How To Turn $2,900 Into $8,000,000 In 5 Years w/ Jason Fransciosa

Foreign.

My guest today turned his last $2900 into an eight figure business. And I know that sounds hypey, it sounds like a clickbait YouTube title, but I know that it's true because I've been there for the entire time. In fact, we've documented Jason Franciosa's climb from zero to an eight figure business on the capitalism.com podcast. We documented when he crossed the first million. We documented when he doubled to two and then to four. And now he has an eight figure business and he started with his last $2,900. One of the things that I pride myself here@capitalism.com is two things. One, I like to make entrepreneurship, especially the road to a million dollars, very accessible and relatable. I want you to know that it's not just a pipe dream. I want you to know that it's super possible. And that's why we document our student successes. It's why we report updates about what they're doing, is why we try to show the in the trenches entrepreneurs on their climb. But the second thing is that we try to eliminate ego in the process. We try to make this a normal experience, to show the highs and lows so that you feel like you can go on that road to 1 million. It's one of the reasons why Jason and I started documenting his journey from scratch all the way to an eight figure business so that it wouldn't have this ego associated with it, so that it wouldn't have this big pie in the sky idea of it being a seven figure business or an eight figure business. It would feel relatable to all of you who are watching. So I hope that as you're watching this update about Jason Francios journey from his last $2900 all the way to being an eight figure business, that you see this as the permission you need to finally get started on the road to $1 million. Jason, it's good to see my man.

You too.

So let's start by saying, how did you make your money?

I sold a lot of weightlifting belts on Amazon. So 2017, I found your course through a Facebook ad. It was a webinar and I'm like, hey, this sounds pretty cool. Let me check this out. Ended up using the last $2,500 I made on the previous job to buy your course, join the Builder Brand Builder Bootcamp and decided that we wanted to launch a brand new trying to help other weightlifters. At the time. It was basically looking at who we were and what we Enjoyed in terms of the athletic space. And me and my business partner, who was a doctor of physical therapy at the time, competitive powerlifter. So I just built the weighting belt that we would want and looked at issues of current ones and solved those problems and launched it. And Here we are six years later with a multi seven figure, close to eight figure business.

You did about $8 million last year. Yeah.

Yes.

Which is so cool to talk about because I remember when you were first coming up through the community and you know, getting to the first 25 sales a day and you were, you were one of those people that just joined and got really active in the community, asked a bunch of questions, met as many people as you could and got to the 25 sales a day and then 50 and then had your first million dollar year. I think year two, I think was your first million dollar year, right?

Yes. Where you hit the run rate, you.

Hit 80k a month. Ish. In year two. Yeah. And then you fast forward a couple years and you're at 8 million. There had to be.

Certain things that happen along the way that just mindset wise had to click in order for you to be able to hold the responsibility of an $8 million business. Because you starting with the last 2,500 bucks and then being I'm the poorest person in the room having an $8 million business, there's certain things have to change in your mind, I think, and you become a different person in that process. What do you think have been the biggest insights and mindset shifts from the last 2,500 bucks to $8 million a year?

Anxiety.

So when I was first starting out, I had so much anxiety around the necessity to make it work because there's so much on the line for me mentally, even though realistically I could have been fine even if this all failed, I could quit a job, whatever, like life would have been fine.

As the business grew and I grew more confident, I was able to make bigger decisions. I was able to understand that these things actually do work. I was able to calm down. And now because that anxiety has pretty much gone away, I no longer even have the idea or desire to sell the business. And I've kind of optimized it for enjoyment of the business. So a lot of the daily tasks have not changed, the numbers change, but a lot of like the actual day to day operations are the same. But my anxiousness and feeling in the ability to enjoy those daily tasks has significantly changed. And for me personally, internally, that's the biggest change. And that really has been the achievement of the gold state of being able to really enjoy what I do every single day. And yes, the money's amazing, but the money just ends up ending a bank account because it's like what I do with the money.

Yeah, your lifestyle is pretty much the same, right?

Lifestyle is pretty similar. Um, but the enjoyment of the process is what's changed.

That's interesting. I'm kind of hearing you say that the way you show up to work is the biggest difference. Is that correct?

The mentality and perspective I have of work has changed completely. And that's what's been the most rewarding aspect of this of before. It's like I show up to work and I have all these tasks I have to get done, and there's a stress about I need to get this done and this done and this done in order to achieve this and this and this. Now it's, I get to go spend an hour talking to my best friend to figure out what we have to do, and we get to do those things together. And I'm excited to just spend that hour talking to him every day.

Do you think that it was possible to make that mind shift, that mindset shift earlier? Or is that something that you just kind of have to learn along the way?

You absolutely can. Could I have done it earlier? I don't know, but I think some people absolutely can. And the earlier you can do it, I think the more successful you'll become because you're able to make smarter, bigger decisions out of a place of abundance as opposed to a place of fear.

Yeah, I get that.

And I think that really is where you can see some major shifts. You see a lot with different companies too, where the owner, the CEO, is able to make smarter and.

More ambitious decisions because they're no longer afraid.

Of.

X, Y and Z, of it all going away, or them looking like an idiot or them being a failure. You dealt with your own set of failures even before you and I crossed paths. I remember you having a couple of business failures. I think there was like a pitch competition or something where you or think things just didn't go the way that you wanted. And this was almost like a last hurrah for you. The weightlifting belt company. So tell me, go back and tell me what was happening before we ever crossed paths.

So I was in the military. When I got out, I had a bunch of job offers. Go corporate America. I randomly met some guy, this Colombian guy, who wanted to start a business doing work with drones in Colombia. And I gave up some Very secure jobs to go become an entrepreneur. At the time, I didn't realize that's what was happening, but I went down there and spent two years in Columbia trying to build a drone business that ended up not working out from there. A former military member who I was, I worked with in the army, he was at MIT's business school and he wanted to start a business in the drone space. So we met up and started a software company that got funded through MIT, went through MIT's entrepreneurship program, the whole nine yards. And, and we focused on the product way too much and not on the person or the client launched it, but there was nobody launch it to me. So that did not work out. That's why when I saw your methodology of focus on the person or the client or the person that you're actually impacting first, it just clicked for me so easily because I'm like, I tried it the other way and it was just a flop. Right?

So you had two strikeouts, two strikeouts before you went through the real grind process of getting a product and getting customers. So you had, you had two failures and then you started which most people would give up after the first, most people do give up after the first failure or the second failure. And you had plenty of times that you got punched in the mouth in the beginning phases too. If I'm remembering correctly, you got laid off right after you started the business.

Too.

A year after. So I had a full time job for a year and then got laid off from that. And at that point there was just enough to survive on from the business.

Like a few thousand dollars a month, like $2,000. Okay, so these are all reasons that, these are all things that could have taken you out pretty early in your career. What is your approach to handling those setbacks and getting punched in the face? Because, because you, you are kind of the, you're such a great example of getting knocked down and then you just keep getting back up. And if you get up enough times, you get to $8 million or $5 million or $12 million or whatever it is. But you did not have an easy climb up, but you just kept getting up. So how do you think about that?

To be honest, I didn't like those things would happen, but it never kind of doubted me just to keep going. And each single, each one I learned a ton. So I looked them at them as lessons as opposed to failures. And they also, even though they were failures financially, they were not failures in terms of experiences and memories. And I mean, I spent two years in Columbia. I Learned a new language. Like, I had a great time.

Did you Culture at the time. I mean, after the business in Colombia.

Goes under, I was very frustrated and very stressed, but I still was grateful that I did it, as opposed to just going corporate America and sitting behind a desk for 30 years. Yeah, and I think it's important to look at it like that because, say you're somebody and you hate your job and you're afraid to give it up because you're afraid of the money aspect. But the experience aspect of trying, even if it doesn't work out like you will be okay, the experience aspect of it is just as valuable, if not more. Especially if you're younger, you don't have a family to support, and all that other stuff is much more important than even just the money aspect of it. And each single failure, you've learned a ton. And then it's like, okay, well, this guy's got it right because he's focusing on the client, the person, and not the product. It took me a little longer than most probably to realize that since I had to go through a very expensive software failure. But here we are now building another software piece. So it's like, you never know.

Yeah, tell me a little about that. Because once you've gotten through mid seven figures, you can either try and just go really wide and own as much of the marketplace as possible, or you can kind of double down on the person and coming up with custom solutions for them. And you've done the latter, where you're now not just selling products on Amazon, you're not just selling weightlifting belts on Amazon, but now you're actually building a tech play for it, too. And it's to the same person. You're still serving the same person. So walk me through how you made the decision to build out this tech platform. When you're selling weightlifting belts on Amazon.

So it comes down to understanding the person in talking with them. And when we talk to a lot of our people, especially on Amazon, purchasers of our belt, it's their first time buying a waving belt, their first time getting back into the gym, it's their first time taking their path down the fitness journey. And the first question they always have, because we put out a lot of email content that's not just related to the products. It's also about, like, training and everything else. One of the biggest questions we get is, well, what do I do? And that drives me nuts because, like, I don't care what product you buy, it's not going to do anything if you're not actually going to the gym and having a good progressive routine that helps you get on the right path.

I don't know, those sheer strength supplements, man, they make my veins pop.

Yeah, exactly.

So it just made sense for us to help the customer in that journey as well. And it's such a complimentary product and we're offering it for free. So it's like it's just a huge value add to the customer to really help them achieve their goals. And then in terms of branding, like if every single day they go work out, not only are they seeing my company with the product they have, but in their hand they're seeing the app that we developed and it's helping them along their journey. It's a long term play. Right. There's no short term profit here, but over the long term, that relationship built in that free value add, even though it was very expensive for us to develop.

You mean to develop the app and.

Continue to develop and refine, fix all the bugs and it's a whole new learning experience. So it's very exciting.

But for the customer it just made sense.

So your perspective on it was, what's the next way that we can solve one of our customers problems? And that means. Oh, it means developing an app.

Not one problem, but the biggest problem.

We continuously hear, which was, what do I do in the gym?

What do I do? How do I get results?

You sell weightlifting belts. And it's not like that's a wide open market.

And when you open, when you, when you got into the business, you were, you know, doing 25, 50 sales a day and you kept growing and growing incrementally. You did not, I don't ever remember you having a hockey stick curve up. It was very, almost like a logical methodical growth. But you are selling more weightlifting belts than it seems like the market can withstand. You would think so. That's my question is you entered a crowded space and you won.

Why do you think you won in a competitive space when you were a new entrepreneur?

Because we solved a specific problem and were able to communicate that solution to the customer. And no one else had done it the way that we've done it. So we put it onto a mass market platform. The problem that we solved was with Velcro waving belts, which there's a lot of benefits to a Velcro waving belt. But the big problem is over time, the Velcro wears down, it pops open. And that's a risk for a lot of different things. So in the middle of your heavy squat, your Belt pops open be very dangerous. So we solved that by including a slide lock, what we call our self locking system. And that one simple change was enough to convince the majority of customers who wanted to choose which belt they were going to buy on Amazon to choose. Ours versus our competitors. Even though we didn't have enough reviews at the time, we didn't have, you know, the branding of some of the big companies, you know, in. We came in in 2017 when a lot of our competitors started in 2013, 2014, and they could pay for reviews, they could do all the stuff that is no longer allowed after 2016.

Right.

So we were at a disadvantage in terms of what everybody would say, like the analytics or the data shows. We just created a really great product, we had really great customer service, and we doubled down on the people. So we told the stories of the people using our belts, the CrossFit athletes that were competing in local competitions, and highlighted them on our listing and showed the why it was so important that these features were there and told the story of the person in the journey that they're on, as opposed to just the product itself. But highlighting the difference through that and why it matters to that person.

How did you communicate that to draw people into the brand? Because that's hard to do in those early phases when nobody knows who you are.

So you have to put it where they see you. And if you're on Amazon, that means you're listing. So your listing shouldn't be an infographic with a bunch of things about, oh, this is the Nylon from Japan, and, you know, nobody cares. But our listing was highlighting the athlete and showing like pictures of the Velcro literally open and they're still back squatting.

Right.

Like highlighting the crossfitter or highlighting the experience of that person right on the listing, because that's where they see it, right. If they're making the decision, tell the story there. Why are you gonna try and put it in your Instagram of 400 followers when all your traffic, thousands a day, is going here, tell the story there.

At some point, you started creating partnerships with influencers, which I think often came from you going to events and the CrossFit Games and sponsoring them and doing booths. And you started doing that in year three or so of your journey, probably the first year. Really, it was that early?

Yeah.

So you started building deep roots pretty early on. At what point did the partnerships become possible for you? And I asked because there's, there's a bunch of people that we both coach that will talk about how do I how do I partner with influencers? And they've never established a relationship. You did the opposite. You established really deep roots in relationships first, even when you were doing like 20 sales a day. So at what point did that translate into partnerships that made you look like a real company?

So just influencers have market value, right? And you as a brand has a market value. So you trying to go immediately after, you know, a super big influencer that you know is going to want has, like Nike and Reebok or, you know, whoever going after them. It's going to be very difficult. But there's no reason you can't start with small influencers that you meet at local competitions. Like some of the top athletes there. They might have 10, 15, 30,000 followers. Build relationship with them, start getting them to start, promote it. And then you kind of grow with the influencers as your brand grows, right? And then you meet some that have 100,000 followers and, oh, wait, they're just people. And like, you just bring them into your journey or see what they're interested in. Like some of our partnerships, what they wanted was they wanted their own custom belt, right? So, sure, no problem. We'll do that for you. Some of them want, you know, monthly stipends. So really understanding what the influencer wants and then does it make sense for you as a brand? And then also understand that not all influencers are very good at sales or very good at conversions. And the ones that convert really well or sell very well are not always the ones that just have the big numbers. So it really comes down to understanding. It's part of the learning process, to be honest. But understanding which influencers do you want to work with? And not looking at influencers as these people on this pedestal of like, oh, if only I could have them, I'd be successful. They look at you like, oh, wow, if I could work with them, I'd have money. Right? So getting them off the pedestal, having a conversation and really trying to find a balance, not just showing up like, needy, like, I need you. It's like, well, what can you offer for us too?

Yeah. What's funny is the mentality that attracted you to the methodology we teach@capitalism.com of focus on the person first is also the mentality that you took into influencer relationships, which is just think about them like a person. And the more you just treat people like people, the more you get what you want. But it's so tempting when you're early in the entrepreneurial career to think about the system and the hack and the strategy, the shortcut, because you're looking at a screen, you're looking at numbers. But if you can remember that there's people behind it, that's actually what allows you to get the result that you want. Because there are people on the other side of that transaction. There's people on the other side of that data. That data is just a representation of the people who are making decisions.

And too many people get way too wrapped up around the assumptions of the numbers. So they see an influencer with a million followers, and they assume, well, I can at least get a 1% conversion rate. Can you? Yeah, I highly doubt it, to be honest. Like, so you don't know until you test something. And the other thing is, it's okay to say no. Like, we've talked to some influencers that wanted to work with us, but they're just not. Their audience is not who we target. So we say no. Even early on, there's people that we could have worked with that might have, like, 30, 40,000 followers, but it just wasn't our audience. So it's okay to say no. And I think too many people are like, again, they put them on the pedestal, they see some big numbers, and like, oh, I can get a 1% conversion rate, even though, you know, this influencer's in the cooking space and I sell weightlifting belts. Yeah, that 1% is not gonna work out for you because they don't care about waving belts. Right. So it's important to understand that there's a match on both ends and to treat the relationship as an equal partnership and not either putting them on the pedestal or treating them poorly and put yourself above them.

So, Jason, it took you five years to get to about $8 million. If you were to go back, now that you're at the top of the mountain, if you will. This was the mountain you set out to climb, build a company worth $10 million or more. And you did it. You did it in about five or six years. Now that you've climbed that mountain, looking back, can you contextualize what was different about each year? Like, in year one, you had to think about getting a product and selling it. Year two, you had to think about building a little bit of a moat, building out your space or building relationships. Can you identify, now that you've gone through it, what things you needed to focus on differently year by year?

The fundamentals, I don't think change very much of double down on what works and keep doing it until it slows down and then find the next thing that works, right?

Could you give me an example? That's really interesting what you just said. Can you give me an example of doubling down on something works until it slows down?

Yep. So our weightlifting belt, we had one product with multiple variations for the first almost three years, basically because it was just seeing incredible growth. I mean, 2, 300% year over year over year. So we didn't even worry about launching out a product until we started seeing that slow down work with influencers. So we had some influencers that were just great and keep working with them. And when those things die down, they're like, okay, well how can we allocate our resources to continue to expand or.

Grow.

Even with other channels, experimenting with other countries, experimenting with other sales channels, all that kind of stuff. We have delayed a lot of it because we're seeing so much growth with the US Amazon sales channel. Right. In bringing in additional sales channels or additional countries, it just brings a lot of complexity. And almost every time we've done that, the additional complexity has not been worth the reward.

Amen.

But then sometimes it is, right? And then when it is, you double down on it. So.

It sounds simple, but I think it's just so important, and that's what we talk about a lot in incubator is, you know, those S curves and then staying focused on what's working and looking for the S curve of when it slows down. And that's when you can say, okay, I'm ready for the next thing.

So you basically don't add another thing until the previous thing has been doubled down on enough for it to slow down. So we double down. Did it grow double down again? Did it grow, double down again? It didn't move much this time. Now it's time to add another layer of complexity. That's actually a really helpful filter because half of my job, or your job, on what of our coaching calls is telling people, stop doing that, go back to what was working. And it's a nice helpful filter to think about. You keep doing that until it slows down, right?

Because that's the biggest question is when do I do the next thing? Right. And it's a very good question. But if you're seeing incredible growth, and of course that's contextual, but say it's 10% per month or 100% per year or 200% per year, keep focusing on that because the second you take attention away from that, that slows down and now you're back in the game of, oh, crap, what do I do? And this is not growing anymore.

Yeah, man, that is so true. I think about even our YouTube growth. I think about how I thought I did start a second channel. Oh, we'll just do two now.

Right.

It'll double, but.

Double with stress levels. But in reality, I had just never doubled down. So why isn't it growing? I should do more. Well, you haven't really doubled down. In a lot of cases, somebody launches three products at the same time, hoping that one of them is gonna catch fire, but they really never doubled down on one. One advertising platform. Facebook ads doesn't work. YouTube ads don't work. Email marketing doesn't work. You never really double down on one of them. So you double down until it flatlines or doesn't grow anymore.

And to be fair, if it. If it. There has to be some metric of saying, okay, this didn't work out, I do need to do something else.

Right.

But if you haven't really given it a good shot, you'll never know. And once you see that growth, that's when you keep doubling down.

Some people would hear you go from, you know, the last 2,500 bucks to $8 million in what, five or six years? I think that sounds pretty good. You're the top of the mountain. But the last year hasn't been a top of the mountain experience for you? No, it's been a rough year. And for me, too. Like, for a lot of people.

Yes.

But tell me about your last year.

Yeah, this last year for me personally, was one of the toughest years of my life. I ended up going through a divorce, which, to be honest, was unexpected. And a lot of my personal identity was wrapped around being a husband and a father. So I had to do a major reset in terms of who I am as a person.

I can say a lot of times there's a debate of should I have a business partner or should I not? I could not be more grateful for my business partner. And when you first start out, you have this mentality of, okay, we have a 50, 50 split in the business. He needs to do as much as I do, and blah, blah, blah. It is the worst mentality to have with a business partner because it's never going to be perfectly 50, 50 some months or years you're going to be giving a lot more. Some months or years, they're going to be there for you, doing a lot more than keeping the business alive or keeping you sane.

Through that experience.

It was very challenging trying to stay focused and trying to have a.

You mean through your divorce. It was hard to stay focused on work.

Yeah. Through all the challenges that. The anxiety, the struggle, the very challenging year. For months and months and months trying to stay focused on. To try and grow the business, trying to stay focused on being the person that I want to be, trying to stay, you know, happy. I mean, weeks without sleeping very well and, you know, eating well and exercise becomes just dreadful. And it was a pretty dark time, for sure. And I don't think I could have gotten through it as quickly. And the business has been able to maintain itself anywhere near as well as it did if I didn't have an incredible team and business partners.

Yeah. There's a thing that happens with business partners or relationships where at first you kind of view it as a trade. I'm gonna bring 50, you're gonna bring 50. And then one of you goes through a time where you're either contributing more or you go through a hard time and you can't contribute as much. And then it switches. Cause everybody's life goes up and down, and the other person steps up. And that's when you both stop keeping score.

Yes.

It's like that's. I think, when the partnership starts, because I'm no longer thinking about how much you bring to the table and I bring to the table. It's like, nope, we're just in it. We're just in it. Sometimes you're going to have 40, and I'm going to have 60, and sometimes I'm going to have 80 and you're going to have 20. But we're married on paper, and we're going to make this work. And when you can cross that threshold of just having very deep trust with that person, that is magic to a business.

It's magic to the business, it's magic to your enjoyment of the business, and it's magic to your relationship with that partner. It's just all around. Once you can get rid of that ego, which is really what it is to get rid of that ego side of it. Partnerships are amazing.

Sometimes it takes a few bumps to get to that. Letting go of the ego part.

Absolutely.

And that's what you mean about. There's always, like, a decision to be made about, is a partnership worth it? Gave up 50% of my company. But once you just cross that threshold, the business grows and both of you grow. You mentioned that you have a really good team that you rely on. I know that for the first few years, it was tiny little team, three or four people, including you and the partner.

Still is.

It still is. Okay. That was my question. So how are you running an $8 million business with how many people is it? Four?

Five?

All right, so tell me about, tell me about how you're able to maintain such a high seven figure business with such a small team.

I like efficiency.

But okay, first of all, if you're doing an E commerce business in today's day and age, there's so many solutions that don't require a person to, to certain things. Right. You know, a lot of advertising is management of the actual like bidding and keywords and stuff. There's software that does amazing jobs so you don't need a whole team or person for that.

Amazon, three third party warehouses utilizing these tools that take care of all your warehousing and logistics and all the other stuff. Like if I had to ship, you know, five to five hundred to a thousand units a day, I'd go nuts. But I don't have to worry about that. Right. Really good partnerships in the same thing that we talked about of like double down on what works for business and decisions. It's the same with people. So when you find a really good employee or you find a really good.

Business partnership, you know, we have a business partnership with our factory, they work just for us and you know, I don't own the factory legally, but we're the only client.

Right.

And it's just a really great relationship. Right. So you double down on that. Some of my employees, we, they've been with us for years now and they're just machines, they just know exactly what to do. They understand the culture that we have. You know, I don't even talk to them for weeks at a time sometimes because it's just running like smooth. So you double down on those people, you know, so the same mentality that I have of know, double down what works until it doesn't I have with employees and then I can keep things lean, efficient and then everybody's happier because I can pay them more because I don't have to pay five people, I can pay one.

Right, that makes sense.

And then the business is more efficient but then also having redundancies in case you do. So we have SOPs built out and everything else just in case something were to happen. You know, our, one of our employees, she's giving birth actually today.

So she's on Heroes.

You might want to shoot a text or something.

But she's amazing. Um, and we're giving her like, you know, a bunch of time off, fully paid, the whole nine yards. And she brought, brought in somebody temporarily to take care of this and you know, so really good people would take care of themselves.

It's. It sounds like one of your superpowers is clearing through the noise and doubling down on what is working and adjusting slowly. It sounds like that mentality has served you really well. Am I hearing that right? Yeah. And as an entrepreneur, it's often tempting to try nine things or pursue this next thing that's working for somebody else and ignore what is right in front of you. And it sounds like you've. Is that, Is that a trained response? Is that your military background or is that natural wiring for you?

I'll use an analogy. Everybody gets bored of their own logo.

But your customer never does. Right. It's the same thing with everything else in business. Just because you got bored of it doesn't mean it doesn't work.

I get bored of saying 4 products times 25 sales a day times $30 is a million dollar business.

Yes. But every single time you meet somebody new, what do they tell you?

Oh, man, that formula, man, it was the most beautiful math formula. You're such a genius. You can run numbers.

Yeah, exactly. Right.

So they tell me that that gave them the per. Like, it gave them the clarity of. Oh, that's what it takes to build a million dollar business. This isn't so scary. I can do it.

But it gave them the clarity. It gave people the clarity 10 years ago in 10 years later, that same clarity is happening to new people.

That's right.

But for you, it's been 10 years of the same.

I'm saying, the same math formula over and over again. I hate this.

But it's helping how many millions of people? Yeah, Right. So I think that's just a bias that we have as humans if we get bored of certain things, but it doesn't mean that those things are not working. And once you realize that and you can say, okay, I'm gonna be bored of this, but this is amazing. It allows you to not be like, okay, I need the next thing. I need to change something because I'm bored of it. And it also allows you to calm down and say, okay, well, this is the next thing that I want to work on. Like for us, launching the app, you know, something totally different. It's a totally. Like, for us, it's exciting. So it's bringing excitement back to the business. You know, we have. We hired a developer, right. So we have another team member now. And it's just been so fun and different at the same time. We're not changing anything with the stuff that's working.

You know, I heard a story about Elon Musk meeting a Snapchat influencer. And Elon Musk asked the influencer, do you think that Snapchat could help us grow Tesla? The person starts going into all the strategies and you can do this, and you can do this. And Elon slowly nods his head and says, yeah, I think I just need to make a cheaper car.

And I'm thinking about that same idea is what you took of. Oh, yeah, I could pursue YouTube ads or I could pursue this thing, or I could just make a better weightlifting belt. I could maybe just be better to our customers. Maybe I could just treat our influencers like people. And I think about business in the way of I want to pursue new things all the time. But when I take my eye off the ball of what got me here, I usually regret it. But if I double down on that thing that is working, all of a sudden it spits off enough freedom or cash flow that I can go, I can go test. Which usually means hiring somebody or wasting money on a project. But it comes from doubling down first rather than going wide. In your first couple of years.

You doubled down on Amazon. Amazon was, and it still is like more than half your sales. And you were not in an open space or in a competitive space.

I was very competitive.

Very competitive, yeah. So what did you have to double down on? Product. I get you made a great product that has to be in place. People ask me, how do I sell hundreds of thousands of copies of a book. It was a great product.

It's a good book.

It's a really good book. How do you sell a thousand weightlifting belts a day? You start with a really great product, but strategically there also had to be some things that got your double down focus in order for you to be able to dominate such a competitive space. So what were the things and the metrics that you were measuring and optimizing for that helped you win on that platform?

Ensuring our customers are happy and then building out the brand. And our brand has been focused in the CrossFit space, so telling the stories of some of the top. Now some of the top influencers in the CrossFit space. I mean, one of our influencers, she's got like 1.8 million followers and all this other stuff in highlighting the people in their stories so that when people come and interact with their brand, it's not just.

Some name on some product, which is what the majority of our competitors, especially in the Amazon space are. It's wow, these products are being utilized by these people. Who dedicate their lives to the sport or dedicate their lives to the journey. And while I might not be on trying to achieve that, if it's good enough for them, it's gonna help me through my journey. So I think that was huge.

What does that mean operationally? Does that mean creating relationships with people who love the brand? What does that mean? Does that mean you got pictures of influencers on your Amazon listing? Like, optically? What does that mean?

Yeah, so everywhere. We're highlighting those fields on our listings, on our website, in our emails, through social media, you know, showing the products being used at the highest level in some of the CrossFit games in Guadapalooza, in, like, actually put under the stress so that they know, like, this product's legit, right? As opposed to some studio shot or even worse, which is like 80% of the brands on Amazon, it's a Photoshop picture of the product and you could see the distortions in the Photoshop edits. And it's like, what customer's gonna look at that and be like, oh, wow, that's so cool. Right? So being real, being like, building a real brand that people are actually using and showing up to those events and showing up, but then also treating your.

Customers well, and what does that mean to you operationally? I mean, somebody buys something on Amazon, that is a difficult. That's actually a question that comes up a lot when we work with people, is you don't get any Amazon data. You can't contact the customer. So how do you ensure that a customer is really happy?

Everywhere on my product it says, contact us if you have an issue. I want them to come to me so I can solve the problem for them. Because Amazon's customer service knows nothing about my product. The only thing they care about is, I'll give you your money back in 50, 60% of the time. The customers don't want their money back. They want to figure out how to use the product. They bought it for a reason, right? They bought it to solve a problem. They didn't buy it because they wanted the cash, right? So if I can help them solve their problem, they're much happier than just getting money back. So everything we try and do to bring the customer back to us in any way possible. So that's inserts, that's on the packaging, that's emails that go out anytime we have an interaction with a customer. It's how can we serve them direct?

So you're doing everything that you can to bring the conversation into a place where you can serve them.

Exactly.

Is that usually email? Is that usually email? How else are you building the brand? Because I know that you've, you've got relationships with influencers, you got this strong presence on Amazon.

Yep.

But you also got a pretty sizable email list and people who love you and follow you. Do you put your focus on any other platforms or channels?

So our Instagram is our primary brand platform and I think we're like 45, 46,000, whatever.

That's where we'll put the more digital content and then the focus is customer experience through email and then sales channel of our website and Amazon. Very simple.

It's interesting to think about.

To the lay listener who's just starting, they're thinking, how do you put weightlifting belts on Instagram?

How do you build an audience just talking about weightlifting belts? Yeah. But you coming back to this idea of your person is it's mostly Crossfitters. And so you're talking about that life, that lifestyle, you're talking to that person.

Or highlighting their highlights.

Tell me about that. Because I live and die by this principle of celebrating other people's wins as a way to build your audience.

Right.

So go into how you were doing that.

So for us it's easy because there's competitions. Right. And that is the smart. That is what they're striving for. Right. They're training all year to be competitive in these competitions. So highlighting them competing, you know, in the middle of this massive stage and they're using our product to lift this massive log over their head. And then what's cool is like because they're top level athletes, they have all the attention. Like our products, our logo is plastered on all like massive brands like, you know, Rogue and Reebok and CrossFit themselves. And like what was really cool at the last CrossFit games, Super Top level athlete that we've never spoken to, was wearing our belt during competition and I think something happened where she forgot hers and someone gave her one of ours. And we don't even know how it happened, but it showed up. And someone with like 2 million followers, all of a sudden our logos were plastered over this person's thing. And it's un every publication all over. Like, just showing up relates to so many opportunities. Right.

And the other thing is you don't need everything to be successful. Like I said, Instagram is our main social media channel, email is our main communication channel and Amazon's our primary sales channel. And that's it.

That's the entire business, basically.

Yeah.

In terms of Promotion and customer acquisition. Right.

I wish I could say, like, oh, we have all these crazy things we do with, you know, Snapchat, and I don't even have a Tik Tok account. Like, yeah, but we don't.

Yeah. You doubled down on what works, and then you kept doubling down and you doubled every year pretty much until you were at 8 million. Like 500 triples. 500k to a million, to 2 to 500.

1.5. Yeah.

Oh, so you 3x. Oh, right. So bad with numbers.

If only he could do four products at 25.

I was on. I. I was on a coaching call today. One of our members launched last November, so he's been in business for less than 12 months at the time of this recording. I helped him launch, and he said that his win was that they're about to cross 2 million in 12 months. He was upset, and I was like, are you stoked? He's like, well, we were hoping for three. Like, oh, my goodness.

How dare you?

It's your first. First year in business. You should be freaking out, excited right now. But it is amazing how fast the hedonic adaptation kicks in. Yes. You're like, million. What, you think a million dollars is the top of the mountaintop? And can you imagine if.

So even. Even. Like I said, we ate last year, right? And I still feel small. Like, I feel like nothing. Like, you look at some of the big brands, you know, 8 million is like an hour of sales for them. Yeah, Right. And we're like, oh, wow, that's so much. But like Nike or Reebok.

I mean, but it's what you dreamed of when you started, right?

Right.

But then you. You climb the mountain and just realize there's way bigger mountains.

There's way bigger mountains. But I don't care about them.

Yeah.

Like, so now that I'm here, what I care about is enjoying every single day. And I get to do that through this business. So I don't even care if we get to 100 million or whatever. Right. I mean, if we do, great. If not, I love my life, so who cares?

Yeah, you. I mean, you built a great business, which is what the focus should be. What advice would you give to either yourself when you were starting out? I mean, I remember the message you sent me right. When Covid happened and you thought everything was going to crumble.

It felt like it would.

Yeah. And a lot of people were feeling that way too. Right. And I remember, I. I remember the message you sent me when you got laid off and you started a little ManyChat service to try and make ends meet. I remember all those times, and Today you're at 8 million. What advice would you give to the Jason at those stressful points or to somebody else who's going through similar challenges?

It's easy to say, it's hard to do, but.

You will be okay. And.

Ask yourself, five years from now, do you believe you'll be okay? And then reframe it, looking back on yourself and you realize, hey, I'm gonna be fine. Cause it's just mental, right? I mean, you go through these tough times, but your own self talk and your own anxiety that you create through this perception of a tough time.

Is way worse than the reality of it. Yeah, Right. So I think that would be the biggest advice.

Because everything else will happen, but how you handle it and perceive it and the amount of stress you place on it. And even this year, going through very tough times after coming out of it and being in a much better place now.

It was challenging. At the same time, I wish I could go back and say, hey, you will be okay.

Yeah. You run an eight million dollar business now, and yet you're still super involved in our community. You got started in this community, grew an $8 million business, and now you're a mentor to a lot of people that come through capitalism dot com. Why do you continue to invest in people who are often just starting out or still climbing their road to 1 million? When you're running an $8 million business, it's like, on paper, it's not worth your time. Why do you keep doing it?

My first reaction when you said that is, why not? I mean, it's awesome. You get to help other people. You get to.

Be in the grind with somebody else. You get to see them go through that journey. You get to be part of their journey, which is very rewarding. It's also just a lot of fun playing. Plus, I just feel very appreciative for everything that you've built and given to me. And it's my way of kind of giving back to your community.

You know what's funny is the experience that you get to have as a mentor@capitalism.com is the experience I got to have with you, which is watching you go through tough times and watching you go from 2,500 bucks to a million, then two, that's rewarding for me. And now you're hanging out at my place. That's rewarding for me. And you get to go through that same thing, which is what I'm hearing. You Say, what are some of the transformations you've seen? When people ask me about some of the best transformation stories, one of them, I always say, is Jason Franciosa. So when people ask you, or if I'm asking you, what are some of the transformations you've seen, who comes to mind?

I mean, through the incubator, there's been so many. I mean, Damien.

Damien Law.

I love Damian because he was so young and so ambitious and so, so good at writing emails. I mean, Duke can write an email. You wouldn't believe.

The Tims. I mean, how quickly they just. Yeah, yeah. How quickly they just blasted through that.

I mean, they did their first hundred thousand dollars in six weeks.

Yeah.

Pre. Selling stuff with a small little audience building, doing the traffic triangle. Yeah, it's awesome.

And you're just talking with Russ. I mean, he's 74.

Russ is 74 years old. So excited about what just launched. $5,000 in his first launch. And now he's like, should I be on TikTok? Like, I love that you're asking me this question at 74 years old. Probably not, but. But I love that you're asking him.

Will, maybe he should. I don't know. Maybe.

Yeah. Who would I know?

I mean, so every student has their own story and every student has their own journey. It is so fascinating listening to where they all come from and the ambitions that they have and the dreams that they have and the people they want to serve. And there's not a single student that I'm like, oh, this one sucks.

Well, I've learned not to count anybody out. I've just learned over the years that you should never discount anybody who's on this journey if they're willing to go through the process. That clicked for me when there was. Was this guy really early when I started mentoring other entrepreneurs who was a truck driver.

I was just thinking about him really. Maybe a different one, but on pre.

No. Oh, okay. No, there's this. There's this. I don't even remember his name. He was selling essential oils and he had crossed six figures and he got a six figure offer for his business. And.

I don't know if he took it. Like he stopped showing up, stopped coming to masterminds. But I remember when he told me that he had a six figure offer, I was like, I'll never count anybody out ever again. Because he up until that point had been just almost as like a defense mechanism, saying, I'm just a truck driver. You tell everybody, oh, yeah, I'm just a truck driver. I Don't know. I don't know. I'm just a truck driver. It was almost as like a way of protecting himself against possible failure. And I had to coach him so hard. And then he got a six figure offer, which was life changing for him. And it was like, I'll never write anybody off again, ever. If somebody shows up and is willing to do the work, there's a high likelihood that they're going to be fine. And sometimes, like, even in the case of Damian, who you brought up, first product might not work out.

Right.

The second one will crush or the third one will, because as you've been a testament to, sometimes you get punched in the face and you keep getting up, then you keep going, and just.

The relationships you build. So even a former student who ended up going a different way afterwards, Rocco, he hit me up recently and just gave me an update on his life and how things are going. And, you know, he's gone a different.

Path but pursued a different business model.

Yes. But the stuff that he's learned through that experience is lifechanging for him.

Yeah.

Right. So even if it's not just okay, you know, they didn't end up with the seven figure business, the experience of even going through the coaching and the incubator and everything else, I think is just. It's so rewarding for so many people. And you can see that from. With every student.

Well, I think about Kyle Carnahan.

Yeah, Kyle.

Kyle Carnahan came to the incubator. You and I both coached him. And he pursues a different business model, crushes it, and I hire him as a coach. You know, so this same journey led him. It led him to a seven figure business, but different. And he's gotten so good at it that I hired him. And I think that is the part of the journey that a lot of people don't know is coming, is the relationships and the growth that you get to make with other people along the way. I mean, just think about us when we met. We were both tots, young tots. You know, I have a small podcast you're selling weightlifting belts on Amazon, and we've both grown together despite only meeting in person, like eight times. And I think at the end of our lives, we will look back and think about how fun it was to grow alongside one another more than we will think about, I had a $15 million exit, or you have an $8 million business, or when you hit 10, you know, like, it's almost like that. That what mattered was the relationships and the support that Happened in the grind along the way, Just like you and your partner had your relationship solidified when you were in the mud and the dirt together. You know, I'm sorry. I'm on a rant now, but there's. There's. There's a guy on our team, Matt Doman. He's only been on our team for about three months. And when he came on board, like, honestly, there was. There was some shit in the business. Just, like, there's a lot changing, and there were some hard decisions, and I had some sleepless nights wrestling with what the right thing to do was. And he was there right when things were rocky. And we learned to lean on each other real quick. And as a result, there's like, a gotcha, bro. Got you, bro. And those are the types of things that I. That suck in the moment. But we look back on, and that's like, almost life's highlights is those relationships that are forged in the fire, and then you learn to rely on each other, and you do cool things in the future.

So that was total off topic, but that was one of the best experiences of being in the military. You go through a lot of shit. You go through a lot of very challenging things, and you become brothers with the people around you. And that's why you almost see any veteran, like, they'll talk your ear off about their military experience, because it is forged in that fire. It is forged in the most challenging, difficult things you can do. And the same thing with business. Like, but again, those are the memories that you'll remember 5, 10, 15 years after you're done with your business or you move on or makes it worth it.

Well, Kyle, who you just talked about, likes to say, in business, I want to go to work war for that reason specifically, like, I want to bleed on the front lines with the people who have my back. It's almost like that entrepreneurship is his route for building that depth of connection and relationship. And these are just the things that new entrepreneurs don't see coming. But I wish that I had, because, you know, why? I would have leaned on people faster. It's still uncomfortable for me.

To actively lean on other people. And I've gotten better at it. Like, I'll call. I'll call Doman or Inez and be like, hey, I need you guys. Don't know why. I'm just, like, I'm just in it, right? And I've learned to say something before. I'm like, in the depths of despair. It's like, I'm going down. I'm Like, I need my people. But I wish that I had known not only how important it was to lean on other people, but that that would be one of the best parts.

When you first start as entrepreneur, everything is about the goal.

Yeah.

Right. So you forget about the journey, and.

It'S usually a selfish goal.

Right.

Too.

And there's a reason I want a million dollars so that I can X, Y, and Z. Right. And then you get there and you're like, wow, this didn't solve any of my problems. This did not make me feel any happier. Right. And then eventually you realize, oh, wait, the goal is actually the least important part of this. It's the.

Every day until you get to that goal that actually matters. Or I'd love to. At last, Capcom, when he talked about design your life for your perfect Tuesday. Right. I mean, absolutely love that, because it really highlights, like, the majority of your life is just those daily days. It's not that end goal. And if the faster a new entrepreneur can understand that, I think the more that they'll enjoy being an entrepreneur and the more successful they actually become, because every day they wake up excited and ambitious and ready to go. As opposed to that mentality of, I need to get to this in order to be happy.

I needed that reminder. Thank you for that. At one of. I think it was Capcon 5, you asked Brooke Castillo a question.

I got shot down.

You. She's on stage.

And she's bringing the fire, and you asked her a question, and she just. It was like she reached down into your throat and ripped out your insides. Like, I just watched your whole body and brain, like.

Recalibrate to the things that she was coaching you through. Could you share a little bit about.

That experience to put in kind anybody who doesn't know Brooke. Brooke is a powerhouse, and she is a. She's very tall, too.

And she will crush your soul.

Yes.

As she did in this moment. I don't remember the specific question. It was something around. Oh, she was talking about the ability to just mentally not do something like, oh, you have these doubts and anxieties. Just don't.

Yeah. Just don't think about them.

Just don't.

Yeah, don't have them.

Conceptually, for me, I was like, I can't just control my thoughts like that. Like, they come, and then I say, okay, well, okay, I can shit this, but the thought's already there.

I remember you starting the question by saying, let's say you have a scarcity mentality, a scarcity mindset. And then you started to ask your Question. She's like, stop. What? Just don't have a scarcity mindset. And you were like, no to just say you did. She's like, why? And she wouldn't even let you. I don't think you ever got to ask the question because she was challenging the assumption that the question was built on, which is that I have a scarcity mindset. And she was like, just why would you have that thought? Why would you? And she ended up going into like, you should feed the thoughts you want, not the ones that are making you anxious and afraid. I'm curious how that landed with you. Cause I know that was hard, right? And I'm logical like you. So how did you process that? Or did you process that? What did you take away from that experience?

I spent like two weeks thinking about that. And logically, I still have some objections to it, of course, but it totally reframed my brain in terms of.

Your. Your thoughts and your actions essentially happen and what you focus on. And she's right 100% in that way. If you focus on the scarcity mindset, you're going to have a scarcity mindset. So if you shift that mentality and say, okay, I'm gonna focus on an abundance mindset, it might take a lot of time to retrain your brain or retrain your patterns to get there. But it's just like working out, right. When you first go in the gym, it feels like everything hurts, everything is brutal. Like, this sucks eventually becomes a routine and just becomes the norm, and you start seeing results and, you know, it just becomes your life.

Yeah.

So same thing with the mental game. I think that's what Brooke was really hinting at of, like, don't focus on that. And you want to worry about it because you'll retrain your brain to focus on what you want to focus on.

That's right. And at first, it is uncomfortable because you're used to practicing certain thoughts over and over again. You have grooves in your brain that make it easier to go there. But if you can think about your thoughts, almost like a heat seeking missile, it's like, I. I want to feel abundant. I want to expect $100 million business.

I don't have the idea of affirmations like, I have $100 million. It's just, no. Your brain is like, no, I don't. No, I do not. But if it's. I want, like, I want to learn this. Your brain can become like a heat seeking missile of just finding more evidence for the thought. And so that seemed like A really powerful moment for you, but uncomfortable at the same time.

It was very uncomfortable because not only did I just get destroyed publicly, Brook was. It was publicly in front of Capcom, in person. It wasn't even, like, on the phone or, you know, some video chat.

But it was a really good moment. And a lot of people came up to me after and, like, no, glad you asked that question. And I was like, I don't know if I was, but.

Oh, Jason, you know, it's been such a joy being part of your journey and watching your business change, watching you change, watching your mindset change, and now watching you, you know, help change other people. It's been. It's been a real privilege in my career, so.

And same to you. I mean, I've seen you change a lot over the years as well, so I don't know if too many of them know this. The first time I contacted Ryan was because I was complaining about something with the group that I text him and I was at the airport. He's like, can you call me? I'm like, I'm at the airport. But I got on a plane. Then you called me and we spoke and know, figure things out. But that's how it started.

And a customer service complaint.

Customer service complaint. And you've changed a ton over the years as well, and it's been awesome watching that as well.

Thank you. I think we've both been humbled many times and better people for it. Yeah. It's a pleasure. My man. Good to see you.

You too.

If you watch this whole thing and you are still here, did you know that I actually have a course and a newsletter that that takes you from scratch to choosing your first product, getting it launched, getting your first sale, and gets you on the road to a million. So you can follow in the footsteps of Jason. You can get all of that and more for the low, low price of free. Over at capitalism.com million, I'm refreshing an old course that I released about the road to 1 million, about launching your first product, getting it off the ground so you can start your road to 1 million and follow in the footsteps that you just heard Jason talk about. So if you want to get that and more for free, go over to capitalism.com million and opt in for the course and the newsletter, and I'll send the first one to you right away. I'm Ryan Dannenbrand with capitalism.com thanks for watching.

And now a quick word from Tristina.

Timm, one of our members from the capitalism.com community.

We joined the Incubator because we knew the things that we didn't know. So we didn't know E commerce at all. And we needed that. We needed somebody to tell us where to go and what to do. Right now we are on track to hit the 3 million mark this year. However, I think next year is just going to double that. We have so many plans for the future and just executing the plan that the incubator brought us, it was fantastic. It was step by step, what to do, how to execute it. And then if we did fumble the ball, we had somebody there to help us through it and walk us through our plans for the future. Of course, this year we have 3 million and then next year 6 and we're hoping to get to 10 million within the next three to four years. Freedom is everything to our family. I homeschool and I love that our family can wake up together every morning. Nobody's running off to school, nobody's running off to work. If I had to work at like a 9 to 5 job, there's no way that I could also homeschool. I get to set my own hours and they're not as many hours as a normal job would be. So that's really fantastic. But again, freedom is everything for our family and I don't. It's strange that our kids don't know any other way. Mom and dad are home every day. I would describe the capitalism community as family. When you go get so many tips from from people, we give tips and I think that we're going to start to work with a lot of our fellow community members and everyone really is rooting for everybody else. Nobody is like in competition at all. Like everyone is everyone's biggest cheerleaders.

If you found value in this podcast and you're ready to go Deeper, here are three resources where we can help you. One, you can grab my book 12 months to 1 million on Audible or Amazon. It has over a thousand reviews and it's the playbook to building a seven figure business. Second, you can join our community of entrepreneurs who are following a plan to build a 1% net worth by building businesses and investing the profits. You can get plugged in@capitalism.com 1. And third, if you're looking to go deeper and build a seven figure business that you can sell, you can work closely with us inside the capitalism incubator and you can get on the waiting list and find out what we do over at capitalism.com Inc. That's capitalism.com Inc.