S2 Ep5: How I went from ZERO To $500 Million In ECOM in 3 Years | Davie Fogarty

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Yeah. It was one of the fastest growing e-com brands of all time, which did $200 million annually in 3 years.

Do you think that's possible now in the same way?

100% it is. There's 14-year-olds doing $10 million in their first year.

Yeah, how does someone practically approach that?

The number one hack if you want to create a very fast e-commerce business is—

Davey Fogarty is an Australian e-commerce expert who has collectively generated over $850 million in e-commerce sales.

He's the youngest judge on Shark Tank Australia and creates content that teaches people how to build and scale online businesses. Since I can remember, I always wanted to be successful. That just created this obsession, and it was probably less about just being successful. It was about money. Like, I just wanted money. I went and launched multiple businesses, but I have no idea what I'm doing. And then I just kept failing all of these businesses, but every single time I learnt a lesson. And that lesson then led me to creating calming blankets, which did $10 million in its first year. And suddenly I was an overnight success. About 4 or 5 months into that, I launched the hoodie. That went to $200 million annually in 3 years. And I was like, wow, this is so easy. I'm a genius. I'm a genius. Yeah, I thought I just had this magic formula. Find products like this and scale them up. And I launched 10, 12 businesses after that all failed. All e-com businesses. Then I was— Stupidly, I started taking modafinil. So it was like a stimulant to keep you awake. And then I ended up burning out and getting huge mental health issues from that. So.

Right now, like you've built huge companies, you're now on Shark Tank. You've spent a lot of time now with incredibly experienced entrepreneurs. What are the number one lessons that you've learned?

If you want to maximize the amount of money you're making, you just need to—

Hi everyone. Did you know that 85% of people who watch the podcast aren't even subscribed to the YouTube channel? Now, I don't like asking people to subscribe to the show, but honestly, it is the single greatest thing that you can do to help us grow our podcast. If you want us to keep bringing you these conversations, the kind of stuff that you simply cannot Google, then do us a favor, hit the subscribe button and let me know in the comments who you want me to interview next. It helps us to grow the channel, reach more people, and get the best guests in the world. So let's get into the show. For most people who will see you online, they will see this incredible story, which is like, uh, you've built huge companies, you're now on Shark Tank. I think before we get into that, I'd like to sort of talk about an area which I find fascinating about entrepreneurs, which is sort of how an entrepreneur comes to be. Because a lot of people want to become entrepreneurs. And so can you remember being a youngster and thinking about being an entrepreneur? I've seen some amazing clips of like your school and so forth. So talk us through that sort of age. So you know, 13, 14, 15, what's going on for you?

Yeah, so since I can remember, I always wanted to be successful. So, and it was probably less about just being successful, it was about money. Like, I just wanted money. I remember in primary school, grade 7, I would bake cookies. I would jump over the fence because I lived next door, bake cookies during lunch, go up after school and sell them to teachers. And that just created this obsession And while a lot of people unfortunately have a chip on their shoulder and they really come from a negative place trying to get money, trying to prove themselves— and sure, there was an element of that to me— I had a very positive upbringing around business. My parents were— had a furniture business. Granted, it didn't work out, it was a small business, but the experience that I had constantly going and getting pushed around in the, in the warehouse on the sack trucks and stuff like that with all the staff and seeing the respect that they had for my parents was such a thing that I think I wanted. So from there I was just like, I'm just going to get rich. And then I just tried everything, like literally everything. As a lot of people have seen, when I graduated in year 12, I walked up on stage and the announcer said, uh, when he grows up, when he hits 30, he wants to be a billionaire. And that is so cringe. Like, I got, I got laughed at for that. But then after that, I went and launched multiple businesses, failed every single one them until it worked.

So what sort of businesses were you launching as a youngster?

First business, I started to get into the gym and I went and I got singlets, and now the Y-back singlets, the stringlets.

Yeah, yeah.

And they were terrible. It was like, shut up and lift, eat big, get big. I just printed them all on there. And then I tried to sell them. Not one person bought them. Second one, not one, not one.

It's so funny because I feel like that gym shark was a little bit like that when it launched.

Yeah, I'm sure Ben knew a little bit more than I did, to be honest. But no, I didn't have any mechanism to sell them, right? And that's when I learned that lesson, how to sell something. And then I went and I started building Instagrams and I was like, I'm gonna do a seasoning business now, weight loss seasoning. So I was in the shed grinding up these seasonings, mum and dad come home, I've got 2 kilos of oregano sitting there and they're just like, what is he doing? And I had 6 phones lying on the couch, running my Instagrams trying to sell these seasonings. Then all of them started breaking, right? Because I did glass vials, right? Then I learned about product feasibility.

Yeah.

Then I went and did Vietnamese rolls. I loved banh mi, so I launched— I created a store. I was starting to make a little bit of money off Instagram. That failed miserably. I couldn't get the margin right for the product. It was— I was making $0.50 a roll and paying staff. But I learned about unit economics and I learned about staff. And then I just kept failing all of these businesses every single time. Like I learned a lesson and that lesson then led me to creating Calming Blankets, which did $10 million in its first year. And suddenly I was an overnight success.

At the time when you were starting and launching and failing at a lot of these small businesses, what were you thinking? Were you just thinking, I have to crack the code? Or did you ever think to go get a job and have a more traditional path?

I never wanted another job. Like, that just would have been—

Wait, so have you ever had a job other than your parents?

So interestingly enough, I went and got another job through selling watches for another business, right? And I learned influencer marketing there, like another lesson. So yeah, yeah.

But I suppose in that moment where the businesses were, were failing, you were like, no, I'm just gonna— I am gonna crack this.

Yeah, pretty much. Wow, pretty much. It's just that belief, right?

So obviously you had run lots of different businesses. You were kind of cracking the code piece by piece as you learned from these different businesses. And then you launched Calming Blankets, and that did $10 million in its first year.

Yep.

And so $10 million in a year is like $800,000, $900,000 a month. Talk us through that, because you've gone from selling seasoning in glass vials to making $10 million a year selling blankets.

How does that happen? Again, it's just about learning those skills. So I learned Facebook ads, which is kind of the pillar back then. And then, yeah, also Facebook creative, just constantly learning videography, shooting my friends wearing the product. And it was really largely thanks to the product being quite viral at this stage. It's just perfect product timing. You know, I see a lot of smarter people, especially back then, that had, had much slower growing businesses, but it's just because my product was so good, it just, yeah, took off.

What was it that you think made it do so well? Like, if you can unpack for someone thinking, how do I get breakout growth? What were the things that made the difference?

Definitely product selection, adding some virality around your product, and just riding trend waves is so important. So, you know, even the Oodie, the next business that I launched that did $200 million, it was largely because we were just riding trends. We were just picking them just before they tipped and then just being the best possible people at Facebook ads and creative to scale it up.

And do you think the same opportunity exists now? I mean, I remember, I remember Facebook ads at the time were, were quite wild. Yeah, but we used to run them. I mean, you were much smarter than me, but I used to run a company that ran Facebook ads for other companies. Yeah, predominantly e-commerce businesses. And so had a lot of the experiences of seeing people just take off. But do you think that's possible now in the same way?

100% it is. It is like there's, there's 14-year-olds launching dropshipping brands doing $10 million in their first year still. And that opportunity, I think, don't think will ever go away simply because I think algorithms are becoming a larger part and continually becoming a larger part of our lives. So, you know, what was that recent toy thing that just went viral? Or Dubai chocolate, right? Like, pistachio prices have skyrocketed because of this random chocolate on TikTok in Dubai. Like, that in itself shows just how crazy this is getting. So if you can put yourself in front of those trends And this is a skill set you need to be able to recognize what trends are going to tip and be profitable for you and then apply that through e-commerce and you can 100% achieve it.

And so how does someone who's watching this, how do they practically think about spotting trends? Like, how do you think to yourself, okay, where is like a rising tide?

Yeah.

What is something that's taking off that I can add to? You know, how does someone practically approach that?

Yeah. I think the best— the people that are best at spotting trends are just very observant, right? Think about the first time that you heard about Bitcoin. It was probably a throwaway comment from someone smart at a conference that was just talking about it and you dismissed it. And I think that the people that are the best and the richest from spotting trends are the ones that would go, hang on, explain that to me just one more time.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think this is can be applied. You don't need to be at a conference, you can be a kid in school, but you're like, oh wow, this kid really, really likes this cookie that exists in this US. Like, they're just scrolling on social media and they're obsessed with it. How do I now apply that to a business itself? So just being incredibly observant.

The, um, Bitcoin example is a good one. I think the same thing, like, last week I was in a room of entrepreneurs who were talking about effectively like evolution of AI, and everyone thought it had happened. Yeah. And I feel like it's happening right now, day by day. Every day there's a new tool. Every day there's a new, like, billion-pound company overnight doing something that was done before but with AI. But I think that people sometimes, they, they hear or see news and they go, oh, it's, it's complete.

Yeah.

Some of the companies you look up, they're 4 months old.

Yeah.

You know, so, so the opportunity for entrepreneurs right now, I think is probably the best it's ever been.

Definitely. We're in innings 0.1 of AI.

Yeah, exactly.

They've been investing, you know, it shows on Microsoft's balance sheet. They've been investing in AI for 40 years. And whether we define AI how we want to define that, maybe just machine learning. But sure, it's about to tip and become rapidly advance, but we're so early. And ironically, everyone's so scared about AI and they use it as an excuse to not become a copywriter. They're like, why would I become a copywriter? AI is going to replace that. Ironically, that is the reason why you should become a copywriter, because there's going to be a disruption in the space and the copywriters are now all going to use AI tools. And now the, the field has just been leveled. So now you can be the best copywriter that's ever existed simply because you're the one that adopts AI. Yeah, I'm not going to go start using AI for my copywriting. I still need to employ someone for that.

Yeah, of course.

So I think it's a, it's a cop-out simply because people think that it's more advanced than it is currently and then it won't get even more advanced than now.

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Yeah.

And immediately you create yourself a huge arbitrage in information because they won't know AI as well as you or the cutting edge of the market. But you could also then take the view that you're going to build some form of tool with AI, because everything right now, in my opinion, in the next few years will get rewritten with an AI engine at the core.

Definitely.

And sometimes it just means that bigger companies who have all this legacy tech won't be able to move as fast as new companies.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think, I think it depends who we're talking to here. I think if you are a beginner and you're just like, how am I going to make my first $10,000 a month? Yeah, just go and sell your services for AI to any business niche that you can get through the door of. you know, maybe understand dentistry or something like that. Just go and knock on those doors and sell the AI. And once you're embedded within those tools and providing those services, then you might see a better mousetrap around the tools. But yeah, I think everything will get rewritten for sure.

And so you had the experience with the calming blankets and that's 0 to 1 million— sorry, 0 to 10 million.

0 to 10 million. Yeah.

One year. So I still find that astounding.

Ecommerce is a little bit different. It's not your margins that you love. Most ecommerce brands are broke, to be completely honest. But yeah, we were doing 20-30% net profit. So I launched the Oodie. So I launched Calming Blankets that went to $10 million its first year. About 4 or 5 months into that, I launched the Oodie that went to $200 million annually in 3 years. I also launched Pupnaps a year after that, which did $1 million in its 7th month of business. So all 3 of these brands took off and I was like, wow, this is so easy. I'm a genius. I'm a genius. And ask me where most of those businesses are today. They're just gone.

Yeah, they're gone.

I didn't sell them.

Was this you on your own?

This was me on my own. Yeah.

Wow.

100% of all my business.

And you must have been like 25.

25, 26. Yeah, 26. So yeah, I thought I just had this magic formula. Find products like this.

Yeah.

Sell them in Australia. Be the best at Facebook marketing and scale them up. And that was true. What wasn't true is my ability to lead teams, to build systems, to remove myself from businesses, to lead, to build culture, to create secondary products, a product flywheel, to create a brand. They were the variables that I needed to commit to. But unfortunately, I was so committed to that first dopamine hit of getting a new product to work because I'm just like, oh, I know what's coming next. So I failed to upskill myself in the future things, and that's why I launched 10, 12 businesses after that all failed, all e-com businesses. So I kind of got a little bit too obsessed with my ability and new products.

And so Calming Blanket, huge success. Oodie, incredible success, which I want to talk about more. And then you launched 10 other businesses at the same time.

Yeah.

What was your— what did your life look like at the time? Were you— it was crazy in the factory.

It was crazy. COVID hadn't quite hit them, but I was— I also launched a business for my parents because their furniture business went, went down. So I was like, I'll take this online. So I had that one as well. So my week— weeks would look like I would go to the warehouse, work with the customer service team, work with on the Facebook creatives. I was still shooting all of the ads, uh, and then I would go to a warehouse sale where I'd sell furniture on the weekends, and it was just go, go, go, you know, 12, 14-hour days every single day. Um, and then I ended up burning out and getting huge mental health issues from that. So, uh, but yeah, it was chaos. I wouldn't trade it for the world though. Like, it's just— you can probably remember your early days. It's just like, when I say that I got so many health issues and so many problems from it, people are like, they use that as a cop-out. They're like, this is why I never want to run a business. It's like becoming rich and fulfilled through that is worth probably 99% of the prices that you would have to pay.

It is funny. I mean, the— I would say, yeah, so what you're saying is that sometimes people will look at the, the pain and the sacrifice of entrepreneurship and they'll use that as a reason to say I won't do it, which I think is really common. I think what people misunderstand sometimes is that the the challenges that you put yourself through arm you and improve you and make you stronger and more capable to deal with hard things. And now if you were to go back and deal with those problems, yeah, you'd be fine. That wouldn't even be—

it's just we have bigger problems now. It's like $20 million of stock is seized and I'm just like, oh, you'll figure it out. Like, it's all good. It helps when you have a house though, paid off. And you have a bit of cash, you know, this is what I think that we often forget when we become a bit more comfortable is like we were fighting for everything. Like we didn't have any money to fall back on. It was like if this went out under, not only would we be confused about where we would be sleeping that night, but also confused about what our identity actually is. And now if I fail a business, my identity is fine. Like I know what I've achieved. I know who I am. Um, and I can, yeah, obviously still sleep in my nice house.

Yeah. The health challenges, what did that manifest itself as? And also, where are we in the journey? Because the one that always stands out is Oodie. Yeah. Because it's just insane numbers.

Yeah.

You know, you never really hear those numbers.

It's crazy. It's one of the fastest growing e-com brands of all time.

Yeah. Yeah. So 200 million a year it was doing.

Yeah. And it's third year. Yeah. And that was just selling hoodies. It was just the wearable blanket. Like we had maybe $5 million of other product revenue in that. It was just crazy. So yeah, Woody did quite well in those years. We probably could have done an extra maybe 30% revenue, maybe even up to 50%, but we were just out of stock because it was COVID and I didn't know what I was doing still at that stage. This is second, second or third year in, as I said. So that was interesting. I wanted to do a multiple arbitrage, acquire a bunch of businesses, IPO, because a lot of people were IPOing during COVID Even e-com brands, they were kind of, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what I was going for. And then, yeah, I got COVID. I was getting sued for something very, very stupid that I shouldn't have been getting sued for. My lawyer just made a mistake on a piece of paperwork, which open me up for liability. And then I— yeah, I was pretty much just pushing everything. I started YouTube, then I was— stupidly, I started taking modafinil, like, to get myself—

for those who don't know, what is modafinil?

It's— I don't even know what it is, that's how bad it is. It was like a stimulant. It's just basically like an— yeah, it's like an ADHD drug to keep you awake. Uh, and then I took it the whole way through university. Yeah, yeah. And then I was smashing caffeine. I would have had like 10 coffees a day. And then I was also like, started like nicotine as well, vaping, like nicotine gum, everything. So all of that plus all of my work, because, you know, when you're young, you're made of rubber and glue and people say that, you know, they're different. And I thought I was different. I was like, people with anxiety, people with panic attacks, you are mentally weak. You're not strong. And that's the— and I'm like, I am strong, so I will never have this. And then obviously I managed to break myself, and that manifested itself as a panic attack. I had to fire 30, 40 staff because the businesses started going down at the same period that I was getting sued, all of that kind of stuff. So it all just kind of came to a head, and then I was like, what is this? Went to the doctor, he was like, anxiety. It's like, no, it's not.

Like, it's—

I've got a heart condition or something.

Yeah, no, I'm actually dying. And then, yeah, yeah, I'm actually dying, right?

Just give me a pill, send me on my way. I'll stop taking modafinil. That's fine. But then, yeah, it just created panic attacks. And then I had to slow down and learn what was really important. Yeah.

What does that period look like? So you're— because I do actually, I have been through an identical period.

Really?

Yeah. Like horrendous panic attacks.

Yeah.

Bad rashes. Can't wake up in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. How long does that last?

I think it's still going. Yeah, I got in the elevator with my team the other day with Woody, and it was just— a lot of things had gotten to me that past couple of weeks, which it takes a lot to get to me now. And I got in the elevator and I was just like, I didn't know I had panic attacks in elevators, but I had one straight away and I had to jump out of the elevator to avoid them seeing it. And I think— I don't think it ever goes away. Yeah, it's just something that gets managed. My period after that happened, it was just this relentless desire to get back to what I was. And I think that that's the wrong way to look at it.

I think back to being—

back to being— back to the machine, because that was my identity, right? Like, I wanted to be a billionaire, that kind of stuff. And I think chasing that, get— trying to get back was also because that's trying to control. It's not accepting. And I think that made it a lot worse. So I just looked for answers. I would do extreme diets. I would do like, I would just, you know, pretty much stop certain things. Like I did the carnivore diet strictly for like 6 to 12 months, which by the way did help. And yeah, I wouldn't see friends. I would just basically meditate all the time. Like I just tried everything. But yeah, I tried medication as well. That didn't work for me. Might work for some other people. Yeah, just looking for answers really.

And I suppose, I mean, you said it at the beginning, but you're looking back on the worst of it, you're still happy it happened.

Yeah.

And you know, you're, I suppose, willing to push through that pain for the, for the outcome.

100%. Yeah, 100%. I wouldn't trade my life for any of the, the hard things. I've made mistakes, but the reward is just so good. And that reward isn't just the planes, it isn't just the boats, it's the being able to help and provide for your family, as well as being able to have purpose and drive in life. Just so important.

Do you feel the need to be the, you know, crazy growth startup founder, the competitiveness? Do you still feel that?

No, I feel like I can be easily convinced into that state by who I'm hanging out with. Mm, you know, that's a good point. I'm a very susceptible person, which makes me, uh, and I've learned that about myself, and it made me such a great entrepreneur, right? Like, I would go to these conferences and I would be like, this guy's doing this Facebook hack, I implemented it within 12 hours. And that susceptibility can be for negative traits as well. You know, drinking when I was growing up, like just partying nonstop. Very, very bad traits. So now when I'm hanging out with very mindful people that are balanced, that have values that I think that will make me happiest, right? Everyone's different. If I thought that more money would make me happier, then I would hang out with money-driven people. That's fine. But yeah, I think it's about hanging out with the mindful people that remind me Some of them are more successful than me, but they remind me that there's other things in life.

It's interesting because I think that sometimes people think that success is easier than it is. Like, to have exceptional outcomes, you have to put in exceptional effort. Like, it's, it's incredibly rare. I mean, it might happen, and sometimes people inherit it, but to get to exceptional wealth, you have to often put in probably 10 years of— of course, exceptional—

takes 5 years to get good at anything. Yeah. And then it takes 5 years to get the reward from it. Yeah, you know, do you—

are you distinctly aware of things that you sacrificed along the way?

Yes, most definitely, which is the, the peace of mind that I no longer have. Like, sure, sometimes it comes, you know, I'll spend— I've actually tracked this, like I have a tracker. It's just like about my anxious levels throughout the day. I tracked it for 4 months and it's like 2 weeks of perfection, happiness, peace, and then it's just one day of just like, I could have a panic attack, this is awful, that kind of stuff. To remember the days when that wasn't a thing was just— that just sounds euphoric. So I know I've sacrificed that. Yeah, yeah.

I think you will come out the other side of that. Just from personal experience, annoyingly it coincided with my— I got married like 3 years ago now. And my panic attack period and like unbelievable stress anxiety period was just before my wedding.

Oh wow.

And it's so interesting that like now I would say I am without anxiety. Yeah, completely.

That's amazing.

You know, like, uh, I haven't had a panic attack for years, um, and yet I remember my wedding so, so well. We had a week-long wedding, which is obviously ridiculous, but the whole week I was anxious.

Yeah.

And I'd never been an anxious person, but part of me had been broken by my work.

Yeah.

And I think that, yeah, I mean, if you take a good sustained period of time off work, you know, you rejig your health and so forth, like it sounds like you're doing.

That's the first thing that the doctor said. Just like, actually, I think it was one of my psychs. He said, just stop working. I stopped working and anxiety went away. I was like, of course. I was like, shit, I don't want this to be the cure for it.

Yeah.

So Yeah, that's, uh, that's great that you came out the other side. How did, how did you do that?

Accepting that the things that I once cared about, I don't care about as much anymore. And it's so funny you said at the beginning, like, I don't think I ever said when I was younger, like, I want to be a billionaire, but I certainly wanted to be really rich. Well, um, and I think that in many ways that is somewhat the quest you have to go on to go through and come out the other end and be like, ah, It's not actually what I wanted.

Yeah.

And so yeah, I took a very long sustained period of time off work.

Yeah.

And I think that was really, really healing. And I think also like I was a bit lucky in that, uh, because I'm 5 years older than you, like COVID for me was probably the, the moment just before I was selling my business. And COVID destroyed my business, but at the same time it was like, well, I've got nothing to do now, I can't work. So I had to see friends.

Yeah.

And for me, it was like a, okay, I've just reconnected with all my friends. Wow, we don't talk about work, like, we talk about everything in life. And, and I think that it was a nice handbrake. And then coming back to work slower, being better at delegating, you know. I think also you learn so much more about creating systems, about hiring better people, about trusting people, um, whereas I think when I was younger, I try probably to do everything myself.

Yeah, mine stems from what people think about me, you know. I think like if I'm in an elevator by myself, I'm not having a panic attack. I don't care about elevators, they're safe as hell. But if I'm in with other people that I know and I'm scared of having a panic attack in there— and this is extremely common, you know, I know lots of people that are like this— but this is the thing, once you know the trigger and the reason why you're thinking this, it's just about repetition. And it— you can't, through 10 years of insane behavior, reverse something in 2 years. And it's been 2 years for me, you know. It might take 3 years, might take 4 years.

And it took me, yeah, 5 years probably.

Yeah, exactly. So I think for anyone like that's listening that's going through it, it's just like, it's more common than not, I would probably say, especially for people that are aspiring to be something, you know.

How do you think about what other people think of you now? Because I would say that's a big driver for why a lot of people want to become very successful.

Yeah, yeah. So I, I never used to post like flexing stuff. Like, I would be too scared to post that. I would always wear ripped clothes to dress down. And I used to make that— I used to say that's because I don't care what people think about me. But realistically that was me trying to protect other people's feelings or their opinions of me that I was a wanker, right? Yeah, so I was doing those things. So now when I buy something like, or something that, like some nice clothes or go on a nice trip and take some photos of it, that is more genuinely like what I want to do from that thing, caring less about what people think. So I think there's a lot of there's a lot of small things that you just start changing over time. But again, it comes in waves, comes and goes.

I probably wouldn't have initially come up with that, but I think that that probably was more— I was more in my 20s. I think the chip on the shoulder is an interesting one because I definitely wanted to make a lot of money, but I also, the minute I became an entrepreneur, it was actually greeted quite negatively by everyone around me, as often it is.

Interesting.

Yeah. And as a result, I wanted to prove to everyone how much of a good decision it had been for me to become an entrepreneur. And so I feel like that drove insane work.

Yeah.

You know, to, to prove everyone wrong.

Yeah, 100%. And it— your drivers change. Initially, your driver is to prove everyone wrong, and then it becomes more of a mission-based drive. It's intrinsic reward rather than extrinsic reward. And that's the transition I'm going through at the moment. Sure, it's hard when I see a lot of my friends making, you know, €50 million EBITDA a year and I'm just like, I know I could do that. The competitive drive kicks in, but I know that that isn't the best path for me.

Yeah. And also, I mean, you're 30. I mean, it's like you have so much time.

Yeah.

You know, I can't even conceptualise what's happened in the last 5 years since I sold my company. My first company. Isn't like the, the rate of change— yeah, the rate of change is mind-blowing. And the, the leverage you gain from lots of things that, you know, whether it's like selling a company and therefore reputation, or selling a company therefore the ability to raise money, or, you know, an audience because that brings awareness. Like, whatever you re— if ever you wanted, and you don't— you shouldn't, shouldn't, or, you know, don't necessarily— but if ever you did, it would be there the minute you went back.

Yeah. Right now, the level of entrepreneur that I am compared to what I make is just so out of kilter. You know, I make way less than I should. And that's always been the opposite previously. Mm. Did I deserve to have a $200 million company at the age of 27 or 28? No, I didn't know anything about team building. Yeah, there was far better entrepreneurs than me doing far less.

$200 million a year.

It was crazy. And now it's flipped for the first time ever. And there's a certain freedom in that because before I was chasing, I was like, this is all going to get taken away from me. I have no idea what I'm doing. When you get a certain level of conviction in your ability to execute in a business, that is a certain freedom that, you know, you really should strive for.

And so let's, let's unpack the Oodie story for a second. So you launch Was the takeoff rapid?

Yeah.

From the moment you launched? Yeah.

Yeah. We would upload just engagement posts and boost— I was boosting posts and it would get 12 return on ad spend. It was just a photo of like my mum in the product.

Right.

It was just product timing. It's just so important. And this is the number one hack if you want to create a very fast e-commerce business. Is find a market that isn't selling a really, really trending product. If you can find a market because people are problem aware, they're even product aware, but they're not brand aware, and therefore you can get into that state of mind and it's just easy to convert customers because you don't have to warm them up. They already want the product. They just can't buy it anywhere. So that's why that took off.

Do you think that's because of being in Australia that you think very specifically like that?

Yeah, yeah, because it was— I would just literally grab a product and boost it in Australia and it would go crazy. But funnily enough, I did it in the UK as well. UK is our biggest market for Oodie now. Um, so UK, so cold, because every— everyone launches their brand in the US, then they go to Canada, then they go to Europe or UK and Australia. I want the opposite. I went Australia, then UK, then Europe, then Canada, then US. And because I was doing that, I was the first to market in each of those things. And now US is our smallest market, but that doesn't really matter, does it?

No, it's funny. Like the— I mean, I never went, but like Harvard Business School will teach you that as like a method. They'll be like, okay, so you can see a business in Europe and you take it to America. You see a business in America, you take it to Europe. Like the same thing exists now. Yeah, like identically. But the difference now is that historically you'd have to build the business from scratch. Like, you'd have to build the teams, the systems, the tech, the, you know, all of that. Whereas now you can spin up loads of third-party softwares. Even Shopify is the gateway to— exactly— e-com. Um, and the same way with AI, you're not building an AI, you're just building a layer on top of ChatGPT.

Yeah.

And so if you see something that's doing incredibly well in the US that doesn't exist in the UK. Yeah, you might as well.

And it's the exact same thing exists with AI, but less markets, more about niches or just single use cases. There's riches in niches, right? Just find these single use cases because Facebook is an auction, right? Like Facebook will find the users. And I think people grossly underestimate the element of competition in that bidding system of Facebook. I think as soon as there's a second or third competitor, for that exact product, it grossly increases the CPMs and changes the business. So this is where those, uh, niches really, really find those pockets that are just completely underserved, and that's where you just get those crazy results initially.

So focus on a product that does well in a different market, bring it to a market that doesn't have it, and run it for as long as it's not overcrowded.

Yeah, run it, get, uh, get the team in place, build the brand on the layer of that product, make sure the product actually serves a certain function and build that brand around that function. For Oodie, it's comfort. Then add secondary products that are probably more evergreen. So this year I think we'll do $50 million through our, you know, sleep tiers, which is our nighties, our dressing gowns, our bath Bath Hoodies. Hoodie is declining at a rapid rate. That's what I'm having to deal with at the moment. The hoodie, the wearable blanket, the pace of that is faster declining than the growth of the other products, but they're all growing at 20% a year consistently for 3, 4 years. So I just need to extrapolate that out and be patient and it will get there. So it's about riding that wave as much as you can, getting the cash, focusing on product and brand. You build a sustainable business through that.

And so obviously online there's a huge trend of people becoming like dropshippers and Shopify store, uh, creators. I often think when I look at them that the thing that they don't do is they don't do that. They don't build the brand. Yeah, they sort of launch the product, it might do well to begin with, but over time it's just one of those power laws about life. You do anything well enough, other people coming in.

Yeah.

And so they very rarely build the brand.

Yeah.

And I think that's where most people are going wrong with that strategy, is that they could have one winning product, but it's about the founder architects.

So the founder that knows brand very well is not going to get to $10 million in their first year because they're focusing on brand. They're not focusing on aggressive acquisition.

Yeah.

And I think that the founder that can get to $10 million in the first year, which is me, doesn't understand what a brand even is. I couldn't even define what a brand was when I was doing $10 million a year.

You know, I think products—

so So it's— this is why the people that continually get successful and build long-lasting businesses have a very broad range of skill sets. But they weren't always like that. So it's identifying the skill gaps that you have and then closing them as quickly as possible. You know, I've just recently started a coaching business, a mentoring business, and I had a call with someone. I was like, what? Where am I going to stuff this up? And he's like, ecom people do not know how to do sales calls because they've never had to. They close it all on Shopify. And sure enough, our close rates on like our sales calls were like 5%, 10%.

Yeah.

And I was just like, I need to hire someone to teach me this as soon as possible because we just don't know that. So it's just, it's just about, yeah, going to what you have a genetic predisposition or environmental predisposition for being good at. Amplifying that as quickly as possible and then closing the skill gaps.

So what do you think of the tools that a prospective e-com seller should be thinking about right now? Like, where am I looking to source products? Are there things that I can look at that's going to sort of index products anywhere? Are there any tools that you know that's going to check trends? Or—

yeah.

And then what does my stack look like to build a business in e-com these days?

Yeah. So I filmed a full 11-hour course on this, so it's free. You just go on to YouTube, right? Millionaires by Davey, and it'll be there. You don't even need to sign up. But the first step is finding a product. You can use my tool, it's called Trend Rocket. Or if you don't want to use that, it gives other alternatives. There's like Exploding Topics. That's a really cool one. There's something called Maneer as well that scrapes ad libraries. All three of those tools will be great for you. There's also some free tools like you can just go into the Facebook Ads library, just see what's scaling there, then go and build out their positioning and what these other brands are selling it for. Maybe it's a TENS device which creates electric shocks, right, for period pain. You write that down, that, then you understand all the use cases, but then you realize that there's an avatar that is not being served by that, which is like muscle recovery, such as ultra marathon runners. Now you have unique positioning with a unique product for a market, and you can suddenly scale that very, very aggressively and test it in the avatar. And you can do this simultaneously. You can launch quite a generic store like for the TENS device, and you can just do this through the advertising creative, create one for muscle cramps, one for period pain, one for ultra marathon runners, whatever, and see what takes off. Once that happens, then you can scale up the landing pages and just kind of build the brand around that use case and that avatar.

Very nice. So you had this explosion, got to $200 million a year. What happened after you hit the $200 million? The business had more competition?

Yeah, I think we did. I'd have to check, but I think it was like $190 million the next year, $180 million in the next year or something like it was still solid results. Yeah, it was pretty good. But yeah, we started to get a lot of competition. The trend started to fatigue. COVID. Was obviously a massive accelerator. So there's mean reversion there. So that was a big part of it. But yeah, I just went into— I actually had to step down as CEO after that because I was spending maybe 2 hours a day on Oodie, focusing the rest on YouTube and all of these other businesses trying to save them, which was a stupid use of my time. I should have been focusing on the main thing. But yeah, I started focusing on those and it was just probably more around getting myself right in those periods.

And so do you hire a replacement for yourself?

Yep.

How do you go about doing that?

There's lots of ways. You can either hire internal, um, which is a lower risk hire because you know the person that you're going to get, or you can hire someone that is external, and you should probably be using a recruiter for that. Yeah. Um, or someone that you know really well, such as a friend, and you can trial people in certain ways. So it's all about listing out the exact archetype that you think that the business needs. The main mistake that you can probably make is hiring two opposite to you, which I don't think I did that, but there was an element of she's very operational, I'm very marketing, the business needs an operational side of things. I lucked out because she is obviously very good at marketing as well. So but I wasn't looking at that component and I think I could have gone really wrong there. And I've seen people do that. So we're often attracted to the traits that we don't have. But realistically, the business got to where it is by you having those traits. Yeah, that's why it's, it's actually can be such a big cancer for the business because you're just sacrificing the main thing that made it successful. So yeah, and then just go through that process. If you can trial them for 6 months, that's obviously ideal.

And how did the, how did the business perform once you put a new CEO in and what year is this?

Yeah, so I'm going to get these mixed up, but this was probably the year after the $200 million year. So again, doing decent numbers, it started to find stability, but we had some really big mistakes that we made. So at this point, I think I had an offer for $130 million for the business. Well, that I was considering going through and we went through all the due diligence and stuff like that. And then because we used a certain 4PL, they failed to sign all this paperwork in a certain region. Uh, well, it was actually just one piece of paperwork, and then all of our goods got seized on Black Friday. So, and Black Friday is where we make 80% of our profits, like, through those two months. So that blew up that deal. Um, and then even the year after, uh, we had a similar issue on Black Friday where we couldn't ship out. So we've never actually had proper trade period during those, those things, which caused a lot of issues there. But yeah, the business, as I said, has been declining, but I don't think that that's a representation of like me not being the CEO. I think that's— there's so much negative inertia based on how quick it was a trend. You know, what goes up fast must come down fast. And as I said, there's a lot of green shoots there as well.

Amazing. The thing that I think a lot of people now know you for is Shark Tank. How did that come about?

The thing that a lot of people don't understand in outside of the UK and Australia is just everyone just knows my product. So in Australia, like every single person, one of my friends is a property valuer and he goes into, you know, 11 houses a day and every single house that he goes in, there's either an Oodie in the wardrobe or the person's wearing an Oodie. One time he walked in and there was a guy wearing an hoodie watching one of my videos in Australia. So that's why I got the call up there. You know, I was the youngest ever Shark, and there's people with bigger businesses than me, but I think it was just because our product brought so much joy and happiness and it became a bit of a brand household name that I got that opportunity. And, you know, I'm incredibly thankful for it, you know, meeting that crew and learning how the TV industry works. It's amazing.

I think also, I mean, you're young, exciting, you've built a new age business, you show younger people that it's possible with a new age style of business. Like, I mean, I don't really watch the— our equivalent here, Dragon's Den, very often anymore, but like growing up I watched it.

You should go on it, you'd be good on it.

I mean, I will, yeah, need to work on my pitch.

Yeah, um, you'd be great on it.

The challenge I suppose I have with the traditional business models is that they're not that representative of businesses people want to build now.

Yeah.

And so I think, I think when I saw that you had become a Shark, I was like, that's amazing. Yeah, it's a bit like Steve Bartlett becoming a Dragon. Like, exactly, it's representative of what people are focused on today.

Yeah.

So how was your first day on Shark Tank?

Funnily enough, the panic attack started, I think it was 6 to 12 months before that. It was, it was pretty close. So sitting out in the backyard with my parents and like, I don't think you should do this, I think you need to say no to this opportunity. Well And that was just like, because for me, I'm never gonna let anxiety rule my life. Like, if I'm feeling anxious, I'm in the right place. Like, I'm just going to keep throwing myself into that, um, those situations. Not from a toxic point, but more from like, I know that exposure therapy is the best way to handle this and, and grow past this at this stage. And exposure therapy is exposing yourself, going to putting yourself in that situation and realizing it's not gonna be the end of the world. You have a panic attack, it's TV, they just cut it, right? Like, it's just not a big deal.

So it's not live, is it?

It's not live. No, it's not live. And even if it was live, you just— yeah, like, just give yourself permission to make the mistake, right? So I ended up saying yes to that opportunity, and first day was good. We got on a call, and I've been watching Robert Herschewitz in school.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he got on the call and I thought he was going to be like a coach or a consultant for the thing. And he gets on and he's like, I'm so excited to pitch with you guys. Like, I'm going to work with you guys. And I was like, this is so cool. So yeah, I was a bit starstruck with him. And yeah, we basically did the makeup and we all sucked, obviously. Like, you just— we just were all terrible. We didn't know when to speak over each other and when to jump in or how to pull out the story from someone. What even was the story for the pitch? And it took a good week of 12-hour days, you know, 12 pitches, and then we got it. And then after that week too, we were just, you know, working really well.

What's the most memorable pitch on Shark Tank?

That's a good one. I don't want to speak negatively about anyone, but they all come to mind.

The bad ones come to mind.

Yeah, the bad ones come to mind. For sure. There was one guy and he came on. He was a really lovely guy and he was pitching his AI school software to teach using AI. And it was so complex, like we were scratching our head. And at the end of the pitch, Robert went, okay, he got up, he stood, went over, moved him over and gave his pitch to us. And nailed it, like absolutely drained it. It was like, this is a wrapper on ChatGPT, it's going to be used for this. I just need a small bit of funding and we're going to go. And this is why I'm the person to win. And everyone was like, we want to invest in Robert. That was pretty bad. But there's been some, been some really good ones. You know, we recently had a person on there and she was selling a glue that stops women's dresses from falling down. And it was— sweat didn't do it. It was only water. So you'd wash it off at the end of the night so you don't have to wear tape. And she came on. She was just recently like a project manager, had no experience in e-com, already got into all of these different service stations and pharmacies. She asked for the perfect amount of money. Everyone was fighting over her. And then just shortly after that, she raised $10 million at a $10 million valuation like a week later. And I think that that, that shows the contrast of what we're dealing with here. The vast majority is people like we were talking before we started filming this, me and you, when we first started, we have no idea what we're doing. We've got, you know, we've got something there, but, you know, we're just going to need so much work. And you just see that. So you try not to judge people too much about it.

Yeah. So She had a product that raised a $10 million valuation after a week after Shark Tank.

Yeah, it was, I think it was maybe a couple of months after. Wow. Yeah.

And were you, you were an investor in that?

I was, but she ended up not going with that investment because she obviously got 5 times the valuation that was on the show.

Wow. Yeah, so that's incredible.

Yeah, didn't, didn't need us on that one, I think.

What's your most successful deal on Shark Tank at the moment?

It would probably be I recently invested in a kids shampoo, um, and I love that niche. They have huge exit valuations, so if we can do anything, uh, there would be a great outcome. I launched it on e-com and within the first 2 months it was doing $150 grand a month, um, which was really good for that space. So she's pretty ecstatic about that and she's selling out all the time, so So yeah, I think we will have a $3-4 million e-com business just for that business there. Well, and she's already got retail exposure as well. So I think that that will have a big exit. But these businesses take so long, you know, e-com especially 5 to 7 years is like, that's okay. I wouldn't expect some of them, some of them might take 9 years to pay off. And that's part of the journey.

You said something there which was exit valuation. Can you break that down for people listening? What does that mean? How does it work with e-commerce businesses?

Yeah, so e-commerce businesses previously had incredible exit multiples simply because the private, private equity and the retail investors in the stock market assumed that it was probably a business that was a done deal. Like, it was just like e-com, we're going to cut out the middleman. We're going to— we don't need retail storefront. That's fixed cost. It's going to cause issues. And everyone's like, e-commerce is the future. What they found out is the very low barriers to entry and simplified business model just makes it ripe for disruption. Right. And that's why the vast majority of the e-com brands that listed have all gone down. And with that, it brings down someone like me that would have to sell their business as well. So, you know, a dropshipping brand is going to get 1 to 2 times EBITDA. An e-com brand might get 3 to 6 times EBITDA if it's a non kind of replenishable subscription-based product such as beauty, such as supplements, those kind of things. And then you get some brands that that have retail distribution, that have a clear product flywheel, that have a crazy brand and following, that will get, you know, 3, 5 times revenue, 30 times EBITDA, those kind of outlier results. But it's really important for brands to not look at those outlier results and assume that they have that business.

Yeah. Also, the market timing matters so much.

So much.

I mean, I sold my agency I don't mind admitting this publicly, but like, I sold my agency in 2021. It was like the best time ever to sell.

Yeah.

And so we got 11 times our profit.

Yeah.

Which for an agency is like absurd.

Yeah, that's high. You know, we were usually 6-ish, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, again, it's like you say, there's some, there's some nuance to it. You know, you can have an ordinary like design and build web or app agency that might get sort of 3 to 5 times if they're small. Then if you have like recurring revenue, your, your multiplier is going to go up. If you have recurring revenue on long-term contracts that someone can say, oh, I can see where the, the revenue will be at in 9 months, it goes up. If you have— if you're much bigger, it goes up quite a lot. If you have incredible clients, very hard-to-get clients, it goes up. So we were the leading agency for luxury brands of the world, like we had Bugatti, Aston Martin, Ritz-Harrods, Sunseeker, the NetJets. We had like everyone in luxury. 90% retained revenue. And from COVID to a year and a half after COVID, we two and a half times the business.

Yeah.

So we were on like a massive up, retained revenue.

What happened after the— after you sold to the business?

They killed it.

So it's probably, probably the perfect, perfect moment.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they killed it. It's so funny, they they were a very traditional group of people who we didn't actually get along, you know, like it's like quite well known we all didn't get along. But I think they're good at business, and they took what we had, which was like a very unique, incredibly well-positioned agency for, you know, luxury digital marketing, and they blasted out their network, they gave scale to it, and they won some unreal contracts in our earnout year. And so our earnout was amazing. That's great, because the first year we went in, we were doing crazy profit, doing really well. But then the second year, they won like individual contracts that were bigger than the whole agency.

Wow, that's awesome.

And so we were very lucky. Yeah, you know, we've run a great business, but our timing was—

yeah, I think, I think the, the foundations of the business need to be there. To win that, right?

Totally.

You shouldn't be thinking about exit multiples when you're a beginner, and I think you shouldn't be thinking about exiting your business. All you're trying to do is to create cash flow and to learn as many lessons as quickly as possible. Once you're an advanced entrepreneur, then suddenly you can start thinking about these higher enterprise value exits simply because generally they're based out of strong merit. Harder to get into. It's harder to sell something with higher LTV because more people want to do it, more experienced entrepreneurs want to do it. But you're becoming more experienced. So I think it's just this progression where you start investing in yourself in terms of more aggressive opportunities.

Your journey is amazing in the sense that you actually did the like crazy product experimentation as a youngster and then had a mad breakthrough when you were young.

Yeah.

I mean, that's irregular, you know, you're, you're an outlier. But what you were doing is what I would advise everyone to do, like look at products, experiment, try and make money.

Yeah.

You know, I feel like in the last 4 or 5 years, people got quite obsessed with investment. Investment was quite common, you know, there was a lot of money around post-COVID, very liquid sort of world, and everyone was raising loads of money and forgot about actually making money, you know. So if you're young, I would say like it's hard to model very big companies because they're actually really complex to start.

Definitely.

And they're really hard to run.

Yeah, I think it's very seductive when you realize that these private equity people are just doing fancy number work and printing $100 million in a year, and it's like, why am I working so hard? And it's similar to crypto and meme coins, it's just like Why am I working so hard when this guy makes $50 million last quarter of trading this frog coin? And I think when you start thinking like that, it really takes your eye off the ball because what they do, it's not easy. They are some of the smartest people in the world. That's why they're there. And I think that you just need to keep your eyes on the prize. And just if you want to maximize the amount of money you're making, do whatever you are good at for an insane period of time and you'll become the best in the world. That's if you want to maximize money. If you get bored and you want other fulfillment, do something else.

Yeah, it's just not going to happen quickly. I mean, you might have a spike in a short period of time, but it's not going to happen. Like, my agency took 10 years. Yeah, from 21 years old to 30.

Yeah.

And I think it defined me. Like, it taught me how to be a marketer in all guises. And, and I think again, like, you think about where the real money big money sits in like private equity. I was reading about Doc Marten sold for like $250 million to a private equity who then scaled it and then they sold 12% for $200 million.

Yeah, there's a huge survivorship bias. Totally.

Yeah.

It's just like for every story like that, I hear 10 bad stories. Yeah. Or more. Yeah. Or more.

Yeah.

And I think that's the things that I need to constantly remind myself of. Otherwise I'm just going to start trading meme coins.

But I think that would appeal less to you now because you care less about just the money. Yeah, right. Yeah, as in, you're probably similar to me, like I'm very interested in business and businesses and complex problems and, and whatever, not necessarily just the money. Whereas when I was younger, I think crypto could have been my downfall.

Yeah, yeah, you might be right, for sure. Yeah, I lost 50 grand on Frogcoin the other day. I was pretty flat about it. I was like, this is my meme coin.

That's over. Yeah. Well, are there any deals on Shark Tank that you've passed on that you look at, you're like, really wish I'd got in on that one?

It's still a bit early with the Australian ones, but it hasn't been that, that Ring doorbell story. Do you know Ring doorbell? And they ended up selling for $1.5 billion and then he became a shark. There hasn't been any of those just yet.

And what are the number one lessons that you've learned from the other sharks?

I never could do public speaking. Like, people assume that I'm good at public speaking because I'm on YouTube, but it's just like, I started that because, you know, I had a speech impediment growing up. I was so insecure, and I was like, I need to get in front of a camera. First video I did, I had to get drunk to actually speak to the camera. So I managed to break through that, but public speaking was always just this big no for me. So I never as a CEO stood in front of my team and addressed my, my company. Would always do it via Zoom. If anything, I'd turn off the camera, just speak to it. It was that bad. And I was fortunate enough to have 2 weeks with Robert in LA just as he retired. He's just like, I want to do content now. So we basically hung out with him for 2 weeks and he was telling me a story about how he presented to Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team and stuff like that. And I was like, don't you get nervous in front of these people? Is like, I've done so many remarkable things in my life that I know that I don't need to compare to them. I have my own great story and they have theirs. And literally the day I got off the plane, usually when I'm tired, I'm even more anxious. I went and I stood up in front of my team for the first time ever. We had a conference that day. There was 40 people in there and everyone was like, what the hell just happened to Davey? And this was just for me, just like, This is why you've got to be so careful who you hang out with. If I'm hanging out with someone that makes me feel bad about myself, or is like, you need to speak better in this way, I'm not going to go home and do that. But I was with someone that was just constantly so uplifting in that area that it raised me there. So yeah, I learned, I learned a lot from him.

Amazing. The position you find yourself in now, so you've got, you've got so much opportunity in front of you, as in you could choose almost any industry to put your hand to. Like, yeah, how do you think about your next couple of years?

Yeah, I get a tremendous amount of joy when I see people send a message in my Discord or just DM me on Instagram and they're like, you made me rich. It just, it just makes me happy. It really does. And I think because how much pain I went through when I was growing up through that stuff, if I can just prevent that for certain people, I just find that, that, that be the most rewarding, rewarding thing. And it's not all altruistic. It's a for-profit company. Like, we make money, but I can make money in any regard. But I can only deliver outsized value by teaching my lessons in e-commerce to these people. Like, that's where I think that my calling is at the moment.

It's a great calling to help other people. The thing I always think about, I suppose, with people like you is if you had you to train you, yeah, how much better—

how we learned what we did. There was no YouTube like tutorials about—

that's what everyone forgets.

So I don't know how we figured it out, to be honest. Then I think it was just about talking to certain people like talking to people that have walked the path, like that was the most important thing. But yeah, it's, it's, it's important that this information exists. And most, most, lots of people are just going to keep building their brands and build them to have $1 billion. And I truthfully, I admire that, you know, I failed to do that. But I think that there needs to be someone that has walked at the levels teaching this stuff because the rest of them have made $1 million in their life and they don't actually know what they're teaching.

Yeah, so true. The thing that's funny about when probably you and I were learning it all for the first time is that I just feel like the rate of change is faster now. Yeah. And I think it's like, I think it's educational content, I think it's also the tooling.

Yeah.

Like if I look back at my dad's business and I was, I was with him on the weekend, he was talking to me about setting it up.

Yeah.

And like, in setting a business like that up, it just took forever. Yeah, because you had to create everything from scratch, whereas nowadays you can read and learn online everything you possibly need about ads or virality or personal brand or product and, yeah, find yourself in these.

I, I remember showing my grandpa, my dad, my P&L. I think it was like the 6th month, and it was just like, this business will make more than their businesses I've ever made in like 6 months. And it's just like, yeah, you know, and I— that's why I have a tremendous respect for like previous people in every industry, right? Like, sure, am I going to outgrow certain people in social media? And did I outgrow a lot of brands that existed before me? Yes, but I had all, all of their lessons to walk on, you know. I had all of their teachings, I had all of of why they failed. And that's why I'm not going to be sad when a 14-year-old outgrows Oodie and creates the fastest growing e-commerce business ever in Australia, because, you know, that's just progression and it's, it's good for them.

And they probably learned from you.

Yeah, well, they did. They 100% did, as I learned from my grandpa, as I learned from my dad, you know.

So what do you do nowadays that does make you truly happy?

It just fluctuates so much. It's like And that is the key to why you should work out really hard for 10 years, because I have the liberty to— I can change whatever I want to work on every 6 months. At the moment, I just love training. I'm just like, just getting really into fitness again, which was something that I loved when I was a kid. So I'm really, really enjoying that. I'm really enjoying the YouTube side. We're just launching new vlogs, which is pretty cool. I can just travel the world and do what I was doing and just talk to the camera and share a bit of wisdom. Like, that's pretty fun. Uh, so yeah, definitely the YouTube side, the coaching side, and the fitness side.

And like, in your— what do you like in your sort of outside of work?

Are you—

do you have a lot of friends? Do you, uh, you know, is it a quiet life, you know?

Yeah, so I have a girlfriend. I've had her for 14 years since grade 12, so we've been together for ages. Every single— grade 12 is 17, 18.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

And then all of my closest guy friends, I have 10 of them. They're all from school as well.

Wow.

Um, I bought a farm so I could just basically go and just hang out with animals. And yeah, I'm just chilling. I just have them up on the weekends.

And those, those 10 guys, are they entrepreneurs?

No, no, one of them. Not one of them? No.

Wow.

Well, one of them, but, uh, yeah, the rest of them aren't. We don't talk about business. Yeah, she was just chill. And this is the thing, the people that were with you when you had nothing will be with you when you have nothing in the future. And there's a tremendous amount of respect and unconditional love that got— is a two-way street there.

I'd say the exact same. Like, my, my friends outside of work, I don't really know what they do, like, in terms of their actual jobs. Yeah, I don't you know, I know roughly what they do. Like, I know they might be a lawyer, couldn't tell you the company they work for.

Yeah.

How senior they are. Yeah. Anything like that. And the only reason they know more about what I do is because a lot of it's public.

Yeah.

But they don't care.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, it's not a conversation, man.

They just sit there and they talk about sport, and I just sit there. I don't watch sport, and I just go, yep, yep. I'm just drinking a beer and I'm just hanging out with them. Yeah. And there's no need for me to be anyone that I'm not. They are there. And I think that that's a tremendous amount of, of, you know, safety, but also, you know, peace.

So you've been very fortunate in that you've spent a lot of time now with incredibly experienced entrepreneurs, a lot— like a lot of billionaires as well. What do you think, like, from a habit perspective, you've learned from how they operate?

The main thing about billionaires is that they all have just been doing it for so long, and they haven't relented in their ambition to just create money. Like, I have no doubt I could be a billionaire. Mm. I have a high degree of conviction that I'm not going to be a billionaire simply because I'm chilling in my farm with my girlfriend and raising animals right now. Right? Yeah. So it's just like billionaires are boring. They just want money and they continually just chase money. And that is probably the only common denominator. They're hardworking to create money over long periods of time. Sure, some of them are insane at product. Sure, some of them will work 14 hours doing biohacking. Like, like, there's, there's so many differences between all of the ones that I've met that I've realized that there's only that one common denominator.

It's actually so true. And I also think it's like, why are people so obsessed with becoming a billionaire? I understand, like, when you're like 13, 14 years old and you don't quite know, but there is so much more meaning and enjoyment to life, to, you know, not doing those things.

Yeah. Even if you have your house fully paid off and you have $10 million in the bank and you have a cash-flowing business, you don't need anything else. You are sweet. And this is where a lot of people get kind of confused about people that have billions of dollars that are doing maybe something unethical, like, or like Trump getting shot at. I don't think he's doing that for money because I think he has enough money. And I don't want to get political about it, but it's just like a lot of the actions that like billionaires will take, I don't think it's about money anymore. I think it's about ego and curiosity, um, which is linked to the money, I guess.

Yeah, dropping the ego, it's a, it's a As in stopping caring what other people think about you? Is a— that I would say that, by the way, is that you ask why I think I feel a lot better in, in life these days, less anxious and so forth. I'd say like the two things that I focus a lot of my time on is being 100% truthful, like, you know, never, never deviating from 100% of the truth. And I feel like when I was in my 20s and coming up, I would definitely be like fake it till you make it type person.

Yeah.

Whereas I feel like living 100% in the truth means that you're never, you're never worried once about what you say. You might annoy people with the truth, but it is definitely the truth. And then the other one is practicing confronting yourself as to why you care about what other people think.

Yeah.

And the more you do that, the more you sort of realize that the reason you cared about why they they care about you sort of irrelevant.

Yeah, the fake team make it things interesting. I think often when I'm in a state of anxiousness, I'll sometimes just be so relentless in terms of comments about how good I am. And I, you know, their thoughts, they're not beliefs because I wouldn't be anxious and care, insecure about what people think of me if I actually thought these things. But they can put me in a state of, I am good enough and I don't need to worry about these people, what these people think, by just saying like, you've done this, you've done this, you're great, blah blah blah. And that's where I think the fake it till you make it, providing that it's not malicious or taking advantage in a zero-sum game for other people, can actually be really effective.

Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean out of my friends who are entrepreneurs, everyone exhibited an element of that growing up. 100%, you know, like a push, whether it was to win clients, whether it was to build an audience, whether it was to, um, close a deal, whatever it was, you know, a bit of exaggeration is very natural. And a lot of the time you do end up growing into it.

Yeah.

And often surpassing it. Uh, and I think that, yeah, I mean, it just becomes you start caring about different things. But yeah, I think if you intentionally try and get yourself to care about the things, you get there faster.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I agree. But I just wanted to end on— I think a great bit of advice that you give is that following your passion is actually the wrong thing to do up front. And I think a lot of billionaire advice is follow your passion. Yeah. But I think that you're right, I don't know if that is good practical advice for young people to do to make money.

Billionaires say follow your passion because they are already successful and they have the liberty of following their passion. When you are first starting, if you follow your passion and don't become successful, suddenly you are unable to continue doing your passion because it's making you unsuccessful. So what you need to do is become passionate about success. That first sale, that first bit of profit. And then eventually you'll have so much money that you can be passionate and pursue whatever because it's not about money anymore.

Well, dude, thank you very much for coming on the show.

No, thank you. It was awesome.