Why Small Equity Stakes Weren't the Answer — Transcript

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1. 0:00I don't know if he's selling courses. Do
2. 0:01you sell courses? I don't, no.
3. 0:03>> Okay.
4. 0:03>> I was going to say do what like do
5. 0:04people ever mistake you for like a
6. 0:05self-help guru?
7. 0:07>> 100% yeah. So the whole idea after I
8. 0:09sold Gym Launch was like
9. 0:11I heard this thing was like what if you
10. 0:13what if all your free stuff is better
11. 0:14than everyone else's paid stuff? And so
12. 0:15because I came from the knowledge space
13. 0:17it's like a lot of my stuff looks that
14. 0:18way. And so but everyone's like he just
15. 0:20wants you to buy his courses and I was
16. 0:21like I don't have one.
17. 0:22>> Right.
18. 0:22>> So but like that's just the nature of it
19. 0:24and it's fine.
20. 0:25Um
21. 0:26yeah so we
22. 0:27I make content and it's all B2B. So like
23. 0:29we're a hardcore B2B brand.
24. 0:31>> Yeah.
25. 0:32>> Business to business.
26. 0:33>> Yeah. And so people So like what we have
27. 0:35is So if you're like how do you fast
28. 0:36forward to like today? Um so I'm
29. 0:39co-founder of School which is a software
30. 0:41platform for people to start businesses
31. 0:43online communities etc.
32. 0:45Um and so that company's very big. Um we
33. 0:48have 17 million users and like it's
34. 0:50probably worth like
35. 0:51>> that one's big.
36. 0:52>> Yeah.
37. 0:52>> So so people people can start their own
38. 0:54version of um
39. 0:56uh
40. 0:56>> Yeah now it's
41. 0:57>> spreading knowledge right?
42. 0:58>> Sure. It's in that's creators anybody
43. 1:01>> You've taken what you've uh
44. 1:03figured out works. You made it work for
45. 1:05you and then you made it so everyone you
46. 1:07democratized what you did and and
47. 1:11everyone can do it.
48. 1:12>> Yeah.
49. 1:12>> By selling what they know.
50. 1:14>> Whatever they know. Yeah it's cool
51. 1:15though it's like moms making jars like
52. 1:17here's a group on how we do jars and
53. 1:18pickling stuff and like there's
54. 1:20everything under the sun. Like there's a
55. 1:21school for it.
56. 1:22>> Pickles.
57. 1:22>> I mean there's hundreds of there there's
58. 1:24so many like communities and
59. 1:25>> as cucumbers?
60. 1:26>> Yeah. Everyone starts like does their
61. 1:28own thing. Like there's a crochet
62. 1:29community that like there's just I mean
63. 1:31it's everything. It's whatever you think
64. 1:32like everyone assumes it's like oh is it
65. 1:33just like you know is it crypto and B2B
66. 1:35it's like not really the other half is
67. 1:36just consumers doing like consumer
68. 1:37stuff. Like there's BMX groups. There's
69. 1:39you know there's everything you can
70. 1:40think of.
71. 1:40>> Could I make a school on on Pokémon
72. 1:42cards?
73. 1:42>> Def def million percent.
74. 1:44>> Really?
75. 1:44>> There's probably already like 20. Yeah.
76. 1:46That's a super like that would be a
77. 1:48super community friendly
78. 1:49>> You how much was the domain school? Cuz
79. 1:51it's with a K.
80. 1:52>> Yeah less than acquisition.com and ACQ.
81. 1:54>> How how much was acquisition.com?
82. 1:56>> Uh 400.
83. 1:57>> 400k for acquisition.com?
84. 1:59>> Yeah. And then ACQ was 500.
85. 2:02I don't
86. 2:03Am I allowed to
87. 2:05So ACQ.com I've been I've been I've been
88. 2:07eyeing for a long time. It had been
89. 2:09owned since 1996 by a Fortune 100
90. 2:11company. I can't say the company cuz
91. 2:13they said I couldn't like say it. But
92. 2:15I've been trying to get this domain and
93. 2:16I finally got it. So it was like really
94. 2:18sick.
95. 2:18>> Sick. How? How? Cuz I know sometimes
96. 2:20with domains you you got to get get a
97. 2:21little creative.
98. 2:22>> Yeah. I mean it was just like
99. 2:24reaching around and getting to somebody
100. 2:26who's in the company and getting a
101. 2:27broker together and then figuring it
102. 2:28out.
103. 2:29>> Woah.
104. 2:29>> But they had they had just denied every
105. 2:31other time and then like they just
106. 2:32finally were like, "Yeah, okay, we'll
107. 2:33sell it." And I was like, "Awesome."
108. 2:34>> I think I think what you do is awesome
109. 2:36because yeah, when I first saw you
110. 2:37popping up I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure
111. 2:39if you were another one of the
112. 2:40>> Me, neither.
113. 2:41>> multi multi What is it? Multi
114. 2:43multi-level marketing marketing like
115. 2:46Yeah.
116. 2:46>> No, we um not that. I mean I mean I'll
117. 2:49just I'll be transparent say like we
118. 2:50took out 40-ish million um in
119. 2:53distributions before we sold the
120. 2:54company. And we sold the company for 46.
121. 2:57Um and then we started the family office
122. 2:59which was just going to be the holdco
123. 3:01acquisition.com. Um I started making
124. 3:03content with the idea of like I wonder
125. 3:04if I can attract businesses so I can do
126. 3:05like minority deals. And that was kind
127. 3:07of the whole thesis in the beginning was
128. 3:08like I'll just do these kind of you
129. 3:10know, 10 20% ish chunk chunks of
130. 3:12companies. Um that ended up sucking. And
131. 3:15so I did like 24 deals in 24 months and
132. 3:17then just like got rid of almost all of
133. 3:18them minus four. And then I was like,
134. 3:20"Okay, um let's not do that." And so
135. 3:22then I was like, "Okay, we need more
136. 3:23meaningful stakes of fewer far better
137. 3:26businesses." And all of those companies
138. 3:27I didn't put like any brand or anything
139. 3:29behind it. I just like invested in them.
140. 3:31And so I was like, "Okay, school, this
141. 3:33is a this is a deal that makes a ton of
142. 3:34sense. Let's do this." Um and then like
143. 3:37that's probably more how we're
144. 3:38approaching it now is like because we're
145. 3:39also pretty good at building business.
146. 3:41So we started our advisory practice in
147. 3:42January of last year in 2024.
148. 3:45Um
149. 3:46and that's now a very big business.
150. 3:48>> you advise on?
151. 3:49>> It's companies
152. 3:50>> industries?
153. 3:51>> Oh, it's it's open. It's SMBs. So, it's
154. 3:53like 500,000 on the low side to 50
155. 3:56million is kind of like the sweet spot.
156. 3:57So, if you think like you've got like
157. 3:59Gartner, you've got McKinsey, you've got
158. 4:00Deloitte, you've got these kind of like
159. 4:01they serve the I'd say like the top end
160. 4:04of the market. And then there's
161. 4:05obviously like the guru the guru world
162. 4:07that's kind of like underneath. And we
163. 4:09kind of serve like low mid-market. And
164. 4:11so, you know, people fly out here,
165. 4:13they'll meet with our directors that are
166. 4:15like for paid media or for content or
167. 4:17for whatever it is they're doing. So,
168. 4:18like maybe you have a $14 million
169. 4:19plumbing business. You're like, all
170. 4:21right, well, how do I scale this thing?
171. 4:22It's like, all right, you need a
172. 4:23director of this and this is how the ad
173. 4:25should look for recruiting the specific
174. 4:27role and you know, your supply
175. 4:29constraints you need more technicians.
176. 4:30This is how we go recruit these
177. 4:31technicians. That kind of thing.
178. 4:33If you like this video and you're
179. 4:34business owner who wants to break
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189. 4:50business owner, I appreciate you and
190. 4:52enjoy.