Making Big Ideas Happen: Ryan Daniel Moran’s Interview on the Start For Nothing Podcast

Foreign.

Ryan here. Welcome to Freedom Fast Lane. I'm a little bit nervous about what you're about to hear because it's a, well, quite a bit different from what we usually do here on Freedom Fast Lane, where we usually talk about building businesses and investing the profits because that's what I believe is the fastest way to financial freedom. You have a business, you take the profits, you invest them into other passive cash flow machines and that's how you have a long term financial freedom. But today I'm actually posting an interview that I did on the Start From Nothing podcast, which is run by Andy Drish of the foundation. And I asked Andy if I could repost this episode on the Freedom Fast Lane podcast for a couple of reasons. Mainly because Andy did a really good job of getting me to open up personally, which is something that I don't do as often as maybe I should. Or he just got me to be very transparent about some things that I don't usually talk about, including my religious background and why I no longer consider myself religious. About my experiences on psychedelics as well as what my goals are and how I reverse engineer what I'm doing in order to accomplish the things that I've set out to do, how the things that we do are all aligned for a certain path and a certain mission. And Andy did a really good job of pulling that out of me. He also asked some really point in questions about Freedom Fast Lane Live. So quick plug time. Freedom Fast Lane Live is our three day experience in Austin, Texas where we bring in some of the best entrepreneurs on the planet, put them into the same room for three days and watch what happens. We're closing tickets for that, by the way, on December 1st. We've had a huge uptick in sales and so we're wrapping them up early and we're ending that on December 1st. So make sure you grab your ticket@freedomfastlinelive.com I also want to call your attention to something that they're doing at the foundation. They are doing something really cool. They're doing their own virtual event where they're bringing in some of the smartest minds in software businesses, including Evan Pagan, Stu McLaren, Nathan Latka, Clay Collins, the founder of LeadPages, founder of Basecamp, founder of AWeber, and they're doing a digital summit that is free. So they're putting some of the best software entrepreneurs on the planet into one digital room, making it free. I think this is one of the coolest things I've seen in the entrepreneurial space in quite Some time to just kind of blow up the industry. And you can sign up for that atthesoftwaresummit.com. i'm not an affiliate or have any stake in that. I just think it's something pretty cool that you might want to check out. So that's atthesoftwaresummit.com if you want to have a software business or software as a service business, that's of interest to you. Some of the best people in the world are participating in that digital summit and it's something that you'll want to take part of. So I think you'll really enjoy this. This chat I did with Andy Dr. Of the foundation on the Start From Nothing podcast. So please enjoy.

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Starting From Nothing. Today's guest We've got a special guest on the on the line for you today. We've got Ryan Moran. And Ryan is kind of an anomaly to me. I feel like every time we talk Ryan, I find out more cool shit that you're up to and more like side businesses that you have that are doing millions of dollars per year like our chat this morning. And so I'm absolutely stoked to have you on the call today.

And I'm absolutely stoked to be called an anomaly.

An anomaly. You like that?

I do. I'm adding that to my bio for sure.

I think Peter introduced us, was like the first time that we talked.

So Peter hates introductions and he said, I never do this. I hate doing this, but you two need to meet. Yes. And we got on Skype and realized that we were each the handso than we've ever seen on Skype before.

It was stunning.

And the bromance ensued.

And it began there and then it's kind of grown over the past year. And I'm bringing him on the podcast because Ryan has one of the coolest minds that I've come to meet in the entrepreneurial space. And one of the questions that I love, Ryan, is, this is a really big deal, guys. So Cleveland Indians, right? I don't follow baseball. Is that right?

Did you just question the name of the Indians?

I'm just like, just like making sure that I get this stuff right. The Indians Ryan is going to own someday. And this is your dream that you've had since you were little, correct?

Yeah, since I was like. Since I was like 9 or 10. I actually grew up wanting to be the general manager of a baseball team. That was all I wanted to do. And I realized I just ran the numbers on this, that there's one job right there's there's one job, and you don't get to determine if you get that job or not. And you do get to control how much money you make. So I just kind of ran the probabilities and realized that if I wanted to be on the executive team of a baseball team, I had a better shot of owning the team than of becoming the general manager. So literally every. Every decision I make in business is through the builder of does this get me closer to owning a Major League Baseball team? And my favorite team is the Cleveland Indian.

Okay, so this is exactly what he just said, illustrates perfectly. What I wanted to tell you is that he has one of the most unique minds that I've met. Like that is that actually when you say that, Ryan, it makes sense to me. Like, it feels true to me that the probability of owning the baseball team and appointing yourself to be the GM is more likely than going through the ranks and depending on every step of the way, of somebody else controlling your future and your destiny. And what I love about this model is that it has put you in a position where you're thinking really, really big.

I mean, maybe you could call it big or it might be small to some people. And what's interesting is that the more experienced I get in business, the more I realize that the things that are hard to me are easy for someone else or things that are big to me are small to someone else. So we might as well just create whatever the heck we want in life, right? Someone told me once I was feeling like, well, owning the Indians is a really big goal. And they were like, well, someone has to do it, so there has to be a path, right? It's not like they're going to be ownerless. So why don't you just go on the path that's going to lead you to that and to your point, the path to each of those roads. Like general manager of a team, owner of a team. One would require me to do a bunch of things I hate, which is go to school to study sports management, work in an organization for a long time, work my way up, network my way up, all things that don't put me in control and I don't necessarily want to do. The other allows me to do the thing I love most in this world besides baseball, which is start and grow businesses and refine that skill and enjoy the entire process with the path on the road to. This is the goal I have of having the money I need in order to buy the team. So it's both more probable and more enjoyable for me and my skillset. And that's not going to be the case for everybody.

So one of the things you love, starting growing businesses. Let's hear a little bit about your story. How did you even get into business? What was the first business that you did? What's your path and trajectory? Kind of been like when I was.

Five years old, I grabbed some computer paper. I drew hand drawn pictures on the computer paper and took them door to door in my neighborhood trying to sell them for a penny each. At five years old, my dad was my first client. He bought two pictures for a penny each. I ended up selling five pictures that night. I made five cents. My dad provided all the computer paper. So it was 100% profit. That was my first cash flow business. I only did it one night, but that was the seed capital that I needed for all of my success.

Building those discipline muscles, that's it.

Learning how to be rejected and be okay with it at five years old.

That'S a good time to learn it.

When I was 18, all I wanted, I thought my path to success would be in real estate. I would be a real estate investor. So I thought I'd raise a few bucks on the Internet. I started a blog to document my journey. People started following it. I grew that throughout college and graduated college with $100,000 in the bank and no debt and a business that was making several hundred thousand dollars a year basically doing affiliate products. So I was reviewing.

Yeah, tell me more about what the products were.

Well, I was reviewing products and ranking them for keywords on Google. So I got good at search engine optimization. I learned how to build lists, I learned how to market to those lists. The thing that I sold the most of were like wholesale clubs, which I.

Like. There was a company called Worldwide Brands that was really big for people who drop shipped. It basically introduced people who drop ship to suppliers. And I got to know that company really well. I sold millions of dollars of that product as well as like other home biz type of stuff that I was just fascinated with because I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I didn't mention I was, I was in school to learn how to be or to learn how to be to become a pastor. I was actually studying to be a pastor. That didn't work out.

No way.

Yeah, so that didn't, that didn't work out. And I was like, I, well I'm studying business, I have a business, I might as well study business. So I graduated with a business degree and had this business and then freaked out. Wanted to Know what I was going to do with my life because I really didn't know how to be an entrepreneur. I just know how to make money.

What's the difference?

Well, I mean the difference is, do you have to, first of all, are you building something bigger than yourself? Are you solving real problems with real customers or are you just making money?

They're very, very different because you can work yourself into a high paying job that you control and call yourself an entrepreneur, but just be spitting off cash and not be building anything that's bigger than you. I would say I only became a real entrepreneur in the last five years, whereas before I was just making money. The only way you make money is by selling things with your name on it. And it can't ever be bigger than you and it ever can't be replaced with someone else. Then you're just working a high end job and you can call yourself an entrepreneur, but you're not building something bigger. And I think the difference there is are you building a brand or are you selling things? And you will get into this, but the majority of people who follow me are selling physical products. A lot of them start with Amazon. And the thing that is the biggest separation for them in terms of how I know if they're going to be successful or not is if they consider their business something that. Do they sell kitchen products or are they building a brand that targets women who cook at home so they sell kitchen products as one of their offerings? Completely different experiences. One makes money in the short term and they try to get as much as possible. The other is a scalable business that can be sold for millions of dollars one day. And it's the same thing in SaaS businesses or information businesses or whatever. Do you have a very target market and you serve their needs or do you just have things that you sell so that you can do other things and sell more product? And vastly, vastly different experience?

Man, I have like a thousand directions I want to go with you.

There's the brand route, there's like, there's the let's go down the pastor route. What happened there? This is totally off topic, but I feel like there's something rich here.

So I am actually filming a documentary right now called Losing my Religion that goes deeper into this. But essentially I just don't believe the story that was told to me for 22 years of my life. And I probably, I'd say the pendulum went from extremely conservative legalistic Christian to an angry agnostic who rejected the whole thing. And now my pendulum is swinging a Little bit in the other direction, where I very much enjoy the exploration of truth without this story that was sold to me as a teenager and in my early 20s. So I left the pastoral route because a. I couldn't see myself on staff at a church for the rest of my life, but also because I was pretty sure I didn't believe any of this nonsense. And then I felt like I had no direction and no hope because all of my purpose and life meaning and everything I lived for was in the faith that I had, and that was now gone. So I became kind of bitter and angry about that. And after kind of working through that, I now am very open to wherever faith leads me without the baggage of a religion telling me what is right and wrong. So that's the whole story in 60 seconds. But I'm actually filming a documentary about it. Actually. The opening scene is kicked off with my first ever mushroom trip, which is how documentary.

You ate mushrooms and filmed yourself on it.

Correct.

And that was for the first time.

Yes. Yes.

No way.

Yeah, that's. And the reason we did that, while.

We'Re getting this is totally. If you're listening, I feel, like, kind of nervous going into all of this and really excited to hear about this.

Yeah, Well, I mean, I know many people that I respect saying they told me that their most spiritual experiences were on psychedelics. And I've never touched drug in my life. Like, I can't even spell lsd. I mean, I know nothing about. About drugs. I've never held. I never even held a cigarette in my hand. So the idea of the documentary is the pursuit of truth, wherever that leads me. And if there is. If there's an opportunity to find truth, then we have to pursue that. I believe that if God is real and is who we think he is, then he must reside on the side of truth. So the pursuit of truth would also be the pursuit of God and not the pursuit of religion and not the pursuit of Christianity or the pursuit of anything except what is actually true. And that is my religious journey, if you will, the pursuit of truth, wherever that leads me. And it led me, after asking mentors, what were your most spiritual experiences to say psychedelic. So, okay, well, I guess that's how we're kicking off this documentary.

Oh, my God. So what happened?

That would be a podcast in and of itself. Yeah. Let's just say this. I had some profound realizations, and then it quickly pivoted into a bad trip, and it was the most terrifying experience of my life, really. I had one of the most profound and terrifying experiences of my life that will be make for some good tv.

Oh my God, man, I'm so in. Tell me where to watch that episode.

Me back and I can give you the whole, the whole experience.

We can do, we can do a whole, we could do a whole podcast on psychedelics.

Well, if you want to hear about my religious journey on psychedelics and talk about the documentary, comment on the show notes or however we do this, email.

Us, send us, send us a message. You know, I'm andy@thefoundation.com. what's your email for this?

I don't even know. I don't check my own email.

Okay, great. Where do they get in touch with you?

Facebook.com and DanielMoran. There we go.

There you go. Please, please do if you're interested in that. Because that's like an edgy topic to get into and I don't want to do it unless people really want to hear it. But it's been a huge part of my path and growth has been experiments with this which we haven't ever actually talked about. But yeah, man, lots of similar similarities on the path. So I'm glad that we went down that and I think we'll table that until we get on our next interview together.

Business and money.

So business and money. So that's one thing. Spiritual stuff, that's one thing. But let's talk about business and money. So if you're listening to this and we're talking about this idea of brands versus just making money and I think it's really important because it's all part of a path. Right? Like you might start off making money and then evolve into the brand based building. But you've got to start somewhere. I want to talk about freedom, fast lane, live, what you're doing coming up. And I want to talk about it through the lens of is it a brand that you're building for people or is it a thing that you're just doing? So quick background, Ryan, you started this a year ago or two years ago.

This is our second event. Second a year ago.

So I was absolutely blown away. This is when we first met. We started talking and your event was coming up and I hadn't, I hadn't heard of like how much stuff you had done in the past and we hadn't met before that. And then all of a sudden I see this event and Ryan brought in just a killer freaking lineup of speakers totally out of the blue.

Right.

Like you pulled in. Who are some of the speakers from last year?

Gary Vaynerchuk. Robert Herjavec, founder of Priceline, Jeff Hoffman.

Grant Cardone, Pat Flynn, Totally like huge names. And I was like, who is Ryan and what is this event that's going on? This is last year. It was the first one they ever did. Tell me a little bit about your mentality behind why you did that for your first event. Most people I think would, and this goes back to the way I think Ryan thinks, most people I think would think it's our first event, let's keep it kind of small, figure out the kinks, blah, blah, blah. But you just freaking went for it.

So let me back up to give a little context because first I believe that the fastest path to financial freedom is to build a business and to invest the profits, bar none, have a business, take those profits, put them into long term investments. That is the route to financial freedom. I'm yet to see a model that is better than that.

So I call that the Freedom Fast Lane. And that's what we teach@freedomfastlane.com I make my money in my businesses, in my physical products businesses, in the businesses that I advise and consult for. That's where I make my money. I don't take a salary from Freedom Fast Lane. We roll that all into experiences which from a selfish perspective, it gets me around high level people, it allows me to expand my network, it gives me a platform to do cool things. So my goal in having events is to put the most amazing people in the room. So I'm at the event that I want to go to because ultimately I hate wasting three days of my life for an experience that isn't going to completely shatter all of my own paradigms. So I don't look at events or really anything that we do at Freedom Fast Lane as what is going to generate the highest roi. We look at it as how do we create the experiences for entrepreneurs so that we all up level as a result. So Freedom Fast Lane live. When we first did it, I said, okay, I hear all of these events, I don't know which ones to go to. So let me just make the one that I want to go to. The goal is to not lose money and let's put the biggest budget we have to bring in those that will naturally create the best experience for me. And if it creates the best experience for me, then people who resonate with me will also have an up leveling experience. So if they don't resonate with me, they're probably not following me anyway. So I violate Marketing 101 where I am not My own customer and I just try to put on the best experience possible that I know how to do. So we do that within the context of putting on an event that is about building businesses and investing the profits. Because that is the freedom fast lane. So that's why we went out and got Herjavec, Vaynerchuk, Cardone, Flynn Hoffman, all these breakthrough people. Because I wanted to have the best experience possible and hopefully not lose money. We accomplished that goal last year. This year we went very aggressive in terms of who we're bringing on. So we'll see if we don't lose money. But that's the goal of creating the best experience that could possibly exist in our industry. To constantly push that envelope and to not lose money so that we can continue doing it.

Dude, the lineup you guys pulled together this year is unreal. I'm like looking at it now. Peter Diamandis, John Mackey, Alicia Silverstone, Shawn Stevenson, JP Sears. Oh, that's fantastic. I don't know if you guys are listening. JP Sears is the guy who has the ultra spiritual videos.

How to be Gluten intolerant.

How to be Gluten Intolerant. Totally.

So here's a little context to this because forgive me if we're coming out of the gates of the pitch for my event, but the whole reasoning behind our lineup is who is doing things the fastest and the biggest in our entire space. Let's aggregate them into one spot and download all of the best things that they do. So JP Sears for example, isn't the guy that you think of as an entrepreneurial thinker, but he's built a million person following in a year doing really cool things. Selfishly. My following's like maybe 50,000 or 100,000. Right. And I've been at this a decade, so what am I doing wrong? I don't know. I better call JP Sears because he did a million in a year so selfishly. From an entrepreneurial perspective, that's what I care about and it'll be really fun because he's hilarious. Anyway.

We look at someone like John Mackey, he brought up the founder of Whole Foods is in a low margin business that's existed for 30 years and now does $13 billion in revenue selling none of their own. Well, I guess the 365 brand is whole Foods business. It's a white level brand but they're in a low margin business where they sell other people's products in retail with high overheads, high costs, low margins. How the heck does that business work? What happens there? Alicia Silverstone, the actress from Clueless, most people don't know, runs one of the most successful supplement brands in the world. Nobody noticed. Yeah. And she did it on part of the success of her personal brand. So these are all things that I have a selfish reason for inviting them because there's some piece of information I want to get rather than just listening to a bunch of interesting people talk. So that's the context of being able to create an event about going from just an idea to $100 million and every stage in between and every person that is speaking at the event has some sort of context there of an idea taking it to $100 million and every stage in between. And whether that is building the audience that used to launch products or it's taking like Cameron Herald is the guy that people go to when they're at 2 million to go to 100 million. So the idea is to walk away with that plan of how you're going to go from 0 to 1 or 1 to 10 or 10 to 100.

Beautiful. Beautiful. We are getting into. I'm surprised we are getting into this more than I expected we would for freedom fast lane. And I think part of it is we chose not to do a foundation live event this year. And I want people to go to this because in my, well, like in my experience with, and I think this is why we're getting into it a little earlier than normally. Just like a little soft thing at the end. In my experience, the things that have transformed my life the most have been live events, period. Hands down, bar none, it's the. Some of the closest friends in my life have all come from going to live events. The biggest jumps that I've made in my life have always been on the tail end of live events. When I, when I was working in corporate America, I went to south by Southwest for the first time and I got surrounded by this group of people. I was 24 years old, they were young 24 year olds making 6 figures, 7 figures, doing affiliate marketing stuff. And it made me realize that they're no smarter than me. There's no reason I can't be doing the exact same thing. And when I literally came home from that event and on Monday, I sat down with my boss and I was like, hey, I want to go part time because I want to go do this thing. A year later I went to south by Southwest, same thing. I came back on Monday, I put my two weeks notice in and it's because being in the group of people is so like, man, I just remember.

Can I tell you a story in that context?

Yeah, please do.

We had this terrible tagline for our first event, which is so, so bad for marketing, but it was how I felt. We called it Demystify the Impossible.

It was exactly what you said. Because there's these individuals who do these impossible things, like, how do you start priceline.com and sell that for hundreds of millions of dollars? That seems impossible to me. But after spending several hours with Jeff Hoffman, he's just like. He's a normal dude who just thinks differently than me. But what was interesting is I was on stage interviewing Robert Herjavec, and he told me about the day that they hit $50 million in revenue. And I was like, that was his big goal, $50 million in revenue in his company. So I was like, what was that like for you? And he said, oh, I got super depressed. I was like, okay, let's go there. Because that's not what I expected he'd say. I was like, do you throw a party? What? He's like, no, I got super depressed. And I said, please expound. And he said, well, once we got to this big goal, I realized that it was just like a goal. It didn't change anything. It just meant that my business was at the level that I wanted it to be. But I didn't feel any different. So if a goal is just a goal, why didn't I make it 100 million? Why didn't I make it 250 million? Why didn't I just go bigger? And he got super depressed. And it made me realize my goals are just as good as your goals. They're exactly the same. And I'm pretty much like, robert Herjavec is the same as me, except he had bigger goals and surrounded himself with different people and built a different type of company. So I guess a billion dollars or $100 million is just an illusory goal that doesn't matter either way. And you might hit it or you might not hit it. It's just kind of the thing that pulls you in a certain direction. So you might as well just set your goals with things that excite you and things that give you the life you want, rather than the egoic pursuit of whatever you think is going to make you happy. Because Robert went down that road and it made him depressed. So that's interesting. I guess I'll just set my goal to whatever I want it to be or however big I want it to be. And it's just an idea in my.

Brain, what goals do you have right now?

I'm not only Cleveland Indians, and what.

Does it take to do it? Like, do you know, $. Like, what does it cost to buy the Cleveland Indians?

Yeah, between 6 and 800 million. Somewhere between there is what it'll cost. So right now, in my immediate. As we record this, my goal, like my daily affirmation, if you will, is that I enjoy my life more and more every day. That's my primary goal because I've spent the last 10 years being an entrepreneur and hustling and grinding and burning myself out, and I can't. Like, I don't want to do that anymore. And so my immediate goal is doing less and optimizing the things that I really want to be doing, because I legitimately believe that will create the fastest growth curve. So I won't get to the billion dollars burning myself out. I'll be dead. So my primary goal now is doing less, but doing it better and enjoying my life more and more and allowing myself to really sink into the opportunities that come up within that space.

Interesting. This is a question. I was talking John Berardi, Precision Nutrition. You follow them at all?

I don't.

Dude, he's so dialed.

He. They've.

They've doubled almost every year. I think they're approaching $100 million or something. He goes to five events per year. He works 35 hours a week. He spends most of the time with his family. And there's like, this question for. So if you're listening, I've been wondering because I've followed Fell into, like, a similar experience of prioritizing life and, like, slowness and allowing me to have space? Do you think you have to go through that phase of hustling, or do you think that you can do this from the beginning of, like, going slow, focusing on the right things, and still getting the growth speed that you want?

I think you can do it from the beginning. I just think most people don't because they don't know that that's a thing. Right. I mean, if you've. If you're going to do that from the beginning, then you've got to be naturally good at building teams or you've got to naturally have a partner that's good at building teams and doing automation. So, absolutely, you can do it from the beginning. That's just not a natural skill that most people come out of the gate having. So I think as a result, most people just grind and they learn that it gets them to a certain point. But if they want to grow Then they've got to learn a different skill set. That's my experience and I think the experience of most entrepreneurs. But if you have that guy who just comes out of the womb with systems and processes in his brain and understands how to build a company bigger than himself or herself from the beginning of their career, you could theoretically do that from the beginning. I just think that's the rare type of entrepreneur.

So talk to me about beginning phases because you've started multiple companies, you've been through this process, you've coached, I mean, however many people, a lot of people through a similar process. If you're sitting and you're listening to this interview and you're like, man, Ryan, all of these big picture thinking stuff, it sounds awesome, but dude, I just want to be making ten grand a month. Like, where do I start from there? Like, what is the first thing that I do? Where do I get my first product up? How do I get my first customers? Like, if you're having somebody start from scratch, where do you have them go?

I mean, there are two pieces to that equation, and it is the audience that you serve and the pain points they have and the solution that you give them the product that you sell. And most people really get one of these and they're really bad at marrying the two together. For example, a lot of the clients and customers I work with know that I've had a lot of success selling on Amazon.com so they think Amazon is the way. So the question is like, how do I make the monies on the Amazons to. And it makes me want to punch a wall. Because the channel where you collect orders is certainly a good question to ask. But a better question to ask is, who is the audience that you're serving and how are you giving them a solution? If we answer those two questions, everything else is super easy. If we know who we're serving, we know exactly where to go get customers. Because wherever those people are already hanging out and we know exactly what their pain points are and how we're going to develop a solution to give it to them. It's just an equation that you fill in. Most people start with, I have this product I want to sell. Like, I have this jump rope. How do I sell more jump ropes? And the question becomes, okay, who wants it, who needs it? Where do they hang out and what solution does it solve? That's all the marketing you need to have a six, probably even a seven figure business. Fill in those equations, you put them together, you're in business.

Who wants it who needs it? Where do they hang out? What pain does it solve?

Right.

Great.

Can you give me an example with a product you've launched on Amazon of how that applied?

Yeah, I can do that. So.

The first business I ever launched was a yoga products company. And I built that company up and sold it. And our first product was a yoga mat. And my business partner came to me with this list of business ideas. And this is one of those scenarios where I was.

Investing in the person, not necessarily the business. So this was a person I wanted to work with. He's one of my best friends and he came to me with. He came to me as the workhorse. I came to him with funding. He brought to me. He's like, these are the businesses that I'm thinking about going into. I looked at him and I was like, yoga, we're going into yoga. And he was like, where's your analysis? How did you make this decision? And I was like, well, my analysis is that's a market, whereas all these other things are products. So we're going into yoga. So we developed a yoga mat as the first product. And this seems so silly and simple to me, but there are many individuals that follow me, that ask me, okay, I've got my first product selling what should the next product be? And it's like, I have a yoga mat. Should I sell a muscle building supplement or should I sell an iPhone case? And for me, if you want to have a brand, if yoga mat is the first product, then a yoga block is going to be the second product. Then the yoga towel is going to be the third product because you're building a brand that serves a very specific person, which is someone who does yoga, who's probably doing it to increase flexibility, is probably doing it because they want. They have certain beliefs that they carry with them that probably means they're environmentally conscious. So we came out like we were the. We were an environmentally friendly yoga products brand. And that was the solution that we were giving to our target market. And that was that's building a brand versus selling a product. That's why we were able to package that company up and sell it versus just take orders on Amazon.

How did you get customers?

We got our customers by picking a channel, which for us was Amazon.com nice. And then building up followings where we advertise them and then collected the order on Amazon. So, for example, we built up Facebook communities. We built up a page called I love Yoga, drove Facebook ads to it, built up an audience of. Started at 5,000 people, gave them inspirational quotes, content, videos. I mean, just basic social media stuff where we're sharing content with them. And then we launched our products to that audience. And we know that they want our products because they love yoga. I know that this is so complex, but we built up the audience. We spent like 8 bucks a day to build up that following and send content to them. Launched the yoga business to that audience. We took our orders on Amazon. Now, you can swap out these equations however you want. For example, Shreds is a supplement company. They spend all of their marketing on building up audiences on Instagram. They collect their orders. This is for dudes who want to look like they're on steroids.

That's who. Like bros. And they collect their orders on their E Commerce store, which are E commerce sales pages. So that's how they collect the order. That's how they provide the solution. They build up their marketing and their audience through Instagram. Now, we can swap these out however we want. We can pick and choose the channel and where the audience is and replace it with Pinterest or Facebook or YouTube or whatever it is. And we can collect the order on Amazon or retail or E commerce store or jet.com or whatever we want. The important thing is that we fill in the parts of that equation and that's when you're in business.

Beautiful. I love that you're distinguishing. You find the audience wherever they're at and you take the order on wherever that is at. But not getting lost into like, oh, we're on Instagram for this, or Amazon for this. Where people just think, oh, I should be doing the Instagram thing, I should be in the Amazon thing. It's like, no, you should understand the mindset of business, which is find the group of people, figure out what their problem is. Figure out a product that helps them.

Yeah. And scale that channel as much as commit to that channel and scale that as much as you know how and then go on to another channel. Yeah. You and I podcast, right? Yes. And we would have failing podcasts if we did this for 10 weeks and then tried to be Instagram experts.

Totally.

For the life of me, cannot get myself to post on Instagram regularly. I'm never going to do it. I'm never going to be good at it. But I love to sit in front of a microphone and tell you my thoughts. Totally obvious channel for me is for me to be providing good content on my podcast and do that regularly. And to maximize that channel, it is not to go out and be posting pictures. It's just not my thing. I just can't do it. But there are people who do that, that do a great job, and they have huge audiences, and that works for them. So pick a channel, marry that, Go deep there.

How do people find what channel they naturally gravitate towards?

Well, how do you feel comfortable providing, engaging with your audience? Or if you're not the one doing it, then which one do you understand the most so that you can create a plan and hand that off to whoever's implementing it? I think some are better than others, but the important thing is that you go really deep into that channel. For example, if I look at it objectively, I think podcasting is not the best medium to build an audience. I think it's actually a far inferior way to build an audience. Why? Because my YouTube videos get way more views than my podcasts.

Totally.

I've got a really good podcast for me, might get 50,000 downloads, whereas my best YouTube videos get half a million downloads. But I'm just not gonna pull out my phone or, you know, script out a video every day. Whereas I can talk in front of a microphone and make amazing content because, you know, I could be naked and doing a podcast totally half the time. I am. So.

I do that because happiness is important to me and because I want to be able to provide the. The best content for my audience. So I don't know. I'm answering your question, but I think whatever is in alignment with your vision and your company's ability to produce. Yeah.

Here's what I'm getting from hearing you speak. The mindset piece of focusing. Get rid of whatever the tactic seems like. Focus on who are you serving, what are their pain points and what products are going to serve them. And doing that in a. In a way that is what you naturally gravitate towards. Whether that is talking, writing, graphic design of cool little things that you post on Amazon. Figure out where you naturally gravitate towards and build it around that. That's what I'm getting.

I have nothing to add. Great.

I love it, man. It's so simple. It's so simple when you break it down that way. And I think people make it so complex when they.

Yeah, of course, we all make it complex because we tend to marry our own ideas, like whatever we think is best. We tend to get lost in that. Which is why having an outside opinion can be so helpful, because they're seeing this other piece of the spectrum while you've got this jump rope that you feel emotionally attached to and you just want to sell as Much jump rope as possible.

Totally.

And that's just not a way to build a business. Totally.

Nice, man. I know we're coming up on time here, man. I definitely want to do another interview with you.

Do I have to be dressed?

No, absolutely not. And if you're listening, you have no idea if he is right now.

Definitely want to do another interview. I want to go down the rabbit hole of losing my religion stuff. That stuff is just so fascinating to me. And if you're listening, I want to. I want to circle back to freedom. Vast lane stuff.

So I'll say this. We built the event specifically for those who are either brand builders, Internet entrepreneurs, investors, or want to be entrepreneurs with a big vision. But our core market is people who think big, that build brands, or that are big thinking Internet entrepreneurs or who invest. Because we have found that those are the people who, when they play together, magic happens. So if you've got an audience, but you're not trying to monetize that audience, and you combine that with an investor and you combine that with somebody who's building a brand, magic happens between the three of those.

Totally.

And so we try to put those people into the same room with the guidance of those who have gone from 0 to 100 million in every stage in between. So put the right people in the right context. And that is when flowery goodness tends to happen and big paradigms get shattered totally. We call it a three day experience that completely changes your paradigms and gives you a clear path to go from 0 to 1, 1 to 10 or 10 to 100, depending on what level you're at. And it's December in Austin, Texas. December 9th 10th and 11.

December 9th, 10th and 11. I've been sitting here thinking about, why do I keep wanting to bring this up? I think if you're in one of those categories, if you've got a big vision and you're just getting started, the most impactful thing that you can do is be around big thinking people who have done it. And what I think makes this event so unique is that the events that I've really enjoyed the most and gotten the most out of, it's because I got into them when they were early. I'll give you a great example. 212. There's this event called 212 is in Boulder. Do you see this at all?

No, I don't know that one.

It was in August. They brought in Tim Ferriss, Noah Kagan, John Berardi, the guy that I mentioned, Ryan Holiday, the editor of Entrepreneur magazine and the list went on for about 15 mentors at that level, and then they capped the event at 70 people. It was absolutely phenomenal. And I got to sit down with the editor of Entrepreneur magazine, and I wanted to learn how to pitch PR really well. So we're talking. I was like, hey, can you take out your phone for me and show me what emails you respond to and which ones you don't? And I figured out what the subject lines are that actually would get him to open an email every single time. Because it was an event like that where it was all big thinking people, the event was curated, and it was the first time they did it. And because it was the first time they did it, you have this, like, early adopter benefit from doing it. And I think that's why I'm so attracted to freedom Fast lane. Especially if. If there's one event that you want to go to this year. This is why I think it's a big one, because you're attracting that level of people. And it's still early in its infancy. It's not like a South by Southwest where everybody goes and everybody knows of it, or wds, you know, World Domination Summit. They went. Within three years, they were at a thousand people that were attending the event versus the first year. It was just a couple hundred of us. So that's why I feel so excited about. If you're listening. Why I would love to see you there at the event is because I think it's in that unique sweet spot this year where you can get your foot in the door. Some really, really incredible people.

Yeah. The caliber per attendee is extremely high. And it's still accessible. Yeah, still have. Like Jesse Elder said, this is the only event I've ever seen where billionaire Jeff Hoffman is to my left eating chicken skewers. And it's not weird for somebody to go up and just be like, hey, I have a question for you. What's up, dude? Yeah, and that happens like little breakouts happen independently, where some rock star starts going on a tangent and 13 to 20 people kind of gather around and it's like this mini, informal strategy session that happens. We even have this, we call it our elite access level now, where we're capping it at 25 people, where when a speaker gets off stage, you get up and go with them and you're literally backstage with them and you're hanging out with them before they go into, like, the VIP room and take pictures and do things super cool. We try to create the atmosphere where there is a high level expectation where there's still access. Because I've like you have found that the biggest breakthroughs have come from who I've met and the conferences I've gone to and the atmospheres I've surrounded myself in. And every single major up level I've had in my career has come from that experience.

Yep, it's like a cheat code for leveling up really, really quickly. And I think you said it perfectly of what makes us unique is like the ratio, the ratio of high caliber people that are there. It's so high. So Austin, Texas, December 9th, 10th and 11th.

You got it.

Website to go register freedomfastlane live.com freedomfastlanelive.com and then if you go, and if you go because you listen to this podcast, email me, email me@andythefoundation.com I'll send you my cell phone number and we'll throw a little get together while we're there. For anyone who comes from starting from Nothing crew from the foundation group, we'll throw some little meetup or party one night.

Awesome. Sounds really fun.

Thanks for coming on. This was really fun. I'm stoked to do it again and have some more time with you to go deeper down those rabbit holes.

Man, I told myself I would never consider myself successful until I was on your podcast. So to be successful.

Oh, you're welcome. You've made it officially arrived.

Awesome, dude. Catch you later.

Thanks, Andy.

One of the things that Andy and I both share in our background is we have direct experience talking about the power that happens when you get into a room and everybody is on the same mission, the same path. And he does it in software. He's doing the software Summit that's@thesoftwaresummit.com, putting some of the smartest software entrepreneurs on the planet into a room. He openly talked about how some of his greatest experiences as an entrepreneur happen at events. And I do it selfishly at Freedom Fast Lane Live because that's my opportunity to take the people I want to learn from, the smartest entrepreneurs on the planet, put them into one place and invite other people to hang out with us.

Once again.

We're closing those ticket sales on December 1st, so you'll want to grab yours over at freedomfastlane live.com it's the thing I'm most proud of that we do here at Freedom Fast Lane. It's also the most expensive and the least profitable thing we do.

We do.

We basically work for six months to make no money. But it's the thing that I enjoy the most and I'm most proud of. So I hope you will join us in Austin, Texas this December. I know this is a little bit different and the topic was a little bit different, especially when I talked about religion and psychedelics. So I hope you found value of me opening up and peeling back the curtains a bit and talking a little bit about what the heck we're doing behind the scenes here and some of the things that are in my head and in my background. I thought Andy did a great job of that, so I hope you found value in it. As always, I appreciate you supporting the show and subscribing on itunes that helps us spread our message of freedom and capitalism. I appreciate you supporting the show and I'll talk to you in the next episode.