Driven by Purpose: Navigating Business, Family, and Personal Growth with Frank Greeff

There's many times in the ten years I got to consider as close to a mental breakdown as possible. I would clean my Toyota Yaris and I would listen to audiobooks. I have the skill set to create financial outcomes. I kind of feel an obligation to the world. It's like, well, there's not as many people that are as fortunate one to have the skills and two to be in a place where there's opportunities. What is it that I need to learn right now that's going to help me tomorrow? I can fill it really good fish. I have no idea how to sell. One day when this business is worth fifty million, we blah blah blah blah blah. Like that's how we'd think. We always knew it was going to be something huge.

Is it about impact or fulfillment or what's driving that?

Okay.

Hi, today we've got Frank Greve joining us on the show. Frank is the co-founder and CEO of Realbase. So originally a chef turned serial tech entrepreneur. Frank will be talking to us in a frank and honest conversation about purpose realignment. Also this idea and concept about striving, striving and never arriving. And what else, Alex?

Well, I think we're touching on cooking with purpose as well, whether in business or in the kitchen.

So welcome to the show, Frank Grope. It's fantastic to have you here in the studio. Thanks for flying down from Sydney to see us.

Thank you for letting me know I was here.

It's been an absolute pleasure having you as part of the membership community in MentorList. And I still recall one of our first conversations and it went a little bit something like, well, I think I asked you what your next career move was. And you're like, well, I just sold my business for about $180 mil and I'm just sort of working through what the next steps might be. So I'd love to sort of pick up that conversation. And it is such a great way to frame up what a I mean, what do you do? What is that? You can do anything. So I'd love to hear sort of what you're thinking and what you're doing. And I know a lot's happened since then.

Yeah, so it's an interesting question, right? 'Cause that was, to that conversation, it was one of the first things that I thought about post-business. And when I say post-business, post-business sale. I'm very much still in the business today. The business Real Base has actually merged and integrated into domain.com.au. But for me, the important piece was this, is like for that 10-year journey that was the business, we had a lot of purpose and drive to get to a potential outcome. And the outcome was, of course, happy customers. It was building a business that would be self-sustaining long-term, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't for commercial reasons as well. So once we got there, once we got that commercial outcome, it was then like this purpose shift, which was like, okay, what next? And I think one of the most critical pieces for me, for my brothers, for the business was, Well, just selling it is not the end game. Do you know what I mean? Like, so just like, so if we sold it the next day, it just combusts, is that success? And our answer is definitely, well, no, because the reality is that we haven't built something that's long-term. We haven't built something that's gonna sustain. So the what's next piece is I wanna ensure that the business is here for the long-term. I wanna ensure that the business is integrated beautifully into Domain, which is kind of the process we've been over the last 12 months. And I wanna make sure that it continually goes from strength to strength. So the market that we're in today is a really— it has been a really challenging market from like a real estate standpoint.

Yeah.

So we saw areas in our market that were 40% to 50% down from listing volume. And where we make all of our money is around listing volume. So property prices might have been really high, great. But for our business, if listing volume's down, that's the trouble. And so post-sale, it was almost like we were in like a deep recession, if you will. Recession's less than 20%.

Yeah.

We were down 40+% from listing volume. listing volume, which of course impacts revenue.

Gotcha.

So for me, to answer your question in a very long way, but that's what I do, is now it's like, okay, we've gone through this merger, this integration. How do we keep driving success through the business? And how do I make sure that that is really long-term?

Yep.

But then to your question, which is, okay, well, post that, right? And I think that for me was one of the things that I had was it was a conversation I had with a great guy that I'm now really good friends with in Domain.com.au named Angus Ferguson. And Angus, similar-ish stories. We call it, people call us Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We get on stage together sometimes. And he's got a great story and he sold his business to Domain as well about 4 years ago. And he told me that someone, it was, I think it was his uncle or something like that. I might get the story wrong, but essentially he was sitting with this person on their deathbed and he said, Angus, don't follow the path that I went down, which is strive, strive, and never arrive. He always had this goal, which was, I'm going to build generational wealth. Once I get to 60, I will then retire. I'll start a better relationship with my kids, better relationship with my family, and I'll really start to live. And anger sat with him when he was 60 on his deathbed, and he passed away that year. And that hit me really, really hard. And I was like, I can see myself, I could fall into that trap where it's like, sold the business, what's next? What's next? What's next? And then one day go, What was it for? Do you know what I mean? Like, I could be like Frank Grief, the billionaire, but I don't have a relationship with my son or my kids. I don't have a relationship with my wife. And I was like, that isn't success. And so for me, I really started to challenge my thinking. And I went, OK, how do I make sure I do not fall into that trap but still use the skills that I have? And so the right now piece is right now what I'm doing outside of work, in my early mornings and my evenings, is using my energy and effort— I'm sure we'll unpack it later— but it's to raise $1 million for charity.

Yeah.

And that's where I've put this conviction on myself, which has gone, I have the skills to create wealth, but how do I do it to not just serve a selfish purpose, which is always myself and always my family?

Yeah. So is it about impact or fulfilment? So I'm thinking, okay, so the business is sold and you're still part of the business in that sale and there's an ongoing interest in making sure that that integrates Correctly. And so then now we're looking at the million dollars for charity and I don't think you've landed on the charity yet. So maybe there's a call out for the listeners that Frank is looking for a very worthy cause to direct those funds into. So yeah, is it about impact or fulfilment or, so what's driving you? And just a little bit of backgrounding before we started the podcast, you're telling me about your morning routine and it's sort of down to the letter around, well, turn this machine on, then there's the workout, then there's the ice bath, the sauna, the ice bath, the sauna, and then out into the day and literally set yourself on fire and explode into mode, into action. But what's driving that?

Okay, so I love this question 'cause I think it's one of the most important things that once you start to see and hear more people on podcasts and meet them and you see people with drive, you start to realize there's usually something contextual from their past that they're either running away from or has been ingrained in them. And so for me, I think the last 15 months has been like the 15 months of reflection. It's probably the most commonly used word I've said in the last 15 months is— What I've realized is the drive that was created in myself and my 2 brothers was 100% down to my parents. And the reason why, and I don't necessarily remember all of this, but it's more like connecting the dots in the future, if that makes sense.

Yeah, exactly.

And so my parents, like I said, the true immigrant story is my dad was a nuclear scientist, my mom was a musical teacher, and we lived in South Africa. Now my dad then started a business called Grief Real Estate in South Africa, but his business partner actually frauded him. So he went from doing really well, had property in South Africa, had the maid, had all the things going to literally being bankrupt. And so myself, my 2 brothers, my parents, we lived in a caravan for a couple of years in South Africa. Again, I don't remember this, but these things are things that shape you, right? And so from 4 years old, they moved us from South Africa to go like, hey, we need a better life for our kids. And the most ultimate sacrifice, which I challenge myself to go like, would I do that for my son? And I'm like, I don't know, it's a tall ask, right? And so they moved away from friends, from family, they moved to New Zealand. The rand to the New Zealand dollar was 7 to 1 at the time. And they moved with a suitcase for each person. And that was the sum total of their assets, if you will, right?

Wow.

And then in New Zealand, this is the ultimate humble pie. My dad would fillet fish. Sorry, my dad would sharpen knives at a place called Sea Lords, like a frozen fish factory by day, and my mum would fillet fish by night. And so they would see each other for half an hour during the day and do a crossover, and then they would work alternate shifts, and then on the weekends they'd pick apples. And so—

Geez.

That is like the world that I was brought up in. And I think seeing that and just, and again, like I don't remember attaching it to that, but like knowing that that would've been my surrounds for like the whole of my growing up, and then watching them bring themselves out of that into a good financial position, I think ultimately shaped myself and my brothers to have nothing but drive to push forward.

Yeah. Wow. They must be with that sort of background and now obviously a big sacrifice moving for the kids and seeing what you've accomplished. They must be, well, they must think that they're the successful ones.

They truly are. I mean, like the feeling now having a son, the feeling to know that you've raised 3 children and they were all able to create an outcome like that through your sacrifice and through that decision. 'Cause at the time you don't get to know that these decisions are right. And you go like, you only get to like extrapolate 25 years later. You know what I mean? And like, so they are the true ultimate legends. You know, like if I'm half as good of a parent, I'll be very stoked.

Wow.

That's interesting. So Frank, I mean, you've touched on sort of your drive and sort of what was behind that. What does success look like for you? And I guess if you wanted to leave a legacy, what would that look like?

Success for me, look, I think if I came here and sat and said it didn't have anything to do, like for me personally, if it didn't have anything to do with the commercial outcome, I'd be lying, right? Like, so I think for me, commercial outcome is an important part of success, but it's like one facet. Right? It's like, you know, we say this, like the measuring, a certain measuring board or measuring stick, but it has to be one piece, you know? So like I'm very conscious that like continue to add onto that, it's not gonna create any additional happiness.

Yeah.

But the reason for me that the commercial piece is important is 'cause it creates the flexibility and the freedom to do the great things that actually provide the happiness, right? And so what I think success looks like is everybody that you surround yourself with, gives you like a sense of positivity, a sense of, you know, you're surrounding yourself with the right people. You get to actually enjoy the day-to-day moments. There is a sense of accomplishment. So for me, like success, like I have to, you know, I'm not suggesting that I love a challenge 'cause in the moment of challenge you're like, oh, I hate this. But like, but then the feeling of actually once you've achieved that, then is that, that's that rewarding feeling of, that's that feeling of actual success. And then I think beyond that, for me, like what I'm really passionate about is I'm really, really passionate about then seeing other people grow. So I think success in a silo, if it's like at the end of, you know, I'm 80 years old, I'm sitting on the couch and I reflect, it's like it was just me and just my immediate family that were, you know, now rich, we're now happy, we're now blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't think I'm like that successful. It's like who else in my life, regardless of family, it might be friends, it might be people along the way, it might be, you know, business colleagues, it might be whatever there might be. It's like who else did I help impact and who I could see that journey with. Because if we can take that journey with multiple people and it's like all the surrounds and helping people who might not have the same fortune that you did in terms of opportunities, I think that's what success looks like for me.

Yeah.

Very interesting. And so for someone that's listening in, they haven't maybe heard of Real Base, maybe could you just sort of describe it in very simple terms and Maybe also just to branch out the questions before I have to hand it back to Alex, what was some of the things you look back now around how you managed to get that sort of growth and then become an acquisition for a bigger player? Maybe just if you could talk through that, that'd be fantastic.

Yeah, definitely. So in the most simple terms, what Realbase is, is an online marketplace that connects real estate agents to real estate suppliers. So every time a property sells in Australia and New Zealand, we have quite a unique market where you'll need between 8 and 12 real estate suppliers in order to execute that campaign. So let me provide context. So you go online. So you want to go on domain.com.au, you want to go on realestate.com.

Okay?

You then need a signboard at the front of your home. You need photography, you need floor plans, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so what we do is instead of having every one of those suppliers has their own online platform, We have a single shopping cart experience where they can go and go from end to end to do it. So in that area, in Australia and New Zealand, we see roughly 43% of every transaction. So 1 in 2 almost properties that sell in Australia and New Zealand will come through Realbase. And so essentially we facilitate how they do that at a streamlined perspective.

So this is the real estate agent is the customer.

Exactly.

They're then getting not just their trusted local supplier, but the whole marketplace of potential.

Exactly. So the easiest way to think about it is I always describe the— I hate those people that say— no, I don't hate those people, but it's just like Uber, but, but, however, that being said, I'll be that person. It's like Uber Eats, right? So on one side you have the consumer, the consumer is hungry and they're like, I'd love a burrito. And on the other side you have the restaurant is making a fantastic burrito and you're connecting them. But each time you go to the same application and you can connect with all those different restaurants. So I'm the burrito man, essentially.

You brought up a good segue because I know— so you're a chef?

Yes.

But you're also a tech entrepreneur who sold a business and now working in a large company and doing things for charity. How do you go from slicing the meat or wrapping the burrito?

Yes.

How did that happen? That's a big question.

That's a big question. So it depends how we wanna go, the long or the short. Now, so look, my lifelong passion was to become a chef. And so from like, I can't remember when, it was like when I was like 10 years old, I just loved cooking for whatever reason. Recently I've been thinking it's 'cause I have really busy hands and I can't sit still. So cooking is a way to keep my hands from shaking about. But it's, I then during school I did food tech, I did hospitality. I did advanced hospitality. Like it was all that I thought about. I had three jobs. I worked at a cafe. I worked at a restaurant, and I washed dishes at another cafe. And so it's all I thought about when I finished school. I was sixteen, not because I was super smart, but just because the way New Zealand to Australia worked. And so I went in to become a chef full time. And so for sixty hours a week, I would work, and I worked through my apprenticeship. I started on thirty. 6 grand, 34 grand a year, 60 hours a week. You're working Christmas, you're working Easter, you're working every enjoyable day of the year, right?

Brutal. Yeah, it's brutal.

And then at the end of the 3 years, I went, nah, I can't. And I remember really clearly some of those signs of the why. Why did I want to stop? One of them was I remember asking one of the chefs that had been there for about 8 years at the time, And I said, it was coming up to Christmas and I was like, do you cook at home for your family Christmas? And he's like, Frank, I never cook at home. I hate cooking now. And I was like—

Wow.

Geez, like, is that who I wanna be? Like, I was like, I love cooking and the idea of cooking for my family is something that brings me so much joy that I was like, you know, extrapolated my life out and I went, I don't wanna be that. Like, I really don't wanna be that. And then also towards the last, you know, the final, weeks of me being a chef, a really commonplace in those days, which supposedly were better than the previous days, was really— it was quite a toxic environment. So I remember really clearly I had undercooked a piece of fish. And you've got to remember, I've been serving this place 60 hours a week. I really did give my heart and soul for 3 years.

Yeah.

And at the top of his lungs, in front of the entire kitchen from one end to the other, He screamed, Frank, you useless, see you next Tuesday, right? In front of everybody.

Yeah.

I was just like, I can't, like, that's not an environment that's like fostering me wanting to be the best version of myself.

Yeah.

So to your question, how did that then turn into becoming a tech entrepreneur, if we use that terminology? One day my brother comes to me and at the time he was a real estate photographer and he says to me, Frank, there's an opportunity to go install real estate signs in Melbourne. And I was like, okay. And I'd just broken up or been broken up with by my now wife, at the time girlfriend. And I went through that big like, gotta change my life.

Yeah.

And so at that time I started going to the gym and I was like, all right, I'll show this world, I'll go and do business, right? And so we did back of the envelope maths. We were like, okay, a signboard costs $200. We can do 10 signboards a day, 5 days a week. We're like, we're gonna make it. Like, let's do it. Probably a month later, we packed up everything and we moved to Melbourne in a ute. We rented a 3-bedroom house in Croydon and we installed commercial printers to start installing signs in Melbourne.

Yep.

So that was the start of the journey. Now, if I talk at this pace, we'll be here for the next 17 hours. So I'll save you that. But essentially, that was the start and that was the why of the real estate piece. And so literally, quite simply, our lives were nothing more Then in the morning, we'd go to the gym. My brother is ultimately the person who taught me about the gym. He's like the most diligent person ever. And we would go to the gym, we'd get home, we'd install signs, we'd print signs, we'd talk to customers.

Yeah.

We'd go to bed, we'd wake up. Our printer was our lounge room. Like literally we had beanbags leaning on our printer. Like that was the backboard to our beanbags. Our TVs were our computer screens. And then we'd watch an hour a day. and we'd go and install signboards. And so we did that for a year. Then I was like, I quite simply hate it. Like I really hated life at that time because I was like, this is really hard. You know what I mean? It was really like all day, every day was just signboards.

Yeah.

Signboards, installing them and just like no respite in life. We sold that business for about $150 grand. We moved back to Sydney and we did it again with my middle brother. And so now I'll talk a little bit faster, but ultimately over the next 4 years, we started to build like a decent services-based business. Signboards, brochures, and just offering a really good service for real estate customers. But what I've been really blessed in my life is 66% of the Grief brothers are hyper-intelligent and 33% of them, me, can just talk. So I was really lucky that my eldest brother had taught himself how to become a software engineer. And so he one day challenged us and said, hey, because we were in a franchise at the time, he said, let's build our own brand and I will build a platform. And so ultimately we built that, we, I use that term, he built that platform for us. And that's when we realised actually this could be far greater than us being our own service. And we can actually start to use this as a technology play for all the real estate suppliers because we intimately understood it from the ground up, which is how we built a really good platform.

Oh, true.

And then worked for the rest.

And even your supply side business that would've sort of opened up a bigger market. So you're sort of on both ends of the marketplace.

So where we were, I guess, with the unique piece was we never raised capital. We used our own signboard and brochure company as our capital machines, if you will.

Yeah.

And so like, okay, if we increase our ability to do signboards and brochures, we then increase our ability to spend on the technology.

Right.

And so we would like literally for, I don't know, maybe 7 years, we never turned a profit, but not for the reason that we weren't profitable, but because by the time it got to June, We'd start to look at the margins and be like, okay, cool. This year we made 12% profit.

Great.

We made $100 grand. We just spent $100 grand on printers, employees, whatever it took to then scale the business so that we wouldn't pay tax during those years and we'd have that compounding growth effect. And so, and we would always just tinker on this element of just making sure that we would just spend all of it on continual growth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's powerful.

And then not be beholden to anybody during those early days, which is super important to us because we were very clear on where we wanted to go.

What's your sort of decision-making process here? Because if I'm sort of putting myself in the listener's shoes or ears—

Don't put yourself there.

It's like, oh, I'm gonna do something similar. to what Frank did, but I'm trying to sort of think about, is it a style of thinking? Because you've obviously pivoted a couple of times in a couple of different things. And I imagine there's a fairly decent process or methodology around upskilling yourself that's involved around showing up in these different places, which continues today. Yeah. How are you sort of finding yourself into these different opportunities and making these decisions? Is there a process or was there ones that didn't work and you could demonstrate that we did have some, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know if it's a good question. No, it's a good question. I like it. And the reason I have a big smile on my face is because we're loose as. So process wouldn't be the right word. However, I think this is again, it's like back to my parents. So one of the things is when we were in South Africa, Again, I don't remember this, but they moved house 23 times.

Right.

When we were in New Zealand, we moved around. When we were in Australia, they have such busy— they're such busybodies. They're just constantly on the move. And so what that taught us from an early age is we're just not afraid of taking chances.

Yeah.

Right? So my biggest, luckiest thing was I'm just not afraid, like to the Melbourne point. It's like, okay, there's an opportunity, let's go. Do you know what I mean? Like, it was like, let's go and do it. What is the worst-case scenario? That's always what it is. It's like, and I think for the, you know, now I'm inside the listener's ears, is for the early days of like from your 20s to your 30s, it's like, it's okay. You know, you can try many, many things. You can fail many, many times. It doesn't actually really matter. And like, so someone might say, yeah, but like, Frank, you could move back. I already was out of my parents' house 'cause they'd already moved away. They'd moved to Albury and I wanna stay in Sydney. So I was already, when I was a chef at $400 a week, week, I was already outside of home having to pay my way. So it's not like I could at any time just move back to my parents.

Yeah.

But we became really comfortable with, like, you can call it calculated risk, I guess. But like, there was no spreadsheet. It was really back of the envelope. And it was like, hey, as long as we earn more than our expenses and continually to manage that and not let that lifestyle creep happen really quickly, like, it's okay to just try and try and we will pivot quickly. So to your point, was there failures? Like, I would never reflect on them as failures, but there was things that we just pivoted away so quick and just moved on. So our first idea around the marketplace was we were going to have a focus. So I talk about we connect real estate agents to real estate suppliers. We did it in the reverse. So we started off going, for every signboard, brochure, photography, we will charge $1. And the suppliers were our customers because we knew them more intimately.

Yeah.

I started making phone calls, cold calls, and then getting the feedback from the customers. And we'd built our whole platform around this concept. We had an online marketplace where they paid a subscription fee. We helped connect them to real estate agents. It was literally the most terrible business model. We would've made no money.

Yeah.

And they turned us down so fast and so quickly that we went, okay, well, we'll do it the other way. We'll bring everybody to this place. Now, once we have them, you will then wanna be on.

Right.

And so we did it in reverse, but that we had to fail like that. It took us 6 months. But I think again, it's like, how does it make an actionable step for the audience? Test and measure. Do something. Make sure you know what are the outcomes that you're trying to achieve. And if you don't get there, don't be afraid to pivot really quickly or adapt or change. Don't be too rigid in what you're doing. Of course, you want to try something for long enough, but you need to be prepared to test and measure constantly.

Yeah, that's a little soundbite that's going straight out on social. Thanks, Frank.

Oh, no, just applying to my life immediately.

Thanks, Frank. Frank, you mentioned that you didn't want to be beholden to anyone in terms of bringing on capital. But in terms of advice, where did you go? Was it just your own brothers or did you have someone else on your shoulder?

So this is where I pivot from what I said in the beginning. I said I won't swear, but I have to do my quote that we used to say. Our statement used to be, we're making this shit up as we go. And what we were really big on is we didn't want to focus on other people. Um, because we didn't want to create the same as someone else. However, that being said, one of the most important things that I, I did, um, growing, you know, growing up into this, into my career in business, was I would listen to constant audiobooks. Um, at the time, podcasts weren't as big. They weren't as big. Well, they probably were. They maybe weren't in my sphere. And so constant audiobooks. And for me, it was all about, well, like, what is it that I need to learn right now? that's going to help me tomorrow? So it's the actionable pieces. So for example, there was a moment in time where, like I said, the brothers were both very intelligent. It was like, okay, Frank, you can talk, you got to be a salesperson. I was like, I can fillet really good fish, I have no idea how to sell. And so at that time I was like, okay, I need to go sell. So I got a guy called Grant Cardone, which people may know.

Uncle G.

Uncle G. And I spent, which would've been, I don't know, 70% of my net worth at the time, $2,500 on his online university course. And every morning before work, I would sit there and I'd practice scripts and dialogue that he would teach me. On the weekends, I had this weird, I tell this, I say weird 'cause I am kind of quite strange for a 21, 22-year-old. I would clean my Toyota Yaris for about 3 hours. Like I'd polish it up so good. I used to call it Ferrari red. People said, no, no, that's definitely lipstick red, Frank. And so I would clean my Toyota Yaris and I would listen to audiobooks. And that would be my way to— because again, my hands are busy, right? So I have to keep my— I have to be doing something. And I would— and I'd be listening to what is it that I need to learn today. And so at that time was like 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. It was all about sales. It was, you know, influenced by Robert Cialdini, something like that. And that was all around the psychology of selling. And so I would constantly either listen to, you know, the big dogs, the autobiographies of the Elon Musk, the Steve Jobs, or I'd be listening to a really actionable topic in a book that I could work with.

Yeah. And it seems like you stumbled across the best way that you actually take on information as well.

Yeah.

Like keeping your hands busy.

Yeah.

So it's that self-awareness.

Drumming in the ears.

Yeah.

That's fantastic. Oh, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, Grant Cardone, I do pop up, he pops up all the ads all the time and I've always wondered what his courses were like, but obviously very, very effective salesperson.

Yes. So he makes a— I had an interesting one the other day. Someone told me he does $120 million. I could get that completely wrong. Someone fact-check me. I was going to say we're from Joe Rogan. I'd be like, Jamie. So $120 million on online sales from his online courses.

Right. Wow.

Per year.

Wow.

Like, wow, that is crazy. And I was $2,500 of that. It was the best $2,500 investment I've ever spent. That's literally.

Yeah. And if it is 70% of your net worth, you're actually going to listen to every— it might have been CDs or was it—

It was online and it looked like it was filmed in the '80s. The production quality was about 1/100th of where we are today, but it was good.

Do you want to share a key takeaway from the course?

The key takeaway from the course so far, I think the biggest thing for Grant Cardone in general was just the way in which you're thinking. So for him, it was all around the 10x rule and it was like this discipline that he learned from an early day. It was like, Whatever my goal is, 10x it, because I would far rather hit under my 10x goal than I would hit my 1x goal. And so from that, I then went, okay, cool. I'm gonna make a ridiculous goal. I'm an individual salesperson, never been a salesperson. My goal is to make $1 million within the next year of compounding revenue. So we're all recurring revenue. I'm gonna get $1 million worth of sales. And if I do that, I'm gonna go to Japan to go on a snowboarding holiday. And that year I did it, and that was like a really big moment. It's like, like, but if you'd asked me, like, how much can you do? You're a 22-year-old selling to people that are 60. I'd be like, oh, I don't know, like 200 grand, right? And so just expanding my thinking. And like me and my brother, when we used to go install signs, like we would then, like that would become our world, and we would talk almost like in a delusional way. But like we'd install a signboard, we've got like 6 signboards that day, it's like 1,200 bucks, and we'd be like, one day when this business is worth 50 million, we'd blah blah blah blah blah. And that's how we'd think. But because we consistently think like that, it didn't become— it wasn't like people would say, wow, what an outcome that you had. And I'm like, it's truly amazing. And I'm like, I'm so happy and so blessed that it happened. But I feel like we always knew it was going to be something huge, even though at that time the friends would've looked at us, I was earning $400 a week paying ourselves. The friends are starting to climb the corporate ladders and things like that.

Yeah.

And it's like even my engagement party was at our signboard factory because every cent counted. You know what I mean? Everything, my world was signboards. But we thought really big and I think that's part of why we got to where we were.

Yeah. And I mean, yeah, it sounds like you're sort of doing that again around $1 million for charity. It could have been $100 grand, could have been $10 grand, but $1 million's like, oh, you've got to think a bit differently. And I mean, maybe talk us through Yeah, the thinking behind that.

Yeah.

Maybe a bit of background on it.

Yeah, no worries. So the background is I was going for a walk with my wife in Manly and I'd had that, I was going through that kind of the purpose realignment, if you will. And I was like, but then this moment hit me and I went, I have the skillset to create financial outcomes. And even if I'm not going to go and continually chase for myself, I kind of feel an obligation to the world. It's like, well, there's not as many people that are as fortunate, one, to have the skills and two, to be in a place where there's opportunities. And so then that moment I took it upon myself, I went, okay, I now have a purpose, which is I now need to— how do I generate money? I can just take a lump sum, put it there post-sale, great. But is that like— that's not the smartest way because there's, you know, continual generation is a far better way. It can compound over time.

Yeah.

So then I went, okay, cool. I then need to make an ambitious goal. And this is the reason it's ambitious. Like, in my— like, the true sense of myself is I actually go like, that's really unambitious. I got $1 million, it's like, that's nothing, you know, like nothing like what I could do. But the reason I say it's ambitious is because I have to do this before and after work, you know. I have to do 2 hours in the morning, you're from like 7 till 9, and then at the— in the evenings.

Yeah.

So that's why it's ambitious to do that plus, you know, run the business. Then I went, okay, how do I get there? And I go, well, knowing me, if I'm not passionate about something, um, it's just not gonna work. I've got to be— I've got to be all in. So I was like, okay, well I love cooking. How can I create something that ties into cooking? I was like, I can do a cookbook. And then I went, okay, but what's unique about a cookbook? And actually from MentorList and from my mixing with the CEO group, I realized, well, I have this interesting mix of people that I'm now surrounded with that are in this tier where when people hear that I go home after a big day and then cook for me and my wife and my son, they're like, what? Do you know what I mean? What do you mean? And I'm like, yeah, I can do it in I can do it in 13 minutes. Like, no, that's impossible. Like, Uber Eats. I'm like, well, I can beat your Uber Eats quicker. It'll be more tasty. It'll be cheaper. And then I went, okay, well, that's my market. And so then I came up with this concept, which is like, I wanna do a cookbook for high-performing people who are time poor and health conscious. 'Cause everything else is like, you're time poor, you've got your 15-minute cookbook, but it's like nothing was really considered when it comes to the health aspect. And I don't mean health from like, it doesn't have red meat, it doesn't have fat. I mean like, what is the macro breakdown? Like the proteins, the fat, the carbs.

Yeah.

Now coming into the, into the fitness world.

Yeah.

And so that's how I came up with the cookbook, which is called Eat With Purpose. And ultimately, that's my goal there is through that is I'm going to sell the cookbook at $49, but you have the ability to do a donation on top of that and 100% of the revenue goes to charity. So what I'm challenging myself is, is for that first million that is raised through the cookbook is I'm going to do all the upfront costs. So I've already worked it out, it'll be roughly $300,000. And that's why I say the goal isn't ambitious, because if I only get to $1 million and I've spent $300 grand, I'm like, ugh. So the real goal for me is like, that's the market goal. I say to everybody, here's $1 million, but I'll be very disappointed if it's only $1 million. Truly, it's like at least 2, or hopefully it's 10, but we'll see.

So what's— sorry, Alex, I feel like I'm hogging the questions, but what's your favorite recipe that we can get home and cook something healthy and 10, 15 minutes.

Oh, that is a tough question. That's the hardest question.

Well, that's like asking which child do you love the most?

It's gotta be easy.

What's one you'd recommend?

So look, I think like I'm like just a, I'm a huge staples person. Like I love like a protein and like a salad and something like that. So like what, like my favorite is like a crispy salmon with like green veg and salad, but done in a way that like everything tastes ridiculous, but really simple. And so I think that's the— I think that one of the biggest learnings in being a chef is like through simplicity you can make really tasty stuff. You just need to know kind of the fundamentals. Yeah.

And the inspiration behind the recipes, is this your sort of travel destinations along the route or are these the people you meet?

So that's exactly right. So part of it is, you know, doing a bit of travel that I never got to do before. And the idea is in each place I'm kind of, how can I learn the culture in a very quick period of time or that area, and then how do I adapt that to fit my target market, if you will?

Yeah.

So it'll be a mixture of things that I've just come up with. Like recently I flew to the Philippines for business and in 8 hours I was like, okay, cool, I've got an 8-hour block here, I'm gonna come up with recipes. And in that time what I did is, it was a really weird process to be honest, I don't even know how I came up with it. I played a cooking show on the TV, but I wasn't watching the recipes, I was watching the colours and the food. And as I saw an ingredient, I would then type it down on my computer. So at the end of that flight, I came up with 65 recipes just by mix matching. And I was like, those would be like— none of them was on the screen, but I saw one ingredient, I was like, ah, interesting. And I saw another one, I was like, oh, I wouldn't have thought of that ingredient. And so it's just like things that I've come up with, again, test and measure. I thought of what I thought would be this really banging dish. I made it and I looked at my wife and I was like, I'm really sorry.

This is—

Genuinely terrible. So it's like, just try, fail, and try again.

Yeah, very supportive family to get through 60. Well, I imagine there was probably more than 60. To get to 60, there would have been a lot of taste tests.

Hey everyone, thanks so much for tuning in. If you're loving this podcast, please give us a 5-star review.

Just one other question, just sort of out of interest and might be sort of off topic, but you were talking before about We sort of opened with big sale of a business, obviously removing financial pressures to some degree, what that means around what it is gets you up in the morning. And you're sort of mentioning, well, what's the point if you don't have the good relationship with your wife, with your child? And maybe any advice you have to listeners that are maybe going over balanced or sort of focusing on work and career and that whole sort of journey. How do you get that gratitude for what you've actually already got? Because it sounds like you always had that. It's not like you now finished the business and now it's there, but maybe you appreciate it more or you've talked about that purpose realignment. Maybe I'd love to sort of hear your thoughts on that.

For sure. So you're bang on. It has definitely been something that I've been really conscious of for a long time. And it's like the comment, the strive and strive and never arrive. And why that has been something in my mind is because of what I surrounded myself with from the listening that I did in the early days. So one of the most common things I would hear in the audiobooks, in the podcast was that idea around, I thought I would be happy when X, right? And you hear it so commonly. It's like, I thought I'd be happy when I became a millionaire. I thought I'd be happy when I had the car. I thought I'd be happy. And I'd heard that statement over and over again. I was like, it must be true that at that end state, it can't be, there's not happiness and you have to be happy in the daily moments. So I'm not saying that's revolutionary, it's just like I had been surrounded by it that I had to make sure that I checked myself with it because I could feel the natural state was, but when this happens, X, right? So that was the first piece. But so here's the thing. What I called it when we were in the early days of business, as we used to call it, like we're going through a season. So there's a concept of like work-life balance. Is it real? Is it not real? And then like the aficionados are like, it's not real. You work really, really hard all the time.

Yeah.

For me and my personality and who I am, if I did the on at all times forever, I'd just burn out. And I knew that about myself because it got to— there's many times in the 10 years I got to what I, for me personally, got to consider as close to a mental breakdown as possible, right? And so what I would do is I'd go like, when we're on, as in the season is on, whatever that might be, it's not an actual season, but when we're on, I'm on and I'm ready to give whatever I have to. But when it's coming back a little bit, I don't have to be in this mindset that I have to now continually push. So for example, I'd be bringing on a big new deal, right? So it would be the one that comes straight to my mind is a big customer. There were about $700 grand recurring revenue towards the kind of, you know, as we started to get before our merger. And we would work then 6 days a week. I always knew my energy levels were best in the morning, not the evening.

Yeah.

So I would come in, I would be at my desk at 5:00 AM, and then I'd work till 6:00 PM, and then post that I'd go home. And I always challenged myself, like, don't look at Slack, don't look at emails when you go home. It's like, then be on and like be then, you know, attentive to, you know, to to me, to my wife, right? But it's like, why that was important is because then when we're going through that time, I'm all good 'cause I know on the other end when it, you know, now we've landed the customer, it's starting to be smooth sailing, everything's working. And then, you know, the days might come where I'm coming into the office at 8:45 and I'm leaving at 5:30. Mm-hmm. Like you won't hear the crazy cool stories of me sleeping at my desk and all that kind of stuff. It was like, we were really conscious of like, we work till 5:30, work till 6 most of the time, like 70% of the time. And we go home and we try and switch off. But we were consistent in that rather than too many big ebbs and flows.

Yeah.

So that'd be the big challenge to people is like, just know who you are. I recently caught up with a guy, he's a client of ours, and for him, he works 7 days a week, has done for the last 5 years, and he's on all the time. But I'm like, I will burn out so quick. I will burn out and I will not give you the best version of myself. But most importantly was the thing I learned from my brother, which was it's not about the time that you're putting in. Who cares about that? It's about the actual impact you're doing with your time. And so my brother came up with this concept with me one day, challenged me, and I'm really grateful for my brothers. He called it my $5,000 an hour time. And what happened is during COVID and I picked up the phone to the landlord and I had, I said, you know, I had a negotiation with him and we got, you know, 5 grand off the rent per month. And he goes, Frank, see what you just did there in 3 and a half minutes? That is what you need to do. Like, put down the things that don't do that. It's like, what do you do that's gonna create $5,000 worth of hour per impact? And so for me, it was like, okay, I now say to team members, like, I'm not gonna give you a reward for working till 12 PM at night. If you can do your 8 hours and achieve everything you need to achieve, that to me is true success. Not like you will never, you never get an email from me past 5:31 and you never get an email from me or Slack before 8:30 AM because I want to create a culture where it's like we can do this long-term consistently, not a culture where people see my email at 11 and then freak out and think they have to respond.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for sharing.

So yeah, Frank, you mentioned the $5,000 impact question. Are there any other tips or frameworks that you might have that you could relate to the listeners?

For sure. So all of my things that I'll say is a collection of great things that I've learned along the way kind of put together that suits me.

Right?

And so it depends on the topic. It depends on the topic in terms of what is important. I guess for the people listening today, it's like, for me, leadership is probably a really crucial piece for me in business. It's like for the people that maybe not necessarily starting a business tomorrow but might be in that scaling up place, what is the single biggest impact you can create as a leader? And for me, it's around Rightly or wrongly, there's many ways to do it. But for me, it was around like, number one is like authenticity in terms of like how I approach the team and realizing that like you are the energy in the office. So when you walk in that day and like you're a leader, and for me as CEO, it's like everybody's gonna feed off the energy that you're creating.

Yeah.

And like, and what is like the culture that you want your business to be like? Do you want people to leave and be like, that place is epic? Or do you want people to leave like, that place was so stale, right? And so like each day, like noting is like what I do do in order to create that energy is really important. And so that's to the point before, Dave, we were talking about is like the morning routine is like my most important. It's like I know that what creates the best energy is like I need to get my 8 hours sleep. That's why I'm not gonna give you a reward for working till 12 'cause I'm in bed at 8:30. I then, I wake up, I train 'cause I know that if I wake up and 20 minutes later get to the office, my energy is off. So I train, I ice bath, I sauna, and then I go to work. And so why I start with that as the most important is because If you create that the right environment, the right energy for your team, and you foster a level of authenticity in terms of your care, that will create the impact over time. And so what did that look like? So for me, it was like it was really finding out as an individual who you are, what what you want to do in your life in terms of like what are the skills that you want to learn? How do I actually help you? So let me get really granular now and tell you like so today I had a phone call with one of the great team members in my business, young girl. I can see the trajectory she's on, and she's— I think she's 23 years old, and she said— and this is to me, this is important— it's like, it's not just what you're doing in business, in my business, it's what you're doing outside. So for her, she wants to start at like a wedding ceremony business. And so I said to her last week, I said, what I will do each week is I will help you, challenge you, keep you accountable to what you're doing after hours on your wedding ceremony business. Look at what I'm doing with the cookbook, not because they look at me, I'm so cool, but look like I can achieve this in my after hours, early mornings, plus I have a wife and a son. You can do it too. And so I said, each week I'm going to keep you accountable. Today I called her. I said, what did you do? She said, Frank, I added an extra 4 hours than what I did the week before. I said, I'm so proud of you. Now that net impact today to Real Base is zero, but I do it because one, I actually truly care, but it's because I want to— if you can help people fill up their bucket in terms of what creates Energy for them, you're going to get the best version of them. So one of the things is like I think about this concept of work is like if you have a certain bucket in your life that you need to fill up in terms of like you have creativity that brings you inspiration, you have family, you have friends, you have social, you have you know work, you have da da da da. Like in my opinion, you can't get all of that from your single workplace, right? And so like I want to encourage people. It's like what are you doing? before and after, and how do I help you with that? And again, that shows the level of care and attention. And why that's important then back to your business is it creates a sense of loyalty. So long-winded answer, but that's like one of the versions in my brain around like leadership and just growing and scaling a team is just fostering the right people.

Yeah.

But then moving on quickly if they're not, right? It's a hire slow, fire fast. Like we truly, we live and breathe by that. And almost people will self-select out because they see the environment that we've created, which is we want to be high-performing individuals who are fast-paced, fast talkers, high energy. And people come there and be like, that's too much for me. Frank is loud. I got to leave. So yeah.

And that's interesting you mentioned that. How have you found bringing a culture like Real Base, a business and culture like Real Base, which is a much younger business, and then integrating that in with domain, which is a bigger business and has its own culture and social norms. And how have you found that sort of as a process?

So it's a really interesting process, but I think to take it one step back, you guys are probably like, man, this guy talks long for questions. Take one step back. I was 3 years old. No jokes. So one step back is like during the sales transaction, there was 9 potential parties. And what I did is like one of the most important measuring sticks for me was will this business that acquires us be something that my team will be proud of at a barbecue? So at a barbecue, will they say to their friends and family, this is so cool, we just sold to X? And if I felt the culture of the business that was gonna acquire us did not meet that level, and I get a kind of a sense of that pretty quickly.

Yeah.

That was actually a really important piece. So it was like, again, I'd be lying if I said the commercial end number wasn't really important, But the end number, we had multiple parties at the same number. So then it was stripping everything back. Who are people going to be proud to be working part? And that's to the culture question. So to me, it was like the culture had to already be similar.

Yeah.

Right? So that's made the merging a little bit simpler. And I think it's certainly different from a large corporate to a fast-moving startup or scale-up. that was the one fundamental you weren't gonna shift. Do you know what I mean? Like, if the culture was different and we had other parties who I was like, could I see— this is bad— could I see myself hanging out with this person on the weekend or would I be bored? And I was like, man, I'd be bored. And so like, and like last, you know, last Friday I'm with a couple of leadership team from Domain and we're, you know, we're hanging out. We went for an ice bath and a sauna 'cause I genuinely think they're legends, you know? And like, I was like, if I think that, the team are gonna think that and that's gonna be really important.

Yeah. I assume that was your idea, the ice bath and sauna.

Yes.

But they went along with it.

Sounds like you've got some converts.

Yeah. All right, Alex.

Now, can I actually— I want to add one more, Alex.

Please do.

The tip. The tip.

Yeah.

And I guess now I talked about like a leadership tip. I want to talk about— this is a principle that I learned from the book Influence, the psychology of selling. Now, every business needs to sell. You may not be a salesperson, But you have to understand you need to sell. And there was 2 principles that stood out to me the most in that book. Number one is social proof. Now I'm gonna butcher it completely, but the idea, the concept is everything that we do today is kind of grounded in the caveman days, or the cave people days these days, we should say. And so the idea is in those early days, you, you, you needed to see someone eat the berry in order for you to feel comfortable they didn't die so you could eat the berry. So social proof as a selling technique is one of the most powerful things you can do. And so I went— when I read that and I learned about it, I was like, okay, how do I adapt that into my sales kind of regime, if you will? And so what I did is instead of saying to you, the customer, hey Dave, did you know that X, Y, and Z work with us? Now your kind of reaction is just kind of like, you know, cool, what does that mean to me? Instead, what I would do is, again, everything has to be grounded in authenticity and be real, is they would tell me a challenge. Frank, we're having a challenge with this particular problem. And I'm like, that's really interesting you say that, Dave, because the real estate agency— and I'd name their name— down the street had the same problem. Now they truly did. And so without telling them we work with them, I've now shared a story to them and they go, oh wow, they work with them. And I would always have like a measuring stick in my mind, which would be like, whoever I use my social proof must be more influential bigger, important, aspirational than you so that when you hear that story, you go, oh wow, if they solve that problem for that person, I now have trust that you can do it for me. And so social proof is literally one of the most important things that has shaped the way I sell. And the second one was around the rule of reciprocity and the rule of reciprocity. In the book, they talk about the story where at the shopping mall they did this like they did this kind of experiment, if you will. And so at the— in the middle of the shopping mall was a monk looking for donations, and they would measure at the end of the day how many donations they had. Then the following day, what they did is they had one monk stand at the front door and hand out a rose, and then the same monk in the middle of the shopping mall to have a bucket. And the next day, what happened is when someone hadn't handed a rose, they disproportionately gave more money into that because they feel like they owed them something, right?

Yeah.

And all the monks would do is they'd go take all the roses from the bin because no one wanted the rose and stand back at the front. And so I was like, okay, that is a really important lesson. Now, it's not that I'm gonna give out roses to real estate agents, it's not gonna help, but it was like, okay, how do I create a sales process that's grounded in value for the customer that you almost feel like you owe me one? Now, the word value sounds vague, so let me get really specific. What we would do is I would try and build as quickly as possible a relationship with the customer where I would learn a lot about them in terms of, you know, if they were on social, if they were, doing podcasts, whatever. Then in my conversations, it's like I would already know where we might relate to each other. But on that first go, what I would do is like, we're going to do all of this for you completely complimentary. And so it ended up being like $1,000 worth of value. And from that, they'd be like, whoa, like I better kind of give back because they knew that we were like, we're a couple of kids in a garage investing like all of our pennies in just creating an incredible first experience for this person. But then the amount of people that would come back because they felt like they owed us one was huge.

Yeah.

And you're sort of removing any sort of friction because, oh, well, they're going to do it free, so might as well. Yeah.

Now, I'm not suggesting we just go out there and give free everything. It's just in our specific context, it makes sense. And let me contextualize it one layer further. It's the same as when I tell my team, they say, hey, Frank, I want to do a side hustle. I go, Go find the most influential people that are going to help get you to that next level and just over-service the absolute shit out of them, right? And so it's like whatever that might be, you open up, you're opening up a bakery, the most influential people in your area are going to be the restaurants close by you. Go to that place, bring all your bread and start a conversation, start jamming, do 2 months worth of complimentary, start changing the bread to suit the restaurant. Whatever that might be is like go disproportionately Over-index on trying to help them and that will pay off over time and trust that it will.

Yeah, that's very powerful.

Hopefully that was a soundbite.

Alex, do you want to maybe get us into some of these questions that we've pre-planned for Frank today? Yeah, absolutely.

So Frank, these questions, they're relatively short, but again, I think the why is really interesting, the story behind it. So we'll kick you off with the first one.

Yeah.

Do you have a favorite quote? A favorite quote? I do. So I don't know who it's by, but there's a— it goes like this. There's 2 ways to build the biggest building. Number one, you can smash all the buildings down around you, and by default, yours is the biggest. Or number 2, you can just build the biggest building. And the why that's important is because in the early days of our business, what had happened is we'd created enough fear in our competitor that they started to go and talk about us negatively. But what had happened was no one knew about us. And so by using our name, they started giving us free marketing. Even though it was negative, it was free marketing. So my most important campaign was in an email: RealHub, comma, find out what all the fuss is about. And that would have so many opens and so many people— well, I need to know because the competitor is talking about you. And so what I learned really early is like whatever space you're in, If someone even asks you, you know, Frank, how do you compare to X competitor? I will not use their name in my talking. I would just say like they, them, whatever it is, because I don't want to give it space and I don't want to talk negatively about them. I would just use our own strengths to show you what we can do rather than talking badly.

Yeah, that's wicked. Thanks, Frank. You've, you've actually dropped a couple already today, but do you have a favorite book, something that's made an impact on you personally or professionally?

Yes. So, so I've said Influence, I've said 10X Rule. So let me, let me change gears. Elon Musk's autobiography. That is the coolest thing to go to, like to bring your life into context back to the idea around like, I'm working in seasons, I'm so relaxed. And this guy is like, it's like just doing and like just constantly showing you that like he is just, he's not a one-hit wonder. It's over and over and over again. And you like, you surround yourself with hearing stuff like that, you realize there is so much that can be achieved and it really helps like lift the roof over your head.

Sure.

Well, it does. I mean, maybe he did the Grant Cardone 10x. He's gone from, what was it?

PayPal.

PayPal. And then just, I mean, he could have just sat on a beach.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. He literally put everything online and went from PayPal to then doing Tesla. And what was the other one simultaneously?

SpaceX.

It was SpaceX.

That was the one that was killing all the capital.

Yeah.

Crazy.

Unbelievable. Yeah.

They say, how do you make a billionaire? You get a trillionaire to start a rocket company.

Which is funny enough, probably a riff on Richard Branson's quote about airlines.

That's funny.

So Frank, do you have a passion or hobby that people wouldn't necessarily guess?

I am really simple. I'll be honest with you. I have 3, I have like 4 things. Business, my family, Health/fitness and cooking. Like, that's it. Like, I'm pretty straight up and down. I'm very social in terms of like, every single day when I do my fitness and health stuff, I use that as an opportunity. Like, I kind of stack activities together so then I can get more out of time. So what I'll do is I'll have a 5:00 AM person. So tomorrow I've got a person coming at 5:00 AM, a great friend of mine that I've been growing up with. He's coming at 5, and then at 6:00 AM, the next friend comes to do the next part of the routine. So by the end of the week, I've done like 10 hours of social activities. I didn't have to go out or whatever, but it's because I've stacked it with something that we both can get really passionate about and push each other.

Yeah.

You bring everyone to you. Why not?

Well, he's got the sauna and the ice bath. Excellent.

You might have heard already, Frank, you talked about your book and raising the money for charity. But what's next on your bucket list?

What's next on my bucket list? So I think one of the things that, um, and you guys didn't ask me to say it, but it's a, it's an important plug about MentorList. One of the things that MentorList brought to me when I got asked to be part of the CEO group was it expanded the way I thought in terms of who I surround myself with. So you heard me say before, we're making this shit up as we go, right? But it got to this point where I went, actually, there's a bunch of people out there who are truly interesting people that will help expand the way I'm thinking, will just be great to bounce ideas off. And that came when I got the phone call from Mentalist. I sat down at that table and I realized my life in context is I am a small fish in a big pond, you know what I mean? There's people sitting at the table across from me that are multi-billion dollar revenue companies talking about challenges with geopolitics, and I'm like, you know, we help install signs really quick, you know what I mean? So, so I think to answer your question, what is next is I want to continually see like what are the opportunities where I can surround myself with incredible people. Um, it doesn't necessarily have to be about the next business idea that I do, but I just kind of right now I have this, this thing where I'm like, where can I meet interesting people? And, and just say yes to every opportunity there might be, you know. So like I had a chat with Sydney Uni today and they're saying, hey, um, come and do a talk to, you know, so the MBA thing. I'm like, yes, I'd love to do that. They're like, oh, there's also this other one, but you maybe not. I'm like, Let's do both. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Let's do both.

Let's do all of them.

All of them.

And I've just been through another group that I'm a part of. I've started building relationship. He said, come to this. We're bringing 100 high net worth individuals. He shared me the guest list. There's people with multi-billion dollars next to their name. He's like, come to the Abu Dhabi F1 with all these people on a superyacht. I'm like, yes. You know what I mean? So it's not necessarily about an individual thing. Where are places that I can find opportunities and then share those opportunities with other people from just even just like interesting stories, interesting people that I get them to just be inspired by because then I can take that and then help inspire the people around me in my life, either it be business, be the charities, be my friends, be my family. It's like I've been given this opportunity, how can I share it?

Yeah. Well, actually on that point then, I know you recently at Necker Island with a few other entrepreneurs.

Yes.

Anything you wanna share from that experience?

Yes, definitely. So look, Necker Island, it was like, I'm incredibly blessed. The CEO Magazine invited me, Chris Dutton, great guy, great business. The reason why is I got a runner-up award, so don't get too excited. I got runner-up of the CEO of the Year last year for CEO Mag, and they invited me to Necker Island. Now talk about a small fish in a big pond. I was there. It's quite a bit of an investment to go there.

Yeah.

But the reality is for me, I was like, I never went to uni, I never spent the money. So for what was a decent chunk, I went there and surrounded myself with just the most incredible people for 4 days. So Richard Branson, of course, he was there. One of the coolest things was going mountain biking up a hill with Richard and we're chatting about his grandkids. You know what I mean? And they said to me, no one can keep up with Richard. And I was like, I gotta keep up with this guy. At the end, I'm like, yes, I beat Richard. I'm like, you're 30 years old, he's like 8.

That's awesome.

So like, you better hope so. But probably the most, one of the most inspiring was I met a guy called Vlad, and Vlad, maybe you'll listen to this one day, and Vlad is from Ukraine, and Vlad's story is so interesting. So he just recently, for his third business, sold for $100 million US dollars, as the original founder. And so we're sitting at this dinner table here, and I'm listening to this, and one of his early days was in Ukraine, he started an online video game API business.

Very—

sounds complex, but it's quite simply, when video games went from DVDs to online, no one knew how to essentially facilitate that transaction.

Yeah.

He became the middle piece to help everybody facilitate the transaction. What happened was the bank trapped his funds, and they— and at that time it was $1 million worth of online purchases he'd made, and they trapped all his funds. And now he has people chasing him for funds because he'd been raising capital from interesting characters. And so he went— they went, you're a scam. And he's like, no, no, I'm not. Here's the CSV file with all of the online keys. And they're like, that's not real. A game is on a DVD. So you had to start intuitively thinking. So he went and rented an office for the week, a factory for the weekend. He printed fake DVDs, lined the walls, and then videoed it and then sent it to them. And they said, yep, that's it. You're all good. And released his buttons.

Wow. Right?

But then the most impressive part was he's talking about how he's just recently sold. And of course, you got to Google these things just in case they're jazzing you up. It's all authentic. During, of course, the Ukraine war's happening, right? And that's very close to his heart. And of course it would be. What he's done now is he's helped a startup create AI technology that uses similar to the spatial recognition technology in an AirPod, where the military can use these devices to sense if something is from 5-kilometer distance. Is it a missile? Is it a rocket? Is it a helicopter? Is it a plane? And then they can take action.

Yeah.

And he's like, oh yeah, the military ordered 10,000 units last week. And I'm like, what? You know what I mean? Like, that is amazing. So I guess that in a nutshell, the most amazing part about Necker Island was just the people that were there and just from all different walks of life.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's extraordinary. Talk about impact.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's like, again, I'm like, man.

So Frank, probably last question from me. Um, in this series, if you could mentor your younger self, what advice would you give?

Good, good question. And the reason I say that is because I, I used to have this in the early days, and I used to say, you know, the naivete, I'd be like, nothing, you know, change nothing because it all went well, which is true. But to my, to my reflection, which is the people you surround yourself with, I would say that is probably the most important thing that's like fundamentally shifted me over the last 15 months. Is yes, I listened to all these great audiobooks. Yes, I consumed a lot of information, but apart from my friends who are amazing people, I never ever surrounded myself with anybody from a business sense who might help push and shape the way I think. And so to my younger self, I would say find out how you can get that one step closer to people that you actually like and build a relationship with. but also will challenge you and keep you accountable and push you forward. And I was talking about this at an office that I asked to talk about last week and one of the younger guys, he goes, yeah, but Frank, you've just been to NECA. Of course, now you can get all these opportunities. I was like, well— he goes, how could we? And I was like, well, your boss has asked me to come here. I'm here. So who else does your boss know? Everybody's one degree of separation. You have someone in your life—

Yeah.

That has one degree away of having someone that's Interesting. And that's now something that I've brought onto myself to then challenge the way I think as well. And so it's like, how do I, through the people that I've connected with, how do I bring them into other people's lives that haven't necessarily had it yet?

Yeah, that's actually powerful.

And we see that all the time in terms of who we're approaching to come and speak with you guys, for example, in the groups. And invariably, most people that have experienced some level of success know that they haven't done it alone and there's been someone that's given them advice or Yeah, has been sort of generous with their experience to share.

And so many people are so generous. One of the ones that you guys introduced me to, sorry to point so aggressively. One of the ones that you guys introduced me to was David Sheen or David Shein.

First unicorn.

First unicorn in Australia. And so I felt like we got along in that conversation and I was like, because he's a fellow South African, right? And you can kind of sense that from an early sense. And so I reached out to him very quickly. Let's catch up for lunch. Now I'm in Double Bay sitting with a guy who sold his business for $1 billion in the year 2000. I don't even know what that looks like now, but he's so generous with his time. And now we've caught up 3 or so times. He brought me into his private equity firm. He got me to sit in a round table while another business was pitching to us. He's like, what do you think, Frank? In live. And I'm like, this is so cool. And now obviously that's at an interesting scale because of being in the CEO group, but there's so many people along the way that will be generous with their time. Example is, I'm not pretending to be the world's best at anything, but I have this thing is like if someone asks me for my time, I will give it provided they take that one step towards me. And so what I mean by that is like I've had a guy reach out today, Frank, I want you to be my mentor in business. I say, yep, no problem, let me know when. And each time I sit down with them, I'm like, here are the things that I think should be actioned. And before the next time we do it, if they action it, I will keep giving them my time. And I think there's so many people that are like that and people are just afraid to ask the question.

Yeah, that's the key takeaway, isn't it? You've got to make the first step.

You've got to make the first step. You have to make the first step. And if you don't, like, you can't expect to like to go into like a mentoring session and be like, okay, Mr. or Mrs. Mentor, tell me. You know what I mean? It's got to be like, hey, here are the things that I'm being challenged with. Here's the steps I've taken to try and solve my challenges. And then we're having a spitball session, not just like you hit me. You know what I mean? You have to show that willingness to actually action and do.

Yeah.

Oh, fantastic. What a great note to sort of finish up on. But just before we do, it's maybe a reverse question. Is there anything we didn't ask that you thought, actually, I would've loved to have talked about that or shared my perspective on this idea or anything we've missed out that you wanted to share?

So I guess for everybody, one of the things, and it's really good because the other podcasts I've been on, I've shared the story a million times. For anybody who hasn't heard that, I think one of the important pieces, there's 2 important elements to the story that's really good to know. And I guess why it's good to know is to help contextualize the things we're talking about and hopefully create a little bit of weight behind them.

This is the story of your—

Yeah, the story of the business.

Yeah.

So number one was how we started in terms of the risk decision we made. I guess for people out there who might be like, oh yeah, but it's easy when you tweet, da da da da. I want to kind of help you bring you into the life of like what the risk decision we made, but we just still decided to do it. And so what it was is we were in a franchise. I remember I told you in the beginning we were in a franchise. And it was the same franchise my parents were in. Now we had separate franchise agreements, so we weren't underneath my parents. They had a photography business, we had a signboard and brochure business, and we didn't have anything to do with each other's businesses at all. But at that time we made a decision to build our business, which was RealHub, the online platform, and branch away from the franchise because we personally felt it wasn't providing us the value that we thought we were bringing it, if you will. We'd given our 4-ish years and we wrote on the whiteboard that day, we said, okay, well, if we make this decision, what is the worst-case scenario? And we're like, the worst-case scenario is by association my parents will lose their business. And at that time they had an offer for their business which would set them up for life, which is $1 million. And they were literally like gonna do this transaction. And so we looked at each other, the brothers, and said, okay, well, if they, if they lose their business because of us, do we make it our mission and our goal we will pay them back $1 million? And so we made exactly that decision at that time. And so I guess the reflection for everybody is, you asked me about process before. We didn't have this fully mapped out process, but we always like to think about what is the worst case in the decision that we make? And then we solve for the worst case today. So if it ever comes by, we're ready to go. And so exactly what happened, what we thought might happen, but we were actually like, it'll never happen. It exactly happened. 5:00 AM, I got a call on a Saturday. Frank, mum and dad have lost their business. You need to come to the office right now. We need to figure out how to get out of this hole. And that was actually the pivotal moment where I decided I need to learn how to do sales.

Wow.

It was in that moment. And so what happened is me and my brother and our now wives, we moved into the same apartment. We dropped our salaries to $400 a week, and we essentially were backed into the corner. And we fought the good fight for— in order to essentially— we had nothing to lose now, like, because everything was on the line. to get the business to where it needed to be. But the part that for me will forever resonate was the part where like I'm standing in my apartment, my mum's got tears running down her face and she says like, I like, I'm so like distraught that we've done this to them. We've like, we've taken their livelihood and disappeared.

Yeah.

And she was like, Frank, it's not your guys' fault. Like we back you 100%. Like go for it. Do you know what I mean? And I'm like, again, wow. And so the reason that more than anything from the commercial outcome of the business was the moment that when we sold the business, we had essentially, we were able to give my parents back the money plus some. So we gave them $3.5 million post-transaction. And to be honest, that was the most rewarding part is going, making a decision that we didn't know what the outcome would be. It could be just the business closed down and now everybody's stuffed.

Yeah.

But it was like that gave us this fuel that was like nothing else. And then the feeling of post-transaction, and that's why the commercial piece was important because what we did is we gave them a percentage of the business. So at the time of the transaction, the higher the number, the higher they would earn. And so that was always in the back of my mind was like that number. And so obviously the 180 meant they got a really nice chunk. And that to me is one of the most rewarding parts of our business.

Fantastic.

That's a beautiful story.

Great way to end the conversation, Frank. And yeah, thank you very much for today. I think you put the call out there if anybody approaches you for mentoring. So we'll check in in a few weeks after your release and see how busy you are. Sounds good.

And indeed charitable causes as well.

Yeah, charitable causes. So you still haven't earmarked the charitable cause.

I'm getting closer. I've got a few good ones, but hey, reach out. One of the things for the charity, I'm not gonna keep running on tangents, but one of the things for charity is like, again, it's about time. You know, it's gonna take time to get to the number, but there's also things that I can do now to give to that charity. So for example, we've done cooking at the Ronald McDonald House for the kids. So I'm also doing that as like, what are the things I can do today to provide some kind of impact?

All right, Alex, so maybe let's kick it into furious rapid-fire questions. I almost forgot what they were called, but I'm going to get my timer ready and we're going to see how many you can pump towards Frank within 60 seconds.

Excellent. So Frank, these are Either or questions. So whatever comes first to your head. Great. Top of your head.

Yep.

All right. Let us know when you're ready.

I'm ready.

All right. Here we go. Cats or dogs?

Cats. No, jokes. Dogs.

Netflix or YouTube?

Netflix.

Phone calls or texts?

Texts.

Japanese or German knives?

Japanese.

Commercial or residential real estate?

Residential.

Chopsticks or forks? Forks. Spaghetti or penne?

Spaghetti.

realestate.com or domain.com?

Obviously domain. Come on.

Staycation or adventure?

Adventure.

Electric or petrol?

Electric.

Cash or card?

Card.

PC or Mac?

Mac, absolutely.

Still or sparkling?

Still.

Entrée or dessert?

Entrée.

TV or book?

TV, let's be honest.

Oh, surprise. Beer or wine?

Um, neither.

Pineapple on pizza, yes or no?

Yeah.

City or country?

City.

Sleep in or early riser?

Early riser.

Walk or run? Run. Coke or Pepsi?

Neither.

Physical or virtual diary? Virtual. MasterChef or Kitchen Nightmares?

MasterChef.

I thought we— when we're thinking about that, we thought, oh, we'll catch him off guard, he might say realestate.com.

There you go, Jason Pellegrino, I got you back.

There's marketing 101. But not surprised, early riser, and not surprised about neither of beer and wine given how much you're packing into each morning and then day. Fantastic. Well, thank you for your time today and for the impact on the listeners and for being so generous with your experience.

And the interviewers, I might add. So it does have an impact. Thank you, Frank.

Thank you. I've written about 5 pages of notes. Thank you for your time, Frank.

Thanks, guys.

Appreciate it. Hey, this is Alex. If you enjoyed the content so far and you want us to do more, if you want to hear more, click the subscribe button. It allows us to bring on more guests in the future. Thanks.