The 3-Step Blueprint to Saving $100K and Building Wealth | Randy Kaplan’s Personal Story

When you ask, how do you save your first $100,000? That's how you do it. You live below your means. And my plan was always to save enough so I could take the risk to bet on myself.

You've had all these people on your show. What are the common traits that you keep seeing over and over and over and over and over again?

Every single person shares the same exact qualities. They've all had huge challenges. And one of the messages, we got to push through them no matter what. What do you have to lose? Nothing.

And there he is, Mr. Randy Kaplan. How you doing, man?

Evan, how are you, my friend?

I'm great. So guys, if you don't know Randy, he is a super successful entrepreneur, has built a business with billions, with a B, in revenue. He's a venture capitalist, and he's also a host of his own show called In Search of Excellence. And, uh, the first video I saw of him, he was talking about how he thinks the most powerful 4 words in the English language are "I believe in you." And so, uh, that's already a win for me. Randy, welcome aboard, man.

Thanks for having me. I love your show. It's a true honor.

Cool. So I think a lot of the people watching would look at someone like you and say, holy cow, that's impossible. Like, how do I reach that level? A lot of people are still in the early stages of building up their business. How does somebody go from their idea to even just making the first $100K in their business?

Well, let's back up for a second because anything is possible. That's one of my mottos. And if you look at my own career, I grew up with not a lot, single mom. And when I came to LA, I lost my job. I had $3,000 in the bank and $1,200 in rent. So my career, like all successful people I know, has a lot of ups and downs. We have to pursue and plow through our challenges. So you look at my career and it was step by step. So you ask the question, how does someone save the first $100,000? I was a lawyer. I made $72,000 a year. I lived way below my means. I drove a very old car and I saved on the $70,000, netted me around $50,000. So at the end of the day, I saved a bunch of money. I bet on myself. And each year I was a lawyer, I saved $20,000. And then when I changed my career to an investment banker working at SunAmerica, I saved around $35,000.

So when you ask, how do you save your first $100,000?

That's how you do it. You live below your means. And my plan was always to save enough so I could take the risk to bet on myself. And ultimately, when we started our tech company, I saved $400,000. At age 29, my annual nut was $40,000 a year. So I figured I had 10 years to make something of myself. I was living next to the Jack in the Box. It wasn't the nicest place in the world, but I was determined to work hard and, and do well.

That's a lot of discipline. Like, most people really, really, really, really, really struggle with that. As soon as you start making a little bit of money, you start spending it right away. You buy the nicer house or the nicer car or the nicer clothes or whatever the thing is. To maintain that discipline, is it just thinking about, hey, I want to start this business and I've got this goal and I need to have this amount saved, and that's what you're focused on?

It was more of a— I always knew the mindset. I knew I'd read books about every cup of coffee at Starbucks was $4 then, and people were spending $100 a week on coffee. And I was very careful on how much I spent. This is actually funny. I eat pizza 4 times a week. There's a pizza place not very far from me. I forget the guy's name. And it was a 3-second phone call. Hey, Ed, Randy, same thing, same thing, click. And the pizza would come 20 minutes later. I think the pizza was $12. It came with 2. So that would carry me through the week. I really watched what I ate. I watched my expenses. It wasn't the healthiest thing, but I knew I had a plan. My plan was ultimately I would work at a law firm, then go to work for a company. Then after that company, I would hopefully go work for a client at the age of 30 and eventually start my own business. But my career got off to the worst start possible. And so, I changed plans saying, "I don't like being a lawyer. I really have to change things up and change my life around because I was miserable what I was doing. I wasn't good at it and it wasn't going well." but I was very, very focused on saving money and ultimately went to work for a public company. The stock did well. I was able to cash out my options. So, by the time I was 30, I had $400,000 saved in my own money.

What was the key thing for you to develop that mindset? A lot of people would look at you and say, "I'm in a similar situation. I didn't have the best upbringing," or, "I've got a single mom," or, "I didn't have the best mentors around me." Was it books? Was it— probably not YouTube at the time, but Yeah. How were you, you know, how did you develop that mindset when it probably wasn't around you in your immediate circle?

You know, just not having a lot of money when I was younger. My mom was a single mom working two jobs when I was much younger, then she married someone she didn't love to take us kind of to a middle-class neighborhood. I saw a lot of my parents' friends working very, very hard. I grew up in Detroit. There are a lot of people there who did very well financially, but no one knew it. They live very modestly. So, when I started looking around and saying, "Okay, that person's worth this or have a home like that, but they drive a Buick," I thought, "That's interesting. How do I really think about that?" And I knew I had a plan and I did read some books when I was in college. Tony Robbins, I read a book my freshman year in college that was phenomenal, Unlimited Power, and it really changed my life. It changed my mindset. That was kind of all mixed into me wanting to budget and me wanting to take a risk on myself one day. I had a t-shirt business in college. I went door to door selling t-shirts. I made good money and it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of cold calling skills, but I saved money and I allowed myself to go and to get things I wanted in college. I remember I really liked this girl in college, Wendy Weiss, and it took me 6 months for her to say, I'll go out with you. And at the end of the day, I took her to Little Caesar's Pizza Kitchen.

We sat at the counter. It was, it was what I had money for. And you could tell she wasn't very happy. And that was the only time that I went out with her. But, but that I was always true to myself. I never tried to live beyond my means.

I didn't need to get a BMW when I came right out of law school.

Could have. But again, you keep asking, I was very focused. I knew my plan. I knew I wanted to bet on myself and really save money so I could do it. I mean, as a lawyer, you're working very long hours, 70 hours a week minimum. At SunAmerica, I worked way more than that, 90-some weeks. And so while I was there, I just had my head down. I still socialized. I still had fun. And you can do all those things and just be very cautious on how you spend money.

Did you get to the point where you felt that that ended up maybe being a handicap for your future growth? Just sharing a little bit of my story, I struggled as well. I mean, eating the same bean salad lunch every day. But I think honestly, where I'm at right now, maybe for the past number of years, I should probably be investing more and spending more for growth but I'm— I've still got the— not the broke mentality, but the like, I gotta save, I gotta watch every single penny.

And I think it—

I think it's honestly limiting my growth and where I can go. And if someone who's, you know, built businesses with billions in sales and venture capital, all that— has that— did you have to switch that mindset at all, or is it still in you?

You know, it's still there. I mean, I remember thinking, um, when our com— I One of my goals was I want to go into Barney's one day and buy a suit not on sale, because I'd always wait for the sale, 70% off. The company goes public and the stock is worth a lot of money and I'm worth a lot of money on paper. I walk into Barney's, I was with my wife at the time, stepbrother and his wife. I'm sitting there, it took me 45 minutes, I was $1,700 for the suit, I got my goal, could not pull the trigger. I bought one of two suits. It sticks with you on the personal side. On the business side, that's a great question because as a founder of a company, you really want to control the cash. You see all these companies today, they're raising $10 million, $30 million rounds. Now, some of these seed rounds are insane and they hire tons of people right out of the gate. Well, I wouldn't know if I hired— if I raised $10 million right now for my company, Sandy, what I would do with that money. We're going to raise money at the end of the year. I don't know how much, $2 million, $3 million, $500,000. I'm going to be very careful. We don't want to spend money that we don't need to spend. We create a business plan. We look at what the costs are going to be, the employee costs, the medical benefits, rent, all kinds of other things. But we're not going to spend more than we need. So I am careful. What's interesting is I was a lawyer and you're trained to be careful, you're trained to be proactive. As a founder of a company, you're trying to go for it. So, you're trying to, you know, you're gonna pull the, you know, you're gonna just put the pedal to the metal and it's that balance as well that kind of helps me. I have the instinct, I have the drive, I'm cautious and I'm cost conscious. So, it's really a mix of those, 3 things that help me decide how to run companies that I'm running.

You launched a show, In Search of Excellence, and there seems to be this drive inside you to not just build companies, but also to share and give back in the lessons you've learned to try to contribute to other entrepreneurs as well. Is that true, and where does that come from?

Yeah.

I've always had a desire to give back, and I've done so even before I made money. I created a nonprofit called the Justice Ball. It's a charity function for basically a nonprofit law firm in Los Angeles that helps 12,000 people a year get free legal aid. I've been very fortunate in my career, and when I had nothing, I read stories and books about successful people, and it really motivated me. I learned from these books. And as I got older, I had the opportunity to work with some great people.

I still kept reading. I could see people talk and I would always be inspired by the lessons they were teaching, the stories, how they got there, and really inspiring to hear the challenges and how they persevered through the challenges, which is really important for us on our path to greatness. I've had an intern program at my firm. I'm JumpInvestor now for 17 years. We hire now 36 kids for summer. We got about 1,000 applications right now. And one of my great joys is mentoring them, teaching them lessons. I spend 60 to 90 minutes a day with them going through my career lessons about venture capital, private equity, real estate, the intangibles, which are often more important than the tangibles. And it's really made a huge difference in the lives of these interns where they can hear the stories that I've had. I really focus more on the negatives and the mistakes I've made because you learn more from your mistakes, I think, than your wins a lot of the times. But it's really, I get notes from them that it's changed their lives. And I'm very blessed now where I can call up the CEO of Goldman Sachs and say, this is a great intern, he'll do well there, she'll do well there. And it's just so, satisfying for me. And so the interns have been saying for years, and, and one other part of our program, we have speakers come in once a week. These are friends of mine, they do us a favor. Successful founders, venture capitalists, private equity founders, you know every name that's there. They do it as a favor to me, and the guest speaker program has been one of the hallmarks of our program. And I've done some public speaking at schools, a whole bunch of them And I get the crowd of people when I'm done, and usually 20 or 30 people, here's a card. I love helping them. I love mentoring them. So I thankfully have the relationships now where I can access or call up or have friends of friends who know people to have some of the most successful people in the world on my podcast. I've had Sharon Stone, Sam Zell, Sammy Hagar, Orlando Bravo, Tim Draper, Deepak Chopra is doing my podcast. Ed Mylett is doing my podcast. And my goal is to inspire and motivate others to be the best they can be, to overcome all of our challenges. And ultimately, my goal is to make a difference in these people's lives.

I love it. And the show again is called In Search of Excellence. For the YouTube audience, we'll link that up in the description. You can go check it out. Chris Voss has been on, Kevin O'Leary has been on, and Mark Cuban has been on, and lots of great entrepreneurs. For the mentoring sessions that you do, have you thought of filming those and creating content around that?

We, um, I have, and we're going to do it in a more professional, uh, setting in, uh, the future. I'm usually walking around the room with my interns. There's 36 of them there. The space isn't very nice, so, but I will be doing that in, in the future in some way, shape, or form, maybe in a format like this Instagram Live. Um, We're thinking about it for the upcoming summer. We have our first group of interns coming, I think next week. We have 11 starting next week. We have a whole plan for the summer. I'm super excited about our program this summer. But the answer is yes, I want to do it and we're going to do it at some point.

I think it's honestly one of the biggest opportunities for you and it's my great passion to get people like you who've had a lot of success and get that message out to the world. And there's a lot of interview shows, which is awesome and should continue. But I think that seeing the mentoring happen, like people being able to see themselves in the people that you're bringing on and see how you work, you know, even professional or not, just seeing you helping people, I think people will resonate with. And depending on where you want to build the brand, but yeah, mentoring and coaching videos, I think is a huge, huge opportunity for someone like you who's actually good at it and has tons of experience.

Thank you, I'll take the feedback. My podcast is a little different format. They go 90 minutes, but they're very thorough in the research. Not that people aren't, but every guest has said I'm the most prepared questioner they've ever had. Every person, practically, David Rubenstein, Mayor Garcetti said that, and he's been interviewed 10,000 times in his career, but every single one has proactively said that. So if you do tune in, I'd love you to, and you're going to learn snippets about people's careers and lives you've never heard before. One of the things, one of the hallmarks of my success has been, one, doing people that people haven't done before. And part of that is what I call extreme preparation. So people will come in for a job interview They'll sit there, they maybe read my LinkedIn, my website. That's it. I prepare for my podcast 25 hours per podcast. I do all the research, I do all the writing. That's why I've had every great opportunity I've had in my career.

I've created and I've done it.

My goal is to walk into the room and be the most prepared person every single time I do it. And it's working. And that's one of the things that I teach, and it's one of the things that people don't do. And you're going to be hearing a lot more from me about extreme preparation in the future.

I love it. And it's a great strategy, not just for making a podcast, but for running your business and making connections.

No doubt. And I tell that to the interns who are 18 to 20 years old when they go in for the interviews, when they go on for a job later. I get emails 10, 20 a year from former people who have gone through the program. They're up for a job, they get the job, Randy, this is phenomenal. The lessons on extreme preparation and some of the intangibles that you taught me have made a difference. But really, we're talking about preparing in a way that 0.01% of the people do, and I want to bring that message to them, to the masses.

Extreme Preparation sounds like a pretty good book title too, Randy.

Um, it may in fact be. Stay tuned for the end of the year. That's what I'm going to say about that.

All right, I like it, I like it. We'll do round 2. Um, So you've had all these people on your show and you've hung around all these super successful people who, who haven't been on the show as well, and maybe future guests.

Yeah.

What are the common traits that you keep seeing over and over and over and over and over again?

Well, it's sort of like how you began the beginning of this, uh, talk today. People look at those who are very successful— Sam Zell, all these Fortune 400 people, Sharon Stone, Actresses, they all put our pants on the same way you and I do. They started out with nothing, every single one of them. They've had massive setbacks. A lot of these people have gone bankrupt. And the message is, you know, we start with our family. On my, on my, uh, podcast, we want to know what people were like as a kid, what their family was. Then we talk about their career, and, and it's really fascinating. Some of the tidbits that people will learn is You were a bartender, you lost your job, you were living on the street. I mean, Mark Cuban slept on a couch with 6 people, no power, no car, no electricity, all these fun things. Because you look at Mark and you say, oh, he owns the Mavericks, he's a Ford 400, he's on Shark Tank. But every single person shares the same exact qualities. They've all had huge challenges. And one of the messages, we got to push through them no matter what. We cannot give up. We have to persevere. And one of the messages is, you know, you're looking at something, what are the odds? 1 in a million, 1 in 100 million. And as Sharon Stone said on our podcast, and this has been a common theme, what do you have to lose? Nothing. You're here and then you want to go here. Why wouldn't you at least give it a shot? And then we talk about some other things, making a plan. And we think about what are the successful traits that got you there? Work ethic is always number one. So you— it's directly proportional to how successful you'll be in whatever you do. It's true in our personal lives, but it's also true in our professional lives. Then they talk about attitude, and we, we talk about that at my companies too. Complaining is a cancer. No one wants to hear about it. Walk into the room, just, just the most commonly asked question in the world, how are you? Most people will get that wrong. I'm good. Good is a 3.0. Is a 3.0 going to succeed? I'm very good. That's a 3.3. You really want to pick a 3.3?

Do you want to be a 3.7? A-minus? No. You want to be a 4.0. But why stop at a 4.0? Why not say, I'm excellent today. I'm fantastic. I couldn't be better. My day is phenomenal. I'm verging on superb. And just think about the reaction to somebody, I'm good versus I'm outstanding, I couldn't be better. Just, just the minute you walk into a room.

So you talk about attitude, you talk about teamwork, the ability to get along and motivate and inspire people. Um, it's, it's, it's about being true to yourself, having integrity. I think these things are, are really the common thing, but really hard work pushing through the challenges attitude.

There's nothing I can't do.

And really, I've heard you talk about the fear of failure. Okay. And everyone fears failure. I've had some success in my life in the venture capital side. You know, it's sexy. People want to work in the business. 7 to 8 out of 10 companies go bankrupt. This isn't a real estate deal where you have land. It's it's nothing. But we really want to focus on persevering and pushing through and coming through the other end no matter what. And fear is a great— failure is a great fear. It motivates everyone. It motivates me today. I have a lot of new things that I'm doing, but I'm going to try my hardest, and fear is motivating me. I don't want to fail for my personal self.

I'm true to myself.

I don't care what people think about me. I care about being true to myself and giving my all.

I was on a call with someone on my team on Monday and I asked him, hey Evan, how you doing? This guy manages a lot of my YouTube, the key member of my YouTube team. And he said, I'm superb. Like, that's awesome. Superb. I mean, what a great way to start the conversation instead of just to your point, you know, I'm good. And what I love with you when sharing all these stories and taking the time to go deeper with them is realizing that, listen, a lot of people's heroes started with less than what you've got right now. You can look at Cuban, right? And see, you mean, yet sleep on the couch and being fired from his first job, uh, because he went to close the sale instead of opening the computer shop. And, but people start with like way, way, way less. Like, you guys have the internet right now compared to a lot of these people who started with, with less than what you've got. And if they can do it, you can too. Back to your point at the beginning, it's like, hey, I think everything is possible. And so showcasing those stories and going beyond just the surface level, I think, is critical. Who are some of your heroes right now?

I mean, my grandmother is my biggest hero. She's going to be 104 years old in November. Hopefully she'll make it. Wow. She was raised in foster care. Her parents dropped her off on a street corner in Detroit with the clothes on her back when she was 6 years old. A church took her in. She bounced around foster care to foster care home. They treated her like a servant. She slept in a closet. It was, you know, she swept the floors, prepared the food, and she's a survivor, breast cancer survivor 40 years ago. And she's the matriarch of our family. She's incredible. It's— she, she's number one. And so She is my hero. She knows it. She's my best friend and love her to death.

So if Grandma Kaplan was to give a final message for the audience here, what do you think she would say?

What would she say?

She'd say, I'm proud of the difference you're making in people's lives.

She's very proud of me.

I love it. And what would her message be to the audience?

She's had a rough life. I mean, we'd be here a long time, Evan, if I told you all the things that she'd been through. But the secret to her life has been the love around her of the people in her life. She gave a speech at her 100th birthday party, surprise birthday party, and someone asked her, what's the secret? She said that was the secret. So surround yourself with people who love you. And if you're unfortunate and don't have those people, there are people out there like that who will love you. You can go find them. I promise you, go seek people out, go seek good people, go to local charities, local things. You'll find great people. But surround yourself with people who love and who believe in you. And I think that's, I think that's the main message.

I love it. Well, the man is Randy Kaplan. The show is called In Search of Excellence. YouTube will link that up in the description. Go check him out. Randy, appreciate you spending time and thank you for everything you're creating, man. It's really valuable and important.

Well, appreciate you. Thank you. And I love the work you're doing. You do phenomenal work and have helped a ton of people as well.

So kudos to you as well.

I love it. Much love, man. We'll talk to you soon.

Talk to you later.

Cheers.

To see my recent one-on-one with Tony Robbins, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe. I'll see you there.

There is a regenerative revolution that's happening in medicine right now, in precision medicine. Billionaires know about it, but the average person doesn't. What pushed me over the edge recently is I had some experiences that really hit me hard.