience in,

(20:21):
and then you can swing for thefences on the bigger thing.
And the other thing is you havea track record then.
Then you can, if you wannaraise capital, you have a track
record to show to investors andsay, look, I built this thing.
Maybe if you live in the sametown as me, you've seen my
trucks or my presence in themarketplace and now investors
are able to kind of like connectthe dots and see what kind of

(20:44):
founder you are and what kind ofpotential you have.
If you don't have anything andyou don't have a track record
and you've never built anything,you've never tried anything,
it's gonna be really hard toswing for the fences and build a
10 million or a hundred milliondollar business.
It's better to start and sell asmall company and then step
your way in.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
And why would investors invest in you?
You're a no name from nowhere.
It's like you've never doneanything before.
You have this piece of paperwith a business plan that maybe
you learned about online and nowpeople are gonna give you
millions of dollars and that, Ithink, is what people see a lot
of it.
It's like you're telling thetruth.
It's like starting a smallerbusiness.
Learn the smaller business, bea person worth investing in, or

(21:22):
maybe, hopefully, you don't evenhave to have investors.
Tell me actually let's go intothat a little bit Like did you
take on investment at all inyour original landscaping
company and at what stage didyou do that?

Speaker 2 (21:34):
No, the first company , nor the second company.
The first business I built debtfree.
And it was really really reallydifficult to build a business
that way, debt free, becauseit's very capital intensive.
You have to buy lawnmowers thatcost 20 grand and trucks that
cost 100 grand, and so payingcash for all this stuff was
tough.
And I bought a lot of usedequipment, fixed it up and

(21:55):
things like that.
But that was the main reasonwhy I was able to get the
business sold was because thebalance sheet had zero debt on
it and a lot of my competitorswanted to sell their companies
and they may have had a $10million landscaping business,
but guess what?
They also had $10 million ofdebt and at that kind of
mid-level market acquisition,the acquirer doesn't pay off the

(22:16):
debt.
That's on you and so whateverthey buy it for, then you gotta
clean that up.
And so for me, I didn't take onany investors, I didn't take on
any debt.
It just kind of went slow andlow and built it off of its own
revenues.
And that kind of teed me up whenI built GreenPowell to really
kind of think, okay, revenue isthe best form of financing and
if you do it that way, you cannever really get too far ahead

(22:39):
of your skis and you can neverreally screw it up by going too
fast, and it always keeps youfocused on one thing customers,
because you need customers touse the product to survive, and
whereas if you raise maybe ahundred or $500,000 from friends
and family or angel investors,it's kind of easy to kind of
like relax a little bit and takeyour foot off the gas and lose

(23:01):
sight of the fact that customersare the most important thing.
Because really, I mean, whowants to listen to customers
whine all day?
Who wants to call back?
Who wants to call back andupset customer on a Sunday
afternoon because something wentwrong?
Nobody.
And so if you got a bunch ofmoney in the bank, it's easy to
kind of ignore that, but if youdon't and you really need that
customer to use the product nextweek, it's kind of a nice

(23:22):
forcing function that keeps youfocused on what matters
customers and delightingcustomers, because they're the
ones that are gonna decidewhether you succeed or fail.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
It's such a good point.
And the thing is too, it's likeif people get the, if people
have the investment too quick,they spend it on a lot of stupid
stuff too.
It's like the fancy office wallhangings.
You know it's we're gonna doall these big corporate lunches
and things like that.
I'm with you it's better tostart scrappy.
And the other thing is it'slike you've never had.
So you didn't take investmentin your new company either.

(23:52):
Your tech company, no.
So you've never had a boss no.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
You're like one of the true entrepreneurs that
doesn't have a boss.
My boss is my customers, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
But that's it.
Well, that's the other sidethat people don't realize.
It's like where can I getinvestment?
Where can I get these loans?
Now you have a boss.
Now the boss is your bank orthe investor.
Right, they're gonna be on yourbutton.
Everybody gets into business tohave there be their own boss.
You're not your own boss unlessyou do it the way you do it.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
No, and I mean listen .
Raising capital and gettinggood investors on the team with
you can be helpful, andsometimes it does work out, but
more times than not, that typeof capital ruins the business
rather than helping it, and soyou just need to be wary of what
you're signing up for and youwill lose control of the

(24:39):
business.
And then the business is not ablessing in your life, it's a
chain around your neck, becausenow you really have to show up
and you're beholden tostakeholders and it's no longer
fun anymore.
So just be careful of that.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
I agree 100%.
I was telling a story.
Actually yesterday I started mybusiness basically in a lean to
.
I don't even know like if youcould call it an operation at
that point, but I was luckyenough to have one of the
richest men in the country comedown and take a look at my
business very early on and he'slike I'll give you 20 grand for
50% and like believe it or notlike, and you probably remember

(25:14):
those days it was hard to turndown the 20 grand.
I'd started the whole companywith four grand and so that was
like a lot of money.
And then, like I think aboutthat and I think about where we
ended up and everything.
It was like that would havebeen the worst decision I ever
made in business and I've madesome bad ones along the way but
I would have been working forthat 50% instead of 100%.
For the last.
I sold that company after eightyears, and that's the other

(25:38):
side I want people to understand, and so I'm so glad you weighed
in on it.
It's like investment's notalways a good thing.
Having a boss is not always agood thing.
It's like you'll get scrappy ifyou need to.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, I think that when it makes sense to raise
capital is a couple of differentscenarios.
One if you've done this beforeand you're about to do the same
thing all over again and youknow you can do in two years
what took you 10?
If you had capital and you knowall the things to do, then go

(26:09):
raise capital and move quick.
You're ready for the rocketfuel.
At that point you know what todo.
So take on the rocket fuel andput it in a rocket.
But if you don't know what todo, it's like putting the rocket
fuel in a Toyota Camry and it'sjust gonna blow up.
Yeah, and so if I went to goback in time 10 years to start
GreenPowl, the first thing Iwould do is raise capital

(26:32):
because I know everything thereis to do and so I could put that
capital to work.
And so, until you have amachine where you can show
investors say, look, you put adollar in this side and then on
the other side it spits out $2.
It's just amazing, give memoney and I'll give you more
money than great.
But it's not like most peoplelook at raising money like oh, I

(26:53):
would really like to start thisbusiness if I only had capital
to start it with, and if yougive me the money, I'll start it
.
And it's like no, no, no, no,no, no.
Figure out a way to get started.
Get some used equipment.
Maybe this store fronts whatyou want, but maybe this one's
the one you start with.
Or if it's an online business,hack together your first website

(27:15):
or something yourself.
Get started with something andthen in Snowball your way into
something bigger.
I think is a better path.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, it's such good advice.
And one thing I lean on all thetime and it's like I wonder
right now if you could go backand talk to the younger you,
because obviously I hate to saythis for sure, but I would
assume in your new tech companythe sky is bigger.
Your opportunity for money is,hands down, different.

(27:48):
When you're working in yourlandscape company you're kind of
limited by the staff, theamount of production you can do.
Maybe you have to franchise,there's ways to grow, right but
in a tech company your growth ismore exponential.
Would you agree with that?
Yeah, you nailed it.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
So the pros and cons of a traditional service-based
blue collar business like myfirst company my landscaping
company is pros are OK lowbarriers to entry.
I can get started on level one,work my way up.
I can just build it little bylittle.
I can build it debt-free.
I can just slowly accumulatemarket share in my market.
I can hire employees and scalethis thing and get it to $10

(28:28):
million a year in revenue.
But at some point there's a lotof gravity that weighs in on
that business.
That pulls it down.
So margins are thin.
It's very competitive for thesame reasons that make it not
easy to start but approachable.
To start Also lends itself tohyper-competition.
It's very hard to defend thebusiness in terms of protecting

(28:52):
margins because there's 10 othercompetitors that do exactly the
same thing you do.
And then the other thing it's asmall business.
You've got 40 different taxingauthorities with their hands in
your pocket and so you're alwaysdefending and fighting off
these different taxingauthorities that want to eat
into your margin.
And then you've got employeesthat always want to be paid more

(29:13):
and customers want to pay lessand so you're always fighting
that.
So there's a lot of gravity thatthat that will hold that
business to a certain point andit's hard to kind of scale out
of that now it's been done.
The company that my business,it was a billion dollar
Organization.
So yeah we can be done.
But these are, you know, 30, 40, 50 year old organizations.

(29:35):
They've been doing a long time.
They, they were establishedlong ago and developed economies
of scale that that you, as anew founder, don't have.
And so there's pros and cons.
So, fast forward, sell thatbusiness.
Fast forward, building a techcompany.
It's a lot harder becauseyou're inventing a new product
from scratch that does not exist.

(29:55):
So that's a lot harder thanstarting a service-based
business.
That's a lot more difficult,maybe a hundred times more
difficult, but it doesn't, it'snot subject to the same type of
like gravity that the otherBusinesses, because then that
tech can scale you.
Once you figured out you can,you can touch the match, the
mass market.
Yeah, a lot easier, becausetechnology scales, it's not

(30:17):
beholden to all these otherfactors that hold it down.
So so that the two journeys arevery, very different and have
their own kind of pros and cons,and I I think it can make sense
to do the first one first, theblue collar one first, and then
the tech one second.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
So actually, you explained it so well and I have
a follow-up question, and thereason behind that question is
Do you think part of thatprocess I can, I can speak for
myself and you tell me if thisalso is Something you you feel
too?
It's like we don't know.
At some point, when we'restarting as a one-man operation
or a smaller ordination,organization or a Small business

(30:54):
coming from nothing, it's hardto dream that big, isn't it like
?
Don't you need some time andsome confidence in?
Did you need, like?
Could you ever have dreamed ofthe tech company before you
started the other company?

Speaker 2 (31:08):
No, no, not only no, hell, no, it's like the.
The experience of running mylandscaping business gave me the
idea to build green power, the.
So green power is the uber forlawn care and, and so Seeing all
of the inefficiencies andthings that were broken about
hiring a lawnmowing service andthe things that made it

(31:28):
difficult to run a lawnmowingservice, gave me the inspiration
and the idea to build greenpower.
After I sold the landscapingbusiness and so Without that I
would have never even had the,the, the exposure to, to
marketplace inefficiencies thatI knew that needed a product, so
sure.
So getting started just just insomething unlocks Opportunities

(31:50):
like that.
Momentum creates luck.
Yeah, and so you have you haveconfidence right.
Yeah, totally, and and and soyeah, no, I think authenticity
can be a competitive advantage,and so for me.
I spent 15 years in thelandscaping business.
I was well suited to start thebusiness that that worked like

(32:11):
uber, but for lawn care.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Oh, I don't know that there's a better person out
there to do it, and that's youknow.
That's the other thing too.
I like I guess the point I'mgetting at is like it really
takes.
We don't dare to dream that big, I think.
At first some of us, you know,it's like I applaud people that
were like I knew I wanted to bean entrepreneur of a huge
company at like 13 years old,that like that's great, like if
you have that.
But I think a lot of people arelike I'm gonna start something.

(32:33):
That's just daring enough,right, you know, and it's like,
but once and I'm sure you'llagree with me once you start it,
you start to learn it.
You're like you know what I cando, anything.
There is no business I can'tget into anymore, you know,
because now I've gotten someconfidence through the initial
one.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, I feel the same way and and I think it's
important to kind of, at a point, begin with the end in mind,
almost because that thatdictates a lot of what you're
doing.
When I was building mylandscaping company, I had a
chip on my shoulder.
I wasn't the cool kid in highschool.
I did, you know.
I didn't have a date to thedance, I didn't get picked for
the football team, and so I hada chip on my shoulder to do

(33:13):
something.
Yeah, prove that I could dosomething big, or at least what
I thought was big.
Yeah, and that's just a part ofwho I am, and I look for this
when I'm hiring Employees andteam members.
It's like I'm looking forpeople that that have had that
same life experience.
It's just part of who they are.
They have, they have somethingto prove, yeah, and and so I,
you know, when I was buildingthe landscaping business, I

(33:33):
wanted to put a hundred truckson the road.
I wanted to.
I wanted to hire over a hundredpeople, I wanted to do millions
of dollars in sales.
I knew that I didn't know howto get there, I didn't know what
to do to get there, but I, Iknew that, and so I think it's
important to have that, thatvision of what you want to be
and do, because if you don'twant that, then then it's okay

(33:55):
to run a small business and andand take low quality revenue and
Turn it into high qualityrevenue.
And what I mean by that is Ihave a.
I have a friend, a lady thatruns a home cleaning service.
She's got two employees and shedoes she's like the best in
Nashville at Airbnb short-termrental cleaning and so she's got

(34:20):
high margins.
She's got a lot of goodclientele and and and.
In the course of doing this,she's she's interacting with
property investors and propertydevelopers and she's seeing
properties, and so she, like afew years ago, bought her first
Airbnb.
A couple years after that,bought a second one.
Now she's up to like six goodfor her, and and.
So she's taking low qualityrevenue yeah, thin, thin margin

(34:44):
home cleaning revenue, yeah, andturning it into high quality
revenue, passive income fromreal estate investments, and and
and she's basically playingmonopoly all over Nashville,
yeah, and and and and so, and.
So that's a path.
You don't have to build a homecleaning company with a hundred
employees.
You don't have to build thenext Molly maids Franchising
system.
You can.
You can make good profit off ofa small service-based business

(35:07):
and then and then transform thatinto it's a more durable
sources of income with withpassive investors.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, that it's such a good point.
You know, and that's, andyou're right.
I like I don't know about you.
When you first started yourlandscaping business that you
knew it would want to.
You wanted it to Be huge.
I got into my first businesskind of begrudgingly, pushed
into it by the city a little bitand Compliance issues at home
and so You're not allowed tostrip paint off of your car and

(35:33):
driveways and and so I was kindof pushed into it and but then
when you start doing it, youknow some people are like super
happy and some of the happiestpeople I know like keep the
operation small.
You know they love what they do, they enjoy working in the
business a lot.
You know like, and there'snothing wrong with that.
But I like tell people all thetime like to think about the
business that you're startingand To see, like how it aligns

(35:56):
with actually what you want todo.
Like car business is mybackground.
It's like if you love cars, youwant to work in cars every day
or your life.
You know like you want to turna wrench.
You know that's a wonderfulbusiness and there's ways you
can scale it, especially aroundthe custom work.
It is a labor of love.
You know there's only so faryou can ever go with it, you
know.
And so like, yeah, right,learning to, I want you to weigh

(36:16):
in on, like choosing your firstbusiness, what's a good way?
And we've talked about like Icall them traction business,
quick correction and slowtraction.
We like quick traction businesswould be one like you're
talking about landscaping,working on cars in your backyard
, that sort of stuff.
You're gonna get clients rightaway and get some revenue
rolling in.
Slow traction would be, youknow, like just for the audience
.
It's like well, you start atech company, right, that takes

(36:37):
some time to build an actualproduct before you can monetize
it, and so you have to have somepretty good runway as far as
money before you start it.
But let's talk about like whatdo you think is the best way to
analyze your first business andwhat to start?

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah, I think that Following your passion, it can
be bad advice, because veryrarely to your point.
You mentioned like custom cars.
Yeah, there's probably a lot oflike fabricators and and Custom
car enthusiasts that would loveto have a business in that, but
what you find out is thatthat's a really hard business to
scale and it really becomes alabor of love, and so I think

(37:12):
following your passion can bebad advice.
I've never loved the lawn careindustry.
I've never.
I hate, I hate, hate cuttingyards, hated mowing yards when I
was, when I was in my 20s Hatedevery day of it.
Yeah, but but I but I found joyin, in the, in building the
business, and I found joy in andhiring employees and giving

(37:33):
them a livelihood.
And, yeah, I found joy inseeing this creation grow and
that was fun.
Yeah, but the but but lawnmowing.
I've never been passionateabout lawn mowing.
Now that I run Green Powell,which is which is like the
nation's largest network of lawnmowing services and and I still
don't like lawn mowing I likebuilding a tech company.
Yeah, I like, I like that.

(37:54):
You know thousands of peopleuse my product every day.
That's fun, yeah, and lawn careservices use it to grow their
livelihood.
That's fun, but I don't likelawn mowing so sure.
I think I think follow yourpassion can be bad advice.
I think I think it's better tofocus on, like, okay, what am I
good at and what can I makemoney doing?

(38:16):
Yeah, and and do I see anopportunity where I can do
something a little bit better ora little bit different?
Or or Work a little harder thanthan than other people in the
space and just out, hustle them?
Yeah, and and and.
Can I knuckle down on somethinglike that?
And and start from there?
And and then find the joy.

(38:37):
If you don't have to, like, bepassionate about it, but find
the joy in the process, yeah,okay, once I hit, once I hit my
first hundred K in revenue, I'mgonna be really proud of myself
because I didn't think I coulddo that.
Sure, I'm gonna celebrate thatlike that's a million, yeah, and
, and.
So it's like.
Find the joy in, in the, in thewinning, in the milestones, but
don't don't go after somethingthat you're passionate about,

(38:59):
because rarely can you makemoney doing that.
There's a great book called theemith by Michael Gerber, and and
there's a book about this ladythat Baked pies with her grandma
growing up, and so she,everybody told her that she just
she made the best apple piethey've ever tasted.
And so, and everybody alwaystold her, you should open a
bakery.
And so she does it, and afterlike three months, she hates the

(39:22):
smell of pies, she hateseverything about pies, she hates
making pies.
Why did she start this business?
This sucks so bad, and so thatbook talks about this lady's
journey and how she turned itaround and built an actual
business and built an actualbakery, and it's a great book
for any new founder to read.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah, no, I'm so glad you went there too, and that's
why I think definitions ofstarting and you don't know this
when you first start and that'swhy I like to tell the audience
, defining why you're going todo it and where you want to go
with it.
There is people that work in asmaller business.
They actually enjoy it.
There is the pie people of theworld that like their smaller
business but know that you'regetting into it to have a job,

(40:04):
because some industries that'swhat it's going to be.
It's not going to be anythingever more.
If you want to be the nextMicrosoft, you've got to just
find that differently.
You've got to get into adifferent industry.
But I love your point of viewtoday too.
It's like start the smaller one, learn from it and then pivot
to the bigger one and learninglessons along the way Exactly.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
It really does put you.
It's like playing baseball andstarting on first or second base
.
It's really like, if not,you're in the dugout and you're
not even in the game.
It's like you're not even atthe plate yet.
And so start small, get a trackrecord, get some kind of money,
get some money put back.
You're going to need some money.
It's like I had a new founderthe other day tell me.

(40:45):
He's like yeah, I just want tostart this business.
He literally asked me thisquestion.
He goes I want to start thisbusiness, but, man, it takes
like $150,000 a year for me tojust pay my bills.
And so how do I do it?
Do investors pay me that, orhow does that work?
And I'm like first off dude,it's like when do you take that

(41:06):
$150,000 and take it down to$30,000 or $40,000?
You're single, you don't havekids.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
We need to downgrade your apartment, sell that car
payment, your clothes are waytoo fancy All these things
Because your personal financesare the business's finances and
vice versa, and so it's like youare your business, your
business is you, and so it'slike people don't really
understand that and it alwayssurprises me.

(41:33):
It's like get your personalfinances in order, get a small
business going Bank some moneybecause you're going to need
some money for the bigger thing,and like stare at your way into
this, stare, step your way intoit.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
I got an argument a little bit on Twitter the other
day because they were talkingabout founders needing $100,000
plus salaries, and I started myfirst business by living in a
trailer on a back lot with nowater and no electricity, and so
you're never going to convinceme that I should have a huge
salary off the bat, it's like,and I had people making over six
figures quite a few of thembefore I was ever really paying

(42:06):
myself.
It's like, where do you k-?
That's why Let me ask you thisactually when is it, what do you
think of pay yourself first andwhen is it time to pay yourself
in business?

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah, pay yourself first is a really is a good
philosophy and I put that towork in my first company and
with good success.
And the other idea of payingyourself first is that you pay
yourself as a bill, like firstof the month, and if you do that
, everything else kind of coursecorrects around that.

(42:38):
And I guess I started doingthat year five or six in my
first company, but I wouldn'tpay myself, I would just put
that into a Vanguard account,yeah, and so 10% of whatever the
business did boom right off thetop.
Yeah, it's kind of like avendor bill, yeah, and that
worked really well.
Because what I started noticingis that all the other expenses
kind of it kind of forced me todo the hard work of

(43:01):
renegotiating that othercontract.
Or do we really need, like, abig bottle of water in the
office, or can we just get afiltered water system?
Yeah, that's $500 a month andlooking for stuff like that.
And so paying yourself first asa bill can be effective at a
certain point in the game, notwhen you're going 0 to 1.

(43:21):
When you have nothing, nocustomers, you have no revenue,
you're just hustling.
Thank you, you don't payyourself first, no, you survive.
And so, yeah, you have aroommate, you sleep in a spare
bedroom, you sleep on a friend'scouch, whatever.
You sleep in a trailer behindyour somebody else's house,
whatever it takes.

(43:42):
Because every dime you can savepersonally, you can reinvest
into the business and if you'reworking a long-term plan, like
you need that fuel, you'll needthat capital.
It's like you need that moneyyou're saving personally to put
back in the business.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Totally, and then you can put barrier sentry in the
way of your competitors.
Like, we ended up having thelargest powder coat oven in the
city while I was still living inthe trailer, you know it's like
.
So that wasn't an investmentthat I had to make.
You know like it was.
The business was functioning.
We grew a woodshop department,a manufacturing department for
small vehicle manufacturers.
All I was still living in thetrailer and that's actually an

(44:15):
episode we just had is like whendo you know to get out of the
grind and when is it OK to giveyourself you know things, you
know and that sort of stuff.
And but I think once again, likedispelling a myth, I agree with
you 100%.
Yeah, first you can't payyourself, because that's one
place that you can take it outof, that's one place you can
sacrifice have the cheaper meal,drive the cheaper car, you know
, live a little bit more meager,you know, and it's like.

(44:37):
But then it gets to the pointwhere you're saying pay yourself
versus smart, you know, butthere is.
And then same with on, and theyloved your point about on and
in your business today too, it'slike there is a point for on
and there's a point for in.
You know, it's like everybody'stelling you online these days
if you're working in thebusiness, you're doing it wrong.
It's like tell me how the heckyou're supposed to start not

(44:57):
working in your business whenyou're the only person working
there.
Oh hey, I'm walking on mybusiness today.
You know, nobody showed up forthe work, sorry.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Good luck.
No customer is going to pay youto do anything, no.
And so, yeah, you ease intothat.
You earn that.
As you work in it, you start tosee the systems you need to
build around what you're doing.
And to your early point, one ofmy favorite quotes, mark Cuban,
says he says the least you canlive on, the greater your

(45:26):
options as an entrepreneur.
Yes, and so, like you know yourexample living in the trailer
that low personal burn ratecreated options that you could
do in your business Totally.
It created opportunity for youto do other interesting things,
to create defensibility aroundyour business.
If it needed 10 grand a monthjust to survive, you would have

(45:49):
had to be much more conservative.
You would have done things thatweren't quite as interesting
and you wouldn't have built asquite an interesting business.
And so the least you can liveon personally as a founder, the
greater your option.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Thank you for saying that You're teaching a
masterclass today and it's like,literally, it's just a lot of
the things that I like to sayand so people are going to think
I paid you to say them today.
But this is the truth, folks.
This is the truth of business.
Not everybody gets stroked tocheck, not everybody gets to
just work on their business.
There becomes those times.
It's all a journey and it's likeme personally, I would have

(46:23):
never had the confidence to opena big tech company at first,
like no way.
Like I opened something thatwould be grudgingly.
I'm like I can just dare to getinto this business, like maybe
I can have this little thing.
But then, once you get into itand you said earlier it's like
you realize that these peoplethat are doing it aren't that
much better than me and I canlearn this stuff.

(46:44):
And you start to make progressand you're like I can actually
do this and weighing on this forme too.
I'd love you to back me up onit because I think you will.
It's like now you can doanything you want.
It doesn't even have to bebusiness stuff.
If you want to start afoundation, you know how to do
that If you want to take offtomorrow and start a series on
robots on Mars, you could figureout how to do that.

(47:05):
One of the best tools, I think,as an entrepreneur is once you
learn how to do this, you can doanything.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Oh, totally.
I really learned that buildingmy second company, greenpow,
because I had to learn how towrite software.
I had to learn how to designsoftware.
I had to learn how to docopywriting.
I had to learn how to deal withengineers and developers and
speak their language, and so onething I started learning was I
can learn pretty much anything.
I got to learn I can go onYouTube University and just sit

(47:34):
down and just comb through allthe BS and really dial in to
something that's good and thenjust learn and do everything I'm
learning and acquire a newskill I didn't have.
And a lot of times we want tobelieve our own BS and we can
say, well, I'm not an engineer,therefore I can't code that up.
Or I'm not a designer,therefore I need to go get a

(47:55):
designer.
Or I'm not a marketer, I needto go hire a marketing agency.
And then you believe your ownBS and then you don't acquire
these skills.
And if you can break out ofthat and say I can learn the 80,
20 of pretty much anything, ifI'm willing to put in the time
to do it, it levels you up as afounder and it unlocks new

(48:18):
levels of the game.
The greatest of this is ElonMusk, by the way.
He's got like seven companiesand it doesn't matter if he's on
the shop floor at Tesla or ifhe's with rocket scientists at
SpaceX or if he's talking to thechief of marketing at Twitter.
It's like he can speak at a highlevel to any of those actions

(48:42):
and it's like he can move in andout of any different piece of
any organization he has andspeak it to a high degree of
efficacy to any of thosevocations.
And so it's like you've got tolearn this stuff, you've got to
train yourself on this stuff.
Don't believe your own BS.
Just because you don't have thetitle doesn't mean you can't do
it.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
I agree at 100%.
And wouldn't you agree?
It's like once you get to acertain level, you're managing
these things.
But how helpful is it to knowsomething about the things that
you're managing?

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Oh, it's crucial.
Every time I've ever tried todelegate something that I didn't
know enough to be dangerousabout, it's always blown up in
my face.
Yeah, when we first builtGreenPowell, we tried that I had
never built a website, I hadnever built an app, and so we
paid a development shop $150,000to build the first version of

(49:31):
the Uber for Longcare GreenPowand it was a total disaster.
We wasted a year of our time.
They delivered something thatbarely worked and it was clunky,
buggy, and we realized, man, wegot to rebuild this ourselves,
and so I had to go back to thedrawing board, take like six
months, learn how to bedangerous just good enough to be
dangerous at softwaredevelopment and we had to

(49:52):
rebuild it with our own hands.
And then only then could I goto a developer and say, ok,
here's what we want you to do,here's how we expect you to do
it.
Here's how long it should take.
Here's how much we know it'sgoing to cost.
Here's how we grade the qualityof it.
Go do this scope of work that Ihave defined for you.
Oh, I don't know how this works.
You go handle it.

(50:12):
Let me know when you're done.
Good luck.
That always blows up in yourface.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
You know one of the biggest things I see it in these
days.
So we have a facility herewhere we help small business
people for free, like they cancome in any time, like usually
they schedule in.
I probably help about 10 peoplea week, sit down with them up
for an hour, from anywhere fromaccounting to SEO, anything else
.
And one of the biggest things Isee over and over again.
I mean there's a lot of them,but one of the shadier systems

(50:38):
is websites.
Right, everybody goes out.
They're like I don't understanda website.
I got to raise X number $1,000.
Usually what I'm seeing, thegoing rate these days is usually
people are paying about $10,000.
I have a friend, close friend.
They started a tech company.
They paid $60,000.
Then we look into their organictraffic, which is one of the
main reasons that you want tohave a website, and zero hits.
Zero, $60,000, $10,000, zerohits.

(51:02):
So please, if you're like Brian, saying like learn at least
enough to be dangerous, becauseonce you know a little bit about
SEO, you'll know what questionsto ask, even if you're going to
hire somebody to do it.
Like, know about it so you canmanage it, so you don't end up
with a $60,000 website that doesnothing for you.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, and the reality is we've all made those
mistakes.
Sure, I still make mistakeslike that.
Yeah, I don't want to learn.
I don't want to learn anotherthing.
It's like now with AI.
It's like I don't want to haveto learn another thing, but
every time I try to go hiresomebody to do something that I
don't know anything about, I'mthe dumb ass spending $60,000 on

(51:41):
a website that would no traffic.
Yeah, it's like.
Go to YouTube, type in how do Ibuild a website?
Yeah, and just watch videos for20 hours per week.
And I guarantee you you will be10 times more equipped on how to
get that website bill and whatyou're going after than you were
20 hours earlier.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Oh, absolutely, and you know like, if you're
starting from nothing, it's oneof the places you can save money
.
It's just time at that point.
Free, yeah, exactly, and you'reprobably going to be a better
off because you're probablygoing to build a better website
than the guy that just scammedyou for 10 grand and you didn't
get any traffic on.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Exactly, or at least you're going to have some kind
of knowledge to know who to hireand what success looks like and
what you're looking for.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
What questions to ask .

Speaker 2 (52:24):
And it's like, well, you know, I don't have time to
do this.
Oh my God, if I hear that onemore time, it's like turn off
Netflix, turn off Spotify.
Yeah, your car, your car shouldrun on two things gasoline and
and podcasts, yeah.
And I don't mean like Joe Rogan, I mean like podcast Nobody's
heard of that that that aretalking about something very

(52:46):
specific, about what you'retrying to do.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
YouTube University all your all.
Sunday afternoon should beYouTube University.
Somebody should.
Should be talking about what'sthe new show on on on on Netflix
.
You don't know what they'retalking about because you're
listening.
You're watching stuff onYouTube.
You know fireside chats,keynotes, speeches, how to,
tutorials, webinars, things thatyou skills you need to acquire

(53:10):
to play the game.
You're spending all your timedoing that.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
You know 100%.
That's why it's possible foranybody like.
This is the best time on theplanet to be an underdog.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
You know like it's the best time in the world to be
an entrepreneur I mean in thehistory of the world when, when,
the late 90s, when I wasstarting my landscaping company,
I remember I was like man, Ireally want to have a big
landscaping company and thissucks.
I've only got like one employeeand I'm out here in the hot sun
all day and I smell likegasoline and grass all day.
This really sucks.
I want to have one of these bigcompanies.

(53:42):
How do I do that?
Yeah, and, and, and I'm justlooking at all these big, these
big ass companies with trucksall over the place and I really
want to do that.
And so I got a magazine, a trademagazine, and in the back you
could, you could send off forsome tapes that were audible
recordings of a trade show, of a, of a chat between these

(54:02):
founders of these big companies,okay, and what they were doing.
So I, I, I clipped the couponand I, I just opened up a
checking account and I wrote outa check and I put that in the
envelope and sealed it and put astamp on it and mailed it off.
And three weeks later, in athousand dollars, I got three
cassette tapes in the mail andand I listened to those cassette

(54:23):
tapes in my truck while whilegoing from stop to stop, mowing
yards.
That is how you learn thisstuff back then.
These days you can getinformation a hundred times
better for free on on YouTube.
It's just incredible so mucheasier now than it's ever been.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Oh, absolutely One.
One question, though, is, likewhat's good advice for?
Because we see a lot of badinformation out there, right?
We talked about some of ittoday.
Like what's an advice forsomebody that doesn't know any
better Like you and I can vetthe bad from the good
information online because weknow, you know, like, what do
you think is a good way for akid that's new out there trying
to start something?
To vet the good from the bad?

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Yeah, because it's like UK.
He's like, ok, he says, go toYouTube University, what the
hell does that even mean?
And it's like, ok, well, I'mgoing to prepare you.
Half the time is going to belearning, the other half is
going to be sifting through theBS and like, like, I mean you're
just going to have to do it.
You know, for every good hourof content you watch, you're

(55:20):
probably going to watch two orthree of bad content.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
The more reps you put in, the more of this stuff you
consume, the more you'll get asense for what you're looking
for and what you're not, andwhat works and what doesn't.
So combine whatever it isyou're learning with actual
evidence in the real world ofsomething that's working.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
And so for me it's like I a guy that I, that I
follow is was the first marketer.
These names Casey Winters.
He was the first marketer atGrubhub, pinterest, and then
Uber hired him as like aconsultant and so, and so these
were.
These were early tech companies.
Grubhub is really importantbecause Grubhub was, was was

(56:03):
really early for for fooddelivery.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
And, and and and.
Uber for lawn care is kind ofwhere food delivery was 12 years
ago.
You don't really think aboutusing an app to get a lawn
mowing service.
So it's educational marketing,you have to create a way.
Yeah, exactly In 2009,.
You didn't really think aboutusing an app to order Chinese
food delivered to your home, andso they were solving a similar
problem of what we're solvingnow.

(56:27):
And so this guy's got a blog hedoes.
He does interviews on podcasts,he does, he does keynote
speeches and fireside talks, andso I'm listening to every
spoken word this guy's ever putout on the internet, and every
written word as well.
Yeah because he was one of thefirst marketers at Grubhub and
so I can learn from what theywere doing.

(56:47):
Sure, you know skills andcontent marketing skills and all
kinds of things, so so this isa guy is exposing his knowledge.
He's done what it is I'm tryingto do.
Yeah, he's not.
He's not some guy with someflashy TikToker or Instagram
page selling you know get richquick programs and and and dry
cleaning or whatever.

(57:08):
Oh, you know he he's worked asan executive at one of these big
companies that that I'm tryingto fast follow.
Yeah, so that's a great personfor me to learn from, and so
combine the online content withreal world, like track record,
and that's kind of how you'llknow you're on the right track.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
That's absolutely great advice, and a lot of times
I look at their motives to it'slike, yeah, do you follow Mark
Randolph at all?
Founder of Netflix.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
A little bit.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah.
So it's like Mark's out there,he's just giving out information
, right, because he wants tohelp entrepreneurs, you know,
and it's like, and I find Mark awonderful mouthpiece for,
especially like pivots, like I'ma do you?
Do you know the story ofNetflix pivot?

Speaker 2 (57:49):
You know they, they were in DVDs and then went to
streaming and then try to try todo both at the same time, and
that didn't work for a while andthen they had to go double down
on streaming the way theyrebuilt that company from
physical DVDs.
The streaming is incredible.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Absolutely, and like the part of the story that gets
me the most is their onlyrevenues were in DVD sales and
they actually they can the DVDsales and, like we're just going
to focus on this rental thing,that's a tremendously hard pivot
.
Right, it's like okay, this isthe thing that's working.
Goodbye, you know, we got tofocus and so, like, my point is
it's like Mark out there is outthere getting giving information

(58:24):
.
From what I see, he's notselling anything, he just wants
to do it out of his good, of hisheart, and I know Mark is being
a tremendous pivoter andstrategy is amazing.
And then they were also knownfor a good culture, right, and
so, like, those are the things Ipay attention to.
So not only do I bet Mark alittle bit for being who he is,
but I bet where his specialty isRight.
You know, it's like we couldlearn a lot of things through

(58:45):
Steve Jobs and I say this allthe time but I don't want to
learn how to live life fromSteve Jobs, right, I want to
learn marketing, I want to learnstrategy, but I don't want to
be any kind of human like SteveJobs is Right, exactly, and
that's okay, that's okay to pickand choose the qualities you
want.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah, that's part of it, that's put, and I call this
asynchronous mentorship.
Yeah, there are 40 people, 50people, who I have followed for
a decade, who I have learned.
I've learned enough about fromthem, to the more than I than I
learned in business school, yeah, and I've listened to every
speech they've ever given, everytalk they've ever given.
They don't know who I am yeah,they've never met me.

(59:21):
Yeah, but I have learned somuch from them and I think
that's a lot more effective andbetter use of your time than
trying to hit somebody up onLinkedIn Like I want to pick
your brain, like I'm sorry,nobody really has time for that.
Just consume the stuff thatthese people are putting out
asynchronously one way and youcan get all the benefit anyways.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
For free and there's a lot of people out there that
are just doing it out of thegoodness of their hearts and
that's why I'm not sayingeverybody that's.
There is some people that areselling some stuff probably that
like have good intentions, theyjust decided their time needs
to be valued that way, but Ifind most of them that, like I
I've really looked at like mostof them are doing it just
because you know they make theirmoney in business and this is
what they do to try to help,right, but I can't say always

(01:00:02):
but it's not always.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
But in my experience, if they have a course with it,
I don't know, usually usually itrarely works out.
There is, there is a good groupcalled authority hackers that
you mentioned SEO early earlier,and these guys you know they
they own websites and they doaffiliate marketing and they're
driving traffic to thosewebsites and they sell courses.

(01:00:28):
Yeah, and so it's like, lookfor that at least.
At least show me something thatyou're doing over here that I
can look at and you're selling acourse with that.
That's fine.
I understand that you have toget the monetize your time, but
but yeah, it's the ones thathave been there, done that and
kind of like maybe hung up, likehung it up for a while that
that just are what they want tobe a thought leader.

(01:00:48):
Those are the best people tolearn from in my, in my
experience.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Yeah, that's what I noticed too, and it's like part
of the battle is just bettingthe good from the bad
information.
You know, I also have aundergrad in biochemistry and
love fitness.
Oh wow, you know, and so it'slike between business and
fitness.
I look online and I'm like, ohman, that's like that was
actually kind of what got meinto the.
Some of this stuff is because Idon't tell you what you want to
hear.
You're not telling people whatthey want to hear today.

(01:01:11):
They want to hear they can pay$100 and then they can start a
business that's going to make 10grand next month, right, but
that is not the truth.
I don't know anybody that'sdone that.
Personally, I don't know oneperson that paid $100, you know,
for this course and then, like,let's bet and let's look into
any major entrepreneur on theplanet.
Did any of those get theirbusiness idea from YouTube's top

(01:01:32):
20 business ideas from mailingin a course for $100?
Can we think of one?

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
No, no, no.
They saw something broken inthe world that needed to be
fixed and they built the productto solve it.
And very rarely did anybody getrich buying a course from
somebody else and following thatplan.
I don't know of any examples.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Yeah, I don't either, and so and that's part of the
premise of this show is like Ifeel like it distracts people
from just getting to the work.
Getting to the work is going tobe the biggest shortcut Every
time I've ever tried to.
I remember, just quick story,like I remember back to like
being 16 years old and likeprotein powders weren't very
complex, you know, and so, likewe used to get this bucket or

(01:02:14):
box excuse me, cardboard boxwith a plastic bag inside and it
was the worst smelling, worstprotein tasting you ever had in
your life.
But I swear to you that proteinwas the best working stuff I
ever had, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
It's like and so I look at like life that way too.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
If it's too easy, it's probably you know.
If it tastes too good, it'sprobably not working as good.
You know, if this is the easyroad, it's probably not the one
that's going to work the way Iwant it to.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I mean, that's just the way theuniverse works.
I don't know any other way toshortcut it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, like I can't believe,an hour's up already, like it
was so valuable the informationyou gave today and like
literally I know I said it acouple of times it's like people
are probably going to thinklike you and I had a
conversation before and said saythis, say this, say this,
because it's actually what Ibelieve too.
But it's like, no, it's thetruth and that's why, you know,

(01:03:02):
like I said, a lot of peoplelike talk to me about being on
the show.
This show isn't even officiallyreleased yet.
By the time you see thisepisode.
It will be, but we haven't evenofficially launched it.
I get a lot of people contactingme about being on it and
there's some amazing people outthere, but I look for the actual
story that I think is going tobe the most beneficial to
anybody out there trying tostart a business, trying to
change something, trying to dosomething Everybody's telling

(01:03:25):
them in the world they can't do.
And like motivating people likeyou that have been through this
and you know like telling thetruth of the hardships and you
know like doing it from a goodhearted place so you can help
people, like it's invaluable andI can't thank you enough for
taking the time to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Well, travis, I really appreciate it.
I appreciate you having me on.
What I hope somebody gets outof hearing interview with me is
that if that guy can do it, Ican do it too.
Yeah, and just get started,start small and set little small
goals and keep working it.
I promise you in five or 10years you'll arrive somewhere.
The only question is where, andthe business can be the answer

(01:04:02):
to that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Absolutely, and you know before we get off.
You've been stuck with me foran hour and that's what the
wonderful thing about podcastingis, by the way.
It's like he's stuck with me,no matter what.
For an hour I get to ask anyquestion.
I want you know, like he'sstuck here.
So is there anything you wantto announce or talk about?
You know, before we close outthe episode.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
You know anybody that doesn't want to waste time
mowing their own yard, just goto greenpowcom.
You can get a lawn mowingservice in 60 seconds, so check
it out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
That's so awesome and , folks, thanks for tuning in
today.
I hope you got something out ofthis.
I can tell you, like vouch,first hand.
Everything he's saying is legit.
You know there is stages toabsolutely everything.
There's an in your businesstime, on your business time.
It's steps ahead and you can gohe's a shining example of this
from mowing a lawn to now owninga tech company.
It's like it like couldn't askfor a better story.

(01:04:50):
Thanks for tuning in.
We'll have another great guestnext week and we'll see you soon
.