Howard Panes - From $600,000 in debt to over $300,000,000+ in revenue

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Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode we have a very special guest and before we get into it, first off, I want to say thank you so much for tuning into today's episode and I'm going to be giving you some insight into who you are about to hear from. So here we go. In 2010, Howard Pontus was $600,000 in debt and lost his house to a short sale when he entered into the E cigarette industry, ramping it up within 18 months to over $100 million in several years later, after an astounding exponential growth, Japan Tobacco International, a corporate giant with 27,000 employees and $20 billion in annual revenue, acquired the company. So I'm very excited. Howard Pontus is literally the first person that I can confidently say that this is their first podcast interview ever and I'm very excited to have him on today. And that being said, we're enjoy the show.

What's going on everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today we have Howard Pattis here with us today. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

What's up? What's up everybody? If you watch my Instagram, that's pretty much how I go with my intro. Thanks for having me on. This is my first official podcast and I'm doing it from one of my many gyms in my house on my nine year old treadmill. Keep moving all day.

I love it. I love it. So real quick. Like I said, I appreciate you coming on the show. This is your first podcast and I've been following you on social media for, I would say a little over six months now. And you live with such an amazing, interesting life and I know with this being one of your first podcasts, I'd love to really just start off by asking you, when did you become an entrepreneur and what led you to start your own business?

You know, ever since at a young age, probably 8, 9, 10 years old, I had family that was in the trucking business. And when kids were going to camp during the summer, I was going to the trucking terminal, loading trucks, you know, taking packages. My grandmother had me stamping envelopes at the time. There was a machine before the fax called the telex. And I was just, I like to make money because I like to buy things. So at a young age, like a lot of these other entrepreneurs, I, I didn't want to go to camp. I want to do. And I like physical, physical labor. You know, I like stuff where I feel like I was, I was doing something as opposed to just going during the summers and playing sports with the other kids. So it started a young age, and then 13, 14, built my first motorized skateboard. Used one of these bumble bike motors, hooked it on a pair of forks, bolt it into a skateboard, and I had a 35 mile an hour manual skateboard that I jumped on around the block going 35 miles an hour. I was shoveling driveways at 14, doing people's windows in their house, any odd jobs. I wanted to make money. I had it in me at a young age. I was, you know, reading Tony Robbins books. 12, 13. So I come from a family and entrepreneurs and I think, you know, that come from Eastern Europe, had nothing, came here very poor. So I, you know, I grew up around that and just the mentality that if I wasn't going to do it, no one was going to do it for me. So that's how it started at a young age. Very cool.

I'd love to catch people up to speed because I know just through following you on Instagram, you recently had a big exit. I'd love for you to touch on that, on what your last company was, just to bring people up to speed on where you are.

So basically, you know, my story is crazy. It's a crazy story because my whole life I was a personal trainer and we could talk about that, but I was always into fitness, exercise, martial arts. And back in 2000, 2008, 2009, you know, I basically saw one of my biggest pet peeves in life was smoking. I hated smoke. I had anything to do with drinking, smoking, all these things that you could do to really hurt your body. In my mind, I wanted to be super physically fit, super strong, super active. This was just my mindset at a young age. And so 2010 rolls around, I had a personal training studio in New Jersey. Big competitors like Lifetime Fitness, Equinox popping up. You know, I was one of the pioneers of personal training. Back in 1990, nobody had personal training studios. Body Bike Jake was one of the first. Jake Seinfeld was one of the first personal trainers. So, you know, I was ahead of my time there. So 2010 rolls around and I said, you know what this is? I'm doing good. I'm making money. You know, I'm making 150,000 a year, 200,000 a year. I live in an upscale area in Short Hills. We got expensive cars, expensive house. A million six for the house, huge mortgage. The treadmill. I'm running on the treadmill, 20 miles an hour and it ain't fast enough going under. So I said, what am I going to do? And before that, I had a lot of startups that failed. I mean, nobody hits it on the first one, right? You take lots of swings before you hit it out of the park. So 2010, we start this electronic cigarette company. Imagine this. The personal trainer and the hairdresser next door. The personal trainer and the hairdresser. Just to make the short story, we take a company with 10 grand each and build it to 100 million in sales in 18 months. Hustle, sweat, determination. I took individual electronic cigarettes to people's mouths inside 7 11, put on little taste tips and said, here. Oh, you're like Marlboro Trylogic. One by one, mouth by mouth. Of course, you wouldn't be doing that today with coronavirus, let alone me putting stuff to people's mouth. So here we are. We took a company from nothing, 10 grand each to 100 million in sales in 18 months. And by the way, no factors, no loans, no investors, no credit cards, just pure. We got the cash rolling. We ordered 5,000 units, 10,000 units, 30,000 units. We had a cash machine. It was like Pablo Escobar kind of money.

Yeah.

And we were just. It was like out of a movie.

Okay.

And yes, we built the company up to monster. A monster valuation. Everybody want, as we said, Logic. And 2015, we sold the Japan Tobacco. And people said, well, how much is selling for? It was an undisclosed sale. I said, you know, a nice bag of cash.

Got it.

Japan Tobacco is probably one of their largest tobacco companies in the world. Goldman Sachs did our deal. You know, Goldman doesn't do small deals.

Yeah.

And so we really took something from nothing and built it to a monster company. I haven't seen anyone do it with. You know, you have everyone Raising money now. Valuations, billions of dollars. They had to raise 400 million. We started with 20 grand. I don't know many people who have done it with a product. When we sold it, we had 100,000 points of distribution. Wow. We had our offices in Pompano Beach. We started out in a 300 square foot space across from my gym. We had kids from high school putting on UPC labels at night on the packaging. Now one of the great thing was when we started with Logic, Just a funny story. One of the toughest things when people went into a convenience store was how do they choose the right product? You know, at the time there was 50, 60 competitors. So I had plain white boxes. So what did I do? Told the guy in a convenience store, if someone smokes Marlboro, I put on my box, Marlboro Light, Marlboro Regular, Menthol. I put Newport on my box. So I told them here, if they want Newport, send them to Logic. Newport. Oh, what was that? That was a menthol 1.8 regular.

Okay.

I said, oh, they want Marlboro Light here. Yep. Do you know? So this is how we did it. We taught the customer, we taught the store owner, the manager how to give them the right product. So besides having the best flavor, the best vapor, the best, strongest battery, we're the only ones shipping by air. We just have the right combination and this is why we need everybody.

So interesting. So when it comes to after the sale.

Yeah.

How did your life change and where did you start to put your focus after you sold that company?

So before, you know, before I started the Company, I was 600,000 in debt going on and through a divorce, I had nothing. I was five feet under. I was broke. Broke like a joke. Couldn't make my rent payments. Nothing. I mean, I know what it is to be negative zero, not knowing where you're going to go next. My friends, they wouldn't loan me a dime. They said, here are the worst ideas. You can't focus, you're all over the place. I said, you know what? That's my power. My powers, my brain, my thoughts, my ideas. And then I had to harness in. And that's where I harnessed into Logic. So none of these guys believed it would happen. They could all invested today. They wish they invested. So after the sale, how did my life change? You know, I'm still the same guy. I never changed. You know, I see a lot of pompous assholes on Instagram and all over social media showing their glass cups this, that they're fancy. You know what? I have nice stuff. I mean, I show the cars and everything, but to me, I don't know, I'm not about glamour or, you know, you don't see me at black tie events and it's just not me. I'm not about fancy. I don't care about fancy. I can eat canned food for a year. I could live in a trailer, train out of a trailer. But obviously, it's nice to know you have money in the bank. So just in case the day comes where you need it, you got it. So how did it change? You know, I was able to send one of my kids to the best sports academy. I was able to do things. I'm getting a good sweat going here while we're doing this. Getting two things done at once. Help out a variety of charities and so forth. Help other people that needed it. Inspire. You know, Instagram has been a great platform for me to help inspire others to do better. Get into fitness. You know, fitness and health are really my passion. That's my life. You know, people say, how did you go from fitness to e cigs? That's total, like, contradictory. And I said, actually, it's not. It's in my mind. I said, this is a. For a smoker, it's a better, smarter way to make the transition from combustion to electronic. This was my mission. You're not going to believe this. This is crazy. But I used to go to the trade shows and people would flip out. I'd be next to, like, Marlboro and I'd have these cigarettes on me and I go down with cancer and I'd take the cigarettes and smash them in front of people. They'd be like, dude, that's a crazy guy. From Logic.

Yeah. Wow.

So interesting. I'm super passionate. I love helping people. You know, money, money's nice, but it doesn't. It doesn't move me. What moves me is what moved me is people that take the information that we give them and utilize it to make their life better. You know, the things you do, the interviews you're doing, the information you get to share with others. This is great. You know, our best purpose in life is to share our knowledge, our education and resources to help others. There's nothing else, really. I mean, cars are cars and Bugatti and McLarens and Porsches. They're all great and everything, but at the end of the day, how are you helping others?

Right. Very cool. Bring up too. Just regarding fitness, right before we started this, you were asking me how many steps I Have a day. And I have, like, 3,700 a day. And you're like, you got to get to 10,000. But I wanted to make a point of this because, you know, everyone's at their homes right now, quarantined, with everything going on in the world right now. I'd love for you to touch on that. How can people stay in their best shape during a time of uncertainty, where people may be stressed and have anxiety?

So to get into this, you know, through all my barriers, through all my tough times in life, and every challenge I've gone through, what's gotten me through it is going and working out. Basically, you know, this is where you take out all your anxiety, all your stress, all your fears for me, you know, even though they may not be present, you know, and I can feel them right at that moment, they're subconsciously in you. So by working out and getting your endorphins going, it makes me. Let me feel like Superman, you know, every day when I work out, I feel like Superman. I really do. Because I say to myself, you know, working out is like brushing your teeth. If you don't do it every day, your teeth are gonna rot. Same with working out. So that's what brought me to build my new company right there. Little Plug Stealth Body Fitness. My sales, I can't even keep up with sales. I can't even make enough product. We're sold out. We're 10,000 back ordered. And I'm not just doing a sales pitch. It's six months ago. It's a different story. Takes time to build a brand. It's been five years. I haven't taken a penny out of the company. But now it's exploded. Why? Like you said, people are home. What can they do? The thing is a thing called macro movements. You don't have to do a workout for an hour. You could do little things, like, for example, you're on your desk, right? And in between podcasts, say 45 minutes, you do 50, 100 jumping jacks for the day. That's your movement, say, one movement, or you do alternate lunges for a minute. This, compounded, is better than working out for an hour a day and doing nothing the rest of the day. You can't make up for the rest of the day sitting on your ass or doing nothing with one hour in the morning at the gym. And this is what Stealth Go is, this new app that we're working on in conjunction with Stealth, where it'll build in walking steps, micro workouts throughout the day using our Products integrated and give you a score. Integrated with nutrition as well. So it's called Stealth Body Fitness and we created a group called Stealth Nation. And I'm telling you, I'm like, I can't sleep at night because you know, we hit 10,000 members on Facebook and I'm doing new stealth moves daily to show people what you can do with the stealth board without using the games.

So the whole idea is I always see you using a stealth board for those who may not know what it is. Can you explain what the stealth board is?

Yeah. So basically. Hold on one second. This is gonna do. This we're gonna do here. Hold on right here. Because seeing is believing. Okay.

Okay.

So this is a little part of my gym here. Listen, I'm all about fitness. You know, I see guys, social media guys showing their fitness guys. You know, all of a sudden they're fitness guys.

They're hard guys.

Now they're fitness guys. Come on. Alright, so the stealth, you're on this 360 degree board and what you're doing is we have free games and premium games. And what you're doing is it's making you move your whole body in different movements while you're playing the game. So you're playing the game with your core and your core is the control of the game. Very cool. So we set up different challenges. We have people competing all over the world. Yeah, we have people competing all over the world. You're working your whole body under three minutes. And you know what the key is? You're working on your posture. Most people's posture is the thing that's suffering from sitting, driving too much, you know, being in traffic, going to work. You know, a lot more people are walking now. You know, I said how many steps are you doing? Because a lot more people walking now. Walking is great. Increases your white blood, which helps increase your immunity. You got to be fit, you know, you got to be fit in life for things like this. I'm not saying it's going to save you, but you have a better chance, right? Yep. Preparation is key. You know that.

Totally. So yeah, with what you said just now with, you know, everyone is walking coronavirus, I'd love to get your thoughts on just this whole pandemic as a whole. How the US has responded to it. Where you see it going from someone that, you know, you, you're health conscious. Right. And it's, it's very important.

I'm crazy. I was quarantined. I was quarantined four weeks before everybody. Because our Factory was shut down in China. We heard that it's coming here. We heard this problems in China with this virus. And I heard there were some cases here, but you know, nobody pays attention until they start hearing it on the TV or someone famous gets sick and they're like, oh my God, you know, the best the NBA players got, Corona. It's real, it's a real thing, you know, and sometimes it's not real to people until it hits home, you know, it's unfortunate. So, you know, it's like when people say, oh, I had a heart attack and then I started working out. Well, you knew you had heart disease, your doctor told you your blood pressure was high, your cholesterol was through the, your blood pressure was through the roof, your cholesterol was over 300. All your arteries are probably clogged and he has the heart attack and he says, oh my God, I'm going to start working out. Taking aspirin a day. Same thing with the pandemic. People are reacting right rather than taking action early. So I'm telling all your listeners today, take action early in your life. Now, now the pandemic is here. You can't. But for the future, get your steps in, be healthy, try to eat organic foods, do intermittent exercises throughout the day. You know, this pandemic has been rough. It's been rough. You know, as toughest minded person as I am, it is scary. You know, I reach out. I got a lot of friends who are docs and there are some people with immune deficiency disease that don't even know it. They said, howie, you could have it. It's tested by your blood, with your blood issue. Very rare. Someone gets that test done and you know, you heard about this 30 year old coach from New Jersey that died or some of these young people and they have immune disease that they don't even know about. And one in every 500 people have this and you wouldn't know, like you could be a healthy individual and this, this thing will take you down. My advice is stay home, stay clear of everybody. My thing is I'm going to wait this out as long as possible till it's a good vaccine, you know, of course I've stocked up on some of the drugs in France they said are available and got them. And obviously I would never use them without under a doctor's guidance. But just so I have my own stash, because who knows? I say be prepared.

How long do you think this will last?

You know what? I think we're looking at another couple, two, three Months, it'll die down, but then it'll start flaring up again. I'm bringing in 1 million masks over the next week. It's called masksquick.com and basically, you know, we're donated to hospitals. We're also be offering masks. You know, I think they're like a dollar each. Just the regular masks from China, three ply, FDA approved. Because I think most people during the day are going to have to wear masks, you know, so I'd rather supply them something they can trust and they know something that's good. So very cool. I think it's a good thing. Yep. You know, I think we're going to be wearing masks like people, you know, they do in China, as they've been doing culturally for a long time.

What do you think about the $2 trillion stimulus being put into the economy?

You know, I'll be honest with you. I've never been a political guy. Never looked at the government really. I sort of just fought for myself, my family and my life. I never got into, oh, what the president's doing, what the government's doing, because I know they can't help me. This has been my view my whole life. I'm an entrepreneur. I got help myself. If I'm going to look for a $1200 check, I'm fucked if that's what I'm going to wait for. For twelve hundred dollars, I'm fucked because I could spend that before I breathe in the morning. No, you know, so, so, you know, I, you know, I don't follow where they put the money too closely. I know they were putting it to a museum, which is ridiculous. It's your post office, all this money. I mean, I know, you know, the Democrats, Republicans, people trying to get their own, take advantage of the situation to get the money they want for whatever. Cause they want to pass a bill and it's a terrible thing. Yep. You know, it's a terrible thing. I, you know, right now I tell people, just don't react, listen, learn. You know, it's like person when they're on the ground, right. You got to give them cpr. You know, you tell them, look, listen. So this is my view on it. It's gonna take some time. Everybody stay home.

Yeah, totally.

You know, they say stay the fuck home, stay home.

Totally.

You don't have to venture out. I use Instacart to bring the stuff. But they had a strike, so. But I stocked up. I bought another refrigerator for all my frozen foods. I make a lot of smoothies.

Very cool. I want to ask you, just regarding, like, kind of change the subject a bit with entrepreneurs in this state right now of, you know, this pandemic. What's your advice to people maybe starting a company or that have small businesses during a time like this?

You know, I think anytime you start a business, you have to think of, is it serving a need or is just something in your mind, Are you solving a problem? Are you making people's lives easier? Are you helping them, whatever that might be? You know, my brother called me this morning. He's an entrepreneur out of New Jersey. He does, you know, he really specializes in, like, garage cleanups. You know, nobody wants to create Clean Dave's Garage Cleaners. They never want to clean their own garage or set up these, you know, organize them. He's been so busy during this, you know, people refinishing their floors in their garage because they go home to a shithouse and they don't even look at it. Usually now they're. Now they're in the shit, right? So I'll tell you. So I'm working on this thing called the Howie Method. Okay, what's the Howie Method? Yeah, that's my name. And I said to myself, you know, why was I named Howie? And I pondered on this on a long flight coming back from I don't know where I was in Italy maybe. And by the way, my prayers out to Italy, they're losing a lot of good people there. So the Howie Method, what is it? You know, why was my name stamped that from day one? And I said, holy shit. I came up with it, you know, and basically this relates to your question, you know, about being an entrepreneur and what it takes and what to do in this time. It's like, what to do in any time as an entrepreneur. Anything that's great takes hard work. There's no. There's no sneaking the system, hacking the system. It's all bullshit. You have to put the work in. Like you, you know, you put the work in. You're. I see you on your podcast. It takes time. It takes energy, coordination, follow up, you know, for each person. It doesn't happen. Just you blink, you snap your fingers and, oh, I got a podcast business. No, you know, so you've been doing a great job. So, you know, hard work, hard work, you can't escape it. My grandparents, when they came here from Eastern Europe, they put in hard work. My grandfather was a fruit park vendor. O O is for originality. You got to be original. You gotta be yourself. Everybody trying to be like somebody else who Am I gonna be today? I'm not gonna be this guy. Am I gonna be that guy? Who the fuck am I?

Yeah.

Gotta be you. So I came up with this hashtag that I trademarked called be you, Be real, be proud.

Got it.

You know?

You know, so I'm losing my mind now.

So that was the O.

And so. So then I'm gonna skip around here because I'm forgetting my own method. I'm working on this. I'm working on this.

You're good. You're good.

It's gelling. Okay, so it's actually. I mixed it up a little bit, but, like, the W is for the work, and the H is for health, so doesn't matter. You switch it around. H is for health, right? Because you got to be healthy. You got to be healthy. You got to do things that improve your quality of life. If you don't have health, you don't have shit, Right? So in a W, the W is for work. You got to put the work in the I. The I is something I've been doing my whole life. Innovate. You got to innovate. You can't just do what everybody else is doing. Everybody was doing planks around the world. Millions of people. I did stealth, the world's first gamified plank exercise. Planks have been around. Everyone used their phone. What did I do? Oh, I integrated the phone with a game, put it on a board, and all of a sudden, now you're gaming with your core. That's the I for love.

That.

E is for energy. Energy and enthusiasm. You got to be energized, enthusiastic in life. Otherwise, no one will listen, no one will be motivated, and nothing will happen. So I hope I'm energizing your audience.

Love that. No, absolutely. I can feel the energy, and I want to take it back for a second because there's a lot of young people that listen to this.

Do you feel a little energized when.

You talk to me? Oh, absolutely. Right when you came on, I was like, okay, I need my treadmill right here.

Okay, good. No, no, I want to. I want to know if you feel my energy enthusiasm, because this is what I feed and live off of.

It radiates. Trust me.

Okay, cool, Cool.

When it comes to, you know, young entrepreneurs, and if you were to look back on your journey, I know you said, you know, you were $600,000 in debt, and these. These times and experiences you had that led you to your success. What advice do you give to, you know, young entrepreneurs that are starting A business today based on the journey and experience you have up until this point, you know.

You know, my journey was as a personal trainer. When I got Syracuse University with my degree in business and retail, I knew I didn't want to be in retail when Staples offered me an aisle manager job for 25 grand. And I looked at my mom and I said, four years of college. 25 grand being an aisle manager? What the fuck is that? No fucking way. And at the time, my mother had a personal trainer. I was working with her, and I actually went under his wing, you know, and got in the business. And for 22 years, I did what I love, training and coaching, and I had a good business. You know, what is. I was never good at managing money, and today I'm not that great. I have other people. I have a great team. I was. I never had a good. I never had good discipline for managing the money. So now I have a whole team, different banking teams. They manage my money, you know, and you know what? It's okay. You don't have to be great at everything. I tell people, you don't have to be great at everything. Focus on what you're great at, what your. Where you think your strengths are, and stay with that, you know, I think as an entrepreneur, I was great at training. I kept clients for two decades through making them feel better, making them perform better at work because they felt better about themselves, whether it's someone in sales, whether it's someone that was. That had travel a lot and had more energy, or someone that had. There was a guy who was. I took his blood pressure one day during an evaluation. He was like, his. His. His diastolic, which is his lower number, was like over 120. He went right to the hospital, had to have surgery that afternoon.

Wow.

Saved that guy. I mean, there's lots of those instances. So I think, you know, I mean, I wouldn't have changed anything. All that experience brought me to where I am today. But no, days are all great days. I say. Business is like a boxing match, you know, Some days you're getting hit way more guys are putting you in a headlock, you're getting submission halts, but you just can't fucking submit. You got to just keep going and that's, you know, and surround yourself with the right people. My grandmother had a great saying. I don't know if you ever heard me say this, but if you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. You know, you got to hang out. Oh, this is another good one. She should rest in peace. She lived till 93. My grandmother, one of the best businesswomen I've ever met in my life. She said it's better to have a dollar pocketbook with $100 in it than $100 pocketbook with a dollar in it. So I say that, I say that because many guys live out of their Ferraris. You know, they live, they live month to month payments. You know, I don't lease anything. If I can't buy it, I don't take it. So, I mean, you know, for me, I think one of the best things is for an entrepreneur is you got to believe in yourself and there'll always be doubt. But always, you know, I have great, great people that are part of my company that I talk to all the time and consult with. I don't know all the answers. We go back and forth. We actually debate each other. We want to, we want to fight it out for the best. The best, you know, return on our investment, whatever it is, Whether it's, you know, additional programming we need for the app or rolling out a new product. I got ideas for new products every week. They shoot me down. And then I got to fight him and tell them why. So, you know, there's no one answer. I think you can't find an answer in a book. You know, you got to go experience. You got to try. And I think a great lesson, I tell entrepreneurs is if you're 60% sure, go for it. Don't worry about 90 or 100% that you're not going to make a mistake. If you're 50% sure, go for it. If it don't kill you, who cares, you know, and don't invest in things you don't know anything about. Don't believe people that are trying to sell you shit that they can help you make more money. If you have to rely on other people to make you the money you need to live on, you're in trouble. Stay away. I talk about plenty of snake oil salesmen selling books. And listen, there are guys on social media who have huge followings. They're selling these big programs and I know for a fact they're broken. They don't know how to raise money, but they talk other experts in raising money, but they don't know how to raise money because I've done things with them and they haven't delivered. So I don't want to name these people. All I'm saying is trust no one. You know, you got to earn trust.

Yeah.

So those are some of the things I think are real important.

That's really good you brought up, you know, your grandma. Mentors. Did you have any mentors throughout your journey that, you know, pointed you in the right direction? And how have mentors been an important aspect of your life?

You know, I think my mom was one of my best mentors. My mom was an entrepreneur her whole life in retail. She had. She brought in children's clothing from Europe before anybody. She had a store called All Fall down, and basically it was children's clothes from Europe. She was the first person to bring in, like, Italian sneakers where, know, we were an upscale area. People went crazy for them. And so she always said to me, you know, when I doubted myself, she's like, you can do it. You know, I know you can. And so she was. She was a great inspiration in my life, and she still is in my life. And, you know, now I push her, you know, she's in her 70s. I push her to be better. So she's been. She's been a great influence. You know, I've been fortunate to have lots of people I don't know by name. But, you know, I'm not going to say, you know, I did it myself. Like Schwarzenegger, you know, he pointed out a bunch of people who have helped him through his journey. And I think when he was on stage, he had a guy who still been training him or working with him for 40 years. I don't have someone like that. But, you know, my mother, my grandmother, my grandfather, you know, my father. These have all been, you know, I have a strong family, strong, close family. This has really helped. Very cool, you know, and surrounding yourself with good people. Yep.

I'm curious because you're on the treadmill right now. Right. And I know when we connected. I follow you on social media. What does your daily routine look like now when it comes to the way you live your life? I know health is a big aspect of that, but what's the routine?

So I'll tell. I'll be honest with everyone. I'm the least efficient person you guys will ever meet. I really don't. I don't, you know, I don't do a lot during the day. I do key things like I have calls at my investment groups three, three times a week. What do I do during the day? Check on my kids. I'll work out two and a half hours every day. Me and my girl, girlfriend check on different people. I'll spend a lot of time during the day calling people I haven't spoken to in a long time.

Right. Now, okay.

Seeing how they're doing that I like doing. That's how, that's how I spent a lot of my time. It's calling people they haven't spoken to in a long time, make sure they're okay. Even though I didn't connect with them for a long time. It's nice to see. And if they need help, yeah, I know I can help. How else do I spend my day? I basically have a bunch of real estate projects I'm working on, places I bought that I got to finish up. On the other coast I have a bunch of real estate, so. And I have a bunch of business. So one of my big businesses that I have now, which I didn't mention is called Wolfbud Hemp. We formed this hemp company out of North Carolina. We have the most high tech, probably one of the most high tech processing facilities in the United States in North Carolina now. It's crazy. This is. So I started, I started, you know, logic 10 years ago, right? And this is 10 year anniversary and I'm coming out with, you know, Wolfbud Hemp cigarettes.

Got it right.

And people like, you know, why cigarettes? Well, you know what? Because cigarettes are bad for people. It's the same story, but now it's better. No nicotine, right? You know, no nicotine, you're not getting the 10,000 chemicals. And it's high level CBD, you know. And during these times, people are stressed. I'm against smoking. I'm totally against it. But if you're going to smoke and you can smoke the real hemp flower, that'll give you that entourage effect where you feel like you had a glass of wine. And that works for you. I'm good. I'm good with that. If you don't smoke, don't touch the product.

Yeah.

So we're once called calm. Very cool. Very cool product. We're doing soft gels, we're doing gummies, and we're doing tinctures. Now just to give you an idea, most people that process hemp, when they process to the crude oil, usually their percentage of pure CBD is like 50%, 60% max. And then they got to go through a process to make it higher. I don't know the details because I'm not in that part of it. But I know ours before we start doing the extra is 78. So everyone's at 50, maybe 60. We're 78. So wolfbutt hemp, been working on that a lot. You know, building the stealth body fitness company, working on building out the app we spend, you know, every day, this call, social media, calls, marketing, calls, manufacturing, logistics, whether it's Amazon, whether it's, you know, our other distribution facilities. I mean, I love business. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't do day to day work, you know, but I like to hear about the whole strategy, overall strategies of what we're doing and then weigh in on those and help guide the ship.

Got it.

I don't want to shovel the coal, but I'll guide the ship.

Nope, I love that, the higher level stuff. Two more questions before we wrap it up. One being, I know you're talking about the different investments you have and how you're also, you know, an investor yourself. When you're going to invest into a company or you know, any type of investment, how do you, what do you do to look at it to make sure it's a good investment for you? I know that you said earlier, don't invest into things you don't know about. So what does that look like?

So there's a group, there's a group out of Washington called NextGen Venture Group. They just got purchased by Brown Advisory. They're a big group. These young guys. Harvard, Stanford, different Ivy League schools. These guys have different funds that I invested in since day one. One of them is called. What's the name of that company? It's actually Everlywell. Have you heard of them? They do all the home kid testing.

Yes.

Okay. So I was one of the first investors in Everyly well.

Okay.

I also own part of a vodka company called Simple Vodka. I mean, there's hundreds of companies that I own a piece of. I don't talk about it, but so Everly well is part of this fund and they're making the first. I think they're one of the first people to make that get approved for the coronavirus home test kit. Wow. But so to answer your question, there's a team of. It's the first network driven venture fund of a thousand entrepreneurs. So they vet deals, they look at them, they know them. Now there's, you know, out of every, I don't know what the percentage is, but out of every 10, you know, there could be a load that failed. They're better than I ever will be at vetting companies. So I invest in the fund. You know, they have a sort of a starter fund, new companies that maybe have a couple million in revenue. They need marketing dollars. And then they have a future growth fund where it's 10 million plus. So maybe some of the People in the initial growth fund will also carry over to the growth fund. But that's what I do.

Very cool.

I have experts, guys I rely on. Whether it's JP Morgan, Goldman, bank of America, US Trust, you know, I have a lot of different teams that work on different stuff, but for investments.

I.

Mean, I had to start up cribs. It was supposed to be like the uber real estate. Six months ago, eight months ago, we lost a lot of money and I lost my money.

Yeah.

And it's bone crushing. I never really lost before. I don't like losing. I wasn't heading up the company. It wasn't that anything was done wrong. We needed more money. And if it kept going today in this environment, it would have killed it. So everything's gambling. You know, it depends what your risk tolerance is.

Love that. So, last question, really, to wrap it up, Howard, is as an entrepreneur and the experience you have, if you were to tell your 18, 19 year old self a lesson that you'd want someone to carry for the rest of their journey, what would that one lesson be?

Okay, say the question again.

If you were to talk to an 18, 19 year old and tell them one lesson to carry through their entrepreneur journey, what would that be?

I think the most important lesson is you got to believe in yourself and you got to really work on your inner power. This is the most important thing because this is what will drive you everywhere in life. If you have self doubt and you don't feel good about yourself, this will limit you in every aspect of your life. You need your own. You need to be your own superpower. Have to be. You know, you look at people like Oprah, right? Came from nothing. She developed a superpower. And then I saw, I think it was C.W. walker, a woman. I think that was. It was on Netflix. She had a hairline. She's 100. She's 100 years before Oprah. A female that basically was the first millionaire in the U.S. right? Or in the globe. And I think it's developing that inner power, that inner strength and being around people that support. Not that, not, not, not a yes man or yes, people around you, but people that lift you. This is the most important thing. It's easy to trash people. People are battered every day, emotionally, physically, mentally. It just happens mainly from their family members. You're stupid. You're an idiot. You have the dumb ideas. By the way, electronic cigarettes was the stupidest idea ever. Just so you know, everyone said you're a moron. And by the way, I have family members who are lawyers and said, you think you're broke now? Wait till you have lawsuits and you're in jail. And I'm like, fuck, am I doing the right thing? I go, fuck it. I'm going forward. No, I think that's, you know, that's the lesson. And I hope this podcast was valuable for your people. I hope to hear the feedback.

Totally. I appreciate you taking the time. I know this is your first podcast. Definitely. It was amazing. Thank you so much for coming on.

And I really enjoyed it.

Where's the best place people can follow you to stay updated with things you have going on?

I think on my Instagram at Howardpanis.

Got it.

That's the best place. See my workouts?

Yeah, I'll link that down below. I always watch your stories and look at all the posts, so I'll definitely make sure that I put that in the description.

I really appreciate it. Appre. Appreciate your time. And you're doing a great job yourself. Keep it up. Keep inspiring the young entrepreneurs. You're doing a great job.

Yep. Thanks.

And I'll be checking on your steps next month.

Yes.

Don't forget it.

10,000 a day. We're doing it.

And then you'll get me your information. I'm gonna send you a stealth.

Perfect. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks so much, Howard.

Appreciate the time.

Okay. Have a good.

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