Make Your Career Through Strategic Giving and Changing Education Forever with Miguel Hernandez

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now. Welcome to Make More marbles. My name is Brad Hart and today I have the honor, the pleasure, the UN rivals Joy to interview Mr. Miguel Hernandez.

Yeah. Que paso? Que paso.

Oh, man, I'm so excited.

I'm a big fan of your show.

So much fun. I'm a big fan of your show and all the things that you do. Miguel writes the best emails. I read them on the toilet every single. What is it, Wednesday? You said Tuesday?

Wednesday morning, 8am PST.

Then I'm working out the tacos. The next day, I'm reading your emails. They're incredible. I love, I love, I love the stuff that you put out. Okay, so if you guys don't know why I'm geeking out so much, it's because Miguel and I have known each other a while through a guy named Dan Martell, who I just had on the show on Friday, actually, so his episode will be coming out soon. But Miguel and I met at Dan's house in Moncton and we just, like, hit it off. And I told him, like, dude, we're gonna work together. I don't know what it is, but I just feel this inexorable pull towards Miguel Hernandez.

Tell that story. Because you're really good at telling the story.

So, you know, he kind of said, no, no, no. He's a mechanic and I'm a supporter. So of course I just had this feeling and I'm like, we're gonna work together. And it's this whole thing. So, like, months go by and finally he calls me up and, you know, he said no a bunch of times. I'm like, dude, I'm gonna work with you. We're gonna work together. It's gonna be great.

It's gonna be awesome.

And he calls me up, he's like, oh, I got this problem and I got this contract and can you help me out? I'm like, yes, absolutely. So I drop everything. I jump on the phone with Miguel. We work it out, the contract thing. And then it was like, oh, well, you know, why don't we work together? We spent a whole year trying to figure out how to market courses kind of fell apart because we got busy doing other stuff. It was okay. We learned a lot. And I think it was really awesome. And we went in part ways as friends, and now you've got cool stuff going on, and I got cool stuff going on. And then all of a sudden, you reached out to me out of the blue again.

I did.

And we had a really great chat and caught up. Because I love Miguel. I love, love, love this human being in front of us. And the reasons I love him are not just because he's successful and he's done all a bajillion things. And he's the top one, top instructors on Udemy and, you know, more than half a million dollars of revenue there and 20,000 happy students there and all the crazy reviews. He's like one of the best online instructors, period, end of story, that has ever existed. And I'll never tire at talking about how great he is to people, but he's just such a warm and genuine human being. Oh, it's so rare to meet people who are just really good humans that you actually like in addition to want to work with.

Okay, the love is mutual.

So now that I've gushed a whole lot and all these people are like, what the hell is this? Like the Miguel Hernandez love fest?

Who is this?

Yeah, who is this guy?

So let's.

Let's talk about some of the reasons you should listen to this man. Why is it important that Miguel Hernandez here on the podcast? What are you gonna learn? How are we gonna get practical and tactical? Miguel is kind of creating a movement. He's got it. I don't know if you're a little out to talk about it yet, but I'm pretty sure you are. So I'm just going to go ahead and ask you. Are you allowed to talk about your new project?

Yes, yes, my new project. We can talk about it. It's in private beta and it's launching officially in January, so it's a good time to talk about it. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about the problem it solves first. Like, what did we learn through our market? Your course venture, which we kind of just said we'll take clients, but we're not really promoting it anymore. That was the biggest problem with online courses. Let's start with that.

Well, there's several problems with online courses. I mean, online courses are great if you are really organized and you want to learn on your own and you have the time and your self discipline and all of that. But what I found after teaching on Udemy for seven years as one of the early instructors on Udemy was, and still today, a problem with engagement. Like people Buy courses and courses very cheaply and they like on you. Then me, I have like 20 courses that I haven't watched, maybe 10% of them. Right. So the problem is with engagement and with people actually taking action. So I decided to create a tool that focuses specifically on that part, on the engagement and action side of the story. Right. And this is something that also we found when we were working together is that it was very hard to command very high prices for an online course. Alice, you provided a lot of support. So the value of the content itself has devaluated tremendously over the last five years. To give you an idea, my first year on udemy with just one course, a 10 hour course, what I taught video editing and video production. I made $96,000 US with 1300 students. So the average price that I was selling my course for was US$73 per student. Okay. Now on Udemy, that same course or any other course is selling for about $15 per course. Right. So obviously the value of online education as passive learning has devaluated tremendously. So what do you do today in order to be able to command higher prices? Right. You have to provide something else that nobody else is providing. Right. And this is where our tool is coming in. And we're just focusing on providing that layer of support and making sure people take action and then you can command higher prices. That's the, that's the idea in a nutshell.

So you have a marketplace where everybody's creating content. Everybody loves this business model of, oh, I make a course one time and I sell it over and over and over again. And that was true for a little while and you kind of got in early and you did that and you made plenty of money and that was all great. But now there's so much competition, there's so many great courses out there. That's driving down the value of each of these courses, especially, especially if it's just a course and there's no other piece. So what is the piece that you now are creating to bridge the gap? People that want to learn, but also need the accountability and the different pieces that maybe the online course market is lacking.

Exactly. So what we've done, me and my co founder, Shervin, who was ex CEO of Lazy Meal, a meal delivery service here. So he's been a tech CEO for 10 years right now. So I provide kind of like the content strategy and I have all the connections with the online education industry and I know people on Udemy and all of that. And he is the tech CEO, is that we deconstructed all the elements that we know that help people to take action, right? So from having clear deadlines, assignments, accountability, support, leaderboard, gamification, and we put all of this together in this tool called Mensch, Right? And basically the way it works is that you take your existing content, it could be an existing online course, and then you can deliver that same content, but we provide this layer of support. So to give you an idea exactly how it works is that let's say that you run this course, which we're calling now Bootcamps. Think of a boot camp as an intense version of an online course where there's a lot more support and accountability and all of that. And then every Monday, the students get automatically a notification saying, this week, you have to accomplish X and Y. And they're very specific goals, measurable goals, where people have to submit a specific assignment by the end of the week, let's say Sunday. And that cycle repeats for as many weeks. You're running this online program right now. We have the tools to make sure that you can run this semi automatically, provide the support. And the crazy thing about it is that all happens. It doesn't happen on a website. It happens through messenger, from Facebook Messenger. And we've created and developed a customer chatbot, a bot. I don't know if people are familiar with bots, but now they're huge. Well, in China, they've been really popular through WeChat. But basically, a bot is kind of this program that allows you to interact via chat with an app with. You can get news, you can play games. But in our case, we're using this technology to deliver education in a way more engaging way that helps people take action, measurable action, every single week. Right. And we've already run a few of these. We're running now my second bootcamp, and we're onboarding right now some of the top instructors on Udemy to test their first boot camp on January. And the results are pretty amazing. Like, people, I mean, you don't take on Udemy, you can get 100,000 students, but the reality is you cannot afford to provide a lot of support on here. You take less students, you charge a lot more, but you have a lot more control on your students, and you make sure that they're actually taking action, right? So they're very happy because they're highly committed, they're getting better results. The instructor is happy because he's making more money per student. And it all happens within a new innovative platform, which is very interactive, which is the messenger chatbot we're calling Mensch bot.

Yeah, I love it. And that's M E N C H co. Mensch co.

Exactly.

Because there's the mensch spelling, like the Hebrew saying is, there's if you're a mensch, I think that's M as M E N S C h. So it's mench co. Yeah. So what I really love about this is that it kind of bridges the gap. Right. We had this, this mentor, apprentice model, we had this order, you know, professor, teacher, student, model. And it's worked for so long to give people the tools they need to be successful in life. Right. But now that we moved this online education model, it was kind of a free for all for a while where people really weren't getting the desire that they had to be educated, met in a way that was really good. And especially if they weren't that type of person that was going to take it on themselves to be, to have the initiative to actually go out and do it and dig through all these courses. And now people have information overload. So now you can really work with the instructor in a way that's both high touch and high accountability. Or the Grumo monster comes and gets you and eats all your cookies basically is what happens if you don't follow through. So talk a little bit about some of the things that have built you from where you're, you know, let's talk about the hero's journey a little bit. Let's just get people grounded into what Miguel's life has been like. Because I know the story inside and out and I could tell it all day long. But I'd really love to hear from your own words, you know, where do you come from? Where do you go? Where do you come from? Cotton Eye Joe Go.

That's a great. Yeah. Okay. So my background is I'm originally from Spain and when I was 19 years old I moved here with my most of my family. My mom stayed in Spain because my parents divorced in 1994. So I've been here since 1996, 20, almost 21 years. My original background is in mechanical design. So I, I'm a mechanical guy. I really like to build things from scratch, physical things. I like to play with numbers, with spreadsheets. I'm a very systems oriented individual. But throughout my life I learned self taught a lot of the things that I know from 3D animation, video production, web development. Before I launched, then I launched an animation studio still in business. It's called Grumo Media, which very early on was very successful. I was very lucky and fortunate to be working with people like Alexis Ohanian from Reddit. Ashton Kutcher was one of my first clients. And then a lot of top Silicon Valley startups right after that, thanks to that great exposure I got by working with a celebrity like Ashton Kutcher.

Right.

But on the back of my mind, I always wanted to build a platform, something that was close to my heart, which is online education. And I got onto Udemy.com very early on. I was quite successful very early on. I was on the top 10 instructors for the first two years. And I loved it. It was kind of like a hobby, but it was making a lot of money. And then I wanted to mix all my skills into one thing. And that thing is this platform right now where I'm using some of my technical skills and some of my video skills and also my passion for education into one tool that is going to. I think, I really believe it's going to help instructors in the world to provide a better experience for their students.

That's a really beautiful mission, Miguel, because we've seen the pain. I mean, from a user standpoint, from a creator standpoint, you've just seen the pain in this marketplace for so long. And it's been like, I've almost been resident to put out more courses. We're actually starting to film for a new crypto course. And this is not a plug for that. I'm just saying, like, this is the first course I've made in a very long time. In fact, somebody bought my very first course, which I went in a room for six months and built and nobody actually wanted recently. And I literally emailed them, as I said, like, I didn't even know this is still on sale. I want to deliver value that's, you know, if you like this course, great. But it was just literally everything that was bouncing around in my head at the time and put on video and valuable or may not, but please email me before you're like, oh, this is what I was looking for. I get that. I didn't create it. Right?

I know that, yes.

And I didn't realize we were still selling it, but they bought it and I went and I was like, okay, let me. Let me fix this and let me get you the support you need. Let me put all these pieces in. We built our business model around that super high touch. We love talking with people. It doesn't scale and it's exhausting. You only have so many hours in the day. So I really love what you're doing. And I think it's going to really change the game for people who want to learn in a way that's not the traditional way. And as you know, this is a bigger problem than people sometimes really connect is like the online education market is a better alternative for people to get a more reasonable higher touch and more effective education that actually, you know, tracks to real world skills. And it's not just going out to get a piece of paper that you stick on your wall and doesn't actually get you a job, doesn't actually provide you any opportunities or even a place to begin and is obsolete before you even have paid it off.

Yeah.

So this is a bigger problem than people really give it credit for. And you're doing great work in the world. And I'm just so grateful and appreciative that you have the capacity and the technical prowess to be able to do it. Because I could always come up with it and pitch it, but I could never actually go back there and code the dang thing. So I'm just excited you guys are working on it.

Well, I think I'm very fortunate because although I have a technical background and I can code, I was very fortunate that one of my former clients, who is Shervin Enayati, who is now my co founder, I actually did a video for his startup Lazy Meal. And then when he quit his job as a CEO, he had this long life dream to do something in education. And he approached me out of the blue and I said, miguel, I'm going to do this. I'm going to dedicate my entire life to this project and we're gonna do something great on education. Would you like to join me? And I'm like, wow, that's crazy. Sure. I always wanted to do something education, but let's just think about exactly what we can do. So we've literally been iterating for six or seven months right now on different ideas until we, after a lot of testing and asking instructions, we came up with this new concept which is, in a sense it's gonna be a tool to provide better support and really focusing on one thing. I really believe that the actual learning happens when people do stuff. And there's not a lack of videos and tutorials and courses where you can learn passively, but when you just consume information and you don't apply it, the learning doesn't really happen. So what we want to focus is on how can we get people to take action so they actually learn. Right. So if you have anybody that has a program right now where people can learn passively. They could actually run it through our, through our chatbot, through our mains execution system or framework. And that way you can ensure that people actually implement what you're teaching and then learning is going to happen by default.

By doing so. I love that you're adding value to things that already exist. People have great courses out there that nobody actually using and the rates are dismal. I think 10% of people actually watch online courses and 1%, 1 out of 100 people who actually buy these things it and take action on it. And that's dismal. That's horrible.

Yeah.

And we can do better. So this is a tool that now you can begin to unlock value from courses that already exist or great courses that if people implemented they would get great results. And now you can also bring those back to market. So that's really cool. And that's a whole nother line of business that I hadn't even considered until just this moment. But that's huge. How many great courses there are out there that are just kind of collecting dust, Internet dust, whatever that is. World. What are some of the verticals that you've already played around with and that you've seen a lot of success with?

Well, the main one we're focusing is coding courses, right? So when we analyze all the top 10, 100 courses on Udemy, 77 were specific to coding like JavaScript or you know, web development from development, back end development. All of those are super successful. I just had a call with one of the top Udemy instructors. He's got 250,000 students on Udemy making a lot of money there because there's a huge demand for it. But the problem he has as well, and all these top instructors is that they're making really good money at Udemy. But at the same time, his student base is not really implementing what they're learning. Right. I mean, it's very affordable for all these students. But the reality is when they look at the engagement metrics, less than 10% end up watching their entire course. And out of that 10%, maybe 10% or 5% actually end up implementing some of it. Right. So out of the tallest student base, we're talking about 1 to 2% of people actually implementing it. And he as the instructor doesn't know who is doing what. He gets questions. Right, but he doesn't know if people are implementing it. Right. So what we're offering these top online instructors is an ability or an alternative to bring some of the students subset of them that are willing to invest premium on that existing content to make sure that they have the accountability to do what they wanted to learn in the first place. Right. So to give you an idea, the first bootcamp that I run was with my existing Student base of 10,000 students taking this specific course. And I only needed to convert a fraction of 1% to this boot camp model that we call and this. The same people that pay $10 for my courses are now paying $750 for the same content delivered in this new method. So that's like. I don't know how you. What's the multiplication? This is.

This is where the ears of all the content creators out there should perk up. Because a lot of people, they're creating content that nobody's consuming. There's a lot of people who get their content consumed that they don't take action on. And there's all these ability. Not ability, sorry. There's all these opportunities to make actually more dollars and serve more people at a higher level that are just being wasted. You have all these people creating all this great content, and all these people over here that want to consume it and actually get a result. They're just not meeting in the middle. And it drives me fricking up a wall. So I'm so excited that this exists. So if you guys are listening this podcast, if you guys are excited about creating content, which I hope you are, this is a tool that can literally change the game for you and serve less people, but at a higher level that actually allows you to make the money you want to make and serve the people you want to serve and get the results that you want to get. Because at the end of the day, testimonials, you want the people that come to your course and say, my life has changed, and here's how.

Yeah.

Here's the personal transformation we've gone through, and here's the ripple effect, and here's the domino effect, and all the people that have been touched in my life that I would have never had that experience when they wouldn't either, had I not stepped up and actually took this course or whatever boot camp that you did.

So that's.

That's really beautiful, Miguel. But, you know, people are also busy, right? And they want to come away with this podcast from this podcast knowing some of the things that, you know that have made you so successful. So could you give people some kind of breakdowns on how you approach problems or how you've built your career? Like, I think a really great place to start, as we kind of alluded to the Alexis Ohanian story and the Ashton Kutcher story, you actually gave a really great presentation on how you exactly did that. So let's make this valuable. Let's make this practical and tactical and break it down for people. And then I want to get questions as well, because this is a Facebook Live. So if people have questions for Miguel, you have a wealth of knowledge here. This guy's made millions in the online space, and I want to. I want to utilize that to the best of ability here to serve the audience.

Yes. So I think the best strategy that has worked for me is giving. And I call it. I think in the presentation in Moncton that I did to you guys, I call it a strategic giving, which was provide a lot of value to somebody with a lot of influence. And hopefully what would happen is that this person will notice you and they will either promote you or introduce you to other people that have a lot of influence. So when I started Grumo Media, what I did, this was after, by the way, spending a year and a half tried to develop a software company that failed. So I had no money. I had to be very strategic of how I spent my time and money in order to launch my next business. So I said, I'm not going to spend another year and a half trying to launch this company. What is the shortest path for me to build a business, viable business, right? And I could have just like start blogging or doing podcast or buying ads, and that works, but it's not the fastest possible way. The fastest possible way is get your stuff in front of somebody that has a humongous audience, right? So I went to the top. It's like, who now in the industry that I'm trying to access, has a lot of influence, is very well respected, and I can do something of value that would impress this person. And at that time, after doing a lot of research, because this is not something that happened overnight, I honed in, in a bunch of top Silicon Valley startups that didn't have a video because I was starting a company that was going to create marketing videos. So I did one video almost for free for some local people here in Vancouver. And then on my second video, I said, okay, who in Silicon Valley doesn't have a video that if I create a really good video, it would make a difference in their business somehow, right? So I went through the list, and eventually I hold in, like 10 different companies. And the first company that I did a video for free, I literally was in Hawaii Vacationing with my in laws. And half of the day we would be snorkeling and surfing or whatever you. All the things you do in Hawaii, right? And half of the day I would sit down and start creating the script, this little video for a company called Hipmunk, which is still in business and at that time only focuses on. It was kind of like a search engine for flights. And it's really visual, it's very beautiful. But they were just a year in business. They were starting to get traction, but they didn't have a video. And then I thought, okay, I'm gonna create the best possible video with the skills that I have, knowing that I'm not a professional animator, but I could just create a little funny story. And I'm gonna just do this. I'm gonna send an email to their support and say, hey, I create this video. Hopefully you like it and I really love your startup. And that's it. I actually didn't ask for anything, right? And I hoped. My hope is like, if maybe some of the founders or somebody there, because they're small enough, gets a hold of this video and they like it and maybe they say thank you or they introduced me to somebody. Now in my case, the person that replied within 24 hours was no other than Alexis Ohanian. So I was like, what you kidding?

Who is, by the way, if you don't know? Alexis Ohanian is. He's the founder of Reddit, which is the founder page of the Internet. So very influential. And Miguel obviously does homework and the founder of Hipmunk as well. So Alexis is kind of an Internet legend, if you will.

He just married the tennis player, the famous tennis player, Serena Williams.

Get out of here. That's beautiful. We'll. Mazel tov.

They just married and they had a.

Kid with the nut down. Good for that.

So yeah, no. And he got back, he interviewed me for his blog and the next thing he did, because this was a free video that typically the market value of it would be between 10,000 and $15,000. And I gave it for free. He said, what can I do for you? And I said, whatever you can. So he interviewed me for his blog. And the great thing is that he was super connected and still super connected in Silicon Valley because he was one of the original startups that went through Y Combinator, one of the most successful even to today, to this day. And he sent an email to his network saying, if anybody needs a video, just contact Miguel. So I went from being completely unknown in the video marketing industry to being on the top 10, literally within three weeks by using this strategy. And since then, I think it's probably the best thing you could ever do. Obviously may not work the first time you try, but I already was willing to do at least 10 videos using the same strategy because I knew I only needed one video to be promoted by an influencer. To cut through the chase. Right.

To get to the top, just to kind of break down some of the elements of this. And I've told so many clients that are breaking into an industry to use the exact same strategies. You don't need 100 people. You don't even need 10 people. You just need that one. That one that's going to really open doors for you. So if you could just go out and specifically and considerately add value, just really what do they need? What's their biggest pain point? What would they love? For somebody to show up and just solve for them. And you had found that piece, and you realize that this was a very lucrative niche and you had the right keys, the right people. So, you know, this was obviously a strategic move on your part. You had to do it out of necessity because you just failed. And, you know, you only had so much time and money to go after it again. But you really hit on. I think what is the essence of where people get it wrong when they're first starting out is that they assume that people should give them value when they haven't demonstrated value themselves.

Yes.

Because they're in their own ego victim story of how entrepreneurship should be, and they're wishing that life would be easier instead of wishing that they were better. So instead of buying that story, and I'm sure you had to get kicked in the teeth a few times before you actually had the gut check and actually went and did this. You know, instead of buying that line, you went out and you actually added a tremendous amount of value that was very specific and considerate to that person. And it's, it's, it's not magic, guys. It's really just how do humans work? The law of reciprocity states, if you read Cialdini, if you haven't read Cialdini, should pick up influence and persuasion. Great books, but people want to help people that help them. That's, you know, that's really simple. And that's everybody. Right? That's a universal human trait. So by going out there and just being the guy or girl who just gives first, you're going to get given to and usually in droves, because a person like that, like the value differential you know, Miguel was an unknown at the time. Alexis Ohaney is the king of the Internet.

Boom.

That can make your career, and it did. So it doesn't have to be that. It doesn't have to be that specific. You don't have to borrow or beg or steal Miguel's exact strategy. But using that principle and thinking, how can I add the most value to the people I really want to be aligned with is the way to launch a career. And I've done it. You've done it. And everybody I know has been successful. Started out that way.

Yes. Yeah. So that worked for me. And now anytime, even right now with men's, this is kind of like, approach as well. How can we impress people that have a lot of influence, that have online programs, and then provide them a lot of value in advance and just go from there? Like, we could start approaching instructors with zero audience, but we know it's not going to be the fastest way to grow our platform. So right now, we're approaching the top instructors in the world. We're selling them the vision, the opportunity, and once they join, we know that we can leverage their existing audiences as opposed to start from scratch.

That's huge. I mean, you could build an entire career just on that one strategy. And people have. I have, certainly. And it's. It's just beautiful to see. So, guys, if you're out there listening and you're wondering, like, how do I break into my industry? Find the top people and find a way to add value, then that's just crazy. Over the top. And just go, do that. Do it 10 times. We guarantee that somebody somewhere will open up something that will lead you to your next idea or your next big thing, your next big break. Yeah. And I just see so many people who are trying so hard to break into stuff, and they're just not trying this. And this is the thing.

Yeah, the. The thing is, you have to. People are afraid of contacting people on, like, the top tiers. Very influential. And the reality is that most of them are not going to read your emails and stuff like that. But you'd never know unless you try.

Right.

So you have to get over that fear. And as long as you really believe in what you're doing and you have a list of, let's say, 100 people, statistically, eventually one of them is going to notice you. And if they don't notice it or they don't respond right away, that doesn't mean they don't read your emails. I was listening to Jason Calacanis who's a pretty big investor in Silicon Valley. And he says that most investors say that they don't read emails from cold emails and stuff like that. But the reality is that a lot of them, they do because they're looking for fishing for opportunities that somebody else has missed. That's their entire livelihood, is figuring out opportunities. So he does read all emails, and he encourages for people that want to really reach out to a big influencer is that keep emailing them maybe once every three months with updates, with progress, because if they see a curve, like an improvement in your product or of the opportunity growing, eventually you're kind of like developing this relationship. And you never know by the time that you're ready to raise money, this individual already have heard about you a few times. And as long as you're not spamming them, you're just saying, hey, this is what I'm doing. Look, Now I have 10,000 more users. Now we raise so much money. And eventually, because you kept reaching, now you've closed that relationship, and the opportunity may arise for you to connect with the person.

And people ask me. It's a great segue because people ask me how I get guests for the show, and it's kind of partially that strategy, and it's partially the other strategy. I have a guy who's like my secret weapon. He's incredible. He came out of the blue and just said, I want to add a ton of value to you and get you a bunch of really great guests. I'm like, that's awesome. And then he ends up introducing me to who I've interacted with over the years, so they know I'm kind of like, okay. Or they ask somebody like, hey, is this Brad Hart guy a wackadoo? Or is he a nut? Or is he worth paying attention to? And they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's cool, or whatever. But it took 10 years of just being a guy out in the world and doing things for people for that to now be the reality. So now I can get these big guests not because of how great I am. It's because I've just had the right person show up at the right time to start to kind of just switch on some of these relationships that were kind of just there and, like, cool. We've seen each other and we've interacted, and, like, this is a normal person, and they want to be on shows. They want to get exposure, and it's been a really great way to do it, you know, and not having that piece. So, like, guys, it's not as hard as you think it is. And people make it look like it's magic and it's just not. Just be a good person out in the world and help people and people notice. And we're always influencing whether we realize it or not.

Well, I think you, Brad, and that's one of the things first that impressed me when I met you and I started realizing how big your network is, is that this is not something that happened overnight. You've been for the last 10 years, reaching out to people, providing value, talking to them, posting content. I mean, you're super active on Facebook. You're always connecting people. Right? Because at this stage, you know so many people, it's not about what you get, how many. You've introduced me to a bunch of people already. Right. And then people, just the fact that you're introducing to two people is providing value. Even if you're not getting anything in that specific transaction, they'll remember that you were the one that introduced them to each other. Right. But this is something that you keep doing every, every day. And I think right now you're at the stage where it's starting to really pay off. I can see that because of the guests you're getting on your podcast and because how big your business specifically has been growing over the last few months. So good.

Good for you. Yeah, it's not here to, like, we're not here to toot our horns. It's just to show people, you know, that ten year overnight success. It's really true, you know, because when I started out, nobody knew me and nobody cared. And then eventually some people knew me and some people cared and a lot of people want my time. I get hundreds of messages and I wish I could respond to them all with something more than just a curt hello, but it's possible. So just, just understand, like, you will be on the other side of that equation if you keep at it long enough. Just remember, like, what's in it for that person, Right. Why are they going to spend their time with you versus everybody else that wants to get in front of them? Because everybody wants to be in front of like, you know, Richard Branson and Tim Ferriss and Miguel Hernandez and all these really famous, rich, successful, sexy people. But at the end of the day, these people have the same 24 hours that you have and they have to choose, like, what's the best and highest good. And what I've noticed, and this is really important, I was just talking to a gentleman earlier on a podcast about this is that victims they think in first order consequences or people that aren't really successful in life, they think about what they want or what's good for them. They don't think like two or three or four levels out. And the most successful people in the world, and Ray Dalio kind of goes through this in more nitty gritty detail and principles. So I won't rehash all here, is that when you think in second and third and fourth level consequences, when you think of the best and highest good for multiple people involved, life starts to support you in ways that you could have never anticipated, you could have never connected the dots. But then it shows up in ways. It's like, wow, that showed up. That's beautiful. It's because you're just being the person who thinks more of, like, you know, more about what other people need, want and desire than what you need, want, desire. And you get your needs met in this kind of roundabout way. But it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't stepped outside your needs.

Yeah. And getting into that mindset of not what can I get for me, but what can I give to other people. I have an example right now of an instructor that I reached. I reached out of the blue just to see if they wanted to join Mensch, and he said, the only reason why I responded to you is because I read a blog post from you five years ago. And that's the reason why I got into Udemy and now I quit my job because of that blog post. This is like something I did five years ago. And now this person is giving me, you know, an opportunity to tell them about this opportunity. Because something, you know, I provided value five years ago, so you never know what's going to happen.

I have a crazier one. A friend of mine, Tyler, who I've known a while now, he read one of the first things I ever put out on Make More Marvels was this Airbnb guide. And I went crazy. I wrote seven articles on Airbnb. It was like 10,000 words. And I put it all up for free. I was like, there's everything about Airbnb. Go make all the money. Tyler did. He went and he said it was literally. I got a. I got a message one year ago from the time it went out, and it was literally timestamped the year to the day. He said, I've done everything in this guide. I've tripled my revenue and I've doubled my income, and I'm doing better than anybody else with my properties in my buildings, and I Live this beautiful lifestyle and all my money needs are handled. What's next? I'm like, wait, a hold of what resource that I wrote in a total vacuum, not knowing if anybody would ever read it. And you literally changed your entire life in the course of years? Like, yeah. I'm like, well, let's get a testimonial.

Like, I was blown away.

Then he became a client and he was part of Mastermind, and he did that for a while and ended up becoming like, professional dancer and all this cool stuff. Yeah, it was like, it blows your mind. But had I never went down that crazy rabbit hole and done that, I would have never had that or any of these other experiences. So, like, you guys, you just can't connect the dots. Looking forward, you never will know what will come from the fruit of your efforts. But if you truly show up in a heart space to serve and you consider, you know, you're considerate, you add value and you and you really go deep and do your very best work at any given time. Your best is situational. Right. Your best today might be better than it was three years ago, certainly. But that's 1%. They add up. Remember, I love to say 1% after 365 days is not 365% because it compounds. You get 1% better for a year every day. You're looking at 3,778% better over the course of a year. If you got 38 times better at something over the course of a year, wouldn't you be pretty damn good happy with that? I mean, you can do that with your skills and your talents. It doesn't take as much as you think.

Yeah.

So these little bits add up, guys. So if anybody is listening, I guess the message to take away here is that it's everything is about the people. It's that give and take in life. It's that. That ebb and flow in life. And if you focus on helping the people that you feel you can add the most value to, but also can add the most value to you, that's not selfish. That's actually helping the bigger, grander ecosystem. Yeah, you don't even realize all the little things that you're doing. So if you have a desire to do that, please go out and do that, because the world could be a much better place. We all made some more damn marbles instead of trying to grab for the ones that are already there. You know, there's a lot of ways to make money, guys. I could be going running hedge funds. I did that I could do the real estate thing. Like, I could make a lot of money in a lot of ways. I do this because it changes people's lives in ways I can't even anticipate. It's not for me to know. It's for God or Yahweh or whatever. The. The Flying Grumo Spaghetti Monster eats all your cookies when you're not looking with a giant spaghetti colander. Who knows, right? I just don't know. But I know that if I keep at it and it lights me up and I'm good at it, and I get amazing people on the show like Miguel to share their message and what they've learned over the years, that it'll just knock something loose in somebody. And a leader doesn't create more followers, they create more leaders. So I know if I can create a leader, then those ripple effects, those domino effects will echo into eternity long after I'm gone. If somebody's listening to this in a hundred years, I told you in 2017 it was going to be amazing.

That's right.

And I didn't know why, but I kept doing it. I'm grateful that you're listening, and thank you.

Yeah, develop that habit. I mean, habits take a while to develop, but the habit of giving and creating great content, it's an amazing one. And the more great content you create, every piece of content on the Internet is like this little asset that once it's up there, it actually kind of start creating what you call the ripple effect. Right. I have videos right now that I posted five years ago that still get views that I still get, leads to my business. And I didn't even think that was going to happen five years after the video was done. But still, if the video was really high quality, it's going to keep giving for a long time. So it's not about creating just content. It's just really focusing on creating content, great quality and hopefully evergreen content that is still relevant years from now.

Here's another tip that's worked exceptionally well at make more marbles is we don't have a lot of. Like, I used to make all these guides and all this stuff, and it was all this kind of. But really, like, nobody's ever going to look at all that. You got to really pick your one to two to three lanes. So we've got like three lanes that we really want to own. It's productivity. So for, like, solopreneurs, become entrepreneurs and build teams and stuff like that. So, like, ways to get more leverage and help more people and do more things, right? And that's one of the things. And then the other one is cryptocurrency, right? So it's like, how do you generate? How do you grow? So like, cryptocurrency is the new exciting thing. And I know that most people who have never, you know, never invest in crypto also have probably never made a real normal investment, whether it be insurance policies or real estate or stocks. So I get them in through that and then I say, hey, okay, slow down, Charlie, burn all your money on crypto. Let's, you know, get you set up like a real investor. So we got a way to generate, we got a way to grow. And then finally where my heart's at is given, right? It's how do we give away the money? So the three GS. Because people say money can't buy happiness, they just haven't given enough away yet. So generate, grow and give. So if I could own those three lanes and be specific with the content that I create, here's the best part, and let's go practical and tactical. That crypto cheat sheet is the most popular thing I've ever shared. Tens of thousands of people that I can track have downloaded and looked at it. Every time I go on the freakin Google Docs. And by the way, this is the tip, I see this menagerie of anonymous animals and onyx and a frickin, you know, a wildebeest and an aurochs and stuff that it was like mythical. I gotta look up and Google. And so exciting to me is because it's always that sheet and I'm always updating it. So every time I create a new piece of content about crypto, I just put it on the sheet so I don't have to go and recreate the whole wheel every time. It's like, no, I got a new little thing. Cool, put it on the cheat sheet and keep sending people there. And since it's just, it's not a static document like a PDF, I can create, keep. You know, it doesn't look pretty, but I can keep updating it and making the content better and better and better. So don't go out and create a million things. Get one or two or three things that you just nail for a reason. And it might take you a while to figure that out, but then you can go back and update those things and you can continue and then you can tell people, hey, go back and check it out again. And I'm sure you've done this as well. I'd love to hear some of your examples. Yeah.

So one of the main issues with people creating online courses, at least that's my expertise, is that in order to keep. They think in order to keep their revenues growing, they have to keep creating courses. And on Udemy, that's half a truth. Because the more courses you have, the more revenue you're going to have. But then it comes unsustainable business because you have to keep creating a course after course after course, and how good your course is going to be if you're creating a new course every month. So the other strategy is focusing on less courses and make sure that the courses that you already have are the best as possible. So you keep upgrading that course with new content. Right. So my top course right now, I haven't created a new version of it. What I do is every year I just add new content, updated it, and the value of that specific course increases, as opposed to me creating new versions and new courses and all of that.

Right.

So that's a good. That's what you just shared. It's a good strategy. Don't create a bunch of content. Just make sure the content you have keeps getting better and better and better.

Yeah, it's like iPhones. Like, the iPhone hasn't really changed that much from it's a phone that has the Internet on it and it's a web browser and all that. Like, that original idea is still what it is, but it gets better and better through iterations over time. And now we have iPhone 10 or 11 or whatever the heck we're at. It's still an iPhone, but now it's just a way better version. So when you upgrade like my mom just did, and she was geeking out on it from a 4s to an 8 or whatever she has now, she's like, blown away, you know, it's still a freaking world. You don't need to change the game and create a new product category. You just need to keep getting a little bit better, a little bit 1%, you know, iterations every so often. So. That's Right. Instead of making yourself crazy trying to create the whole Internet yourself, why don't you just nail or two or three things and then we'll focus on scaling those. Yeah, I love it. Or just one. Start with one. What could you be the best in the world at if you really worked at it and continue to get a little bit better all the time?

I think focusing on quality over quantity is really good. And I've seen it. I mean, I've seen it in several People have been very successful in the recent years. Somebody like Tim Urban from wait by instead of he actually made a bet. He's like, I could even create a lot of short posts. But what if I focus on creating very few posts? One post every three months or four months by making sure it's a mega post post with like amazing information, graphics, doodles and all of that.

I called them my Sunday killer because I spend half a Sunday.

They're like mini book.

Yeah, it's 38,000 page blog post or.

38,000 have hundreds of posts. I think maybe he's got maybe 50 posts right now. But where is he at right now? He's got half a million subscribers. He's been in touch with Elon Musk. Elon Musk is like, dude, write my.

Life story for the Internet.

Now he's just focusing stuff on writing it for Elon Musk.

Why?

Because he just focusing super quality over just quantity. And quantity. And quantity. So I'm an advocate of that strategy. Focusing on that.

That's beautiful. Miguel, I could talk to you forever. And I know people at home, they got stuff to do and we got this hour together. I just want to say I'm so grateful to have you on the show. We've done so much together and I want to continue doing things in the future. But I want to ask you the question that I never tell people I'm going to ask on the show.

I've seen your podcast. Maybe.

I know, I know. Maybe. But you know how we do the crops thing with the, you know, connections, the resources, the opportunities of people. I don't.

Even if I prepare for these questions.

I want to know what can we do for you to move your mission forward faster? That's really anybody listening, self included.

There you go. I love this because now you're giving. You're using your platform to give to your. To your guests. So that's awesome. But the best thing you can do is if you right now, all my life and hopefully for the rest of my existence on this earth is going to be dedicated to working in this platform, definitely on the education space. So if you want to learn more about, you know, Mensch, just go to Mensch Co. And right now we're onboarding a selected number of online instructors. So we're not trying to grow super big right now. We're just focusing on quality again. We're focusing on quality over quantity. And we're only looking for about 30 instructors to launch on January, the first bootcamp with us through this new platform. So if you are somebody that has an existing online program and you want to test a new technology to deliver this to your students, where you can charge premium, where you can automate some of the tasks, and where basically your students are going to be a lot more happy because they have, they're more engaged, then go to Mensch, go and apply as an instructor and we interview everybody individually and hopefully we can work together and make your teaching business soar into the sky.

Absolutely. And we're part of a lot of different groups that have a lot of these big players in them, so maybe it's just a matter of sharing it. One of those groups. And I won't name names which one it is, but you know, it has a similar alliteration to the one that I am so fond of.

Yeah, I know who you're talking about. Yeah, it's going to happen.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea because those people are amazing and a lot of my heroes are in that group. Anyway, so, Miguel, you're a rock star. I appreciate you so much. How can people get in touch if they want to?

Well, you can write to me at Miguel Entsch Co or check my. If you want to learn about creating online courses and, you know, teaching online, because I've been doing that for many years, you can, you can go to grumo.com, that's G R U M O dot com. And then you can get my Wednesday newsletter that you were talking about in the beginning where I just tell about my life and as an online instructor. And right now I'm also talking about the behind the scenes of building this startup. Mensch Co.

Brilliant emails, by the way. I love them. I look forward to them and I'm excited to read them every single week. Miguel, I love you, brother. There's nothing more to say. I appreciate you very much and I can't wait to see you just crush it and steal all the five letter domain names on the Internet. Grumo, just keep creating startups until there's no more left.

Exactly.

All right, brother, have a beautiful day and thanks so much for being on the show.

Thank you, Brad. Talk soon.

Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles podcast for more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing abundant life in your health, wealth, relationships, whatever that means to you. Head on over to makemoremarbles.com. check out our cool explainer video about what we're about and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play wherever you listen to your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.