Transcription
Excuse me, sir. How did you get rich?
I go all over the world interviewing the richest people. How did you get rich?
>> Give me a dollar and I'll tell you.
>> A dollar?
>> Yeah.
>> I have a hundred.
>> I'll take a hundred.
>> You want a hundred?
>> I'll take a hundred. You want a secret? You got to pay for it. All right. Here we go.
>> How did you get rich?
>> I sold food company.
>> For how much money?
>> One and a half billion dollars.
>> No, you did not.
>> One and a half billion, yeah.
>> Are you serious?
>> Yeah.
>> Can I interview you for a minute?
>> You paid for it. Let's do it.
>> Did you have rich parents? Did you come from money?
>> I did not. I had $15 in my bank account when I started the business.
>> How old were you?
>> I was 35 when I started it.
>> Take the glasses off.
>> I got to see the eyes.
>> I want you to talk to the broke you at 35 years old with $15 to your name. What's that first actionable step they can take to get rich in today's world?
>> Be greedy long term, never short term. This is the greatest time ever to be a founder. Not in America's history, in any history.
>> You built one of the biggest food companies in the world. How did you scale?
>> We were the absolute best at meta marketing. We built a $550 million dollar company in five years, almost 99% on meta, running ads.
>> Did you have investors in your company?
>> Had a ton of investors. I think the number one mistake I get when I talk to young founders is, "Oh, I want to protect dilution." Get great people around the table. If I didn't get all the people I got around, there's no 1.5 billion exit.
>> What's the one thing that people get wrong about the sale of their company?
>> Greatest advice ever had is great businesses sell themselves. Build a great business, a buyer is there. Build a shitty business, no one's going to buy it.
>> You had a food company. What did you sell?
>> We sold prepared meals we shipped to your house.
>> you have an online store where people would buy from you?
>> So, we built our own. Unfortunately, we were before Shopify. If I was doing it today, I would 100% do it on Shopify. It's a rinse and repeat. That's the best platform if you're doing e-commerce because everyone's building on it, too. If we didn't have to build it, I would have used Shopify.
>> If me and you died tomorrow and you could leave one more message with the younger generation, what would that be?
>> If you are hiking only cuz you want to get to the peak, don't hike. Because you got to enjoy the entire journey cuz when you get to the peak, it's never as good as you think it is.