Transcription
Right now, you're doing between $3 and $400,000 a year in topline revenue. No, 200 a month. Oh, we pay to do 3 million this year. So, what are your margins on a business like this? 80%, 85%. We're private labeling a course for 1,000 bucks and we're selling it for 10. It's pretty crazy. Let's talk about some of the mechanics of the business. How do you acquire customers right now for free? So, are you doing any pay-per-click, any SEO, any direct mailers, any traditional marketing? Nope. I'm just like, man, the state of Texas is giving you 10 grand per student. You're teaching them a a trade. Perfect. Wait, so they're giving you the money? Oh, yeah. Not the student. Net 30? Oh my gosh. I know, it's crazy. You know what? For your in-laws, you actually are a part of the cartel. Yes, this is this is cartel-like behavior. Well, I'm glad we're here because I could get to put my in-laws to peace of mind because they think I'm with the cartel, but I own an online trade school. No one's ever heard of an online trade school because they all think you still got to go in person to learn trades, but I debunked that idea. Trying to spread word about a grant that scaled my school that no one talks about. So, help me understand because I'm in the minority as well. I think of trade schools working with your hands, in particular, right? So when you tell me an online trade school, it just doesn't compute for me. Like, what is an online trade school? So, online trade school is exactly what you think. I teach each plumbing, electric, electrician, all apprenticeship delivered online. With, we were burst during COVID and we stayed, you know, online because if you think about it, what do all those trades have in common? They still have to go take a test on a computer, and the computer is not going to care if you could climb a ladder, pull wire, unclog a toilet. Did you memorize enough theory to pass the test? If you think of online, you get on these big old planes and they learn virtually through simulators, and you trust them. So they could trust our students too. So, like, I know there's a lot of nursing schools online. There's a lot of theory, theory, book learning, all that stuff. They've still got to do the practical pieces, maybe, you know, with somebody in person, but you're essentially delivering the curriculum that you would otherwise learn through a book, you're just now doing it online. Correct. We're doing it with VR goggles, gaming style. Are you really? Oh, yeah. I know. Tell me about how this kind of came about through COVID. Sounds like there were some grants given that incentivized people to do these trades online. So, fun fact, the grant has always existed. You know that exists, right? Sure. Okay. So, same funding source. So, this really, the grant is called WIA, Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act. In Texas, you'll have to go to those little offices that are called Workforce Solutions or Texas Works or whatever it is. But if you Google it, this grant's always been there. But it was always for like blue collar, like CDL drivers and welders and. But the grant's been, you know, to do anything because the government's spots behind this is if we pay for your trade school and you learn a new skill set and you earn a decent hourly wage, we get you off benefits and now you're paying taxes. So the grant's always existed. Why do they keep it a secret? I don't know. So it's a federal grant, though? Oh, yeah. Who administers it? Is it Medicaid? Nope. No, no. The grant is the, the labor and DC, like the big wigs. It's always, it's always been there. Wow, okay. So it's always existed. How did you find out about it? So, an ex-employee called me that worked for me a long time ago. And at the time, short stint, I bought an insurance franchise that didn't work out. But the selling point behind this was he called me for CDL truck insurance and school insurance. So I was like, wait a minute, I can't help you with either. But what do you mean about school? And why would somebody give you a school? How do you even own a school? But you, these little vocational schools are owned by somebody, Bob's, you know, trade school or whatever, Nick's vocational school. I just, I never knew it was a business. So I went down there, I saw what they had. They're in a big parking lot with like a, what's it called, like a portable building, like, yeah, trailer. Sure. People how to do trade school. I mean, how to do CDLs drivers. His brother's the one that figured out because he's the one that got the grant to do the, the, the, the CDL license. So when they, they opened up a school, and I'm like, I mean, there's like 20 people here. How are, how are you doing this? Like, man, the state of Texas has this grant and you know, it pays for if you're, if you're unemployed, dislocated worker, military spouse, if you're low income, if you're on food stamps. And I'm like, dude, I went down a rabbit hole for like a week and I figured it out. I'm like, man, I love your concept. I think you're doing it wrong because it's trucks are going to break down, you're in person, the DMV shut down. Yeah. I'm like, I want to deliver this like online only. Like, let me see what course is in. I'm being honest to me that, you know, we've heard of online schools this whole time, just, you know, no one's delivered it, you know, only on. So, what year was this? Was it, was this during? Yeah, yeah. We're in the craziness of COVID. 2021. And you think we should do this online? How many people were doing it online at the time? I mean, everyone was. That's a big university or community. But not like an individual person like me and you. Where people, people, most schools start off with the grant, but they go quickly to get accreditation so they could get FAFSA loans, grants, and all that stuff. I don't, I didn't have that kind of vision. I'm just like, man, the state of Texas is giving you 10 grand at the time, five grand per student. You're teaching them a trade. Perfect. I found out that five grand, only 10 grand. They're giving you the money? Oh, yeah. Not the student. Net 30? Oh my gosh. I know. I know. It's crazy. That's insane. I'm scared to say it, but here I am. You know what? For your in-laws, you actually are a part of the cartel. Yes, this is this is cartel-like behavior. Hector, okay. Believe me. Heard that. Say that all the time. See, you married the wrong Mexican because I don't do any L. Zero. You all right? So, a lot of these schools get into it, like you said, because they want to get into FAFSA and, uh, some, some of these other federally guaranteed or backed programs because, I mean, we've seen this over the last 30 years in particular, the price of of higher education has just skyrocketed. Part of the big reason because it's skyrocketed is because the government subsidizes student loans. A lot of these universities are looking at this saying, we want to go after the big dogs. We want to get access to this other funding. Who cares about the WIOA grants? Let's move forward. You didn't take that stance. You're like, wait, why are we forgetting about this? Let's lean into this thing. I love it. I mean, fast forward, I mean, I opened up the school like the wrong way. I mean, not the wrong way, it's lessons learned. You know, I took an investment, I took shareholders, and I opened up with teachers because I thought you needed teachers to run curriculum. Fast forward now, I private label all our courses now. So let's just say I buy the course for a thousand bucks, hypothetically speaking, if Texas 10 grand, you could do the margins math there. So it's pretty fun. Dude, all right. I don't even know where to start. Let's back up. What's your background? Definitely not school. If you notice, most, I got a PhD, which is a public high school diploma, baby. None. Okay. And I've been in sales my whole life. I sold my soul to the devil early when I was 18. College wasn't an option. I'm from South Texas, border town, poor. My, you know, my parents did as best as they could for me. They love me, they raised me. But I just, something about selling and talking to people, I, I love. So I ended up doing timeshare sales. My very first sales job. And so when I say I sold my soul to the devil early, I, dude, a lot of people out there don't like me. But I, I sold some useless timeshare and I got really good at sales. So you just started selling? It sounds like, like you had an insurance franchise. You just have, you just been a serial entrepreneur. You kind of just been doing different things. Now was my first really crack at it. I failed it. I failed it a lot of things. I started a grass painting company, like spray painting grass. Real estate. Remember those little real estate books where you only bought real estate back in the day? Yeah, maybe. No, no. Yes, yes. I know exactly what you're talking about. So I would, somehow, you know, was barely played any golf. I was golfing one time and I saw the guy spraying grass. Me? Huh? And I'm like, our yards are terrible. And a buddy of mine was a realtor. Like, hey man, if you come spray my grass before I take pictures, I'll pay you 200 bucks. I'm like, interesting. And I started a grass painting company that flopped. All right, now's the part of the show where I feel the most uncomfortable, but my therapist says I need to face my fears. So here we are. I've started a newsletter and I want you to subscribe. And what you're going to get every single week are the aggregated conversations from that week that I have on this podcast with an overview of what their business actually looks like. I'm also going to throw in a review of one or two businesses that are listed for sale. I'll give you my opinion on whether or not the EBITDA multiple is good, or there's customer concentration, or there's red flags or green flags. And then lastly, I'm going to give you one piece of actionable advice every single week on how to buy your first business. So click the link below, subscribe to my newsletter, and let's get back into the show. I tried to do mortgages, that flopped. I quit a couple times and embraced it. But then with the majority is, I did go, you know, I rose the corporate ladder. The, the highest I went in sales for industry was a VP. Always made decent money. I retired my wife nine years ago. She raises her kids full-time. So, you know, being in commission sales and that kind of organizations always been my cup of tea. What was appealing about this grant program and doing the vocational schools online? Because that's a, that's a very broad background from painting grass to working corporate sales. Like, obviously the through line is sales. Are there a lot of sales associated with this WIOA grant? At first, yes. So no one knows. I mean, no one skilled it like I had. Right on grant only. I don't do any self-pay till recently. We'll get into that later. I did it all on grant. The sales was my sister actually worked as a counselor at one of these offices that give out the grant. And so she told me, hey, if you're going to build a school, you want to do these things, talk to counselors this way. So I, you know, during 2021, when you could do in-person visits still, I called. So remember who our audience is, low income, on food stamps, unemployed, employed, transitional living, women's shelters, silver living shelters. I called everyone in Texas that has a nonprofit, women's shelter, whatnot, because we started off as a healthcare school. And I called them. I'm like, hey, do your applicants or residents want to go back to school for free? And on top of that, I'm going to give them a free laptop. They're the least I could do with Texas is giving me 10 grand, right? I go to that Walmart that you know, a lot to buy last. Oh, yeah, you know me. By first. Like, what's up, Judy? I mean, everything. But so I called all the nonprofits. And now I get unlimited leads because why wouldn't they want the residents getting a free skill set before they leave their their environment? And I pretty much broke the, broke the grant, broke broke the internet because to this day, I get unlimited leads because I mean, I'm calling Nick's Foundation. I'm like, hey, Nick, I see you have a women's shelter. Would they want to come back to school, learn a trade? And by the way, I'm going to throw in a free laptop. Okay. Give me an idea right now of like the size and scope of your business. How, like, what are you doing in revenue? What are you doing in bottom line? How many students do you have going through your courses per year? We've done 350. We're doing about 20 to 25 a month. Um, top. Yeah, every every county has a different training cap. So where Texas maxes out at 10, Austin maxes it out at 7,500 for the same grant. They just have a different. Is that 10,000 correct? Okay. So I don't know. A decent amount. 180. Like, at what point did you realize, did this is a big, like, this could be a real business? I should lean into this and just continue operating. When I saw what my buddy was doing, I mean, he was doing 10 students a month, 4,500. I'm like, between him and his brother, that's 45,000. That's not too shabby. But, you know, you went online only, you could really scale this. And because I'm online only, I access, I have access to the whole state of Texas. So, you know, Nick, that lives in Odessa, with new options, I could help them out. Like, do you have to get approved or or vetted county by county? Because you said there's a county cap. Do you have to get credentials essentially to say, like, yes, you are approved educator within McLennan County? Sure. Good. Tam, right next door. That's in WIOA. Good. Threw me off. But yeah, so you get access through the state of Texas, and then Texas does have 28 different little region board deals, and some of them make you go through like a, a small little step. But mainly, what it is, is are your courses on our target occupation list? Meaning medical assistant, money technician, CDL drivers. That each county has a different what they deem on-demand list. So if you go closer to Houston and the coast, that's going to be like welders and boat technicians. And, you know, if you go out in the rural East Texas, West Texas, that's going to be like pipe fitters, oil, this, oil, that. And so I just try to stick to courses that would meet as many target occupational lists possible. And when we first started off, we started off with medical assistant, pharmacy technician, medical billing coding, things like that. How did you know to pick those ones? Like, was there a list that the, that the county or the federal government has that says, these are the types of courses we will reimburse? Yeah, that that goes back to what I was just saying, the target occupation list varies by region. So I just put it all on an Excel sheet. I saw which were like the top four on all the regions and just went with those. What does the accreditation process look like? So we're not accredited. We're licensed through the state of Texas. To be actually accredited, that allows you to go to, uh, cross state lines, and then now you're big boy school that's in the future. So you're, you're licensed by the state. You're paid by the federal government. But the federal government needs to see your license before you can bill them? Correct. Well, they don't have to see it. They, so when you're licensed, called an eligible training provider, ETPL list. If you're on the ETPL list, you're getting grant money. ETPL list, dude, you are blowing my mind right now. So I come from the world of home health and hospice, which is 99% of our revenue is government revenue, right? Medicare, Medicaid, managed plans, etcetera. So I know that anytime you're working with the federal government, you've got a credentialing process you have to go through or licensing process, whatever you want to call it. And then because of our federal system, we've got state requirements in some instances, county and city requirements. And so we're in a similar position where the state gives us accreditation, they give us licensure, and then once the state gives us licensure, we can then go to the federal government and say, hey, we're an accredited home health and hospice agency, please pay us, you know, see our credentialing. But essentially, the federal government is outsourcing the licensing and accreditation to the local states to decide how they want to administer. How did you learn that process? Like, is it a pretty easy process? Or like, how long did it take for you to go from, hey, I'm in my buddy's trailer, he's got 10 students at $4,500 a month to first check hit, I got my first $10,000? Like, what, what was that process like? So, about five months. That's not long, man. It's because it's Texas. There's no waiting period. Some states have an actual waiting period. They want you to do a self-pay model and kind of before they give you access to the grants. Also, no one knows how to do it. It's not anyone advertises, you know, like going through the state. Like when I said online school, they were just like, what did you pay, like, a consultant? Or were you just reading up on it online? Did you make friends with somebody at the state and they walked you through it? Like, again, I'm coming from that perspective of it took me a long time to figure out home health and hospice, how to actually get licensed in these places. And now, granted, it's healthcare, so it's, it's much more heavily regulated than I would assume education. But how did you get up to speed? Was it just Googling? No, I, I, I officially helped my buddy scout, and obviously he paid me after all, because I mean, he didn't have a CRM. So I knew that stuff, right? Like, I've always known KPIs, CRMs, automation. So I'm like, dude, you're, you're, you're working on Post-it notes. I'm like, you got to get so much. And they love it. They're still doing it to this day. But I had a different vision, and I just read on it, and I'm like, man, I called around other schools. None of them have a script. Like, even a simple college, oh, I want medical assistant. Okay, it's two grand class, start every month or whatever. That's really it. I'm like, man, I come from such a sales background. I'm, I'm like, oh, Nick, you want to be a medical assistant? Well, why do you want to be a medical assistant? What do you currently do now? Oh, you're paycheck to paycheck. Come on in, man. Let me put you on a video call. Let me show how you can do this online. So, just just automating it, man, just selling it. And like I said, it's not much of a sell. It's it's free grant. It's just then what I got really good at is showing people how to fill out the grant so they get approved. Because if you just, yeah, if you just walk into the center, you know, and you're like, hey, I'm unemployed, I lost my job. They're going to do this to you, right? And they're going to say, you know, go fill this out. No one knows what to do with this stuff, right? And so I got really good at that. I even got so good, I convinced a counselor after numerous Chick-fil-A attempts of lunch to go on video with me and show me how to fill out the paperwork. And I recorded it. And now I shoot that to the students, they get approved. So tell me about the curriculum because like, it's an education program. There's obviously the curriculum, and then there is the practical, practicum. I don't even know what you call it. You probably have to have a certain number of hours of apprenticeship depending on on the trade, I'm assuming. How do you find the education piece, the curriculum? That's the secret, right? That's what I have. And I, and I, and I charge people for the curriculum. I accidentally found the one that private labels it. So the curriculum, this company I found, they sell it to military and government like in the masses. I wasn't their target demographic, but after talking to them, I'm like, why wouldn't you, like, you have this piece, you figured it out. I'm like, just sell it to small schools like for whatever you want to sell it for, because then we'll just mark it up. So that's how we found it. The curriculum is not what matters. It's the exam they go take that has to be nationally accredited. So for example, HVAC, HVAC, you have to get an EPA 608 test that allows you to touch refrigerants and coolants, right? And again, that computer is not going to care, Nick went to in-person school and Hector online school. Can you memorize enough theory to pass the test? And then you guys are business owners. Think about it. Any of your businesses, you don't let me go in there and do the stuff I want to do. You're going to train me how to do the things. Business owner out there, like, I don't care what hands-on experience you've got. The way I want to do things here is A, B, and C. So most employers, you know, they don't care about the hands-on. You learn that on the field, like just, just like anything else. So we teach you enough to be dangerous, to know and have the conversation, but may you learn on the field. Every HVAC owner is not going to throw keys at a work truck to the guy on the first day. Go 30 days. And but I'm so, like physical therapy, I know, and in order to do physical therapy, you've got to go through some school, you got to get your doctorate, but you've got to get, I think it was 2,000 hours, I could be totally wrong here, but it's, it's a lot of hours in the clinic in order to get your license. And there is a written piece, but there's also an hours hurdle that you have to hit. Is there an hours hurdle that, you know, somebody for an HVAC? I don't even know. Is it an apprentice? Is it a license? It's a license on HVAC, but it's just an EPA license. That's it. So you're right on the hours for electrician and plumbers. Here, we just give them a basic certificate that says, hey, you took so many hours, you understand the language. Then those do have to complete 8,000 hours before they can get their journeyman. So it depends on the vocation. Yep. But this, no license, there's no hours. You, once you're licensed, your license, EPA. Now you have to do it for so many years and become a contractor's license to go open up your own. Sure. As soon as you pass a little rinky-dink EPA test, off to the races. What about like, okay, medical coder, there's a national federal test in order for them to be, yes, healthcare association recognized nationwide. Oh, and what's it called when they pass that? They're just a certified medical biller. Yeah, MBC certified. Yeah, it's just a, it's just a certification. Like they, they completed so many hours and the certification. Like I said, no one knows who my school is. No one knows who I am. But everyone knows who the EPA 608 is in that world. So carry that in your wallet, you could come work on a truck and work on my house. How long does it take? So the state of Texas gives you $10,000, depending on the county, yeah, they give you $11,000. How long does that $10,000 work for? Is this like a two-year program? Is it a six-week course? Does it depend on the vocation? Like, what, how much time are you given to fulfill essentially the training? The, the courses, 80 to 100 hours. They're done in two. Wow. Y. What's your completion rate on the courses? 82%. Is that good or bad? I have no idea. Well, college is 44%. So we're doing pretty good. Well, sure, college is 44%, but college is not 80 to 100 hours. College is probably, it's four years, right? So the difference between us and like a vocational school, they have to go in person. They fluff up the hours with lab hours, resume building to do at least 300 hours to qualify for all the grants and loans and FAFSA and everything. We just stripped it down to the, you don't care about that. We just stripped it down to the curriculum to go pass the test. Is it capped? Like, is there a number of students that you're capped at? Or is it, is the cap just the revenue per student? Student, depending on the county. It probably should be capped because we broke certain counties. I mean, when we did our monthly review, I mean, we did more enrollments in Austin Community College in Austin, at least for the grants, not not traditional. So yeah, like if Austin County has a, or Travis County has a cap of a million, we probably got 800,000. The only reason we did that is because we could process them so fast because we streamlined the process. So again, I'm going to home health and hospice. How do they monitor fraud in your space? Because in in hospice, for example, if a, if a hospice company is keeping people on inappropriately, there is a mechanism. It's called the cap, and it's something that the federal government monitors. I'm assuming there's something that the government looks at, whether it's completion rate, whether I, I don't even know. But what do they look at to assess to essentially assess whether or not you're doing a good job as the vocational school? Sure, good question. All of it. We get annually audited and biannually audited. And you have to have a, a certain completion rate, let's call it 70% completion rate to stay on the ETPL list. Remember, to get the grants. Yep. Not a 70% completion rate. We have to get 60% of those jobs. So do you have to track after they graduate whether or not they got jobs and then show the documentation to the federal government when they come and do the audits? Like, yep, Jason Jones got a job here. Like, what's the documentation you have to show? It's an Excel, and it's still manual, like folder, like manila folder. We have a ton of them, unfortunately. It's old school like that. The same's going to go of the cloud. But yeah, we have to keep it on the record for two years in case any changes. We do really well with that. We give incentives like, hey, you know, we'll buy your first work boots if you tell us where you land, or or whatnot. And so we get involved in the counties. Love that. So back at the envelope math, 40-ish percent. So it's 60% of the 70% that graduate need to have jobs. Yes. Extremely. You know how easy it is to get somebody a job in in these apprenticeships? If you show up to the interview, over, you're getting the job. Is there a time period? Are they like, they have to have found a job within two months? Not necessarily. And if there is, I don't know about it because it takes an hour to find them a job. We partner up with staffing companies, and they call us all the time like, dude, we need your leads. And because we're not charging them anything, we don't care about the placement fee or anything. We're like, they just place them, and they love us for it. So what are your margins on a business like this? 80%, 85%. Really? They're like SaaS-like margins. Well, I mean, think about it. I mean, we're private labeling a course for a thousand bucks and we're selling for 10. I mean, obviously we buy a laptop, there's, you know, some hands exchanging and things and phone calls to be made, but it's, it's pretty crazy. What if somebody wants office hours? What if somebody wants extra tutoring? Or or what if somebody wants extra support? Like, do you have a staff that does those things? Or is it all within? We do have a staff, but the questions are the same. So we're recording Loom videos and that frequently asked questions, and they kind of knock out 90% of the questions. Wow. What do you do with people who have questions that you haven't answered in the Loom? We're a school. We're only open from 9 to 5. Or send in an email. So from 2021 to today, you've been doing this, and you said right now you're doing between three and $400,000 a year in topline revenue? No, 200 a month. 2.4 a second month. We're paying to do 3 million this year. Okay. You okay, dude, wow. Tell me what your team looks like. Tell me what like, like what does your administrative team look like? Obviously, there's, there's you. You have a sales team? Yeah, two enrollment people, two enrollment people, two success coaches. They're like the teachers that we hired that, come on, Nick, you could do it. Log in a little more. Or are they onshore or on or offshore? No, they're all here. Okay. So you have like an office that they that they work out of? Now, home. We started off with a big old office. We looked the part. We bought vending machines and coolers and we thought we were a startup. And boy, no one came. Who's in the online school? We ship, we deliver the laptop. We moved out of it. It was a WeWork bankruptcy in Los Angeles in Irving. And we moved out of there. And then now we're home. Dude, do you just, do you Texas? Yeah, we can only do Texas because until you get accredited, you could go past state lines. What if you wanted to go to Oklahoma? How would you do that with the current model that you're doing? You'd have to partner with somebody who lives in Oklahoma. Yep. That's really interesting, man. Y. Let's talk about some of the the mechanics of the business. How do you acquire customers right now for free? Remember all the nonprofits? They send us leads. Hey, I'm in a women's shelter. There's 50 of them. They lead six months. And I, I go into a Zoom call. They put me on a, whatever, on a screen somewhere, and all these women, they're like, obviously I can't see them, they're for privacy reasons, and I just give them a pitch. Who wants to go back to school for free and get a free laptop? A whole bunch of them send me their emails directly, and we get them a call and we sign them up. So, are you doing any pay-per-click, any SEO, any direct mailers, any like, any traditional marketing? Nope. We've done nothing. I sent pizzas and Chick-fil-A. But you had to build those relationships first, right? Like, you've gotten to that place now, but you first had to then go to the women's shelters, go to maybe addiction recovery, halfway houses, I don't even know, like a lot of these places. That was the biggest one. I called the sober house, and they had 300 houses. I'm sorry, 300 houses in the state of Texas. I have no idea. Sober living. I called one guy up, and he's like, oh man, come to my meeting. Like, we, we have some guys at the house. I'm like, okay, guys at the house, but five, six guys. We show up to a church, and there's a 100 people in there because they have to go to this new resident meeting every 30 days for months. And I show up, and there's 100 people. I'm like, who wants to school for free and a free laptop? And obviously, they all they all qualify because they're considered homeless because it's transitional living. So they all qualify for the grant regardless if they work or not. And to live in those sober houses, you either have to work or go to school or a combination of both. So you do, you do have to be careful or at least cognizant of what the criteria is. Yeah, qualifies for the grant, right? You're, you're not going to high school seniors who are graduating and like, hey, you want to do this grant? Like, not yet. It's not yet. Not yet. Well, because, so when you go through accreditation, part of being accredited, they're so stripped because we're a for-profit. Right? You have 80% margins. You are technically for-profit. So, well, so is nonprofit. The only reason we're around because we're going to sell it, right? Nonprofit, right, right. And nonprofit doesn't have any placements. I think that's a scam. Like, they don't have to place anything because they're nonprofit, which is crazy. But every university, I mean, they're nonprofit, but the dean makes a million dollars, right? So now that we're going to accreditation process, 10% of our funding can't, has to come from self-pay. So months ago, we started doing self-pay. And so, yeah, we did our first event in May at a high school and blew it out of the water because we're sitting next to UT, Texas Tech, and we are, hey, for four grand, come do HVAC. And all the parents like, yeah, before we give Nick here 15,000, go blow it, you know, kegs in his frat year, let's pony up, put this on a credit card, and you can learn a trade. Why are you deciding to go the accreditation route? Sounds like you got a pretty good thing going just with the grants. It's not my, the, the shareholders want to go that route, and eventually they want to sell it, and it's worth a lot of money once accredited. I think I got a handle on the business model. It's freaking fascinating. Are you open to talking about your partnership? I'm, I'm curious. You said shareholder a couple times. I, I came to some buddies of mine when I worked at as a VP at a financial company. Some investors were some young dudes, kind of like you and Chris. Young dudes. And they always, when I left that company, they kind of just under their breath said, dude, if you ever do something, let us know. Like, if you ever come up with an idea. And I did. I had this, you know, aha moment, right? So I pitched them. I knew I'm a, I'm a faith guy first, father second, finance third, right? So I, if I'm going to jump into this, I can't be the CEO. I mean, look at me, how I'm dressed. I don't, I'm not CEO material. You know what I mean? Like, to have a PhD? Are you kidding me? So I knew I had a guy that I worked with. I mean, dude, he would be the best CEO ever if I could figure it out. So I, I put a CEO in place, like, and I put a team in place, and I automated it, and I did a sweat equity deal where I put no money in it, and I own a pretty good chunk of the school. What were the startup costs? Why did you have to go out and get money? We didn't. That's what we thought. Like, I, I took their idea. I didn't like, if you could do this all over again, you could do it for like 20. It doesn't, you know, besides application fees and some startup this and that, whatever, like, it's, it's crazy. Would it take you five months to get licensed again? Or do you think you could actually do it quicker? In Texas, quicker, probably two months. If you wanted to expand to Oklahoma, what would you do? Or any state for that matter? How would you go to another state? Hey, man, you want to open up a school in Idaho? Yeah. Is that what you do? Would it be a franchise? Or would it be like, I don't know. I don't know. That's, that's why I'm here. And this is existing. This could possibly turn into something, but who knows, man. I mean, even the people that have actually, they kind of planted the seed. Like the people that that are my team, they like, you should be a consultant. Huh? Maybe I, maybe I will be. I don't know. Yeah, I guess it probably is very state-specific. Like, you don't know the regulations in each state. Idaho may require every owner to be a citizen of Idaho, or a resident of Idaho, I should say, right? Like, I could see a scenario for that. But if that's not the case, it would seem like you could just go out and find an operator, give them the playbook, and then, you know, take a percentage of of whatever they're building. That's why I want you in my life. Maybe it's awesome. What's your vision for this company over the next five years? Me not being in it, probably selling. I'm probably going to take a cool little swing at being a consultant and showing other people how to do it. Not in my state, obviously. I don't want the competition, or give them the competition. But probably teach people how to do it because if this PhD could figure it out, anyone else should be able to figure it out. I mean, you're seeing it, you're active on Twitter. There would I guarantee you there'd be a massive, massive demand from people, especially the side hustle audience, you know what I mean? They're like, wait a second, I could be making $7 million in 38 seconds. Where do I, where do I pay? But that's the thing. Like people are buying yogurt franchises. I'm like, why? Those things fail. Like, I don't, I don't get it. Like, do your, you keep your pressure washing. You could keep, dude, I'm dressed like this behind a laptop making more than them, you know? So it's like, you could have it all. What I think it's crazy is the, I've gotten more education out of out of Twitter and a than ever going to school, just by how much time do you spend in the business right now? Oh, maybe two hours a day. How long did it take you to get to that point? Like a year. This will land the plane here. Every trade school owner out there is a tradesperson accidentally, right? So the, if you're an HVAC guy forever, and you're like, you know what, I'll be an instructor, I'll be an owner. Therefore, they, them treated like a business. They answer the phone, they're the instructor, they don't automate anything. And I literally started this as a business. So that's the biggest difference. Like, I don't live in it. Like, I don't want to teach it. You kidding me? Imagine me trying to teach. Forget it. So just, just automated everything, man. It's, it's crazy. It's amazing. All right, I got some rapid fire questions for you. You ready? Yep. What do you love about this business? The more lives I impact, the more money we make. It's a pretty good incentive model. Yeah, very good incentive model. Wall of thanking cards. Hey, I'm in my scrubs. Hey, I got this. Hey, I got my first paycheck. Hey, I had Christmas for the first time. Pretty nice. It's rad, man. What do you hate about it? The way we built it. If I could do it all over again, I would just, we strapped it myself. Yeah, I have to answer to the shareholders and like, I got to go accreditation route. I gotta wear pants to work. Could you buy the shareholders out? Yeah, but it'd be, it'd be expensive. You think it'd be expensive? Yeah. I mean, once I sell it, there's nothing stopping from starting another one. I mean, depends on who you sell it to. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. But then I, I mean, non-competes are a real thing. Non-solicitation. I'll start my, I'll start my 10-year-old school. All right, all right. If you have two hours in your day, you don't have family time scheduled, you don't have work scheduled, like nothing that you have to be doing. What are you deciding to spend your time on? What are you obsessed with right now? Learning how to build a community and start teaching people how to open up trade schools. It's a great obsession. If you had to give yourself advice, your pre-entrepreneurial self advice, what advice would you give him? Take action. So fast and I break things so fast that I just jump in. I would have probably slowed down a little bit more and did a little bit more research. Not overanalyze it because I just, you know, I started in newsletters. I don't know how to write. I took a writing course. English is my second language. I suck at grammar. I fixed that. But I started newsletters before I even learned how to write. But it's just, I take, I take action so fast sometimes that I would have told myself, knowing this was going to get this big, to slow down a little bit. It's good advice, man. Where's the best place for people to come find you at? Chris's house? No. Next. What's your handle? Tsor Secrets. We'll link that in the show notes. Well, this is rad, man. Blew my mind today. That's for darn sure. Appreciate you coming on, dude. I loved it. Thanks so much.