How & Why Troy Sold A 2-Year-Old Business For Seven Figures - To Me

Foreign.

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Businesses and investing the profits so that you can live life on your terms.

And now your host, the future owner.

Of the Cleveland Indians, Brian Daniel Moran.

What's up fastlaners? RDM here. Welcome to Freedom Fast Lane. You have heard me say time and time again that we have helped to create over $100 million businesses. And today you're going to meet one of the founders behind one of those millionaire brands. Now I know for sure that this is a millionaire we're talking to today because I recently wired him seven figures. That was a weird day and you're going to hear about it. But you've heard me tease the idea behind the fact that I was part of an acquisition of a physical products brand called foxbrim. And foxbrim was started by Troy Johnston and a couple partners and I purchased that company as part of a new acquisition fund that is one of the arms of capitalism.com so I teach the model of building physical products and I invest my money in our students and our students businesses and, and then I help grow those businesses. So sometimes I partner with our students, sometimes I purchase the businesses outright with some partners inside of a different business. And this acquisition closed on February 1, 2017. You might have heard me talk a little bit about it in the February income report. And we'll be reporting on foxsprin throughout its life cycle inside of the income reports and periodically here on the podcast. Now we're going to do a full episode with my other partners, Clement Juan and Sean Coyne. And there's some other partners as well involved with FoxBrim. But we'll do a full episode just about the acquisition, what that process looked like because it's an, it's a really fascinating story. But today you're going to hear the story behind the actual build out of FoxBrim. You're going to hear it straight from the guy who started it. He came from one of our communities, actually got plugged in at Freedom Fast Lane Live. And that's when he really started to step on the gas and grow this company. And ultimately to the point where he exited for a seven figure payday and now he's going to be investing for passive cash flow. And I believe that is the fast lane to wealth. Build a business, invest the profits. Troy built the business, sold it and is now investing the profits. And that works too if by the way, you want to go through a similar process as Troy and maybe exit your brand for seven figures or have a nice business that pays you money on a regular basis. Then you'll want to check out the brand Builder Bootcamp. Head over to freedomfastslane.combootcamp or you can go to one of our free training classes, which you can find@freedomfastlane.com to learn all about the exact same model that Troy went through to build a million dollar business and then ultimately exit for a nice chunk of cash. So head over to freedomfastlane.com Bootcamp if you are ready to follow that exact same process. All right, let's go hang out with Troy Johnst.

Hey fastlaners, welcome to Freedom Fast Lane. This is Ryan Daniel Moran. Today I am talking with the man of the hour, Troy Johnston. What's up, Troy? Hey Ryan, I call you the man of the hour because it's been a good year for you. You exited a business to one of our internal investment groups and I also know that you built the company up and it's something you were very proud of. So I just want to kind of get the whole story of the business growth, the exit, what you plan to do with the money, where you're going next. But why don't you start by telling us a little bit about your background before Foxbrim and then we'll kind of go into Foxbrim's origin story.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, Ryan for having me on. Really. What led up to starting an Amazon centric brand? You know, my professional experience and background was really in project management. So I was pretty well accustomed to, you know, resource management, allocation, budget management, cross functional teams. So kind of making sense and setting sequentially a lot of moving pieces. So that really served me well once I got my hands dirty in the E. Comm. Amazon realm. But yeah, that's really where I cut my teeth in video production at one point and then into more the digital marketing realm with project management. So kind of some shifting of gears there, but mostly it's PMs or project managers will know you're just trying to make sense something out of nothing. You know, you got all these parts and pieces and resources. There tends to be, if the project gets started right, a singular objective. So I would say that carried over pretty well once I got into the rough and tumble e commerce realm.

But you were working for someone else for several years, correct?

Oh, absolutely.

And so at what point were you like, okay, done with this, I want to start my own thing?

Well, it was a bit serendipitous. So my last job I was in Orlando where I Reside the current area I reside in and was doing project management for a travel oriented digital marketing business. They offered a whole slew of solutions and one of them being the wholesale creation of websites. And so I was doing project management in that company and a friend of mine, a fellow project project manager, he and I were kind of always having an eye for the future as to, okay, how do we want to start doing things that have a multiplying effect, whether it's investing. He came from a little bit more of an entrepreneurial background, so he had that risk where I was a little bit more conservative at the time. And so we were kind of spitballing ideas and thinking of ways to think at that next level to kind of think bigger. And I can kind of delve into it because really at this point, he and I connecting in this corporate realm, we always kind of knew, okay, this is pretty rote. It's show up and you know, the job is quote unquote done. And it was hard to stay engaged in that realm. So he and I actually got connected through a real estate investing group and that was connected through a family friend of mine. And you can kind of see how serendipitous this is where it's these pieces coming together. But we got connected to this real estate investing group and come to find out the leader of that group was an ASM affiliate. And at that time ASM wasn't the mainstay that it is today. So it was a relative unknown. And we were just starting this real estate investing group and putting up, you know, 50, 100 bucks a month. And as an affiliate, you know, there's these little sprinklings of information about Amazon and ASM and you know, these people building massive brands out of nothing. And so we thought, okay, let's check it out, consider it. And not too far down the road, there was an opportunity for an angel investor where you filled out a short little, you know, give two or three paragraphs why you'd be a perfect fit for this angel investor to come in, invest and get you into the ASM program and get initial inventory started. So, you know, on a whim I was like, oh, on a weekend I'll shoot my two or three paragraphs out and see if I'm a good fit. I've got digital marketing background. I've, you know, I'm a, I'm kind of an overachiever, you know. So I did a little bit of humble bragging there and not. But the next day got a response and said, hey, this angel Investor wants to work with you. And so had to really think about it. Coming from a conservative background, having little to no entrepreneurial chops, if you will, where a lot of my side projects, side hustles were just pretty minimal things because they were low investment, so they stayed pretty low return. And so we got synced up with that angel investor. I pulled the trigger haphazardly, but really got the snowball rolling. We got initial capital, started a business. I did. I mean, at that time, it was testing five, six different products for the ASM model. Again, you know, this was really when there wasn't a lot of big winners. I mean, this is really in the, in the. When we talk about the wild west of Amazon, it was genuinely that so trying, testing, sourcing. And it was. It just came to be by happenstance, one little nugget of information tossed out some information for potential beauty products. So this opened the whole wide world of the niche that I came to really jump into, get my hands dirty with, and started with. And that was the first product. What came to be Foxbrim was organic Argan oil. And really from there, the rest is history. So that's kind of the. That's how these weird pieces fell together. It was a bit surreal because then at each step where we were starting to build so much momentum, we would take a moment, look back and reflect on just how these pieces came together. And it was something out of nothing and enough blind faith, enough capital at that time, where in an uncertain realm, I mean, I think there's a window of time, there's kind of dispensations of Amazon where when guys get in, the leverage ability is innate and it's obvious the visibility of the upside. And I'd like to think that we kind of were bold enough at that time to kind of, hey, let's jump in, let's invest 5, $10,000, go deep and then go wide. And a product line was born.

Yeah, well, what's amazing is you look at 5, $10,000 that is now millions of dollars that doesn't happen in most places. It is a very unique space and time we live in. But at what point did you say, okay, I'm making enough now, I'm going to actually be okay leaving my project management. That's a big jump to make.

No, it definitely is. You know, there was a point in time where I did the evaluation, I tried to quantify the kind of the pivot point where it's like, okay, this is when the brand's doing well enough. I'm Building up my flagship brand, it's getting the visibility, the metrics are there. And I just had to honestly sit down with my leadership and say, I need to be making this to rationalize staying on board. And so it was being willing to have a candid conversation. At that point it became pretty clear too that, you know, I was kind of building a, I was building a brand that was garnering enough visibility. I think there was rumblings in kind of some of the internal teams that, hey, you know, Troy's maybe has an eye on what may be next. And so, yeah, it was a willingness to kind of, again, I would stress quantifying it. I think a lot of people toil over, okay, is this the full time commitment and you want to always rely on the numbers. It's going to be a gut decision in the end. But let that be the little 20 and 10% or I would at least recommend as much that, you know, try to quantify it, know what your ROI is, know what your long term objectives are, you know, really understand it. Because then it became so black and white where, yes, it's a tough conversation. You know, I've been with the company long enough that I had deep relationships, but at the same time you've got to have that bigger vision that really pulls you and you know, in one direction or another.

So you started with one product to the Argan oil that then became Foxbrim. And at what point or how many products was this a real business? Would you say like that it really became Fox Brimmin more than just a couple products or something that you were kind of playing with on the side?

I think once we hit about three products, it started to feel a little bit more like a brand. I'm a really big student of advertising, so I obsess over a lot of the things most people notice. Foxfrom is kind of a weird name. It was just genuine brainstorming on my end to make sure it was something unique that maybe had a visual element. So putting those pieces together. But when it really started to take on more of a brand feel and not just these desperate products that are just showing up on Amazon was right around three. Because then in our niche, and of course you definitely want to be mindful of your category, your product selection is that it started to look and feel more like a regimen. And so we could come to customers and not say, hey, we offer three products. It's hey, we offer two products that can make up a, you know, five step sequence in your regimen. So it's more being the solution to your target audience really starts to help you take on the look and feel of a, of a legitimate brand.

Yeah, you are, you are speaking my language, my man. This is what I live by. So how long into the process, how long from first product launch did it take you to hit a million dollar run rate or that $80,000 a month point?

Oh man, it was probably, I mean, because our second year was definitely the top line heavy year at that point in time as well. We were really in the mix of, we were on the fall off of the Wild west where it was a promo everything to the fullest, garner ultimate visibility and kind of play things from there. So I would say we were really hitting a solid run rate at about the 10 to 12 month mark kind of coming into that second year. Cool.

So right, right at that year point, following the three to five products, taking a year to get to that million dollar run rate. So right on track with kind of what is expected at that time. Right, right. Cool. So you really took a hockey stick up once you hit that million dollar point and kind of into the second year of business. What was responsible for that?

I think there's a few key factors like I said and I would definitely stress, I know some of your listeners may be kind of just starting out and that's really where I stress my more conservative background is that it was a training in the comfort with risk. And so I think that second year also had me really solidifying, kind of getting my legs underneath me as okay, this is the flagship brand. It's going to make or break based on the width of the product mix, the depth. So making sure that customers are endeared. There's a measure of loyalty at the SKU level and I think we were starting to really garner that. So it was the addition of new products, it was the mindfulness of making sure that we had really those hero or gateway products, those things that could lead into the product line that really fit the philosophy. You know, we started folding in other as foxsperm has a number of organic oils and they are really, there's a nuance to it in the sense that to be candid, they really can be commoditized products because somebody else can come out with an organic oil but they may not source it in a small enough window of time. They may not meet all the key features that are really discerning customers looking for. And so in that second year, I think we were being very cognizant of how to grow with our audience and not doing it in a vacuum, because, again, we saw that too with, of course, I'm very tapped into our space is that we were able to give the. Or have the visibility, because Amazon, being what it is, is that, you know, competitors just throwing out products and kind of a what sticks to the wall mentality. And we were always what extends the line. What, you know, what are we doing? That's. That's what builds the brand. Right?

Yeah. What do our customers want? Like, I see so many people that just say, I'll. We'll just throw things and see what sells. And you took more of the approach of, I'm building a customer base. What does my customer base want? Which is what I think is exactly you should do when building a brand.

Absolutely. Yep.

So you got more aggressive and you rolled out more products that were much more in line with your brand. And you think that's what essentially doubled you in that second year. I think it was. Might have even more than doubled in that second year. You can refresh my memory.

Yeah, it was slightly more. And I think that's a big part of that. And not to say there wasn't failures and shortcomings there. There's products that we've had that weren't winners, but at least they always kind of came from a place of, is this something where we can fit into a customer's regimen? Does it introduce the brand and the line in an intuitive way? And it's not just, you know, running an Amazon criteria. You know, again, because we saw that our space, it's one of the silver linings to the beauty category on Amazon is that the visibility and the saturation is you kind of see where everybody else is winning and where everybody else is failing. And so if you're really tapped in, you can make that information pretty actionable.

You made a big pivot at some point that some people never get to, and that's that you started building a team. And there are several people on the team that came with the acquisition that have been just awesome assets to have on the team. Tell me about making that switch from it being the Troy show to having a team building the business for you, because that's not an easy switch to make.

No, no, it's not. I mean, it's definitely one that you've got to be willing to make the best, if not perfect, choice. And I guess setting the stage for that. Now, that's not to say, I mean, the team that, you know, even, as you've mentioned, that the team that's intact. Right. Now they are just a bunch of All Stars and I've been fortunate enough and it wasn't through lack of really vetting, trying to find the best people in the best places. Again, I'm one of those fortunate people that the team that we were able to bring together is of such high caliber and in key roles, Director of marketing, the customer service lead on the team is an absolute all star. And so, yeah, I mean, I think there was a point where you realize you can't do everything and then you start thinking about, okay, how do I systematize this in such a way that I can focus on either what's the most efficient option, which is systems and automation, or what's the most effective option and who's really going to bring that work ethic, that character and that alignment of vision and kind of coalesce the two. And so I've been fortunate because having all stars on your team, it's easy to take for granted when you don't have it because once that goes away and that high level support, that going above and beyond, that's a challenge a lot of folks have.

Where did you find that team?

My first hire actually came from the work I did as a project manager, digital marketing agency. She actually did and headed up the. I think her last role was director of social media in the same company and so kept the lines of communication open there. And it just so happened to work out that she was available when, you know, I needed somebody most. And like I said, just a prime example of somebody thinking kind of that two, three steps beyond what's asked of them, thinking in terms of the rationale, the follow through. So that first hire was a force multiplier. I mean, I might as well have hired two people. And that's just kind of the caliber of who she is and what she does.

Yeah, that's a high compliment. Okay, so at what point were you getting to the point where you say, okay, this is great, but I think I want to sell this company? At what point did your brain start to shift there?

You know, I think it's a few things. I think the first thought that comes to mind is definitely want to always keep and stay engaged in what I do. And I think there was, there was points and times and rumblings in my head of, okay, is this something that I see taking to that next level? Because we have sort of those milestones and tiers for brands, whether they're implicit or explicit, and taking it to that 10, $15 million mark, you know, I kind of saw what would need to be done and what kind of changes would need to be made. And the timing really worked out well for what I think is going to be some of the changes in terms of the team structure. And so, you know, when. When I was getting to that point, I kind of had to have the hard conversation with myself as to my personal goals, to where I'm seeing the brand going. And, you know, I think. I think at that point, I saw enough of a disparity to where it made sense to take it very seriously. And I would say just as serendipitous is kind of just funding the right people to kind of pass the baton off to. I've seen enough times, whether it's potential acquiring parties or it's either low caliber, not enough expertise, not a shared alignment of a vision, or taking a new vision to that next level. And so it took a conversation to a more serious level once that was a reality.

So, Troy, one of the things I love about you is you have a knack for being incredibly polite, but come on, man, there had to be a time that you were like, man, I just want to sell this thing. Either because it was. It would you was a stressful day, or you're like, well, shoot, I just hit 2 million. I just hit 2 million in my business. I wonder what I could sell this thing for. Like, be selfish for one second. There had to be a moment like that.

I mean, I think there's definitely. And I mean to fold in the personal realm. You know, I have my personal goals that were definitely in align with what I wanted to see for the acquisition. So again, kind of quantifying, making this very. Okay, it's kind of pass fail, black and white. And then, you know, there's things I'd like to do after I kind of keep my head down for the past three years is, you know, doing more traveling. The wife and I are also thinking about having kids here in the near future. And so just thinking about what are priorities for me in the coming years and months, because, I mean, honestly, this is the. This is the reality of our space and working so diligently is that you do kind of wonder, okay, what's on the other side. And so, like I said, some of the priorities I had and then being able to really quantify, okay, is this meeting what I have set up for myself as the goals for myself personally. And then obviously, anytime you. I'd like to think most entrepreneurs, if they've created a brand, something that's kind of bigger than them, that they want to see it in the best of hands. And so there was offers in the past and they didn't meet that criteria. Right. Where there was an alignment, there was a confidence, there was an excitement behind bringing the pieces together here. Yeah.

Great. And you and I met at. I don't know if our first interaction was at Freedom fast lane live 2015 or if we had interacted before, but how did you get plugged into our community?

I think that was it. I think that was it. The same friend that I worked with kind of nudged me towards fellow tribe member, nudged me towards checking out the event. And honestly, at that time, in what in 15, I was still a little bit removed from a lot of networking events. And so, you know, I kind of just pulled the trigger on it on a whim. And yeah, I mean it was, it was hugely impactful between who I met then, who I've come to, come to know really well now. But yeah, and I can say that those have been really influential even this past Freedom Fast Line syncing up with really impactful guys. Hopefully I'll continue to provide them some value, but I've gotten a ton of value out of syncing up with the tribe folks and the network there.

Well, thank you very much. I know you obviously met Clement at Freedom Fast Lane and the conversation started to develop about potentially selling the business to our acquisition fund, which took us a while, but we got there. So I'd like to know, Troy, now that you have built a multimillion dollar business, you've now sold a multi million dollar business, what is life on the other side like? And I asked because there's, there's like a perception of you're gonna build up to this, this day one day. And then that day comes. I remember the day because I wired the money to you and we'll talk about that here in a second. Actually, let's go there now. What was it like that the day that the money arrived in the account and you go, I guess it's all in there now. And then I'll tell the story from my perspective.

Yeah, no, I think it was both of our favorite days, so I'm glad that we can rehash that. No, it was awesome. I think you definitely have the perception that once you pull the trigger and realize that step that all your problems fade away, all the looming questions are answered and it's not the case. But you really have to take a moment. And I tried to do this is really just reflect and see what's gotten you to this point. And I think it's been eye opening for me because that day was awesome. I remember being in touch with Clement, with you, and realizing that this is really happening.

And hopefully I did that. Like I said, hopefully. I took enough time to really reflect on what got to that, you know, what. What came together to bring us to that point.

When was that? When did you realize, oh, this is really happening? Like, I'm really. That check is going to actually arrive. When did that happen?

Funny enough, I think it hit me more when the paperwork was done.

Maybe I'm uber practical. And I think in terms of, okay, this piece is done, it's now reality, but Clement works. And if we're not, I would definitely laud Clement for his professionalism. He's an absolute rock star. But getting through that process, having seen it before with others and having some other offers sent my way, it was great to get it to that point because once I saw the finish line, I think the reality kind of set in that this is done, that this is going to be coming together, it'll be complete. And I think that it may not have. I don't want to say it kind of lessen the impact of. Of the kind of the funds receiving, but I think the practical person in me kind of saw that, okay, this is it. Now that now that we've got the details all hashed out, the transition will take place. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.

So from my perspective, it was a little bit different. That was a very stressful day, mostly because Clement was the one doing most of the interactions with you. And I go to the bank, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And then I go, oh, shoot, I'm gonna about to wire a whole lot of money. Hey, Clement, you sure this is okay to send? This is the right account? Let me triple check this and check this four times. And then the bank comes over. Excuse me, Mr. Moran, this is a large wire we're gonna send. We're gonna need to research this, okay? Yes, sir. So it was a little bit different from my end, so I'm glad it was a great day for you. It was kind of weird on this side of things. So now let's go to on the other side of that. It hit the bank account. What's life like now? Cause I imagine that's like there's a big shot in the arm. And then you say, okay, what do I do now? I'm sure that's an adjustment period. What's it like on the other side of a major business sale?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's Definitely. It's definitely a paradigm shift because we all are kind of creatures of habit. And so doing the same thing three years and keeping your head down and then popping your head up and saying, okay, what to do next? It was a little jarring. Like I said, I had to kind of pause and be grateful, extremely grateful. My challenges are nothing, and so I have to be cognizant of that and try to be. But I think I had to kind of own that because it was tough to be like, oh, man, I've made this exceptional deal, really happy with everything. And then you kind of handle that guilt a little bit because there's that cognitive dissonance. And so I went through that a little bit and did some reflection and pretty quickly kind of wanted to get my hands dirty again. It's tough to do something without kind of putting value out there, I think. And I don't know if that's me embracing the entrepreneurial bent or what, but you kind of find yourself that you still want to put value out there. You want a legacy. It's kind of an important thing to me. And so I think that's where the mind goes, is okay, I can relax. You know, I still have my goals. I want to travel. I want to go and experience more and do some fun things. But at the same time, I want to. I want to share, I want to interact with others. I want to. I want to collaborate, I want to build. And I'd like to think I'm starting to do that now, kind of jumping back into things especially.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's like, this sense of, you dream of this day that you'll be done and you can finally enjoy your life. But you wouldn't have gotten to this point if you didn't have some drive to always make things better. So there's got to be some part of you, I imagine. And so what I'm hearing you say that like, there's still a drive to be better and there's still a drive to leave a legacy. It just might be different or accelerated as the result of there being more money in your bank account.

Account, yeah, absolutely. I think we have this perception. I mean, it's kind of a truism in life. We have this perception, this expectation, and when we arrive at it, it's rarely what we envision it to be. And so, like I said, I have to keep. And I do this with myself is just kind of always be. Be grateful and mindful of it, but also kind of call it it is what it is, you know, where if I'm not being fulfilled by not striving and doing more, I need to just state that plainly and get my hands dirty again. And in our realm, ecom, sort of tech.

Semi centric, there's so much value in the information that we have. That kind of felt like that too, where I was always just kind of like, okay, I'm extremely tapped into this stuff and I can step away and try to let everybody kind of catch up and fight the good fight. And so you kind of have those internal battles. Like I said, all the questions aren't answered. All of a sudden, once you start making some serious money.

I like to think that that's a good thing to kind of have the. Probably a good credit to my parents and upbringing is that you always want to strive and grow and develop and work hard. And so I'm navigating that now. Like I said, I'm trying to figure out how I can still get the value out there and not have to keep my head down, not do the 247 entrepreneurial thing, which is good. People sometimes need to do that. You got to be kind of willing to own your circumstance. There's.

And what do you plan to do with the money? Are you investing? Are you blowing it all? Tell me about your plan.

Well, yeah, right now I've been slow to move too quickly because I'd really like to wrap my head around a few different investment vehicles. I'm very seriously looking at real estate investing, measure of dividend investing. So I'm going to have a probably a minimally diverse portfolio. I'd still like to kind of go deep and not wide. But that would be my, you know, that's kind of one of my big focuses here in the next, you know, in the coming, coming months is really.

Tell me more about that. Like, what's the, what's the strategy, if you will, for solving that piece? Because it's just a new set of problems, right? There's more money. What do I do with this now? So tell me about that exploration.

Yeah, no, definitely, I think. And this, it's kind of. It gets to be humbling again because, you know, you start having those little barkings of, okay, learn, learn, learn, and don't do, do, do, because there's more chips on the table. And so being willing to. Don't have to, but be willing to kind of feel your way through it. I mean, I think with something like a dividend investing is thinking of how I can do without the downside if I Need to do paper, invest something to kind of get my hands dirty. I think I want to move pretty quickly with that. Like I said, ironically enough, this all started back with that real estate investing group and that's just kind of been on the table there and waiting. There was a point where we talked about doing some house hacking in our current area. Where we settled in, we were going to get into a multi unit and it was going to be kind of the cornerstone of subsequent single family residences. But that didn't pan out. So yeah, I think just being cognizant of what I can learn by actually doing in those kind of two main spheres and then like I said, I'm excited to get back into consulting. I feel like I've got a ton of value there with having an i4 Automation Systems, being willing to really be on the cutting edge with respect to different trends in the landscape, different strategies and approaches. So I want to spend more time there because the marketplace is putting a premium on it. And so it's just kind of an intuitive option for me.

Tell me what's next. You freed up all of this creative energy, you freed up all of this entrepreneurial energy. Where are you going to put it? Part of you is going to be investing it and planning it. We can help you with that, by the way. But tell me where you're going to put that energy next. You can only watch Netflix for so many hours. So what are you going to do now?

Hey man, you can put the Office on repeat. You can watch it backwards, jump into different episodes. I mean backwards.

Good call.

You know, one of the. So the consulting business that I've kind of, it's been tabled for the longest time, being singular in focus is I'm bringing kind of back and revitalizing is zonspark, which is my Amazon consulting business. But it also kind of delves in on to a little bit more channel optimization. One of the really interesting things that I've seen as content creation and content as a, as a mechanism and vehicle is kind of the underutilization of a, of a channel like YouTube. And I've really tried to tap into the strategy and implementation of. You almost take in the same way that we leverage Amazon, you take YouTube and kind of take that same mentality. And because the variables are there for mass appeal and immense visibility, how do you kind of hack or optimize that channel? People are doing it with Facebook and I'm starting to do that a little bit more in my consulting businesses. How do I continue to think of these Channels as things that can be optimized and sort of hacked by focusing on the highest value pieces. So I'm doing that personally just putting out kind of sprinkling content out there. Honestly, I need to build that back out. I think that could be a really cool way to put some content out there, add some value and do that with the leverage ability of the channel know how. And then yeah, still E commerce and Amazon focused ventures. Like I said, I enjoy knowing the absolute latest, newest information. There's a lot of really big sort of corporate entities that it's, you know, they're like moving a battleship. So when they come, if they're already in Amazon, they're underwhelming. If they're not in Amazon, they're missing out on a huge piece of market share. There's still sort of the connections there that can be made. I think that's a little bit of where zahanspark's going is us thinking of how we can bridge that gap.

So there was something I missed in there. And you said channel several times in there. Help me understand is your next thing then figuring out and managing multiple channels. You mentioned YouTube. Are you going really deep there? Help me understand a little bit about what Zonspark is doing.

Yeah. So for YouTube specifically, really what I've aimed to do is kind of crack the code like how to. In the same way of Amazon is that we want prevalence, we want listing visibility and it's keyword driven. And so we kind of take the algorithm in the same way that YouTube obviously owned by Google, we sort of use that same thinking and methodology and okay, it's all about relevance and it's almost always keyword driven. And so kind of taking that know how and thinking of how, whether it's, you know, wholesale new content creation for brands, whether that's things like ambassador programs, influencers. Because I think, I think we'd probably agree that's that's the wave of the future is, is the coalescing of kind of content and product. As you know, we move away from brick and mortar stores and people still do showrooming, you know, and still go do that on a marginal basis. Where they go experience a product, come home online and buy it. Where content can bridge that gap, somebody else can interact with the product for you or show you or review it. I think that's where people kind of need to be is how does the content bridge the gap of the reality of the future where we're not all going to be in a mall, thousands of people we're going to be all sitting in front of our computers. We want to interact with that product but as a proxy, an influencer can do it for us and we can see if that's enough to overcome objectives to purchase.

So with the last few minutes, what have you discovered about YouTube specifically that E commerce companies could or should be using in order to get more customers and expand their reach that you don't see people doing right now?

There's a few different ways that you can approach it. I think the most simplistic way, the low hanging fruit is existing influencers that are aligned with the brand or product. I mean I think for if we're talking about like a mid range Amazon seller that knows that they are just, they're singular focused on Amazon which is great, 80, 20 what your results and work should be. But think of YouTube, I mean again these are these monoliths as channels that can be leveraged. And so think of how if somebody's already providing content for your product, how can you integrate that, leverage the authority there, there's different tools that are kind of coming out and trying to do that. But I think, I mean there's low hanging fruit. Think of fiverr gigs, things that you know, things that are already at your fingertips and try to try to leverage that because again leverage is, you know that's a big word I like to throw around because that's what we think of in terms of real estate. We think in terms of Amazon as a channel, Facebook with Facebook ads as part of a funnel sequence and YouTube is that same way. It's a different media and medium and it's something that can be leveraged in the same fashion.

Well Troy, congratulations on what you've done. It is a big frickin deal to build a million dollar business and it's a bigger frickin deal to build and sell a multimillion dollar business. So congratulations. You've earned every ounce of the next set of problems that you'll endure as a result of having more money and figuring out what to do with your time. So congratulations. Enjoy it. Thanks for sharing your story here on Freedom Fasting.

Awesome Ryan, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Troy is not the only person who has built and sold a seven figure company even in the last six months. We have students who have sold businesses for 15 million for four point something million for 19 million for 15 million. I think the record holder is 25 million. So we have millionaires across the spectrum who have have sold businesses and then we have over 100 others who have built million dollar businesses and just hold them because that's, well, it's their business and we have people who own multiple businesses as well. So this is a duplicable model that you can follow. You heard Troy's story and if you want to have a at least follow the same strategy that Troy did, head over to freedomfastlane.com boot camp or if you're already selling products but you need to crank this thing up, you need to get to that million dollar level or you need to get to the multimillion dollar level, then you belong in the tribes which you can join over@freedomfastlane.com tribe and that's where our retail partners and our investors and our most successful people hang out and share strategies and mastermind together and then play kickball and sit around campfires at Tribe Summit, which is also a really good time. That's worth the admission price just on its own. Anyway, I'm done bragging. I accept. I'm going to brag on Troy some more. I'm so proud of Troy and our students who have similar stories and we want as many of them as we can get and we know how to help people get there. So I hope you'll consider joining us and following a similar path and journey that Troy has by getting involved in one of our communities. If you found value in this, if you enjoyed this story, share this with somebody who wants to be an entrepreneur and show them that other people are following. This is that exact same strategy. I think that there are millions of people waiting to be entrepreneurs who just don't have the path, who don't have the strategy to get there. So give this to someone, post it on Facebook and tag someone that you are friends with who wants to be an entrepreneur. It might be the most valuable hour of their time. So do that for somebody you care about who wants to be an entrepreneur. And as always, we appreciate your support and we will see you on the next episode.