Eric Siu and Neil Patel compare how millionaires and billionaires think differently about building wealth. They discuss whether to sell your business or compound it, and why companies like Google and Amazon have pricing power that most don't.
Chapters
All right.
Millionaire versus billionaire mindset, Neil. So this is interesting because I had a friend text me yesterday. So here's the text message, here's what it said. And then I think you saw it too. It says, when I talk to single-digit millionaires, they say, wow, you're special snowflakes. Congrats. So my friend, you know, this guy does like, let's say he does like $20 million a year, okay? Revenue. So that the single-digit millionaire's like, oh my God, wow, you made it.
Okay.
The deca-millionaire. So these are people worth tens of millions of dollars. They say, wow, sell it, bank the cash, and then do it again. And then the multi-hundred-dollar millionaires, so these are the centimillionaires, they say, do not sell no matter what, compound the business. Now finally, the billionaires say, you need to find whatever gives you a competitive advantage that gives you a monopoly and pricing power, and then you can do it forever. What do you think about that?
Repeat the billionaire one again. That one's interesting.
So—
I think it is at least.
They say you need to find, the billionaires say that whatever you do, you need to find an unfair competitive advantage that gives you a monopoly and pricing power, and then you can do this forever. Google's a great example of this.
Yeah, it's hard to create that though. Yeah.
Microsoft, I would say, has it. I think Google has it. Who else has this?
Amazon has this. Amazon has this.
Apple has it. And they have powers in different ways.
Facebook has it.
Yeah. I think Apple has brand power, a lot of—
And hardware power.
Yeah, systems.
Their ecosystem.
Integration power. Okay. And I think when you have— Amazon has like logistical power, like whatever, everything they built is so hard to do.
Microsoft's integrated into the corporate workforce. We're very reliant on them.
Very enterprise now.
Even though their products aren't always the most usable or the best, it works really well for the corporate world. Google has really just—
Their search algorithm.
The search ecosystem. Facebook does control the majority of social media, I would say, in their ecosystem, WhatsApp, texting, communication, and they don't allow people to access their data easily. Um, I think SpaceX really has monopolized the space.
90% of, of the, of the shipments are done by them.
Yeah. They do the best job too. Yeah. And I'm not saying they do the best job. I'm getting that from people have tried alternatives. Mm-hmm. Because they don't like Elon.
Yeah.
And it doesn't work out.
And they come back to SpaceX. When a good product's like a good, like same thing with Tesla's ecosystem too. Like you, you have the, with the self-driving.
Uh, I would say that's the biggest thing, that and the network of chargers. Yep. But I would not say the actual Physical car.
You don't like the car. I love the car. I miss my Tesla, even though I like my car now. Don't get me wrong. I still miss my Tesla.
This is going to be a shock to you. Guess what new car I want?
A Tesla Model Y?
Yes.
Yeah. You told me this before.
Yeah. I won't buy it though, because it's just so expensive.
I don't understand you. You have like 7 cars and you won't buy like a new car.
No, I have 2 cars.
You had 7 before.
I don't know if I had 7, but I had a lot of cars.
Yeah. But like sometimes things you say don't make any sense.
But it's $60,000. I looked at it including taxes and everything. I think it was like $65-ish grand.
Uh-huh.
That's a lot of money. I don't want to pay $65 grand.
Yes. Okay. Sometimes we talk about it. This is the principle of spending this money, but also this money is such a drop in the bucket.
But my current car works.
Your current car, one is a Honda Odyssey and the other one's the what? A Bentley Bentayga. Yeah. That, so you take that one out when, okay, there's somewhere to go, but you most of the time—
No, I don't, I don't know. The Bentley is the wife's car. I do drive it every once in a while. And she didn't request the Bentley. I just knew she liked it. So I bought it.
I think you should get the Y because I've driven the Y before because I used to use Turo when I came back from Miami to LA and I would drive back to see my parents. Right. And I would, I would drive the Y sometimes and I liked it. And I'll tell you what, I'll give you one example before we move on here. Let's say I was in a car on the way to the airport. Guess what? The driver was driving a Model Y. He caused a car accident. So he hit the other car and I saw the other car almost flip over. So I was in a car accident, right? The Model Y was a tank. The other car was completely damaged.
But the Model Y caused the accident.
Yeah, yeah, because he took it like a tank. So anyway, I'll leave it for what it is because you're not the best driver either.
No, so that's why I want the Model Y because it's self-driving and it's really— at this point, their technology is really good. And I had a Model 3 for a bit. The seats weren't comfortable. Heaton, my brother-in-law, told me I should have got the Plaid version, the Performance or whatever it's called, because he said the seats on the highest one are more comfortable than the medium to lower. I mean, at that point, you might as well It's, I don't care for the Model X. I like the way the Model Y looks.
I don't think there's a Plaid for the Y version. That's why.
There is.
There is.
They changed the name. It's not Plaid. It's like, uh, Performance.
Oh, then you should get it.
And the seats are different. It is. Let's see. I'm actually pulling this up right now. Uh, Performance instead of Premium. But funny enough, I was in Mission, Texas yesterday, which is not that close, but close enough to where SpaceX is launching, you know, launches all their rockets and stuff like that. So someone in the audience was like, I'm at Ford, how do we market against all these other companies? And he's like, I'm trying to create the digital marketing. I'm like, dude, the problem with your marketing is you guys try to make everything super professional, high cut, and all this kind of stuff where it's just done in a, not a showroom, but in a studio, right? Where they green screen and all this kind of stuff. I'm like, it's just too over well done with drones and stuff. He's like, okay, what would you do? And I would just talk about reliability and I'd be like—
For Ford? For Ford.
And he's like, what do you mean? I was like, remember the tug of war where Tesla Cybertruck did a tug of war? And there were some things that were off. Like the Tesla started first. That wasn't official. And I would be like, they may say the Tesla, the Cybertruck's stronger, but when they're in a jam, they call Ford and then show how Ford tows out the Teslas when they get stuck in the snow and all that kind of crap. Because it happens. And have you seen those videos where the Ford is actually the one Towing it away. I have it because they're very reliable, they're stable, they work in all environments. Same with like Cybertruck. They're like, oh, this is a cool truck. I would take construction workers and have them like put logs and stuff in the Model Y and they'll be like, man, the stupid angle going down because their trunk is not— their bed is flat, but to get in there, it's angled down. It's like a triangle shape, right? And showcase how construction workers have a hard time and be like, not with the Ford. It's reliable, practical, it works.
You know who does this as well? So Volvo calls themselves the safest option for And that's what they, I mean, Volvo's a tank, literally. I remember in high school, I'd always get in our friend's Volvo and we knew whenever we got in it, we'd feel like we're unstoppable.
Yes.
Right? And so, but going back to this millionaire versus billionaire mindset thing, I think you want to have a centimillionaire or a billionaire mindset, 'cause that's, at that point you understand that the move is just keep going. That's the move, right? 'Cause yesterday I was talking to a $100 million CEO. So they do about $100 million a year, okay? Let's just say he's in the marketing business and You know, one thing we talked about was like, you know, when we're younger, it's like, oh, you want to hit a number, you maybe you want to hit $100 million, then you want to hit a billion or whatever. And then you get a little older, you're like, no, now maybe it's a little different for you. But at least for him and I, I'm just like, I just want to keep going for a long time and then see how far I can take it. You know, it's no longer about hitting a number, but the billionaire thing is like, that's when you're going for like monopoly, right? It's like, because that's when you can control pricing power and that pricing power allows you to acquire the companies that you want. And do all of the things that you want and have true, true control, right? Um, so my, my whole thing is I think it's better to have a centimillionaire or a billionaire mindset. What about you?
I, I agree.
Um, you could have sold.
You didn't.
Yeah. 'Cause that's— you could have done the decamillionaire thing.
What's a decamillionaire?
Decamillionaire is like tens of millions of dollars. Okay.
The, the, well, when we had the option to sell, we were past the decamillionaire.
Yeah.
It was best. Yeah. And the problem that I had for selling had nothing to do with economics because if I go back in time, hindsight, I should have taken the offers. If you want to look at it from a pure financial arbitrage standpoint. All right. I could have sold it all, put it in the stock market. I would've made a killing. The agencies, not just my agency, the whole agency landscape have gotten crushed from a multiple perspective and they got crushed from a growth perspective in the last few years. You agree with this statement, right?
Yes. But I think 10 years ago you would've done the deal right now. I think you have a longer-term mindset on it, which is, which we got on the phone and we talked about this.
Yeah, go ahead. A lot of the mindset has to do now with 10 years ago I had less money than I have now. Yeah.
Now, and you were much more money-focused 10 years ago too.
I was. Now my problem is even though I'm more family-focused, work is a passion. It gives me purpose in life. I don't want to get rid of the purpose.
Yeah.
And it's identity. It's not because the company's named NP Digital after me. That is one aspect I love for that. But even if it wasn't, I just love having the company and a company of this size. And I hate to say it, it is hard to build organizations that are large and over 9 figures in revenue. It takes a lot of work and it takes something that is not easy to replicate, which is luck. And I think that is a big component of it. And do I believe I can do it again? Sure. But do I think it's going to be easy? No. So why not just continue with the thing I have?
Exactly. So you get to a certain point, you're just like, dude, why don't I just keep compounding this thing? Because over a long period of time, you know, you're going to have everything you want from a monetary standpoint. I mean, technically you already do, but point is, it's, if you're like, if you want to see how far you can really go, the best way is to just keep going on what you already have. And that's exactly what Mark Zuckerberg, did when he got that offer for what, I think it was a couple billion bucks and he could have, his share was like, he could have taken $250 or $500, but he's like, but why would I do that? I already like what I'm doing.
Yeah. And he's like, I don't know what I would do with the money anyways.
Yeah. And so like, anyway, all I have to say is like that this is a, these are the different mindsets and that's what it is. All right. So I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NP Digital, and they work with a whole host of global companies or a global organization. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic. All you have to do is go to npdigital.com to learn more, and we'll see you on the other side. But I want to talk about this new brand, Sterling Pacific. So this is known as the Rolls-Royce of luggage brands. So Neil's pulling it up on camera. Check out our— it's— if you're watching on YouTube.
The inside is like all velvet and felt. It's really nice.
So it's super nice luggage. And I was looking at this, so because you and I have had Rimowa, which is nice luggage over the years, right? You still have a Rimowa right now?
So my suitcases until now were Rimowa's. Now they're Sterling.
Yeah.
Sterling Pacific.
As of today?
As of today. But the main reason I switched, and I knew about this for a while because you and I were discussing this, is because the inside of Rimowa's are crap. Like it's typically blue or black cloth because I tend to get the metal suitcase. There's nothing nice about it. It doesn't hold it well. They have the clips to hold it in place. It doesn't work as well as when there's a zipper compartment. So I wanted something that Was nice on the inside and not just durable on the outside.
Yeah. Look, I would say Rimowa, it's nice, but it does feel fairly cheap inside. But when you look at this Sterling Pacific, when you look at the outside and the inside, look, it's like a tank, right?
Let me pull up the inside.
Yeah. So Neil's going to pull it up on camera over here, but—
But like straight up.
Yeah. Look at that.
It's just like velvet.
Oh my God. That's so nice.
And there's like compartments.
I didn't even open mine yet. It's so nice. So All that to say, I mean, I saw a mutual friend of ours, Gaetano, so he had one of these when I was speaking at the Ahrefs conference and I was like, dude, I want to take a look at this. And he ended up putting me in touch with the Sterling Pacific people and we're talking about them right now because they were gracious enough to hook us up. And this is one of those, we talk about not doing influencer deals as much, right? But this is one of those where it's like—
I would do it.
This is totally worth it because look at the quality of this thing. And you know what's going to happen? When I saw Gaitano's, the fact I was like, whoa, what is that? Right? That's when you know you have a great product. And, you know, sometimes a product sells itself. That's how you get word of mouth out. And by the way, they've been around for over 100 years. Really?
Uh-huh. Seriously? So it's that old of a company?
Yeah, but they were selling like high-end, I think jewelry before or something like that. And then they pivoted to selling suitcases.
Yeah, I'm already on their website.
Yeah. Are you looking for other luggage to get now too?
Yeah, 'cause it's so nice.
Yeah.
I'm like, oh, what else can I end up buying from them?
Yep. So anyway, all that to say, check it out, guys. Sterling Pacific, the Rolls-Royce of luggage brands. Again, Neil and I, we've used Rimowa for a long time, which is kind of like the gold standard for traveling. But I think it's time if you're looking for an upgrade, could be interesting for you. So anyway, guys, that's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.
See you tomorrow.
