#017: Ron Shah - Stress & Sacrifice Behind Obvi’s $40M Success

When someone says like, dude, how do you do so many businesses? Or how are you doing this dinner and this? I found that easy to actually challenge yourself and do stuff like that. That's willpower. And if you can break your willpower to do something that is probably something you didn't want to do, that's hard. That's what real challenge is. Building businesses and like coming with new ideas and buying new shit, like that's not hard. That's just skillset. You can learn it, get better at it, apply your skills and get efficiency.

[FOREIGN] Ron Shaw is the co-founder and CEO of Avi, a health and wellness brand dedicated to making the most transparent products on the market without sacrificing taste. He's also the co-host of Chew on This, a fast-growing media company focused on CPG and e-commerce growth, and an active advisor to tech companies like Parker and Finiloop, among others in the e-com space. In this episode, we cover how to manage stress as a founder, the importance of generosity while networking, turning hobbies into companies, and committing to projects over the long term. Welcome back to episode 19 of the Turning Pro Podcast. Today we have Ron Shaw, the founder and CEO of Avi, joining us today. Thanks for joining, Ron.

Thanks for having me, guys. This is the dopest, dopest setup ever. I love it.

It's come a long way from when we first started this, the early days.

Okay, I want to start with— you run a podcast. Yeah, that is— I think I first heard about it a few months ago and then started watching apps, and I was like, this is not only impeccably done, but the guest quality has gone up significantly.

It has.

So walk me through on the other side of the microphone phone? What have you learned? What are you excited about?

Yeah, um, you know, I think when it comes to podcasts, I think one of the, the toughest parts is like you can launch really well, but to maintain quality and like retention of your viewer, right? You almost have to treat it like a business too, even if you're monetizing or not. Um, that part has been like something we've had to really dive into because when you start to go into the analytics of like, wait, this episode got a huge drop off here. What was the topic? Right. And we're like, like kind of piercing out different data points of like, okay, cool, things like that. Maybe we should move to another part or, or whatnot. So when you start, you kind of have all that hockey stick energy kind of saying like, all right, it's going to be sick, be fun.

It's amazing. I'm not to cut you off. This is the best thing that anyone that has come on here has said to us.

Tactical advice.

We learned, we learned it the hard way where it was like We got one episode where it was like, all right, we got a few thousand views and a few thousand listens. And the next one got like 400 views and like 300 listens. And we're like, okay, we need to like look at the data here. And it was like, we just had a topic that we've talked about too much. And it was like, you can tell the drop-off, listening drop-off and the viewer drop-off. So I think what I think we learned is like, you can't expect a listener or viewer to behave the same way every single time. Um, and so you almost have to think about each episode as a new pod, like you're just launching. Um, even how you kind of do the clips and post about it, and like how we talk about each episode, like it's almost like, hey, this is our first episode. Like that energy you have to bring it each time. I think that's what we've learned, and it's exhausting.

I think exhausting is the right word. Yeah. Because I think when you're— I mean, this is new to us. I mean, you have more experience like on camera, but every single time, like all the podcasts I love listening to, they bring the energy every single time. And it's funny because sometimes I talk to friends of mine that run podcasts and you see them working and they're quiet. Yeah. They're focused. Completely different demeanor.

Yeah.

And then when you go on camera, you gotta bring the energy, right? You have to because it's entertainment. Yeah. And so walk me through that. How do you keep up that energy?

Yeah. You know, um, I think The one piece is, and, and, and I'll actually compare the two seasons. Season 1 was just Ash and I talking about business building, and I will tell you, like, halfway through that season, the energy pace was hard to keep up because you're just like, all right, it almost felt like at some point a job of like us discussing our business, which you kind of do other things from your business to get away from business. So when we had to kind of go deeper into our business, I was like, damn, this is kind of a lot. Season 2, when we did guests, um, that energy I think naturally comes because we did what you guys are doing. We required people to come into the studio. I hate this remote bullshit. Sorry. Um, but, um, the whole concept of it for me, especially on like podcasts and stuff like that, like the whole goal is you need emotions. You need like to be next to this person. So like when there are people flying in, driving in, coming 2 hours in the rain, like you naturally have no choice. But to be there for them. Even if you're on 3 hours of sleep, whatever, you know, you've had a tough day, when you get in that seat and you get behind that microphone, you owe it to that person who spent time out of their day to come to give them the 100%.

He gets it. So when we, when we had this conversation, I told him a couple of things. I said, number one, I refuse to do a virtual podcast because you lose the magic touch of an in-person interaction. And the second one was that I, and this one I think is a little bit more aggressive, but I said that I won't do a podcast unless I have my own studio. I found that one of the biggest friction points from talking to people was that when you bring guests on your podcast, now you're trying to manage their schedule and the availability of the studio that you're working with and making sure the equipment is there and making sure that people can come there, whether it's a producer or like a photographer, whatever it is. And it brings a whole nother layer of friction, which is why I don't know how deeply you've looked in the statistics around podcast drop-off, but it's like— it's like 90— I don't know the exact number, but it's something along the lines of like 90% of podcasts don't make it past the 6th episode. And then like 90% of the 10% don't make it past like the 21st episode because there's no infrastructure for consistency. So I said to him, I'm like, I'm going to optimize for consistency. I'm sure our first couple of episodes are going to be hard to listen to because we've never done this before.

Sure.

But if we can optimize for the— to know that I can get through a couple hundred episodes.

Yeah.

Like with anything else, I think we'll get better with it. I think we'll figure it out. And so because we're sitting in my living room right now, it's like, okay, let's pick 1 or 2 days a month. We're gonna build out the studio, we're gonna bring through guests, we're gonna have people on site in advance. We have flexibility on scheduling, and that to me has been like the unlock for having confidence that like we'll be sitting here in 12 months on episode who knows what.

Yep.

Uh, doing this.

Yeah, best decision ever. Like owning your own studio or having the— that flexibility, whether it's even an outsourced studio, to go in at like any point, that, that unlocks like so much convenience. And podcasting, especially if it's not your main gig, you you— it has to be carved through convenience, cuz you also are taking time out of your work day to do this, right? So that convenience piece is huge.

So like, if I— to, to that last point, it's like, if I know every month 3 to 8 hours are committed to this, I can live with that, cuz there's definitely an ROI here. But it's way less time than a lot of other people have to deal with trying to figure things out. And the other thing I will say, which is hilarious, the amount of conversations that have happened in this apartment that weren't part of an official studio but are hilarious and like have been a cool like, um, networking and relationship thing has been insane.

Oh, I can't imagine.

Like Bobby Shmurda was here last week and we—

I saw that.

We turned on the cameras and just had like an hour conversation. I'm not posting it anywhere, but like going back and listening to that, it was hilarious.

Tell me about that. Like what, what, like how did that happen?

Yeah, so I met Bobby at a Paddle happy hour, uh, last week. And we started talking and he was telling me about how he wants to open a juvenile center in Brooklyn. Uh, they're building out like a $20 million facility, uh, to help juvies, and it's kind of become like more or less his life mission just based on his past.

Wow.

Uh, and it's been like really inspiring. But I think the thing that— the reason we started talking to him is because the one part of the puzzle that he doesn't understand is like investors, how to raise money, like what does a pitch look like, you know, like all those things. Yeah, he had like a note in his phone. I'm like, this is what I want to do. And I was like, great, but like we need to put that together in a way that's digestible.

Yeah.

Uh, and it's a write-off, right? So there's a lot of like really important wealthy people who could get it behind an initiative like this. So I just met him more as like, I'm happy to like tell you what you should do and shouldn't do.

Yeah.

And it's real— we're just kind of like friendly. And like, we had dinner with him last night with like— he brought people from his side of the table. He's like, look, I'm not the smartest guy in the room.

Yeah.

But I'm putting people around me. And these other guys were like pitching me on what the vision was, just like to try and help them open doors.

Dude, that's super cool.

It's just like a hilarious, a hilarious random anecdote.

Yeah, no, it's amazing that, that, that type of stuff, you don't know what it's going to blossom into, but it's something. Like, it's, it's just, it's the beginning of something.

That's why to me, like, having the space that we have, whether it's the studio or the outdoor space to like host people— like, I definitely pay more than I would like to live in an apartment, but I think the value that you get back in relationships if you're playing the long-term game is so worth it.

100%.

I think the, I think the convenience factor is is really overlooked because the convenience is what enables you to actually enjoy what you're doing. Like, do you listen to David Senra, Founders Podcast?

I don't, I don't.

He talks about Novak Djokovic, like tennis player, and like, why are you so good? And his response was, I just love swinging the racket. Yeah. Has nothing to do with fame or money. You can do it forever if you just like the basic, like, day-to-day of it. Yeah. I'm sure that's why we all love building businesses.

Building business, yep.

You gotta just enjoy the day-to-day. And I think with podcasting, because sometimes there's so much logistics around it, if for, if for this we're all going somewhere else and we had to check, double-check producers and dates and this and this, it would probably impact my enjoyment.

That's right.

Of just like, the reason that I think we're gonna do this for a long time is because I just, like, this is very fun and very rewarding. Yeah.

Yeah.

Energy-giving. And the minute that it starts getting really complicated, it's tough.

Um, you'll know when that happens, if that ever happens.

I just think the con— the, the unlock for me, I think it probably hit after our episode with Sam from Kashish. Yeah, where I was like, you're telling me that there are people who get paid a lot of money to sit down and learn from other people?

Yep, yep.

It's like, I like sitting on the couch and riffing and shooting this shit like just with no cameras on.

Absolutely not.

And I'm like, now that like we can sit down and talk about things we're all passionate about and like make this a, you know, a bit— whether it's a business or not, it's just like that concept was so interesting to me. But again, it was the friction point and the lack of convenience, which is why I never did it.

No, it's— I think that part is so, so true. Like the fact that you have the optionality of making it a business, right? Which is when you're doing something fun and the optionality is there, that's when you know there's longevity. I think that's the definition, the real equation. Sorry, not definition, equation of longevity is like it has to be fun and there has to be optionality to do it the way you want. And I think, I think podcasting is, is, is that route.

I'm curious how you think about your, your You're someone who, you have a lot of hats in the ring, but I think you do a pretty good job of managing it. I'm curious how you think about prioritizing fulfillment. How do you think about the relationships you wanna go deeper into or the things you spend your time on?

I was about to start explaining my 3PL.

I think you're someone who gets pitched probably 100 ideas a week, and obviously you only have 24 hours in your day. How do you think about that?

Yeah, no, it's, I think it'd be pretentious if I told you I figured it out and this is the right way to do it. I'm still an opportunist at heart. So there's one thing that I haven't stopped doing no matter what age or time in my life it was, which is I open every single message. So whether it's a DM or a cold email reach out or a cold LinkedIn message or a Twitter DM, even in like, where they put it into junk, I'll still go through it.

I love that.

And because like, I believe like there was a time where we tried to hope that someone would read it and we have good, we had good intentions. So there has to be someone on the other side doing it to kind of, kind of with me. And what I realized is when I kept that consistent, I've found some of our best opportunities when I've done that. And it's like, okay, if, if I keep that part there and then I just become a little bit more intentional with, all right, now here's where my skill sets are, right? So like, if you have opportunities and you figure out your skill sets, that's where I think you can derive your intentionality. And I think until you've developed your skill sets though, I think everyone's lost. I think everyone's wandering and just like, oh yeah, I'll do this. I can hustle for that. I can do that. You're a hustler. And I think you move into becoming less of a hustler and more about like, okay, I know I can do this, but I do this better. I'm gonna put my time here. So I think it's like development that just comes with time. Um, I don't think there is a way to do it tomorrow, if that makes sense.

Yeah. No, I think, uh, something you said that was actually a light bulb moment for me was the mental model where I started saying no for the first time.

Yeah. Right?

Because like you're the young aspirational entrepreneur who wants to do this and this and this, and you have the shiny object syndrome. But when I, I feel like I felt myself leveling up when I actually had the like maturity to walk away from an opportunity.

Yeah.

Despite the fact that it might have been interesting, because I knew that like all things considered it wasn't the thing to do for me. And 3 years ago, like old Ben would have jumped on everything and just like tried to make it all work when I, when we all knew it wasn't going to.

I think, I think I think a big part of that too is learning to trust like your initial gut instinct on an opportunity. And a big part of opportunities, it's just people, right? Like we met through a LinkedIn DM and there's some just over time as you hone that intuition, immediately we got on a call and it wasn't even a question of should we, it's just like, we're going to work together in some way.

Yeah.

What's it going to be? Right. And when you can really trust that, or even when we were DMing and we hopped on a call, even before that, I was like, There's just a—

I trust this person.

That's what my gut says.

Yep.

And we're gonna do something together, whether it's gonna be in 2 weeks or 5 years, whatever it is. So I'm curious, from your lens, you have a lot going on and a lot of opportunities coming your way. Yeah. What does your filters look like in terms of— is it just people? Like, I just trust you. Like, I want to do stuff with you.

Yeah, it's a good question. So I will actually— I don't think I've ever told this, and I've never said no to anything. What I say is, um, right now I don't have the capacity, but let's do this. Let's put something on the calendar 3 months from now and update me where you are, and I'll update you where I am with my time. So I've, I've, I've never really said no to like an opportunity like that, but I kind of push it off. Okay. And I think what pushing it off does, it lets me feel like I fulfilled some part of that like inner child in me of like, damn, I kind of just want to like give people a chance. I want to work with everyone, right? Um, but I don't have the time just now. So I keep that box open. Now, some would say that's probably cruel because it's like leading someone on. Um, but I can't, I can't get out of that. Like I, I do it. And so I think that's one part of it. It's like, I don't fully say no. And then I think in terms of like the filter of like even the people who I'm thinking of saying yes to or thinking of just ideas or businesses or something we may buy or work on, I think what it really comes down to now is if we do this, will this take away from our lifestyle? Okay? And my lifestyle is pretty set right now in a certain way that I want it, right? X amount of time with my kid, my wife, my parents, my friends, my partners, and my team. Okay? That's my world. So if that's, if my lifestyle is set a certain way and I'm going to consider doing something new, okay? The first thing I'm thinking about, and I'll write down, like I have this huge billboard in front of my desk that's just like, will this, how many hours will this actually take? Right? And what do I, you know, guesswork, best guesswork and gut. And then saying, okay, will this affect my lifestyle? And if it does, you will instantly find at some point regret, right? And at some point something else will get affected. So I think that's like been the biggest exploration. Even like this, like agency talk we're talking about, right? It's like I need to work on it with someone who knows how to do this because if I do it myself, then I know I'm going to take away from my lifestyle 'cause then I have a learning curve. Right. So it's like, I think that's how I've been looking at it, is I kind of like how things are and I don't want too much to change, but I don't want to say no to too much.

Where do you find, like, if you had to articulate what fulfillment means to you, what would it be?

It changed. Like, it's, it's different today than it was 6 months ago, than it was 2 years ago. I think I give you kind of both answers, like I think 2 years ago before I even had a kid or the idea of a kid, fulfillment was like leveling up every single year, both on a monetary space, but then knowledge, right? If I was learning more and I could do more and talk to more people and hold the conversation. And secondly, if I was making more money, right? And just those two tiers were leveling up. I felt fulfilled there in like my professional life. And then personally, if I'm able to make sure when I go home and ask my wife, are you happy? And the answer is yes, that was fulfilled. And then with my family, with my parents, just making sure that at the very least once every two weeks I'm in front of them full body, like, you know, like in presence. If those things are hit, I'm happy. Like that's fulfillment then. Now, like I feel like my kid has become like such a, he like jumped the pedestal from like no thought before, like wasn't even a thought process to like, you're all that matters. So like if I have to wake up earlier for you, sleep less and come home earlier for you, I'm gonna do it. And if that means some other things may sacrifice, Okay, what's gonna happen? And it's crazy how much power something like that can hold on you.

And just in terms of reprioritizing, reprioritizing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so that's, I think in these 2 years I kind of seen it live changing. Like, holy shit. Like, I, this is like, this is pretty powerful.

What are, what is something that, just so everyone knows that Ron is still a human being, doesn't have everything figured out.

What is, uh, I don't, I don't.

What are, what are some things you're working on? Um, that, you know, people listening to this may be like, oh hey, like I'm working on that too.

In terms of like personally, like struggles and stuff like that, right? Yeah. A lot, man. So I have— there's— so there's the— I think the umbrella of what I'm working on is imposter syndrome. Okay. And imposter syndrome for me has like multiple layers to it. So first of all, the biggest imposter syndrome is I run a pretty large health and wellness brand and I'm probably the most unhealthiest person running one, okay? Like I'm, I'm not fit. I don't put time into it yet. I'm preaching and hollering that you should, okay? So that is like a huge hit to me always. I'm like, what am I doing? Right? So that's one layer to the imposter syndrome. The second is, is like when I, when I see what we are building, I don't have a clear path to how to exit a brand because I've never raised capital. I've never exited a brand. I've never really done a full M&A or been part of or seen it happen. So when I question like how to go from $50 to $100 million, I have zero, zero clue, right? And so I feel like, damn, should I have the— should I have hired the right person? Should I even be CEO from 50 to 100? Should I bring someone in better and let them do it and so I can learn? Um, so huge imposter syndrome there. And then lastly, um, I think when I see my kid growing up and he just turned 1 and we threw him a birthday party and I was just taking in that moment because the first time I was like, no phone, nothing, right? Um, and I'm usually plugged into my phone. I realized like damn, I can't, I don't remember every part of, we made a little slideshow of him. I don't remember every part of that slideshow because I probably wasn't present. And even if I was present as a body, I was on my phone. So I think I struggle with, lastly, I struggle with, I sleep maximum 4 hours. Um, like I can't sleep more because I, I wake up and I'm like, I need to get all this shit done. So let me get ahead. I'm like constantly on my phone. And like, I struggle with knowing that's so bad for me. So imagine someone unhealthy, works too much, can't sleep, but is kind of encompassed around all of the things you should be doing, like health, wellness, taking care of yourself, all that shit. I see it all. I consume it all, but I don't do it.

So I struggle with it. So much, so much to unpack there.

Yeah.

Uh, I was like making mental notes for like part 1, 2, and 3. I'm going to start with part 2 first because I think it's the, the one that doesn't require as much long-form conversation, which is I think that the best advice I can give is like one of the best pieces of advice I got was like make your A's A pluses and find someone else to do your C's for you. Like there have been brands who've exited before, there have been M&A transactions. You are a networking king, which is something we will talk about later on, but like there's no doubt in my mind that you can identify the person or the 10 people in your network who can tell you what you should be doing. I think the way that I would think about that is go find the 5 or 10 people that you think are qualified and then go find the 5 or 10 people who can actually vet the 5 or 10 people that you found. That will probably lead you to the person who you can actually take their advice on. Like, hey, Ron, you're good at what you do. You shouldn't be the CEO from 50 to 100, but you should be like the president and like continue to be the voice of the brand. But like operationally, personally you're not suited for it.

That's right.

Or they might say you're better than you think, you should keep doing it. So my advice for the second one is like put the ego aside and go find someone that like has been there, done that, because I think that exists in most— it's very rare now that like someone's doing something that no one else has ever done before. So that's number 2. To your first mental model around the fitness piece, my question to you is why?

Yeah, um, because— and, and this is where when you guys bring up like how do you do it, or like Like, and I, and, and in the most non-egotistical way, the way I do it is the sacrifice of not caring about myself. So the why is, if I do do those things, I will have to sacrifice being able to do all the other stuff. So my challenge enough to like—

my challenge to that is like, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg can find an hour in their day to go, to go fight with Lex Fridman.

Yep.

Like, have you— I would love for you to like challenge yourself to like to do that. I think I was someone who was similar to that. I know we've talked about this so many times already, but, uh, have you ever heard of 75 Hard?

Yeah.

So I did it for the first time a couple months ago, and I would say that was— yeah, full 75. That was the most productive 2 and a half months I've ever had in my life. So I think there's a really big misconception around like I don't have the time for it. The difference is you actually learn how to be exponentially more efficient when you start, and you also learn how to rigorously prioritize things because you realize that there's this list of non-negotiables being like the 2 workouts, the reading, etc., uh, that force you to just elevate yourself in the other areas.

Yeah.

So like, I would— I find it very hard to believe that if you tried something like that, that you would wake up 75 days later and be like, my business is in the shit, or like, all my relationships are out the window, my wife mad, blah blah. Like, I think you would actually blow your own mind.

I think, I think so. Like, the, the counter to that though is there's a lot of things that give me comfort, okay? Like, because I'm doing so much constantly, my head is like spinning about 20 different things at all times. Like, for me, comfort is, uh, you know, I'm just gonna grab this candy bar. For me, comfort is I will go to tell my wife like, hey, after dinner let's just go for a drive, let's go get get some ice cream, right? Or for me, comfort is like, it's Friday and it's like, I usually, I work Sunday. So Friday into Saturday is like my, you know, little bit wind down time. That's the time like, all right, let's hit up some friends. Let's go out. Let's drink a little bit. Let's call some people over. Let's have some drinks. Like pizza. I love pizza, right? So like, if you tell me to take all those things away that like give me the comfort of like working so hard, then I have nothing to look forward to. And because those things are my like, oh cool, like at least I can just go have this or do that.

Do you consider yourself a competitive person?

It's a good question.

You hesitated, so I'm just gonna push back and say probably not to the extent of like some other people who are like, who will just jump and be like, yeah, completely.

I'm not comp— I feel like I'm hesitating because like my competitive spirit is really weird. I think it's probably ego-driven. My competitive spirit is like, if you can do something, if I really wanted to, I probably can do it too.

The only reason I ask that, and again, I think this is personal experience, is like one of the things about the challenge for me that I was able to complete it was I find a lot of success in gamifying parts of my life in the sense that like I don't want to let myself down. Like the thought of, for example, getting through 72, 73 days and then failing on day 74. Like I can't fathom that in my own mind, which is why it would never happen. And like, yeah, he knows this is like crazy person behavior. Uh, actually, my friend who's staying with me right now because we have a wedding this weekend— at his wedding, I ran 5 miles at 1:45 in the morning before we woke— I basically ran at 1:45 and then woke up at 6 and did my second workout of the day because I had the full day of like— I was a groomsman in the wedding and I literally didn't have another moment of time to do it. So I did something that's psychotic But like, like it's the— it was the gamification of like, in my mind, I'm not getting to day 74 and like failing at something like this.

See, I find that's why I don't find myself— I find that stuff so unbelievably hard.

Yeah.

That like when someone says like, dude, how do you do so many businesses? Or how do you have like, do it like, how are you doing this dinner and this? I found that easy. Yeah. Like all that shit's easy, man. Like to actually challenge yourself and do stuff like that, that's willpower. And if you can break your willpower to do something that is probably something you didn't want to do, That's hard. That's a real challenge is building businesses and like coming with new ideas and buying new shit. Like, that's not hard. That's just skill set. Like, you can learn it, get better at it, apply your skills and get efficiency. Just get better.

I'm going to push back on that, though, because I think there's people on the other side of the coin who would feel that way about, you know, me, like fitness gurus there are who are like, I wish I knew how to build a business.

Fair.

Think about the traits you just said. You said, like, like learning it, getting better at it, improving on it, working at it. Like, if you want to become a marathon runner, it starts with putting one foot in front of the other for 5 minutes.

Yeah. Yeah.

I guess it's, it's either, either side of it is just relentless hard work.

Yeah.

Is needed. Right. And I think where, where my challenges becomes is like, because I put so much hard work on this side, I want comfort when I want it.

I think the self-awareness is— no, I actually do respect the, the self-awareness. Uh, I think I just like pushing back for the sake of like deep conversation.

You need that because like I always push myself back too. Like I'll wake— think about it, I wake up at 5:30, 5:15 every day. I could literally do what— I can get into a cold tub, I can go for a workout, I can eat a really good breakfast, I can do those things, but I choose to be there on my phone and just build.

Do you think, uh, there could be a moment in your life where you might have like a shift? Maybe it's a monetary target in your own head where like, or you just think it's like a disease and an addiction where it's like you might— maybe you get to, you know, let's just say $100 million. You're like, okay, now I'm gonna actually start devoting the first 2 hours of my day to like bettering myself.

It's, it's once you're, once you're driven to keep building, um it's one of those things that it's not, you don't do it for money. Like, like I said, I'm happy with my lifestyle. Like, if I didn't make a single more dollar than I do today and like things were consistent, I'm very happy, right? I'm like content. But now I have this like new drive of like, I just wanna build. I wanna see what I can break. What part?

Where'd that additional drive come from?

I think it comes from my dad. Um, where like my dad is— my dad's 60 years old, um, and he is the global CFO for a company called Ernst Young, which is the largest accounting firm.

You want to— you want a fun fact?

Yeah.

I gave up my job at EY 12 hours before my first day.

Did you really?

Yeah.

Before your first day?

Yeah.

What, for?

I, I was like, I'm not going in.

Wow.

It's a betrayal to Ron's family. Yeah.

Uh, yes, I, uh, I actually had a meeting with the CEO Yeah, uh, Carmine DiSipio.

Okay.

Because he's a Colgate grad, which is where I went to school.

Wow.

Uh, and I— long story short, I was like building this concept during COVID that was like giving back to the community and had a meeting with him about it.

No way.

And then I was like, even then I was like, I'm not, I can't.

That's crazy.

But anyways, not to cut you off. No, no, I haven't heard EY in a while being in the startup world now.

Um, and, uh, he's like even— he's like at the top of his game. But like constantly is doing more. Like he's helping people. He's like, he does charity, does all these things that he doesn't need to do. And you're just like, when you realize you're doing things you don't need to do, but they're going to improve something, they're either going to help something, you'll make money out of it because you have to value time, but they're going to help something or someone. That's when you realize like that's drive because you don't need to do it. So I think it came from him. I was an accounting major too. I worked at Deloitte. And stuff like that. So for me, like, it's kind of was fostered that I had to like do what he did but faster because then that's making him proud, right? So like, I think it was like fostered in me of like needing to be like that. And then I think it just carried it to wherever I went.

I think the, you know, that line that like kids are just echoes of their parents. Yeah. I think for the longest time myself and a lot of my good friends, when we talk about it, try to ignore that, like, we're truly just echoes of our parents. Yeah. But almost everyone I know at some point comes to terms with it, usually in their 20s or 30s.

I agree. I agree.

Where does your— so if you have that kind of, like, relentless nature fostered over time, was there a moment where— this is why we call this Turning Pro— was there a moment where that kind of, like, potential relentlessness was inside you and then it up-leveled in some way?

Yeah. So, you know, it was, it was really cool. So I don't know if you guys know where I worked right after Deloitte. So after college, graduate accounting major, worked at Deloitte Consulting, and then I got a job as a controller at a startup supplement brand called Shreds. Okay. Shreds, if you look back in 2012, was one of the fastest growing supplement brands based in Jersey City, which is where I was living. And what was really cool is it was ran by this guy who was on the Jersey Shore, Arvin Lal. He's, he was kind of like an ex-TV person. But anyway, started supplement brand. And when I started there, I was just a controller, but I was 22 years old, right? I'm a controller, but I had to learn. And I kind of, I gave up my comfy corporate job to the point where I had to get my dad, my dad to come and meet all the people at Shreds and said, I'm going to let my kid take this leap of faith. So you better not screw up his career. Right. So anyway, we, I started doing that and what was really cool there was everyone had to live in the same building. The office was on the penthouse. Okay. And everyone lived in the same building because you were required to work 2 shifts. So you come in 9 to 6, you go home, um, shower, eat dinner, come back around 9 PM, work till 2 AM, 6 days a week. Saturday was the only day off. When that, when I did that for 2 and a half years, I almost didn't know people had another choice. It was after college, it was the only world I knew. So when that kind of happened, that was my like minimum line. Like, okay, you just gotta work this much.

That's the normal.

That's the normal.

Yeah.

Right? And then when I realized like, okay, I started an agency after that. I started that and I was like, okay, cool. I can kind of flex this because I get to choose what the output can be. That's when I like, okay, that's kind of cool. So I was kind of calm in the agency. And then we started the brand. I think that's when it leveled up. It was like, wait, this is 100% yours. You can literally do, outwork everyone and literally win. That's when it was like, okay, why wouldn't you just work your ass off? Like whatever your goal is, doesn't matter for what, if it's money or fame, whatever, you can literally choose how much you work to get your output. And I think that's when it leveled up.

I think the, the moment for me was just the thought of like, if you're going to work 60, 70, 80 hours a week, you might as well do it for something that you have ownership of where you can see outsized returns in some fashion at some point. So like, I'm a— look, I don't think there's anything wrong with going the corporate route for a couple of years. I didn't make it there, but like, I respect people who do it. But I, I'm a believer that like if you need to figure something out or learn something and you're a good problem solver, you're going to figure it out. And if you're not going to figure it out, you're going to find the person who's going to help you figure it out. That's right. So I think the, the notion that I was stuck in for so long was like, go there for 2 years, learn this skill set, and then all of a sudden this skill set is going to be the exact thing you needed to do your next thing. But I don't actually think that's true. I think you can learn how to— you learn how to learn, which is really the empowerment to solve problems. But I think if you're driven and you are intellectual, you will figure that out anyways.

Yep.

Which is the moment when I was like, I'd rather just go problem solve now instead of wait 2 years to then solve the problem I've always wanted to try and solve.

I couldn't have said that better. Like, I think that's so, so true. If you can invest that time in yourself, I think that's where it sometimes does trigger me when I see people choosing that path, but then not going 100% in it because it's like, wait, at some point You clearly saw that maybe it's not working out this way. And I think that's the difference between like being relentless and kind of just testing it out. Um, I don't think you can jump into this to test it out. Um, I think those are the people that fall into that statistic of 90% of businesses fail. It's because they're testing it. You, if you're, even if you're just carving out a little bit of time, you have to say that little bit of time you're doing, you're going all in. Yeah, I mean, that's the difference.

When, when did the, the scope of what you're doing both at AVI and now on the audience building side as well, on the creator side of things, when did that kind of just smack you in the face? Like, wait, this is working.

Yeah.

And you can kind of see, you know, early stages of a company, it's kind of cloudy, like you're not sure how big it can be. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you wake up and you're like, Wait, there's a path to like, yeah, 9-figure exit. There's a path to like a serious creator life. Tell me more about that.

Yeah. So I think with Obvi, right? I think I'll cut up both sides, but with Obvi, when we realized like we got into our nationwide vitamin shop first and this is like a year and a half into the brand. And Vitamin Shoppe told us like, hey, you guys are the youngest brand that we've ever taken in. So we're like, okay, cool. There's something there. And then I think that we kind of rode that wave to like $20, $25 million. And after that is when we kind of heard about Walmart. And Walmart process takes 9 months, right? From when you find out, get a meeting, this and that. When we found out we're going nationwide with them, That's when it was like, okay, you, this has to work and get to the finish line. Now what we just have to figure out is what team is going to do it. Is it us? We have to find out how well we execute at Walmart. If it's not us, who is it? Identify that quickly and move on. So I think Obvi was that. On the media and like the kind of dinners as a service business we're building and this agency thing, That's, I think when it started was, I remember it was Ash. He had told me like, dude, join Twitter. Right. And at that point Ash had like 1,500 followers. He's like, yo, you can like share things here and get followers and stuff. And it was like a year. I think I joined Twitter a year and a half ago.

No way.

Yeah. It was a year and a half ago. And Ash was like 2 years ago. So it was like relatively new. And I joined and I had dropped a thread on like finance. And just like literally wrote what my daily work was, okay, of like how I process Obvi to be a negative cash conversion cycle. And it blew up, okay? And it blew up to the point where Parker had reached out and said, hey, we got a ton of leads from your thread, let's set something up. And that's what was like, wait, it can't be that easy. And I think when that did come into fruition and we started working with Parker and you start working with more people, you're like, all right, this can be a business. Then I think from that stage there was kind of this point of like, all right, let's build, build, build. And then it was our podcast that really kind of started taking off. When we signed our first 6-figure sponsorship on the podcast, that's when we were like, wait, this isn't like— this can't be real.

Any advice for guys starting?

Yeah, we're not there yet. No, you guys will be. It's it's the— I think the, the, the one part to it was I don't think we were looking for it. I think we— one thing that we always want to do when we get like sponsorship money or any of that is we feel— I don't know why we have this mentality, and I'm— I don't know if it's like a South Asian mentality or if it's just like maybe us, but we instantly feel bad when we take someone's money, okay? And what I mean by that is like when someone pays us to like help them with something We like, like we have this like daunting nature of like, I need to make sure you get value. I don't even care if I have to give you the money back and that's how you get value, but I need you to get value. And so like with our podcast too and sponsors, like it was every sponsor we worked with, even season 1, it was like, hey, are you guys good? Like I know you spent, you know, $30,000. Like did you guys get your ROI? Because if not, like let us do some posts. Let us do some other things. Like Let us know what we can do. I'll even reach out to some friends who are founders and then like try out the product. Let us know what we can do. And I think that like service level and you probably know this firsthand, you're working with so many, so many different brands like that. When you feel like you're giving someone something and they're giving you something and you kind of have to deliver, I think that's where you like realize like, okay, I'm terrified every day.

Yeah, it's been— it's like truly it's not something we've actually ever sat down and really talked about at length. Yeah, I think like to me it's just a natural progression. Like our podcast isn't even launched yet as we have this conversation.

Yeah.

Um, so I think for us it was like, let's get it out there first, let's be consistent, and we can do our first laundry list of episodes where we don't need that. Yeah. Uh, but I think like you kind of would be remiss not to like think about it at some point because there is a world where you get paid but you actually give the value to the brand and everybody wins.

That, that's what I feel like it's such a— and I and I hope one day, I don't think it'll happen in our, in our current time in this generation of while we're like busy with media the way it is, but this, this, this stigma of like, oh, you get paid to do that? That's wrong. Or I'm not listening to you anymore. Like that shift, I hope it will happen. I don't know if it'll happen in our time, like I said, but it needs to happen because just because you're getting paid, the paywall should not be the reason you decide the authenticity of something. You have to look at where is that coming from, right? Are you utilizing the service? Are you actually giving true facts and actual opinions of what you feel about it? And if you have the good balance of delivering good content around it, if you're just getting paid because you have the audience, people penalize people, people penalize people who have audiences Um, and they're monetizing on that. Like, I do think when you guys feel it's right, you guys should 100% get sponsorships for your podcast. And I know you will because at the end of the day, you're curating an audience that's consuming something and listening to you and coming to you and saying, hey, I'm here to watch this or listen to this and learn. So if somebody can benefit off that, like a SaaS company or a, or a, or a financial tech company, What's, what's wrong with that?

Why do you think that? I agree with you 100%. Why do you think that in the consumer world, you know, maybe I follow— I'm a big soccer fan.

Yeah.

And I follow some of my favorite Arsenal players and they're constantly hawking brand deals.

Yes.

Right.

Of course they are.

Yeah.

And it's no problem to me. I never think about it. I'm like, oh yeah, that's just something that happens. Maybe I'll go buy it.

Yeah.

But on Twitter, if a B2B influencer does that immediately, yeah, it's like, how could you?

Um, I think I have the answer for that, and I think it's, uh, it's—

we—

Twitter influencers, the word influencers versus celebrity is like the, the bridge between those two are so far, there is no bridge, right? If you're a celebrity, everything is almost okay, right? But the minute you're an influencer, everything starts off as, that's not okay, that's not okay, that's not okay. So you're less like, well, how the hell am I supposed to make money?

That's why I use the word creator. Yeah, it's ambiguous and that's probably right in this—

it sits right in between that.

It's so big, but it's— yeah, no, it's real, dude. Even with like the birthday series thing, like telling people you work with influencers just like sounds— I don't know if condescending is— there's just like a bad like connotation around it.

It's not even bad, it's horrible.

Yeah, it's horrible, but like it should— it doesn't need to be. But the problem is that like, yeah, but the problem is that like multiple types of people just get blended into one category.

Yeah.

And then it blurs the lines and then people draw from their own personal experience and they are making sweeping generalizations that will then naturally impact other people who shouldn't have been negatively impacted by it.

The other, the other thing that sucks about this is like when you're looking at even like celebrities and stuff, the one sponsoring the enterprise class does get— almost gets no hate. Versus like, if you look at SaaS in our D2C space, they themselves also get hate now of like, why are you working with this influencer? Why are you doing this? Why are you sponsoring this? It's like, well, how do you want them to build their business? They need audiences, right? And they're— it's not like they're creating Ponzi schemes or, you know, they're— it's like real product that they're trying to get into the right people. And there's audiences that are consuming information. It's like, it's, it's, it's a very, very good point of what you're saying. Like, we don't criticize this group because it's so celebrity and it's so enterprise, and we're like in this like almost poor economy where it's like, you got— you're gonna get like— you— it's, it's, it's lose-lose. So it's like, do what you can before you kind of get shut out.

I also think there's a perception associated with like the magnitude of the eyeballs But the misconception for uneducated people is that, like, you are one of the other thought leaders in the space who might only have 5,000 followers. You might have 4,000 consumer brand founders versus me just going to, like, Kylie Jenner and giving her money because she's got $100 million. Probably 50 of those are people that I actually wanted to see whatever the thing was. So I think that so people get less respect or they're like that. They're not an influencer or they're a bad influencer. Because they have less people. But like, in the definition of an influencer is like, are you influencing someone? Not, not how many people are you influencing, right? Like, if I have 10 people, if I have 10 followers, but I know that they're 10 B2B SaaS companies that you want, yeah, and you paid me to influence for you, like, it's still objectively what you're looking for. It's just, oh, perception is always different.

150%. Um, we had one of our, um, guests was the founder of Jolie, the, um, the showerhead.

Showerhead lives in my house.

That's, um, yeah, it's positioned at as skincare company. He said something about influencer marketing which was kind of blew our minds. And it's in— it's like, it's nothing spectacular, but it's the way he thought about it. He— we— the one question we had asked him is like, how many followers do you— should you have if you consider someone an influencer? He's like, one. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, what's your like minimum threshold? He's like, if you have one follower, you can influence that person, and that's a sale for me, and I will actually make an ROI on you. And I'm like, technically, so like, even if someone has 200 followers, you'll give them a free Jolie? He's like, if they have 200 followers or 300 followers and they get 150 story views and they get enough impressions, they probably have more affinity to impact people than someone with hundreds of thousands of followers that have a little bit disconnection. So he's built his entire thing off nano influencers.

Right, that's such an important note. As someone who just started making content within the last couple months— uh, well, the TikTok thing is very new. That, that's very— that's more of a bet with a friend of mine. Yeah, uh, I bet him basically I have to Venmo him $50 every day for 30 days if I don't post. You don't do it.

Great accountability.

But it's great more so like the LinkedIn stuff and a little bit of the Twitter stuff. I think it's definitely something that feels very real where you have to get over this feeling of like uncomfortableness because because you're starting to act like someone who's been there and done that. But I have like 20 people who's like listening to things that I say. Um, but it's— you gotta— you had your first post somewhere. Like, everyone had to go through that.

You have to.

So I think that there's actually a ton of people out there who would love to be more consistent in terms of creating, but that judgment is just the thing that stops them from doing so. And it took me a long— I'm probably 2 and a half years behind what I wish I was. Uh, I've been exposed to the space, have had relationships in the space, but I've always been scared to get started. And for whatever reason, I finally had a moment where I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna do it. And like, it's only been— I've been like working on content stuff for almost a year, have only been posting for like weeks at this point, and it really has been life-changing. Yeah, even just from like a relationship perspective, not like a sheer quantity and audience. But there are like—

triggered that first day though, like there had to have been a day one that was like, I'm just gonna do it.

I'm trying to, I don't actually know if it was so much there was a moment that triggered it versus I wanted to ensure that whatever jump I made into the space, and by space I mean content creation, that was synonymous and cohesive with like the personal brand I wanted to build and the professional brand that I wanted to build. And I wanted to make sure that it was set up in a way where everything I was working on I could do for the next decade.

I like that.

So like I didn't, something that a lot of creators do that I didn't was like, And some of the biggest creators in the world will say, just turn on the camera, just hit record, just post the thing, just say the thing. I didn't do that. Um, and it was because I wanted to be sure the angle that I took was something that I had a lot of conviction in and I was comfortable in. So I know that I can keep doing it for better or for worse. I don't know, but I feel like I'm in a place now where I'm very happy with the things that I'm doing and it doesn't really feel like work. So I enjoy it.

That's amazing. Yeah, I think, I think even, even like when it came to content for us, like, like even doing the podcast, Um, so much of it is like you're either a planner or like you're literally the other opposite spectrum. And I think where people get caught up is trying to be in the middle. Like, I'm gonna plan a little bit and then like they'll even start, but it'll like stop very quickly. Um, and I think you have to either turn on the camera and just do it today, right now, this moment, or you just have to fully execute and plan it. Um, we're like you too. Like, we planned every episode, like down to like the every word that we were going to say, even for season 2. Episode 3 in season 1 is when we started vetting out guests for season 2, talking to sponsors, this and that. So it was like, we've gotten ahead and very similar to kind of your process there.

Right now you're, so you're working on the podcast, you're running this very fast growing brand, omnichannel too, not just— Yeah. You work with a bunch of software companies. I'm sure you're cooking up a lot of other stuff. What is the value? We've talked about this a bit right before this. What is the value of being easy to work with? Not just a good person, but easy to work with. I think that's really undervalued in the ecosystem.

So well said and such a good point. I think it's like when it comes to, again, you feel, you, you, you kind of put on the top all the opportunities that can be there. There, right? And you look at those opportunities and you look at all the people that can fulfill those opportunities or be good pieces to it. And I think where we all have a duty is one, truly, first of all, giving the respect at acknowledging the opportunity. And then number two, if you're going to do it, do it where the person that brought the opportunity to you gets kind of first right of refusal where they're like fully like you kind of have to give them more than you're going to take. And I know that's like goes against the time value concept, but I think if you go that route, so much more opens up that it, it actually fills up what you lost out on. I don't know if that makes sense. Like when you invest that initial time into like even if it's at a loss, but you do it being a good person in the right way, what comes out of doing it the right way fills what you lost out in, in the beginning stages.

I think especially in the ecosystem that we all operate in, both on the consumer and B2B side of things, because it's such a small world.

Yeah.

And word does travel so quickly. Um, not only obviously having a great product that delivers ROI, as we've talked about, um, and being a good person, obviously table stakes, but even conversations we've had of like, you know, I actually may not do that deal because Maybe seems like a great person, but a little difficult to work with.

Yes.

And that really matters. And it can completely impact like a trajectory of a business happening or not.

Yeah, I think we live in the world where I don't know when this happened, but there is this world we live in now where money is not the main driver, right? Like it is a big piece still. It is still the framework, but you cannot, you're not living in a world where like, just for the sake of making money, you'll just do something that you don't want to or that you can't stand behind. I think like, we're in a pretty powerful place right now as a creator or builders where like, we get to be picky. And I think because we got that, we got the opportunity to be picky, we also now have the need though to be good people and like, do things right because we're being picky and we have that.

So, you know, it's interesting to me as I sit here and listen though is that I come from the SaaS side of things, you come from the agency side of things, and you come from the brand side of things. So the way that all of us think about relationship management or opportunity cost of getting in bed with someone is so different.

I think you also raised Venture, so yeah, but in turn—

but I'm saying in terms of like just working with someone.

Agreed.

—It doesn't— the core value of that still holds true of like there's people who I don't want to work with or do want to work with, etc. But I think the implications of one relationship for me versus you versus you is very different. So I kind of actually want to like— I don't even know how necessarily, but I want to dig deeper into, into how you think about like prioritizing working with good people or not in the business you're in versus us, because my gut tells me that you— it's look, I want to work with good people 100%, but I think that there's way bigger implications on you going down a path with a bad person than there is for me, just by nature of how many customers you can have at any given time and like what your ACVs are. Uh, so I think that actually has a huge impact on how you think about it. I think it—

yeah, I think you can only learn the lesson when you fucked up before. Yeah. And when you've worked with someone, as we've talked about before this, well said, that is not fun to work with. And because when that happens, when you work with someone that is either micromanaging every step, that sometimes isn't a good person— that's happened, we've all dealt with actual bad actors. Again, there's something going on in their world. Yep. But when that happens, at least just speaking from Verbatim's experience, um, I'm gonna have less fun. And so I have a lot of other people I can work with every day and a lot of other calls, so I'm probably going to show up to this call Honestly, a little less energy. It's just going to be on the bottom of the totem pole. And when I do that, my team's going to see that and mirror that. And then we're not going to show up as well and we're going to be a little frustrated. Yeah. Right. And that's going to come off in our reactions and then they're going to continue to micromanage or be a bad actor or just not treat us in the way we want to be treated. We're dealing with that right now. Not to obviously name names, but sometimes I'm in Slack with someone and they're just treating my team. Yeah. Really not in a good way. And it's because they're paying us money. Yeah. And it's like, you don't, you don't, you do realize the right, we don't have to work with you. Yeah. And so we're gonna cut the contract. Yeah. And again, you have to deal with these things to see that and know that you don't want to do that. And I think the beautiful thing is though, when you do have relationships, whether it's brand to brand doing a partnership or vendor to vendor or SaaS to consumer, when you do have those like things that just turn into real friendships. Yeah. Then it's like, I want more of that because it doesn't feel like work.

I can't— I, I feel like I've found myself hammering this point so much recently, but like, doing business with people who are friends and then customers or partners, whatever the word is, it's just so much more fun. It's so much easier. Uh, and I really do think that it's actually a methodology for sales of like, go after people who you actually like as individuals you can see yourself hanging out with. And also, by the way, the byproduct is you can help their business and they can help your business, and everyone can win and everyone can be happy. Versus what you're saying, like dreading have to show up to a call with someone who you can't stand because you're in a contract and it sucks.

Yeah. And I think the— again, I think the bright side of this is like when it does hit, it, it really is fun. That's like the whole point of business. Totally doing this pod.

I think this is a good example. It's like we chose to do the podcast together. We get to choose the guests we bring on or don't bring on. And so the second we're in an environment where I'm like, I'm not having fun with this, or I don't like this person, it's like, why are they here? Why did we bring them here?

Let's never do that again. And I think when you're friends as well, or have become friends, it also unlocks this really honest feedback, which is extremely valuable and underrated. Like we were talking about this, uh, with Rishabh at Fermat, um, Fermat Commerce for people listening. Um, we were literally DMing. And he was just so direct because we've become friends over like 6 months. He was like, I actually don't see value in this. And I was like, I don't, I don't think about it like that. I was like, tell me more. He's like, oh, well, it's because this and this. And I was like, we should probably change our entire product line. Yeah. Yeah. Because of that feedback. But that would have never happened in a different relationship.

And I think there's a lot of the, the other side of this is like, there's so, there are cons to this side of things we do, but the pros are like such like great pros. Like, like, I remember I put up a tweet about like just working on this B2B agency model, right? I think I had like maybe 60 responses and at least 20 of them was like how you're building verbatim. And that I think goes to show like even people who've probably never used your service or maybe have just heard about it or heard about it from someone else, like how, how it carries like I think also is another big underrated thing. And then we kind of chalk it up to its reputation, its reviews and this and that. It's actually like, it's legacy, right? And I think we, within each part of our business, whatever business cycle we're in, it's each cycle is its own legacy, right? So like, and the only way you can carry on is if each legacy powers the next one. Instead of looking at it as just like a full grand, oh, here's my life's work. I think it's like every step that we're building something is part of like, all right, how am I going to do this? And what is that reputation going to lead to? And what part of the legacy does it build? So I think we don't get to take time to take in those moments because we also do all of our businesses, right? We chalk it up to, okay, cool. This might be an incoming referral, right? Or this might— like it turns into like you go right into business side, but you don't get to like get that emotional piece of it. It's like, damn, that's kind of cool. Like, you know, like people are talking about me that may not even know me personally but know about it.

So I had that moment actually today. It's really funny. Yeah, I'm not that active on Twitter. Uh, I'm gonna pull this up because this literally just happened like an hour ago, but someone posted a tweet and the tweet was essentially along the lines of like, I don't know why there's not more themes out there that have subscriptions instead of one-time fees, so people are continuously like improving them or whatever. Yeah. And a guy posted Smart Theme on the Twitter thread, and another guy responded and said, I've heard great things about these guys. And I don't know who the guy is, and I've never met him or spoke to him, but like, I just saw that. I didn't even— I just like looked at— I was like, wait, that's like pretty— it's pretty cool to know that like my team is leading with empathy and treating people the right way, and someone else is talking about that on Twitter, but he doesn't know me and I don't know him.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's like the, the other thing is like people always like tout community. Like community starts with one. Like you get even just one person talking about you, you're, you've, you're now building a community. You know what I mean? And like what you'll see even when you do your rebrand launch and all these different steps is like that community is now just gonna grow off of that one moment you just felt like you're gonna see that more and more and more. Um, and I think that part The fun part is like, you have to take that moment in.

'Cause I think that part's really cool. You mentioned this earlier that you were up at 5:30 or earlier most days. And with your family, with your kid, with your business, with your team. But a lot of, I think a lot of people see you and even, we only met a few weeks ago or something. Yeah, yep. And similar networks, like I'd heard of you.

Of course.

But we didn't know each other. And the thing that I always saw was, You were doing this really cool creator stuff. You had this podcast, you're building this great brand. And I knew even when I was seeing that stuff, I was like, this guy grinds. Because what most people don't see, and I've, as we've become friends, I've actually seen you doing this of just like on your laptop for like 14-hour days back to back to back. Yeah. Or up at 6:00 AM on Sunday because your kid's gonna wake up at 8. Yeah. And you gotta grind for 2 hours on a Sunday morning. Yeah. So what do people not see?

Yeah, um, I, I think what people don't see is like there is no such thing as like work-life balance. It's just balance. Like the— and the balance is, is like it's all just one thing for me. Like, like I don't— I try not to compartmentalize. Like, oh, when I leave my office, I'm, I'm shutting down. Like I, I cringe when people say like, I'm offline, like from 7 PM till 7 AM next day. Like, why? Like what you build, right? And what you are working on. Yes, you should not be a robot. But if you can get close to it and still have a good life, then yeah, that's what you should do. Because it opens up so much more convenience. Like, like, I don't want to, I don't want to get into like, you know, financial freedom pieces. But because everyone— it's so, it's so like subjective. But like, I know because I put in the extra hours, like on a Sunday in the morning when I wake up, like starting to like tackle my inbox. And then even like when I get home, I have this like time between where my kid sleeps. I get home around 7, 7:30. He sleeps around 8. So I have like this half hour to 1 hour I spend with him. Eat dinner with my wife for 15 to 30 minutes, and then back online, right? Just clearing up whatever's coming in. I know because I'm able to do that, I can have a full-time nanny, right? Which now gives my wife a ton of convenience, and we enjoy our baby, right? I know I can be in a home in the suburbs and like build a life that has space because like I know my family needs that, right? Or like I can have my parents over and stay for a week, right? So like, it's like those are the things that like I think they look as like, oh, it's a lot of work or it's like even grind, but it's like, it's actually just unlocking the utmost convenience that you want. And of course it's typically tied with money, but I think it's also, it can earn back time because you don't have to worry about needing to get there because you're just— you're, you're actually getting there as you're doing it.

I think one of the, one of the interesting things about what you just spoke about, because this is something that I find myself thinking about a lot, is truly it's just perspective and aligning with yourself on like what you need and what you want. Because I do have friends who, you know, they work— they work— I, I don't want to use the word normal, but they work different jobs where it's like, you know, it's It is a 9 to 5, and it's very stable, and it's not as high stress. But some of those people are some of the happiest people that I know. Very true. And so like, it's all perspective. I think the second you start getting exposed— so like, part of being an entrepreneur is you hustle to, you know, get in front of the important people and get the people who can help move your business. And then when you get in this rat race of being exposed to what's bigger and what's better, that's when you start chasing that next thing, and you always want more. But you see these other people who can actually like spend Friday, Saturday, Sunday not looking at their phone, truly happy and calm and at peace with themselves. Sometimes I look and I'm like, I respect that so much. And there's days where I'm like, I wish I could do that for 24 hours. Sure. And then I'm right back sitting on the couch with you guys like, oh, what did you do in your 80 hours this week that I know you weren't like with your family or like your baby or whatever it might be? And so I think having some of those people in my life just to keep me grounded, or at the very least force me at certain moments to like take a step back and like think and breathe has been very helpful. Yeah, because I know undeniably I'm going to be in this game for a while because I love it and it's an addiction, right? Uh, but at the same token, I'm like, damn, I kind of envy this in some ways.

Yeah, I think it's just a different reality, and having close friends that have those different realities— I mean, even we're in very similar worlds, but your reality is very different than mine, right? Even in the middle of SoHo versus Greenpoint or Jersey. Yeah, right. And having those people just to kind break your reality a little. Yes, I think it's very healthy and, and very worth it. But I think the one, the one, the one thing that a lot of my founder friends, and you guys I'm sure don't talk about all the time, is that the stress can go down, but at all times of the day that I am awake, there's something in the back of my head. Oh, like it could be 5% and that's a good day. Yeah, but it's always there, even if I'm having dinner with my parents, if I don't see for 4 or 5 months, it's still there. And that is the cost that, like, that can wear on you. That's definitely the one thing top of mind for me, that it's like, even if I get it down to 1%, still going to be there. And is that worth it? For now, yes. But again, it's a trade-off.

Yeah, I think it's something that I've been very much trying to figure out. Like, I started talking to a therapist a month ago for the first time because it's definitely— you have a lot of thoughts that are up in your head. And I think when you're, when you're somewhat a crazy person with a vision where not many people can see it or believe in it, like, you have to have unwavering belief, and there's going to be stressors that come with that. So it's like, how do you manage that and navigate that in real time? And I think it goes back to this notion of like, the stress is there because you could always be doing more, you could always be doing better, you can always be doing another thing. So the inability to, to cope with that is the fact that you just will inadvertently push yourself all the time. So it's hard for you to actually like take the stress and take it out of your brain and be present and do nothing, because you're always going to want to be a better version of Adrian and as time goes on.

Yeah, yeah. And there's so, yeah, there's so many different, like, I think, I think the other thing is like every stage you get into, if you pick up a new client tomorrow, right, like the, the, the, the negative, the other negative of like what we all do is the moment to like really understand impact of what just happened is like you don't get time to process things anymore, right? It's why we need all need therapy, or it's why we all need a space to like think about that because we don't actually get to really process what's going on because you just have to think about like, oh, you just got a new client. Cool. That's probably going to take another quarter person. Do I hire now or do I double up someone's work? And like, how are they going to feel? And like, are they going to quit or do I need to like get a, you know, safety stock here? So like you've instantly just won something and it's just turned into problems, stress. Right. And I think that it used to be, I think like back in the day when things were less digital and the speed of things were not as fast, I think you had time to process and implement. Now the, the, the process and implementation and the news all has to happen at the same time, which is like why we're so robotic. We don't get to feel.

Yeah, I mean, I've, I've honestly tried to use content as a, as a medium for my own personal self of like processing things. I think like even just talking about it right now, yeah, uh, on a podcast is like a format of stuff.

The first time I've done it in like my whole life. Yeah, I appreciate this.

You're talking about things that like in your busy day you would have— my gut is that you're not gonna block off an hour of your calendar or like, I'm gonna sit and reflect, right? But like, because you've integrated this into something that will help your business and your relationships and your brand, yes, it's pretty cool that you can use this medium as a way to like process thoughts. Yeah, that's part of why I've actually started to like enjoy, enjoy the content stuff in different formats, because it's helped me— like the LinkedIn thing, which is new for me, it's helped me, uh, like write about micro wins. Yeah, where like a year from now I can look back and see the little things that I did that I thought were cool, but like those are things I'll forget a year from now because my mind and my life moves as fast as it does. That's the only way I can actually document this. Yeah, like something I talked about with a really large YouTuber, uh, who basically in the middle of the pandemic started making Subway sandwiches in his parents' Subway shop and grew to 6 million subs on YouTube and did POV videos making sandwiches. Crazy story. But the thing that we talked about was how when you're a little kid, your parents always have like a camera in your face, right? Like, it's always so cute and you put a camera As you get older, it becomes socially unacceptable and your parents stop documenting a video journey. Wow. Of you. And I was like, wait, that's so interesting. He says, yeah, like for him he felt that YouTube was like a continuation of his digital journey of like documenting. And that was one of the moments where I was like, damn, wow, that's so interesting. Because I remember my dad following me around, my family's on vacation in Disney World, like just looking through a little camcorder. I'm like, what, now that I'm older, like it's not cool anymore for you to do that?

That's a great perspective.

Uh, yeah, that was something that really resonated with me before I jumped into, into the content world. I was like, look, at the very least, if no one's gonna watch or read anything, it's yours. It's my digital journey. Yeah, or journal, I should say. And maybe one day my kids can go back to like 15 years prior of me making podcast episodes or YouTube videos, and it might be something interesting to look at with them. Yeah.

Um, I, I— what got me into like consistently posting on LinkedIn was It was, of course, I blank on his name. Oh, it's Kuda Bisa. He has this really cool cookie company and he had sold it. And what he did was when he sold it, he got somebody. I think there's some company that does it. When he had ran it for 5 and a half years, he had documented, he built in public, he built in public, he had documented everything on LinkedIn. He got somebody to take every post he's ever made about his company and make it into a hardcover book. Okay. Wow. Each page. And it's brilliant. It's actually, I don't know why it's not even readily available for more social platforms, but he's like, I got to read after I exited, my take-in moment, because he already started on another business. My take-in moment was I got to read every page that documented my journey. Dude, I love that.

And not even only on like the LinkedIn level, but I'm just thinking about the different channels I'm working on right now, but it's like, if I could stay consistent for 5 or 10 years and I had someone who took like the 500 podcast episodes and pulled every cool moment, or took like the 500 YouTube videos or the 500 Twitter, LinkedIn things, yeah, and like was able to consolidate that into like a digestible format of watching my own journey— that's— AI is gonna be able to do that. Yeah, that's the thing. That's really cool. Yeah.

It's also, zooming out, it's crazy that that's what we all need to break the frame and like feel a win.

Adrian's like, snap back into reality, guys. We need it. We were definitely dreaming for like 5 minutes.

We need 5 years of memories to be able to feel something.

Adrian's just looking at us like, what the fuck are these guys going on about? Jesus Christ. Wow. We need like serious therapy.

I also just realized we're like 25 minutes over. This is damn good because we just went down an absolute rabbit hole, bro. That was awesome.

That was incredible, guys.

That was awesome.

That was the best one I've done. Like, so different. Thank God you didn't ask me like, so how'd you start off?

No, we don't. We always joke, we always joke that we want to bring successful business builders on the podcast to double-click into everything unrelated to how they built the business. That's good.

That's what it should be like. That's what makes different content.

Yeah, this is awesome. Uh, you want to look at the camera, let everyone know where they can find you, what you're working on?

Well, thank you so much for having me on, guys. You can find me on Twitter @AviCEO, Ron Shah on LinkedIn, and check out my pod, Chew on This.

Love it. Thanks for coming on. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, Ron. Awesome.