Transcription
So, this is the exact room where I served my one year of house arrest. This is my mom and dad's house. This was my bedroom.
And essentially what happened was I got arrested, and they gave me 10 years probation, one year house arrest. And I remember, yes, I had the [ __ ] you know, the ankle monitor. I had the ankle monitor. I remember charging it. Like there was a cord right here. And I remember sitting on this bed and charging it.
And at that time, I was just so depressed. Like all my friends were, you know, I was 22 at the time. All my friends were graduating college. They were getting consulting jobs. They were on the road traveling, making 70, 80,000 a year. And I was back at my mom's place with no money, with no future, an absolute loser.
And I remember just waking up, beating the [ __ ] out of my meat. Like literally, this is the same room where I beat my meat nine times a day on this bed, exactly like this. And uh, I remember just being so depressed, just ordering—I don't know if they had Uber Eats back then—but I remember ordering like a bunch of delivery food, like Chinese food, [ __ ] chicken wings, and just like stuffing my face and just trying to like have any sort of dopamine to feel alive or happy. Um, and I did that for probably a couple of months.
And I remember part of my sentence was that I had to go to bi-weekly therapy. So, I had to literally, during the day at some point, I had to drive to this old white lady on Druid Hills, and I would have to sit there and talk to her for an hour a day every 2 weeks. And I learned a lot of things then.
And that's usually, you know, and I'll say like this year of being on house arrest is where I really learned how to slow down, how to appreciate life, how to get in control of my mind. Like when I was on house arrest, talking to the therapist, and just being in this place, away from my friends, away from partying, away from any distractions. This is where I learned all the mental stuff that I have now and all the tools that I have mentally. This is where I acquired them.
And it's actually what's craziest is this is the exact same room where I built my first Shopify store. You know, when I was coming up, I remember just listening to—like just trying to get better and trying to get out of this depressed stage. So, I remember listening to a bunch of podcasts, listening to a bunch of other entrepreneurs at the time. Uh, there was a podcast—short story long. So, this exact room is where I opened up my laptop, got on Shopify, and started teaching myself Photoshop, Illustrator. I started designing my own Shopify store, and it was in this stage where it was kind of like a prison. It was kind of like a jail, but it was my mom's house.
But yeah, this is the room. Like y'all see it, and it doesn't look that much different. Like it literally used to look like this. Like it used to be very shitty like this. I didn't have nothing. I didn't have no furniture, you know? It's crazy to like come back here and see everything. Like I remember the closets here. So crazy. Look, they even have the suits from when I used to work at the bank. They even have the [ __ ] polos, the polos from when I used to work at the the country club. That's crazy.
But here you go. See, this is when I used to work at the country club. They would make me [ __ ] wear this polo and serve out drinks and [ __ ] and be on the golf course. But yeah, this is the room, man. This is the room where house arrest started and Super Line of what it is today. This is where it really started—is a little bit of, you know, beating your meat nine times, 12-piece lemon pepper wings, and a laptop. That's where it started. This is the room. It's crazy to come back here. So, this is where it first started for me.
This is my first real job. I used to work at that country club over there. I worked there for about 2 years. I started as a buser, a waiter, did a little bit of bartending. But this parking lot right here is where I started my trapping career because this is like a private neighborhood, a gated neighborhood. There's no cops here. No one can get inside of here. So literally I would call people in, and in the middle of my shift I would run out to my car and I would serve out grams, dime bags, eight sevens, ounces. This is where it all started for me.
I remember just being young and being 18 at the time. My first year I didn't go to college. I opted out to go work. And at that time, like nobody was doing that. I was like one of the first people to do that. And it was really looked as like you're kind of like a failure, right? They're like, "Oh, you're giving up on your future. Instead of going to college, you're [ __ ] working a shitty 9 to 5, right?" I just remember being like so hungry, wanting to make money, wanting to grow, and wanting to prove everybody wrong. Everyone was going to school and everybody was broke, but I was over here making—I think I was making like $15 an hour. And $15 an hour back then was like $25 an hour today. So, I was making $15 an hour, and then I was making a couple hundred bucks a week just selling weed out of this parking lot.
And for me, the weed was actually just a way for me to smoke for free. That's how I started cuz I like smoking, and I didn't want to pay for weed. So, I would just buy an ounce, and then I would break half of it down, and I could smoke for free. And then I was like, well, how much were 2 ounces? How much were 3 ounces? And then I started understanding that, hey, if I buy a pound and I break it down, all of a sudden, like I can actually make money. So, this is where it started for me. This is everything. Like, I used to work here five, six days a week. I remember I used to have morning shifts. I used to have night shifts. I used to have weddings here. I used to work the dinner shifts. I used to work the breakfast shifts. Like this parking lot right here, I've probably sold 50 lb, 100 lb. All just broken down gram by gram in this parking lot right here.
And the crazy thing is is if you work in the restaurant industry, you know everyone in the restaurant industry is a [ __ ] DJ. So not only was I selling to the kids that lived in here, I was selling to all the [ __ ] staff, the [ __ ] cooks, the waiters, the managers. Everyone was [ __ ] buying their weed from me here. And this was just a good place for me to set up. And I remember even in my car, I had a 4Runner where I crack it open. I could put two zips in there. So, I like I don't know. I like concocted this thing in the car where I could open it up and I could fit two zips in a scale in there, and I would just weigh [ __ ] out. And I remember uh I didn't even want Ziploc bags in my car cuz that [ __ ] was burnt out. So, I'll go to Chipotle, get a stack of [ __ ] napkins for free. And anytime you bought a [ __ ] eighth or a grand from me, you would know you got it from me because you wouldn't get a Ziploc bag; I'd put it inside of a [ __ ] napkin and roll it up and give it to you.
But yeah, it's crazy because this is exactly where it all started for me was this parking lot. Crazy. From me working at the country club, I found a connection and I ended up working at the bank. And while my career grew, my weed-selling business also grew. What happened was is I was picking up from one plug. He ended up getting arrested, and his plug needed some help. So, I got introduced to his plug. And this is when the transition started to happen from I'm just making $15 an hour to I'm just selling eights and dime bags and grams to okay now I'm picking up like 2 to 3 lbs a week, and now that's going to 2 to 3 lbs a week, and now that's going to like 5 lbs a week, and eventually I got to going anywhere from like I think 5 to 10 a week I was selling um, and I was also working at the bank, so I went from making like $15 an hour to making $20 an hour.
And the main thing that happened was when I was working at the bank, I really started to understand how money moved because I was a personal banker. I was selling bank accounts, but I was also understanding like, hey, if you deposit more than $10,000 cash, they're going to have you fill out this form. If you get a money order for more than $3,000, they're going to make you fill out this form. If the teller thinks that you're doing some suspicious illegal activity, they're going to fill out this form. So that banking knowledge actually helped me a lot when it came to selling weed because how it works is somebody will bring the weed from LA to Atlanta. You get the money in Atlanta, but eventually you got to take the money from Atlanta back to LA. And that's where working at the bank, my plug recognized that I had all these skills. I knew these things. And that's where I was able to actually not only help him sell the weed here, but I was actually helping him move the money back to LA. It was just a crazy time. Like I just remember like when I move—when I started working here, that's when I finally got to move out of my mom's house. I got my own apartment. I think I was 20 at the time, 20, 21 at the time. So a lot of my friends that were in college that were living broke as [ __ ] had to ask their mom and dad for money are now seeing me kind of balling out a little bit cuz they're like, "Oh, Eric got his own apartment. It's in the city. He has his own car. He has his own setup, and he's doing all this by himself."
And this is where, you know, selling dime bags and eights goes to like, okay, now I'm at the real plug, and now I'm like wholesaling [ __ ], and now I'm like making real money. Now from working at the bank, I started gaining his trust a lot more. And he was like, why don't you just quit your job and just come work for me full-time. And that's when I really started blowing up because not only was I wholesaling to my own customers and having my own clientele, I essentially started running his entire operation for him. So, I was picking up the weight. I was taking it to the safe house. I was meeting his clientele, taking the money. And the operation went from like me just selling 5 to 10 pounds a week to doing like 100 to 200 lb a month. Um, obviously, not all of that was me. Again, I was just an employee for somebody else, and I was doing my stuff on the side.
The reason why I'm in a parking lot is because the first time I really took the jump was in a parking lot just like this. I literally had to wake up one day, meet some random dude with the 18-wheeler in a parking lot just like this in broad daylight, and I had to fit 100 lbs into my 4Runner. And the craziest part is that during that process, one of the boxes would not fit into the car. So, mind you, I'm like a 20-year-old kid. I'm [ __ ] shaking my ass off cuz I'm so scared shitless. I'm doing something illegal in broad daylight, and the box would not fit. And it's not like I can open the box and throw the rest of the remainder in there. It's like it's filled with pounds of weed. It's illegal [ __ ]. I just—It was a funny story, and I just remember like having to squeeze that [ __ ] in and like kind of like [ __ ] up the box and push it in there.
Now I'm like [ __ ] El Chapo. I'm touching, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars every week in cash. I'm moving all this around. I'm doing all this. At this point, I have three apartments. So I have one where I live in. I have one where is the safe house where we keep the [ __ ] [ __ ]. And then we have one trap house where we actually meet the—do the transactions. This is the part of the story where cue the narcos music, cue the [ __ ] BMF [ __ ]. This is where I felt like I was BMF. I had a shoe box, a Nike box full of like $100,000 cash. Um, I was living my life. And this is where at 21 I felt like, dude, I [ __ ] made it. Like 21, $100,000 cash, making $1,000 a day selling weed. You can't tell me nothing.
So this portion of the story is where I start getting young, reckless, and stupid. It's now a Chick-fil-A, but this used to be a bar that I used to frequent. And I remember doing all of this stuff. I couldn't tell nobody. So, my mom didn't know what I was doing. My closest friends didn't know what I was doing. I was literally essentially living a double life. And I was kind of scared shitless cuz I didn't want to go to jail. As you can see, I'm not a gangbanger. I'm not a thug. I don't belong in a jail. I'm a [ __ ] dweeb. I'm a square bear. Just doing illegal [ __ ] to make quick money. I was just deathly afraid of getting caught. So, I remember just living this double life and feeling very lost and empty. And the only way I could find any sort of comfort or any sort of like belongingness was to just drown myself in alcohol. I was doing a bunch of cocaine. I was [ __ ] partying a lot cuz I had already made the money. I had already reached these goals. I couldn't share it with anybody. I couldn't tell anybody what I was doing. So, what I was doing was I was just going to the bars. I was going to strip clubs, and I was spending a lot of money and a lot of time there. And I just remember being lost and just—this is where I started getting reckless. Like you know when you're watching narcos like people just start making a lot of money and start doing—getting reckless. This is where I started getting reckless. I had everything I wanted materialistically. I was making $1,000 a day. I was so [ __ ] young. I was literally 21. Imagine being 21. And instead of going to a bar and getting a drink, you're going to a bar, buying everyone drinks, and then going to the strip club after and spending $2, $3,000. That's what I was at 21. I was just so out of control, out of my mind, doing a bunch of coke and just feeling very, very lost. And that recklessness and that lack of care and that carelessness is what ended up ultimately getting me in trouble and getting me caught.
So, right behind me is 85 connection to 316. If you're from Atlanta, if you're from Georgia, you know this is how you get to Athens, Georgia. So essentially what happened was one of the guys that I was selling to—a little frat boy—he ended up getting in trouble, and then he ended up setting me up. So right down this highway over there is where I got set up. He called me one day was like, "Yo, I need 7 lbs." Normally I had him meet me up, but again, I was reckless. I was careless. I was spending a lot of money at the strip clubs. I was thirsty for money. I was thirsty to make this money. So he was like, "I got a guy. He—he needs 7 pounds." So I was like, "All right, [ __ ] like I need to reup anyways. I need to make money anyways. So, normally I wasn't ever meeting people up. I was making them come to me, and I was controlling the entire transaction. But with this time again, I was just [ __ ] coked out, strung out, just on drugs, a junkie. And I made the mistake. I ended up driving to go meet him. And I went from Atlanta all the way down to 316. And as right as I'm about to get onto the 316 connector, woohoo, cops pull me over. And this is the part of the story where I get arrested. I got arrested. Um, I don't know if it was the feds, but I—it was like a regular cop. They take me to this room. There's a guy in a [ __ ] Harley-Davidson cut off and some Jean Jords, like just looking like the most biker [ __ ] in the world. Like, if you ever—if you ever played like a game like who's the Fed, this guy looked like the Fed, right? And he was like getting me to sign this paper. He gave me this sheet of paper, didn't say nothing, and try to get me to sign it. I'll look over the papers; it was essentially like admitting all guilt and saying that in a court of law that I did everything that I got caught with. So I ended up telling him like, "Bro, I'm not signing nothing with no—with no lawyers." So I ended up doing a week in jail. Um, and my dad ended up bailing me out. But this is a part of the story where [ __ ] turns left. No drug dealer ever makes it.
So this is where I got knocked out on, I got snitched on, and I got in trouble. So while I was on house arrest, they allowed me to leave the house 6 days a week from 9:00 to 5:00. And that's when my dad was like, "Why don't you come work for me? Why don't you work in the warehouse and sell these shitty shirts?" When I started working there, I hated it. I didn't want to sell what he was selling. So, what I did is this space right here, it's full of boxes. But, I used to have two heat press setups. I used to have one right here. I had a uh compressor right here, and then I had another heat press setup in this room right here. And literally what I did is me and Andy were heat press vinyl trap box logo t-shirts, drip box logo t-shirts, and we were selling those to retail stores.
During the year, like while I was beating my meat and eating chicken wings and being depressed, like I was trying to figure it out. So, I was building my own Shopify store. But eventually, the thing that was making me money was heat pressing in this warehouse. And let me tell you something about Georgia Heat. In the summertime, this [ __ ] would be 90°, but it would feel so wet and humid that me and Andy would be literally sweating printing t-shirts all day cuz you're also next to a heat press that's 300°. So, for about 2 years, me and Andy sat in this warehouse and we printed trap logo, a drip logo, like whatever generic [ __ ] thing was trending, we made it into a shirt, and we were selling them to retail stores for 2 years. And during that time, my dad was like, "Why don't you sell blanks? Like, you already have learned how to print t-shirts. You already tried to start your brand. Why don't you sell us blank t-shirts?" So, I imported my first container of regular blank t-shirts. And at the time, all—uh, at the time, Next Level was like the craziest thing. It was the 30001c, the Next Level and Bella Canvas. They had this ring spun cotton shirt. So, I made my own version of that. And the problem was is nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew about blank shirts that I was selling them. So, I still couldn't sell them. So, I imported a whole container of shirts. I couldn't sell them. So, for another year, I essentially was offering custom prints, but the catch was I'll give you the cheapest price, but you got to print it on my blanks. And that's what I did for another year. And that's literally like the evolution of Super Line was we started from printing t-shirts. That's the craziest thing. And it was literally in this room right here. And then the other spot was where these boxes were. We had a little setup right here. And then over here on this side, we had these columns and these shelves. And that's where we had the boxes of shirts. And me and Andy for hours,
I'm talking hours, years; we would just come in here, and we would just print t-shirts every day.
Andy, tell the people about the, uh, the printing t-shirt days. How many shirts did we print?
Average by at least 500 to 1,000 a day between us two. It was a day. And we did that for how many years?
Like 2 to 3 years?
Yeah.
Yeah. And it was hot as [ __ ] back there. Remember? Summertime. No AC. Just a big ass fan.
Yeah. 90, 80°. How many Joe—how many Joe Rogan and Andrew Schultz podcasts did we run through?
Hundreds.
Hundreds. Like thousands. Like we would come in. A lot of hours. A lot of hours on podcasts.
And then when did we transition from selling, uh, printing on shirts to like selling blanks and creating a store?
Probably 5 years into it; it was like gradual, right? I don't think it was like a—I don't think it was like a one day we took off and blew up. I think it was like a—a slow and steady—like it took at least 2 years to—to figure it out. We did shirts first. Nobody bought the shirts. Then we did hoodies and joggers. Somebody—some people were kind of buying them. And then we did tech fleece, dad caps, dad caps, bucket hats, bucket caps. A lot of you guys see it and think like, oh, they blew up overnight. It's like, no, we were doing this [ __ ] for years. Uh, it was even to the point where when we first started, we weren't even working the store. Remember, it was my parents were working the store, and we would just put our inventory in here, and me and Andy would just go print all day. And then there was one point where, like, remember I told you I was like, let's get rid of the print business, and I was like, let's just focus on this cuz the store started getting crazy. Mr. Lee and Miss Lee were not having it. They wanted us printing shirts.
Yeah.
Yeah. They wanted us printing shirts, but there was a point in time where, um, the social media started taking off. And by taking off, I mean we were getting like 30 likes versus zero likes. 10K followers was like our goal. At—at one point when we started, we just wanted 10,000 followers. That's it.
Yeah.
But now then it became 50, then it became 100.
Yeah. But we started off really small, but probably around 10,000 followers is when we were like, yo, it's not worth it for us to print shirts no more; let's go back and let's focus on doing the store. And we had to persuade them that it didn't work. And before—before we had like—I mean, right now I know the floors are shitty, but before we had really shitty, like ugly green throw-up floors. Um, and then on this side over here, we didn't even have—like this side wasn't even open. It was only this one half, right? And we didn't even have POS systems. We didn't have barcodes. We didn't have none of this [ __ ]. We were literally paper and pen everything. We were paper and penning everything. We didn't have no inventory system.
Yeah, it was literally like a slow burn. But that's the store now. The store now, it runs on its own. We have employees. We have an online shipping team. We have crazier product. Like before I was cooking up all the products. Now we have a guy whose job is 100%—his only job is to make product. Now we have somebody whose only job is to ship out orders, pick orders. We didn't have any other system, you know. We didn't have these—we didn't have barcodes. We didn't have any of these crazy products. We didn't have any of this. It literally was like a day-by-day step-by-step process back then. All these shelves, they weren't filled with like—like neither cool products, you know, but back then it wasn't filled with this. It was literally just filled with junk. Like when I tell you junk, like—like only God can judge me shirts, uh, bootleg Jordan 23 shirts, like just terrible [ __ ]. And it was all filled back here. So, we had to liquidate all of that. Invent—we had to go in and reinvest into good inventory, new inventory, you know, even little improvements like this. Like in the summertime, my parents didn't want to turn on the AC, so we didn't even have [ __ ] like this. And when I started turning on the AC, they started bitching about the warehouse thing coming in. So I had to like even go to Uline and invest in stuff like this. So like literally everything you see, it wasn't like an overnight thing. It was like a day-by-day thing. Like we would have one problem. It was too hot in the store. Customers wouldn't—didn't want to shop. So then we had to turn on the AC. Well, then when we turn on the AC because of the warehouse—keep going back and forth. Like we had to keep shutting this door, and we would fight about it. So then we had to invest in this. So it was literally like a step-by-step process. It was never like a one-time overnight thing.
And then this part—like this is actually what's crazy is this was actually supposed to be the first iteration of the Superline store. So my parents were running their business, and they didn't want to give up their business. So this place right here was like an empty office space, and I told—I convinced my dad to give it to me or like let me use it. And this was supposed to be the store. So we had the [ __ ]—the big ass table here, and we were supposed to run back and forth and get the stuff. Like this was supposed to be the first Superline store. These walls, I painted these walls. Like literally, I hand-painted every single wall. Um, and this was supposed to be the first store, but what happened was like the business started taking off. It didn't really work. So, we moved it over there. We just kind of took over their space. And then we started using this place as more of like a—for photo shoots. So, as you can see, we got the Alien B lights. And then what's crazy is as the business grew, this actually used to be where the corporate people used to work. So like the product guy that you see, he used to work here. Vivic that does the social media, he and then run the Super Network, he used to work here, like—and they called this the black hole. They used to hate working here. They hated this place. Um, and that was only like a year ago, which is crazy. It's literally only a year ago. But yeah, this place used to be like that. Now this place is meant for like photo shoots, and I think we're going to build out a set here for like a podcast. But it's just crazy how just the evolution of like even just trapping Grams out of the parking lot to like getting to here.
So, this past year, the business has been blowing up, doing really good. Uh, we actually expanded into this space over here. So, this wasn't our space, but we were doing too many—too much in sales. We had too much product coming in, not enough warehouse space. So, we expanded to this whole side. So, now this year, uh, I think probably like August of last year, we got into this place. So, this is like a whole new side of the building. Um, we have a new office now. So, this—on this side is essentially the corporate office for all of Superline. So, this is where the product guy works. This is where the network team works. Um, this is where we're cranking out the memes. This is where we're editing content. This is where we're taking like network meetings. As you can see, it's still a very much an Asian-owned business. I didn't install this. I have better taste than this. This was here from the previous tenant. I'm just too cheap to change it out. I know it looks like [ __ ], but it is what it is. Um, all of this stuff, too. My dad renovated all this. He did the hardwood. He painted it. And what's crazy is today's Friday. We have remote work days. Like I would have never thought that this company would have a [ __ ] remote work day, but we do have remote work days. So this is where the network guys work. So over here, this is Daddy Vivic. This is Sam. So Sam does all the YouTube videos. Vivic does all the corporate meetings and all the brand deals. Um, the guys used to work here, but I don't think they like this table. Um, but yeah, remember in the other room, I'll show you the [ __ ]—the black room. This was the table where we were supposed to be checking customers out with. My dad built this table from scratch. This space now is where most of the guys work. They like working here. They like putting up their laptops, all working together, collaborating. Um, this section over here, we're building out a set for podcasts and videos that we're doing. This room right here is where we take corporate meetings, like any Zoom calls and stuff, or—uh, we just started a new YouTube channel called The Playbook. So, this is where—this is being shot at. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's crazy to go from like being in a [ __ ] trapping Grams out of the [ __ ] parking lot to like running this business and owning this business. It's crazy.
The reason why I have this up here is because, uh, at the end of the day, you got to put your [ __ ] nuts on the line. You know what I'm saying? If you want to do something great, if you want to do something amazing, you have to take risks. Like even when I was [ __ ] selling weed and doing all that crazy [ __ ] and picking up pounds from Walmart, I was taking risks. Even not going to college and dropping out of college, that was taking a risk. When everyone else was going to this safe path and—and this secure path, I took the—the path that most people didn't want to take. And it was very risky. But ultimately, like for my career and my life, like the one thing I've learned is like you got to let your nuts hang. You got to put your nuts on the line because that's what's going to, you know, you're not going to get crazy rewards if you don't take risks. And one of the main things about this channel I want to show you guys is like, look, I'm not a [ __ ] smart guy. I'm not a Harvard-educated person. I'm not a [ __ ] social media expert. I'm literally a [ __ ] idiot. Like I'm literally a kid that just wanted to make it, was willing to do whatever to make it, made a lot of mistakes, made a lot of failures, and I'm here today. I'm still going to make mistakes. I'm still going to fail. But the whole point of this channel is to show you guys that it is really possible. And like I'm just a regular [ __ ] dude. Like literally, I beat my meat nine times a day. Like I got arrested. I'm a convicted felon. I dropped out of college. I'm literally the dumbest guy in the world, but I own this business that's doing $10 million a year. And it just goes to show you guys that you don't have to be the smartest. You don't have to be the best-looking. You don't have to be the most talented. You just got to be the most hungry. And you just got to work the hardest. I think that's my main specialty is that I'm not really talented at anything. I'm just [ __ ] obsessed, and I'm just [ __ ] crazy. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes, you know? That's what got me here is that every single time that I got knocked down, every single time I faced some sort of failure in life, I just never quit. And that's the difference between me and everyone else is that I don't quit. So, if there's anything for you to get out of this video, it's that whatever your dream is, you want to be a [ __ ] actor, you want to be a rapper, you want to [ __ ] sell Subway sandwiches, you want to [ __ ] sell t-shirts, you want to sell cars, you want to sell watches, whatever the [ __ ] you want to do in this world, you can do it. Don't ever let somebody tell you you can't do it. Just remember, as long as you keep trying, you keep learning, and you keep getting better, shit's going to work out for you guys. Eric Lee, that transparent look into my life. That's going to wrap up how I went from being a drug dealer to owning a $10 million a year business. Now, hopefully this [ __ ] works. In about 5 to 10 years, I can make another video. How I went from a $10 million business year owner to a $100 million business year owner. Hopefully, if I don't make it, I'm going to keep trying till I do make it. [Music]