Q&A: Noah Kagan joins! 2nd opinion dental site, wealth advisor, mortgages for entrepreneurs & blue collar side hustle idea. Ep. #017. Small Business Ideas and Entrepreneurship

We were going to put your name on the COVID It was going to be Chris Corners presents Million Dollar Weekend, written by Noah Kane and Tol Raz.

I should have answered that text, man. I'm really bad about that. Welcome to episode 12 of the Kerner Office. I had a co host with me today. His name is Noah Kagan, you may have heard of him. He co founded a company called Appsumo, a hundred million dollar plus company. He's a regular guest on my first million and he just wrote a bestseller called Million Dollar Weekend which I highly recommend. It teaches to start a million dollar business in a weekend. He lives down in Austin, I'm up in Dallas. So he joined me for today's questions and answers and we had a lot of fun. So we covered five different things. First caller asked about his website. That is a second opinion website for dentists or for people that just went to the dentist. Rather he charges $47 to get a second opinion on your dental quote. Second caller wanted to know how to generate more leads for his company that sells charitable contribution services to wealth advisors. So it's a very unique industry. It's hard to get ahold of these wealth advisors. We gave them some good ideas there. The next caller sells mortgages to self employed entrepreneurs, which is a pain point. That one didn't last very long. But we gave them some good ideas on how to find customers like myself who are self employed and want a mortgage. After that we just bro down for a little bit talking about Judaism and Mormonism, his and my religions and. And then at the very end, my favorite segment was from a blue collar worker that wants to break out of the blue collar life and start a side hustle that could hopefully turn into full fledged business. And I love this call because this is where most people sit. Most people aren't looking to make a million dollars a year to start a big company. They just want to supplement their income in a low risk way that could hopefully one day replace their income. That one didn't last very long as well, but I really enjoyed it and I hope you do too. So enjoy episode 12 of the Kerner Office with Noah Kagan and myself and we'll see you next week. Noah.

Chris Corner.

How are you man?

At peace. How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. I'm having a good day.

Nice man, nice. Yeah, it's a nice day out here.

You're down in Austin, right?

I am, I am.

Where are you?

I am about three hours north. Dfw.

Matt Hannon here's the problem. I have. So I'm a dentist and yeah. So I have this website, my dentaladvocate. Com. And so basically it's like a remote second opinion. So anybody could, can log in, upload their X rays, fill out a brief questionnaire, and then I could review it and then get it back to them within 48 hours just for like 47 bucks. So I think the need. There's great value in it. You go to the dentist now and.

I literally got a root canal estimate. My third one on Tuesday.

Did you really?

So there's two. There's a consulting fee. Let me pull it up. I'll just show you the bills.

Okay.

I'm not as price sensitive because I want my teeth fixed.

Sure.

Make sure it doesn't have any of my personal information on it. I don't even know any of this stuff. I just gave him money. So there's like, that's the bill for the consultation. It was just a console. This is through an endodontics. It was 515. And then the actual root canal thingamajigger they're saying is $1698.

Yeah.

Not insurance.

That's not including insurance. That's just like what they're claiming.

Okay, so how do you feel about that? Are you in pain or why did you need it?

I haven't been able to chew on the left side of my mouth for two years.

Okay, so there's an issue. So you're wanting relief.

Right.

Sometimes people will go to the dentist and they'll be like, you need three crowns. Right. And they'd be like, I just went to the dentist like two years ago and my dentist didn't say anything about that. Like, I'm a little skeptical. And even just like friends and family, right. I'll interact with them at a party and they'll be like, hey, what are your thoughts about this? This too. I'm just unsure about it. And so it seemed like I was just always answering questions, which is cool. But I was like, man, if friends and family have questions, why not just make it available to anybody? Yeah. So I started the website and basically it was getting like 30 to 40,000 page views per month. Just doing like SEO traffic, writing product review articles, blog posts, and actually doing pretty well just from like a revenue standpoint. Like Amazon affiliate was paying like two or three grand a month just from like product reviews. So it was actually like outpacing. Well, outpacing just like the second opinion stuff. But Google's pretty broken right now, I think, so just with the March core update, it just really smashed, like, a lot of small publishers. And any kind of big media site or, like, big company can rank, but it's harder to rank now.

Yeah. What's the question? Cause I got some ideas. I'm ex. Dude, you have probably the coolest business I've seen today. Not even today, in, like, probably months. This is such a sick business. Pun intended.

Okay, sweet.

Good.

Let's figure out how we can, like, make it known to people. So anyway, my question is, so what are some cheap ways to get in front of potential customers? Or, like, how should I pivot? What should I do different? Or what should I continue doing just to get the word out? I know I could spend, like, money for Google Ads.

What's the revenue of the site? What's the revenue from, like, the sales versus the ads?

Yeah, so. So revenue. So I'm not spending anything on. On ads.

Basically. It's.

It just comes, I mean, from the affiliate stuff.

Yeah. So from affiliate site, like the Amazon affiliates, it brings in two to three grand a month. The consult and then the payment stuff. So basically I just have to pay about 1 to 200 bucks a month just for hosting some software, you know.

How much do your consults make a month?

The consoles only. I'm only getting two to five consults a month. And that's basically because I'm not targeting. So, like, the people that are landing on the site, they're landing on the site for the product reviews. Right. So I. I don't think the intention.

Right.

The intention is not there. But I think if I can get in front of people who actually need the service, they go for it. So it's. So I'm getting traffic, but they're for product reviews. It's not for, like, people searching for, like, an online second opinion.

This is so freaking rad.

I love it. Thank you.

This is like, honestly, such. So, so cool, man. I'm like, I'm so impressed.

Cool.

What do you got for me?

So here's my two suggestions. Number one, I actually think you maybe have built a platform for other medical professionals. I think that's almost as interesting as what you've done.

Okay.

Like, instead of thinking yourself as, like, the dental person, you've created a platform where other dentists are doctors, or it's just in verticals. You can now replicate this business. Think about appsumo. I could create software or I can create the platform that promotes software.

Right.

Both can work, but, like, when I have the platform, I don't really care. So I think there's something interesting. Think about where maybe you can go abroad. Like, there's dental. There's like doctor and then maybe one or two other ones that are big verticals. Now here's the other idea that I think is just as interesting. I think you have your free question. I think I would kill all of it.

Okay.

And it's only thing you do is it's $100 a year and you can have unlimited questions to your dentist, to this virtual dentist.

Okay.

I don't. I wouldn't give him free. I can contact you for free. Are you freaking crazy? So it's a hundred bucks a year. And to me, my brother's a doctor that does insurance audits. So he does what you do, but for the hospital.

Sure.

And helps people. And he helps the hospitals fight their bills down with insurance companies.

Yeah.

So you're that for a consumer side. I've actually been telling my brother he needs to basically do this model. He's not ambitious like you are.

Right.

I know.

I got the ambitious gene. He got the. I don't know what gene he got. He's a good researcher. He's a really good researcher. But I think there's something interesting about how do you position a way where someone like Chris, who's rich, really rich. Right. Would Chris drop a hundred? So, Chris, let me ask you, would you drop $100 today to have unlimited consults around your dental bills and exams?

Yeah, if I've got. Especially because I have four kids and a wife. We go twice a year each. Right. That's a great roi.

Yeah.

Will you sign up today for my dental advocate dot com?

I would if he could convince me that I'd have a positive roi.

All right, so, Matt, I think that's probably the disconnect of people like me and Chris are like, okay, the insurance covers some and then we're dummies.

Right.

Or we're just. We think it's reasonable. So otherwise it's not worth someone like Chris, who has a ton of money, like super rich, doesn't want to pay. So I think it may not be a problem, but maybe the review stuff is the opportunity and you focus it more on that. And then the question stuff is free and it's just a legion thing to your email list if you're not making money on, I think, what people miss in business. And if you haven't gotten a copy of Million Dollar Weekend.

Yeah, Highly recommended.

It's. Chris wrote it.

Actually, I did ghost writing.

I've received $0 from. I am not rich for million dollar weekend only from RV parts.

I need to send you those checks. But I think what people get stuck on is they get stuck on. Well, I have to sell these, this consulting, but no one wants to pay for it. But they're doing over this. So you might want to think, well, how do we focus everything on the thing that's working, right. And reduce the distractions on the other part. But maybe you can get these people to pay. But if they're not okay, I would get rid of it and then focus everything on the thing that is working and double down on it.

Okay, that sounds good.

Yeah. Matt, I think it'd be interesting if you reached out to dentists directly and use them for referrals. So they give out a quote, maybe the customer has a little heartburn and the dentist can be like, listen, if you want a second opinion, check out this website. Right, Right. And if assuming he's an honest person, it's not going to harm him to refer him out to someone else that's only going to charge him $47 only for that person to come back and now want the $2,000 root canal. Yeah, right.

That makes sense.

Have you tried going through dentists at all or are you treating them like a competitor?

No, I'm treating it, I'm like the advocate for the customer, right. Because I think I still want to hold dentistry in good light. And so I don't want it to be like pit the customer against the dentist.

Right.

Like I'm trying to, I just want what the truth, right. And I think if any with anything, right. When you take your car into the shop, right, like you don't know what they're suggesting, right? So there's gotta be a trust factor, but again, it's relative. So what you're saying is just thinking about it, right? If you need one filling for a hundred bucks, it may not be the best thing, but if you need three crowns, two crowns are easily, it's, it's well worth it. So I think that my only concern if I'm going to dentist would be like they may get a little, may think it's a little fishy or maybe skeptical regarding it. But yeah, I, I was even thinking because I, I, I love how you keep talking about outscraper and getting emails, like if I could just get it in front of the people that need it, right? Like hand, hand it, hand a card to everybody walking out of a dentist office type of thing. I just need to figure out how to, how to find that Opportunity.

Yeah, it's tough because you've got great SEO, but this is a very time sensitive decision that people are searching for.

Right.

They're not going to Google it on their phone in the waiting room it and most people are just going to get the quote and then buy it. Right. Then just by nature of things how this transaction goes, I think one thing you could do to get more buy in from both the dentist and consumers is to put some testimonials front and center on their, on the site, emphasizing the ROI. Right. Like I paid $47 to save 4700 or something like that. First name, last name, picture, maybe even a video or two. Video testimonials perform super, super well in the landing page. Put it as close to the top as you can because that's the most valuable real estate. So people don't have to scroll. Right. I'm not seeing. I'm sure you have some, some sort of testimonials on here. Yeah, I see you have a tap. Yeah, those need to go front and center.

Okay.

And then I definitely recommend using something like Outscraper to try to form some partnerships with dentists, even just friends that you have and just say, hey, is this even relevant? Would this even come up in your everyday, everyday work and get some feedback and then see if you can get them to refer someone to shoot. Give them half of the revenue.

Right, right, right.

Yeah. I was even thinking even partnering with a dental insurance. Right. Cause then you could potentially save for them too. So it could be a cool angle as well. But yeah, I appreciate those recommendations.

So yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for coming on, Matt.

Cool, man. All right, we'll see you.

All right, see ya. All right, Riley, thank you for joining. So Riley, before I have you talk, I'm going to introduce Noah Kagan. Noah Kagan has literally been blogging for a quarter of a century. It sounds a lot longer than it is, but 24 years, right? 2,000. He is the co founder of AppSumo, employee number 30 at Facebook. I've been, I have not been reading his blog since I was 13 years old. I've been reading it probably Since I was 23 though, and it's an amazing blog and he just wrote a book called Million Dollar Weekend. And on one hand I love the book because it's really good and on the other hand I hate it because it's everything in my head and it's like kind of the book that I wanted to write one day, but he beat me to the punch. So now I have to think of something else to write about.

We were going to put your name on the COVID It was going to be Chris Corners presents Million Dollar Weekend, written by Noah Kane and Tol.

I should have answered that text, man. I'm really bad about that.

You know how you gave me that voice memo that was four hours long and then I literally copied all of it into a book into audible.

That's it.

So be careful. Don't do that sleepwalking and voice memoing, it's dangerous.

Anyway, thank you for joining, Noah.

We've happy to be here.

Thanks. All right, Riley, you've got a. Just tell us what you've got.

Sure, I'll try and keep it simple. About a year ago, I made a big transition from owning an auto detailing business to a startup in finance. And so it's been rewiring my brain to learn how to market a different type of business. So we are in the financial services industry to keep it really simple. We provide services to wealth management firms to help with their clients charitable giving. And so technically their clients are our customers, but really who we're marketing to is the financial advisors. And we've pretty well dialed in our offer. It's pretty compelling. And the hurdle really is trying to get in front of more people. And so we're growing, but there's always ways to improve. And so my questions are pertaining to one, I guess one last bit of context. Sales cycle's pretty long. Our business is seasonal because most people are doing all their charitable giving towards the end of the year in Q4. So we could talk to someone, someone in January it would go really well, but they're not going to need our services until December or November. And so first question is some tips on staying top of mind with prospects and existing relationships. And then the second one, just looking for creative ideas for lead gen. We have a few different channels, but I would love some ideas for cold outreach or stimulating referrals. And yeah.

So one, you literally were probably the first person ever who's like, I'm going to tell you simple. And you told it simple. Whenever someone does that, like I'm going to tell you really quickly, I'm just like, okay, well done, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you. How's this business versus the auto detailing business?

It's totally different. I love it because it's. We could work with anyone across the country or across the world. Whereas my detailing business, it was in Boise, Idaho and it was hyper localized. And so the things that I really excel that don't really apply to trying to reach someone in New York City or across the country. And so, but it's more rewarding because we're growing a company that could be huge compared to what a local business would be. So it's totally different, but it's stretching me. And so I love it.

Good for you. Good for, good for you to live your dream.

Yeah.

Nice, man. So a few. Just trying to. A few questions to understand things. So you bought it or you started it?

I. I just joined the startup. So I didn't start this one. I started the auto detailing business. It's called UI Charitable Advisors.

I literally just saw a company get funded for $100 million yesterday, which has zero discouragement. It's just. Oh, what an interesting space. So you guys help wealth managers facilitate DAFs, fiscal sponsorships, field of interest funds.

Yeah, primarily it's donor advised funds or DAFs. That's 90% of what we do.

But I'm trying to make sure I understand the problem. So these wealth managers, it's setting up a DAF for someone or executing their.

DAF, getting them to use us to set up DAFs for their clients. So the client, a DAF is basically like a health savings account. Oh, do you have one?

Okay, yeah.

So it's your charitable savings account. And so advisors are just a huge source of referrals for that. And what's unique about us is that the advisor can continue to manage the investment of the assets. And so they can manage it just like they would the rest of the client's portfolio. Charge their investment fee on it. If they want to make invest in a real estate fund or private equity, they can do that, which is unique in the DAF space. And so advisors love us.

All right, hold on. All right, so how big is the company or sale so far? Sorry, by the way, I don't know how much time we have.

We're good. You're good? You're good. Okay.

Yeah, we got a team of 12. We have $350 million in DAs. So we, we're growing really fast. Compared to our competitors though, like Schwab and Fidelity, they're in the $40 billion. So we're actually a pretty small fish. But we're growing fast. And yeah, it was funny.

I was thinking last night, one of the best companies to kick their is Google because they drag their on some of these areas that I think are opportunities. Like they gave up Google Reader. That is gone. And I was, I was just thinking about other areas of their business. Like they haven't updated Gmail in forever. Right. It's like the same email thing for 10 years. So I like the idea you're going out because I did my daf, which for people I guess that don't know it's.

Sure.

You give.

You give stock and then you get a tax write off on that stock and they can. That stock now is only used to donate money to charity.

Yep.

And so I did it through Schwab, but it's a pain in the. And then my wealth managers are facilitating it through Schwab. Right. So why would someone do it through your stuff through. Directly through their Schwab account with their wealth manager? Because most wealth managers use Vanguard or Schwab or one of the brokerages.

Yeah. So we offer a lot more flexibility at every step of the way. So we can accept more than just cash and stock. We do a lot of donations of real estate or privately held business interest, crypto fine arts and collectibles. So we're much better at anything complex with how it's managed. The advisors can still use their own custodian. So if they use Schwab, they would still set up an account at Schwab. But instead of choosing from four different mutual funds to invest the money in the daf, they can do anything that they do in the normal course of business. And so it's much more flexible from an investment standpoint. And for a user experience for their clients, we have a much better portal. And so it's. It is a better user experience. The clients like it and it's the same price as Schwab. So there's no friction from a price point either.

Riley, what does your average client look like?

Sure.

Average account size. Well, I guess our average advisor is independent wealth advisors. We don't work with big box firms like Merrill lynch or Morgan Stanley. So independent wealth advisors, that's our target audience.

And then how. By the way, your guys about page looks like the perfect family I've ever seen.

They are in Provo, Utah.

So yeah, we're in Utah.

So happy life. Anyone go move to Provo, Utah. That's where people are real content. So I guess in marketing you guys have. It sounds like you have a clear playbook and you're executing and it's working. So my, my main answer would just keep doing that.

Okay.

I know you're looking for something new, but I think something old is more successful, which is. Sounds like you have a place. How do you guys get a hold of these wealth managers currently?

Sure.

Kind of four main channels and the first one is hopefully going to Be our biggest one eventually. But finding some formal integration partnerships which could bring in a lot of inbound leads to attending industry events. So going to conferences in the wealth management industry, referrals from existing advisors, and then cold outreach.

I think one of the big things in marketing. Do you have a clear, you have a clear goal for how many, you know, clients you're trying to see, or is it the assets under management you're trying to target?

Both.

Yeah.

And then are you guys on track for your goal this year?

It's so hard to predict because most of the business happens in November and December. So we, in terms of generating leads and having those meetings, we are on track. But we were on track last year and didn't end up hitting our assets under management goals. And so even though we were generating enough leads, we didn't close enough of those.

But then you guys can accurately predict, hey, we have this many leads and here's how much they generated. So what the actual new number should be this year?

It's just so unpredictable because we could get a $20 million DAF, come in the door out of nowhere, or it could be a bunch of $50,000 daffs. And so trying to predict the size and it's been really tough to predict.

Riley, if it's a twenty million dollar death, what do you guys make on that and how long do you expect that customer to stick around? Sure.

With the big ones, those. So we, we charge. The way that we make money is we charge an AUM fee. So it's based off of what's in the account. So if they donated 20 million and then immediately send it out to charity, we'd barely make anything. But most of the larger daft. So it's, it starts at 0.6% or 60 basis points for the first 500,000 and then it works its way down to 10 basis points the larger the DAF. I don't even know off the top of my head what that would be on a $20 million DAF, but assets under management fee.

I think I'm confused though. So you guys line up all these people, but someone like myself doesn't submit to my DAF until end of the year.

That's just when people end up making their donations, at least the large bulk of them.

I don't know if I'd buy that because, yeah, I think it's like at the end of fiscal year. So you want to lock in the tax benefits.

I think.

Is there a benefit for me getting it in now?

It would be the same benefit as doing it at the end of the year. But I think the reason why we see so much at the end is because people are having their whatever annual or quarterly meetings with their advisors in September, October and they're looking at how much they made this year, looking at what their tax burden is going to look like the next year and then that's what's pushing them to make a contribution before the end of the year.

Are you guys trying to get more clients that are super rich like Chris or like low rich like me?

We've seen the most success with the higher net worth just because our offering is a white glove. Super flexible, lots of creative things that people can do from a philanthropic standpoint. It's. It benefits people in the lower income brackets but it's more negligible to compare us to Schwab if it's the smaller da. But the benefits do really show up with high net worth people.

What's high net worth?

I guess I would say over 500,000 in a DA. There's giving to international organizations. We see people that will instead of just writing a check to a charity, they could issue a loan at no interest. So it still benefits the charity, but just more creative ways to fund philanthropic endeavors. But it doesn't necessarily make sense if you don't have more than 500 grand in your daft pain points for me.

Is one, my daft is 12,000. So I donated all my intel stock because Intel's trash. But then secondly, the thing that was sucky about the way that it worked for me is when I donated the stock, it converted it into some generic like balanced fund. Is that how it works in all dapps?

Not with us. So you could keep it in Intel. We have people that donate bitcoin and keep it in bitcoin. It can stay how you donated it if you make an in kind donation like that and you can work with your advisor to invest it exactly how you want to.

What are you hoping to walk away with from today?

Really?

Some creative ideas probably specifically with cold outreach. What are some ways to stand out? There's so much. We do a lot of email outreach and it's hard to get noticed, hard to get someone's attention. Once we have the conversations it goes well. But it's that getting that first conversation that's the toughest.

I've got two ideas for you, Riley. One is, one is very boring. One might be a little sexy. So I love this business because if you have a million dollar daft, according to what you said, that's $6,000 a year, that gross profit to your company. Right. 60 basis points. So they might say five years, 10 years. So that's a valuable customer. And that might not even be the biggest customer that you could get. And so to me that that means you can spend a lot of money to acquire them. And when I say a lot of money, I mean like more hand holding. And so the unsexy answer to this is just a boiler room full of cold callers in Provo, Utah. I don't know if you're calling geographically or not. If a lot of your customers are in the area because it's easier to sell to the close customers. I just think that would work. And it's just a numbers game. And it's not sexy and it's the most obvious thing, but sometimes the most, the unsexy thing is the best thing. The sexy answer is research what Brex did with their growth hacking techniques. They sent bottles of champagne to corporate offices in San Francisco. I think you should lean into your geography being in Provo, Utah, like the highest density of Mormons in, in the world and like ship Diet Coke to these customers. And just like a tongue in cheek, we're in Provo. This is what we do. A, it'll be a lot cheaper than champagne. B, it's just funny and it will stand out more. It worked for them. Yeah. And it's probably a similar ltv Brex and you guys.

So yeah, I like that a lot. We definitely want to dominate Utah because it's just the most immediate thing to, to look at and we do pretty well in Utah and there's actually, it's one of the highest concentration of people that have, are giving a lot to charity and so it is a pretty good target market.

It makes sense because Chris did too. I'm only going to give you one idea. Let me just riff on a few thoughts. I think the number one thing I've always done in business is like how did you guys get your existing best customers and where did that come from and how did you get those partners or customers and literally just do more of that. I know it's, we want to try a lot of new things. It's fun but like you probably got them through connections or LinkedIn or not cold.

Sure. Yeah.

Most of it's from referrals back.

Have you really gone through every single referral of the referral? I think there's probably a lot more on that bone. Everyone. Everyone for everyone, including myself. Two other ideas that I was just, I don't Know, goofing around on one is where else are those people doing charity things? So does it make sense? Charity auctions? Because I think it's like, where else are people doing charity stuff? Where they're like, hey, this is a benefit, tax wise. Oh, there's other tax opportunities. It's more of an awareness thing. So I think that's one option that I think would be cool to just a lot of times in marketing do it in the same medium. The other thing I was thinking is I think a lot of people, maybe when you're in the, like Chris in the nine figures, but someone like me in the, you know, six plus nine.

Figures, including four decimal points.

Yeah, Chris is European, where it's like there's no combos, just dots. The other idea there that I was thinking about, I think there's a lot of information issue. Like, for me, I love tax opportunities, so I love them. If anyone has some tax creative idea, there's. There's a few lately I just think you need. Can you send people postcard, email, letter, that's. Hey, do you know that you could save 50% in your taxes or you could save $20,000 this year and then maybe make it a little bit more targeting your outreach. So, like for appsumo, we email partners saying, hey, can we send you us $100,000 check? And they're like, yes, I'll talk to you. So what's the equivalent of that where it's like, hey, do you know that you could have saved. So for me, I had a $10,000 credit on my intel stock and the DAP has actually grown, even though I've already been donating it. So I think there's an awareness opportunity for you with very targeted people within your network. And then maybe I would probably try to pattern match these existing customers. It might be Mormons, like Chris was saying, but I think just pattern match them and. And then I would be more targeted.

Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. Cool.

Well, thank you, Riley. This is interesting.

Thank you.

I appreciate it. Yep.

Have fun, man.

Have a good one.

See ya.

We've got Brian Summers next. You ready? Another sip of tea. You want to plug it a little bit?

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah.

This is fun. It's interesting. It's good to get the brain juices.

It is fun. Yeah, you never know what. You never know who's going to pop up next.

How'd you find these people?

They just. Through my website. They just messaged me questions. Oh, really? You get DMs too, right? Hey, can you help me with X, Y or Z? And now I just have my assistant go in and say, fill out this form and come on my show and I'll answer your question. So. All right, I'm letting in Brian. Brian, how are you, man?

Doing well, thanks. How are you guys doing?

Good. Good. All right. So you have, you sell loans to self employed people?

Yeah, I started with a company and it's one of the things we offer and a lot of places don't. And so I just, I'm curious about creative ways of finding entrepreneurs and business owners and self employed people.

What do they use these loans? Is that what the number one thing you want us to talk about is?

These, Are they mortgages?

Yeah, they're mortgages. So most loans, they have to go by what they, by what they claim on their taxes. So if they write off a bunch of stuff, they're screwed when they go in to get the loan because they have to go by what their taxes state. But these loans were able to go by bank statements. So we can look at 12 months or 24 months of their bank statements and then go by their revenue. If we can see that a lot of cash is coming in, then we can qualify them with that.

What are the rates look like it's.

Loans for kind of entrepreneurs.

Yeah, exactly. And self employed. Anybody that's self employed.

And then my favorite question, where do you find, where have you found your existing customers?

So mostly I've done a different kind of loan, mostly VA loans, working with veterans. And so I was in a, I was in a company that specialized in that and they would send out, they would send out mailers and we'd get calls in.

How do your rates compare to a normal loan or your fees?

So a bank statement loan is going to be usually a point higher than a regular VA or a conventional, and the fees are similar.

So the first thing that comes to my head is I saw a tweet about this a year or two ago and it was someone complaining about how hard it is as an entrepreneur to get a mortgage. And I've been self employed forever and so I've been there and it's the worst. And so I feel like you've got an amazing pain point here to solve. One that it seems like a lot of people either can't solve or are unwilling to solve because they're higher risk. I feel like you could go through like guru business micro influencers to talk about this. Are you legally allowed to give referral fees or affiliate fees on these loans? Because I Feel like that would be sizable to someone with 10,000 business followers in the home service niche. If they were to sell five or ten loans for you, that could be a good amount of income?

Oh, that's an excellent question. I'm not sure, but I'll have to look in and see if that's. If that's allowed under the current laws.

It doesn't seem like you would be competing with a lot of other offers. If you go watch YouTube, influencers of people like Noah, you're not going to see them talking about this stuff. They're not promoting stuff like this. And so that's either a good thing because you wouldn't be competing with others, or it's a bad thing because it's been tried and someone failed at it.

Right.

Chris, is all of your advice come from Twitter threads?

Is that what you do from you.

Read Twitter all day long? You're like, I saw a tweet that said send bottles. I saw a tweet that you do.

Everything I know I learned from Twitter. That's got it.

I'm on TikTok. TikTok's how I run appsumo.

Okay. What.

Who should I hire? TikTok. Done. Ticket. And it's done. Okay.

Ticket.

Brian.

So I, I think this is. Brian, how are you not a billionaire? Because all entrepreneurs, even including myself, like, I have a company. It's a C corp. It's like officially stuff. It's hard for me to get loans. So, like, how are you just not printing? You just got. Is this a new unit?

Yeah, it's a new company I'm in. The last company I was in didn't offer. Offer it and I didn't even really know about it in the old. In the old company. And so it just seems like there's a. An untapped market.

I think what's challenging is these are mortgage loans, as Chris was asking. It's like a very specific time for a very specific moment. Right. So how do you find the people? It's like insurance, right? Either you have to add something bad or you have to. There's some things that trigger the thought to make a purchase. Right. It's not like it's not food, where you have to eat three times a day or something like that. So I guess how do you connect? When's the moment that an entrepreneur. And where are. Where do they go? Like, hey, I'd like to get a loan for a house, but maybe as an entrepreneur it's going to be tough.

Right? And so I guess what I'M hoping is that I become known as the entrepreneur, the guy who can help entrepreneurs. So when that time happens, they know, okay, this is the guy to call. He's, he can get you through these, through these waters.

So I wonder, there's a lot of real, there's a lot of like mortgage loans, right?

Huh.

But I, I guess would they want to pass you guys the loans they don't take for entrepreneurs? I don't know. I guess the areas that I'm thinking about is when is someone thinking about getting a house? It's like they go to a mortgage person. Right. They go to a website, which that's expensive. Or they go to try to get a loan and they're the loan person. Yeah, I just can't do a good loan for you. But they may not want to. So one, I think they could pass your referrals, but that's tough. I think the other thing I would be curious about is could you connect with more people that have a lot of influence to solopreneurs? So specifically I was thinking about are there incubators, are there accelerators? Are there groups that have a lot of freelancers or self employed people making six figures probably or close to six figures so they can even afford a house nowadays. But I think it's like how do you get your seed planted in these key areas?

So would this be like local groups are you thinking, or places on the Internet?

I think you. One of the groups I would think about is Dynamite Circle join Hamptons entrepreneur organization ypo. People that honestly have money.

Right.

Because the, some of the smaller groups, it's not that they're smaller, but I think you could hit up incubators. I would try that as an approach.

Okay.

Yeah.

Even Brian, what if you, you just bought ads on like lendingtree.com right. People go to apply for a mortgage and they're pessimistic because they're self employed. And then they see your ad for the self employed mortgage guy. Right. That could be your name, that could be your brand. And that's to me, if it's such a problem, which I believe it is, as soon as people just see your name, they're going to be interested before they even see your content. That's what my. Back to Twitter. I'm sorry. Sorry.

Noah, are you doing one more.

I'm doing it. I'm doing it. Like when I first started on. Well, when I started on Twitter, my newest account, I didn't start as Chris Kerner because everyone wants, no one wants to read what Chris Kerner has to say because they don't know who Chris Kerner is. But I started as the mobile home park guy because I had just bought and sold 25 mobile home parks. There were strip mall guy, there were self storage guy, there was no mobile home park guy. So I thought, okay, people are going to judge me based on the fact that they're going to assume that I know stuff about mobile home parks, not on the fact that I'm some no name. Right. And so if you go create a Persona online, people will read your content through a positive filter. They'll have positive confirmation bias as they read your content, assuming that you know what you're talking about. And they'll be interested in you before they even read a word of what you say because of your name.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, thank you.

Anything else, Noah?

Yeah, There's a company, Ocho.com. ocho? Yeah. Sometimes instead of making your own party, go to where the party is. So Ocho has a lot of like self employed rich people. It's software for SEP IRAs and things like that. Like I try to go to where the party is that has my customers. But OCHO has a lot of SEP IRA entrepreneurs. People that are financially minded that I'm assuming one day might want to buy a house. Honestly, real estate sucks. I'm selling all of my real estate. It's only one place, but I'm selling it. I'm tired of this. It's annoying. But I think ocho, there's people there. And I would also try to think, I don't know if your savviness is in the marketing or the sales or what area, but you can also look at what they're doing in their marketing area. And then maybe there's some playbooks in there for you to replicate.

That's a good idea.

Yeah. Ocho.com. i think they're now called carrymoney.com.

I think ESPN the Ocho stole that domain name from them. It's a shame. Did he?

No, I think that they own ocho.com.

You ever seen it? Was it dodgeball, dude? Of course.

Nobody makes me.

Exactly. Well, thanks for coming, Brian.

What were you gonna do?

Oh, thanks so much. This is a big help.

All right, see you later.

Bye. Bye.

Oh, nice.

Dude.

I was at an RV park on my honeymoon a few weeks ago. Yo, these places are expensive.

Absolutely.

These people are. And I'm like, so what did you guys do? Like I literally just parked. Like it's expensive parking. Like everything is like real estate. It's and it's. It was interesting business. It's like, very low maintenance. And if you have desirable locations, like interest.

Exactly. 30% expense ratio. It's a great business.

Is it really, dude? I don't know, mrr. But I'm tired of the software stuff. Should I sell appsumo and then go open RV parks?

Absolutely. You should sell it to me at 100% seller financing. I'll take good care of it. 100%. 100%.

No. 110%.

Yeah. Yeah. I need some operating capital.

Working capital. You need this.

There you go. All right.

Thing yesterday, they say, good old Christian boy. I'm like, what a great brand.

Oh, that is.

No one ever says no. That good old Jewish boy.

That'd be a good domain name. I need to buy that. Someone's buying it right now. Good old Christian dot com, dude.

You know, that would just sell. They would sell polos and, like, water for grand. For old ladies. Like, you just bring them water and.

They could sell anything. It doesn't matter what they sell.

Dude, why are the Mormons competing so hard with the Jews? Like, Mormons and Jews are the same. We're identical, you and me. But everyone loves you.

Oh, well, yeah, the people love the Mormons.

Teach the Jews. I need you to teach the Jews. How do we get such good branding like, you guys? You guys have, like, the best brand of religion.

Oh, geez. I don't. Well, do you send 70,000 people out every year to knock doors? That helps. That's a good sales team.

No.

There you go.

We like you. You mostly hear us complaining. I think that's where you hear a lot of the like, oh, look at Zuckerberg. He's a billionaire. Sergey and Larry, Google billionaire. Like, you don't have us, like, doing the good stuff. You guys are doing the good stuff. So we need to send out salespeople.

Number one, pay 10% of all of your net income to the church.

So religious Jews do that. The Orthodox will generally do that. Sedek it. Like, they'll give that.

What are you waiting for?

I think also, you guys aren't partying hard, right?

No.

You guys aren't out of control. You know what I mean? Like, the whole, like, not drinking, no drugs, like, some of the stuff. That means that you're making rational decisions consistently. Jews smoke a lot of weed. They're doing weed. They're like, oh, dude, let's make a movie. Oh, Seinfeld.

Okay, this is a microcosm of what our first two callers were like. They. They Come on. And they already know the answer. The answer. Like, all you have to do is donate 10 of your income, send out 70, 70, 000 kids a year, and what was the third one? Oh, yeah. Not smoke as much weed and you're good to go. Then we'll be even. And then you can surpass us because you've got the media lockdown. We just have Salt Lake.

You got Utah. I swear, and I won't swear to thank you. Is the best, one of the best, if not underrated state in the whole union. It's like Israel. Think about the Jews. Let's take the Jews. We went and got the worst freaking.

Place in the world there is.

Yeah, the Jews. Why did the Jews take Hawaii? The Jews should have taken Hawaii. It's so much a better place. We're like, let's get this little tiny speck across. Like, around in a desert. Like, why couldn't we take Florida? Just give us Florida. But the Mormons. You're like, yo, we're Mormons. You're not gonna like us. We really like just being homogenous. And you have an awesome state.

I'm. It is a cool state, but hear me out. Brigham Young could have kept going, and he would have landed in San Francisco. That could have been ours. We could have had perfect weather, too.

San Francisco's trash. Because we didn't.

It wouldn't be trash. We kept going.

Dude, if the Mormons ran California, I would move back. I would just. I would leave tech. I would literally get in a wagon and I would go.

That'S amazing, dude.

You guys would run California so well. Everyone would be happy. Everyone would be friendly. It'd be super clean. You guys. Like, I'm sure homeless. The homeless are the happiest in Utah.

Sure. Hey, Mitt Romney fixed the Olympics. We could fix California.

I like, I got a haircut in Utah. Friendly. There's Pinball, my buddy. My favorite story of Utah ever is my buddy Adam Gilbert. He's. He never drinks. I love drinking. And we go and we're drinking wine, and he never drinks.

And he's.

Dude, I'm not getting drunk. I love Mormon wine. And I'm like, I don't know how you're not drunk, dude. We drank a bottle. Me and you. We shared a bottle. Because Mormon wine is all maxed out at 4%.

Mormon wine. That's the oxymoron if I've ever heard one.

But do you know that?

Yeah, I did.

The state of Utah limits the alcohol levels of wine.

Is he Mormon or No, my buddy Matt.

I know he's a J.

He just drinks the alcohol in Utah. Got it.

We were on a guy's trip. We do an annual trip together. And that was one of our trips to Zion.

Okay.

That's where.

My dude.

That's where my honeymoon was. It was in.

You're basically a believer. You're halfway there when people talk.

I just read the Bible.

All of it, too.

The picture book.

Old Testament as well.

It's the picture. Okay, So I don't know which story you guys have, so. There's so many books, man. Like, it's a lot of books. But I. My buddy sent me the picture Bible by Robert Crumb from Jesus or from whoever. And it's just a lot of stories, man. It's like crazy stories.

They're wild.

Really wild. So it's like all these religions have great stories.

I know. We've got the best, though.

You got the best. You got the best.

Oh, man.

So I feel like we've helped everyone.

I like God. Yeah.

Can I join you?

Absolutely. You're welcome.

Okay. And even Jesus, dude. Guy sounds like a good dude. He's just trying to do good things.

They killed him.

I don't understand. So why did they kill him? Like, he sounds like he was doing nice to everybody and he wasn't causing no trouble.

They were intimidated. They didn't believe him. They thought he was blasphemous. He's bold. He was too bold for him.

I don't know, man. If you will let him do his thing.

I know, dude.

Do you think he could have stayed alive or.

He would have if he didn't deliver his message.

Anyways, wild stuff. And I love all the religions. I think it's super cool.

It is. Brendan. Good. How are you, man?

Thanks for having me on the show.

Of course.

Good.

How are you? Good. So I understand that you're looking for something to supplement your income that you can take on before having to quit your job. Correct?

That's correct. Yeah. I'm looking to build something up and then maybe potentially leave the current job that I'm in.

What is your current job?

So I work a rotating shift schedule. I'm an operator in an oil refinery. So I've been blue collar my whole life trying to look to possibly make a transition from being the worker to being the business owner. I understand. Basically, it comes down to two things. You either have to have a lot of cash or a lot of sweat equity. I think I have a little bit of both that I'm willing to put forward before making that leap. But I'm having a hard time getting to getting to know what I actually want to do or is profitable for me.

Honestly, I don't think you need a lot of cash or a lot of sweat equity. I think you just need the right idea. I'm on this framework recently that I can't get out of my head, where a lot of people call me and say, hey, I have this idea. Would this work? And I always push back and turn it on him and say, is that the right idea? Because almost any idea would work. The pet rock worked. The pet rock worked. Like, stupid ideas work. It really comes down to the distribution. So question number one, Is this the idea that I should pick? Maybe spend more time thinking about the idea and less time thinking about how to execute the idea? And then the second question is, how can I distribute this product or service, AKA how can I sell it? Do you like home services?

Home services are okay. I used to actually be a plumber's helper.

My.

My uncle owned his own plumbing business. And when I was like, 19, 20 in college, I was helping him before I went on and did my own thing. But it seemed to me like the stress of running your own business. He was running his own business and doing the work himself. And it seemed like it wasn't worth it because it just. It seemed like the business just consumed him all the time. He. I don't think he, like, he didn't really trust anybody to delegate his work to. No. He did all the accounting himself, stuff like that. So it was really hard on him. And then throw a marriage with a kid in it. It's just too much at one time.

So.

So, yeah, I was dabbling in that. Back out of it.

I wouldn't recommend that just because of the licensing that it requires. I feel like there's dozens of other home services that you could tackle that are as promising, if not more promising, that don't require all that licensing and training. Usually when people ask me your question, they already are floating some ideas in their mind. Two or three ideas. So real quick, what ideas do you already have that you're leaning towards?

So you know what? I was thinking about possibly buying a woodworking machine and making, like, signs out of my garage, because I feel like that's something that I can do on my own time. Give. I could say, hey, the sign will be ready in two weeks. Give me two weeks.

What types of signs? Just.

You ever walk into an airbnb and.

It says Nashville or like a bird, American flag? Or something.

But these would be like more engravings, so. Or like doing like live edge for people or coasters or whatever for them.

Do you like woodworking for their body, something you enjoy?

I do, I do. I've done it. Done a little bit of carpentry actually too with my other uncle. He was actually a carpenter.

He did.

He hung cabinets for people and did like kitchen remodels and stuff like that. He was pretty successful. But another story, did all the work himself. All the accounting didn't really delegate anyone.

Okay, so I think I have an idea. I think you should go on Facebook Marketplace and buy the tools to do this. Right. Don't buy them new, buy them used. Try to get them at a discount. Try to get them at a price to where you could resell it the next day or the next year because these things don't depreciate that much for the same, if not more. Right. Because at that point you're de risked. Also buy a simple tripod. Do you have an iPhone? I assume I do. Okay, good. Buy a tripod, use your iPhone and just do me a favor and film everything you do. You might never put it on YouTube or Instagram, but just having the content will be incredibly valuable because that's how you can take a business from $30,000 a year to $3 million a year by distributing that content. Okay, I forget the name, Blacktail Studios, but if you enjoy woodworking and that's an idea you already have, it means you're excited about it. And I can give you an idea, but the chances of you latching onto it immediately are very slim. And so I always lean towards your ideas. Right. Whoever I'm talking to, that's not like a new idea, which is, that's a good thing. That's why I love it. You can sell them on Facebook Marketplace, in Facebook groups, local Facebook groups. You can sell them on Etsy, ebay, Shopify. I would just buy a machine used, make five or ten things, experiment with it, start posting it on your personal social medias. Like just not selling. But just which do you like best? What do you think would sell? What would you pay for this? Just getting feedback. And then these people in the process of giving you feedback, they're going to want to support you and they might become your buyers as well. And then you're not going to make a full time living off of selling to your friends and family on Facebook and Instagram, but. But you're going to get really valuable feedback that will help you scale this and you're also going to learn without any risk because you're going to be able to resell these if you don't like it or if it doesn't work. You're going to be able to learn. Do you like this? Because a lot of times when we convert a hobby to a business, we stop liking it. That's something that most people don't see coming, but it just changes the whole dynamic. It doesn't always, but sometimes it does. So. Okay, try that.

All right.

Well, yeah, I appreciate the feedback.

I think that.

I think it's something that could work. And just so I feel like it's a low barrier to entry type thing. My original plan too was making things for my friends for free. Honestly. And just saying, hey, man, you're a business card. If someone, if you have people over or whatever, can you please.

Absolutely. It's free marketing hanging on the wall, right? Shoot. That's another idea you just gave me is start DMing Airbnb owners. Now, you have to be careful. I would create a new Airbnb account because Airbnb will ban your personal account if you dm. Too many people ask me how I know or don't ask me how I know, but.

Well, it's smart though. Why would you not do that?

It is.

Why would you not do.

And these short term rental owners are also. They also congregate a lot on Reddit and Facebook. So go find those groups, offer to send them to people for free just for home decor. With some sort of like a QR code in the corner directed to you. Right. Or to your website. And it's just. It's free decor for them and it's free marketing for you. Sure.

So thanks for the information, Chris. I really do appreciate it.

Absolutely.

I know you're short on time, but that information was super invaluable.

Yeah. Just promise me you'll follow up.

I will. Maybe I'll send you a sign.

I would love it.

All right, thanks.

Thanks, Brendan.

All right.

All right, that is it for episode 12 of the Kerner Office. Thank you to Noah Kagan for joining. He just wrote a book called Million Dollar Weekend which is really, really good. I read it myself. And it's a book that I wish I would have written because it's more of a guide than just a novel or even a non fiction book. It's a really good book. It teaches you how to start a business worth a million dollars in 48 hours, aka over the weekend. So thanks, Noah. Thanks to Brendan, Matt, everyone else that joined, we will do this again. I don't know if it'll be on Wednesday or Friday or whatever. Thanks for joining us on episode 12 of the Kerner Office. We'll see you next week for number 13. Please be sure to like and subscribe. And subscribe. Because I do this for free and I have no ads. So I would appreciate your love and support. And I love you, too.