E-Commerce, Growth & Building a Billion-Dollar Brand | Davie Fogarty

You know, people spend so much of their time and energy trying to figure out the tactics and the tools on how to succeed, but they don't spend that much of their energy on themselves.

20% of people that experience generalized anxiety that are drinking coffee at the moment would have zero anxiety if they quit coffee tomorrow, straight away. One of Australia's most well-known young retail moguls, thanks to the viral success of his sleepwear brand, The Oodie, now with $600 million in sales, a coaching business, a Shopify course, and a seat on Shark Tank Australia. He's on his way to becoming a household name. Davey Fogarty. At any given moment, there's what's wrong and there's what's right. And it's just a matter of intelligence and focus and clarity to pick which one that you want to focus on. And I think that over time you just realize that, you know, life is just so short. You just need to focus. Because I was right.

You know, what you've done in life so far is really admirable.

The quicker we can figure out who has merit in the situation, the quicker we can learn.

What's up, Zen Hard listeners? This episode is sponsored by Zendrop. Zendrop has a very special place in my heart, not only because I started the company, but because dropshipping is really a life-changing business for me. You see, I tried tons of things when I first got started. And what I love about dropshipping is that there's always an opportunity to sell a new product to a new person. There's billions of people and millions of products you can sell, and you never need to touch inventory. All you need to do is pick a product, run ads to it, and if people buy it, you make a profit. So if you're interested in getting started in your e-commerce journey, check out Zendrop.com and get started today. Hey, what's going on guys? Welcome to the Zen Hard Podcast. In this episode, I'm interviewing Davey Fogarty, I've been excited about this one. You know, we have been friends for a little while now, getting to know each other better. And Davey is a really impressive person. He's going on nearly $1 billion in sales in e-commerce. He's a shark on Shark Tank in Australia and really just an exceptional person in business and life and someone that you can certainly learn from, especially if you're just getting started. So this interview, we dive in deep. In tactics and habits and things that Davey uses to feel better and perform better. So stay tuned. Enjoy. Can't wait to see what you think. I've been, been excited to do this one for a minute. Last time we connected, I had a great time.

Yeah, it was good. Yeah, it's good. We went for a walk. It was 45 degrees. I was sweating so much.

45 degrees Celsius.

Celsius.

Celsius. Oh, my, my notebook decided to do a software I don't wanna read the notes on how to use this thing. Let's just use it. I just wanna write on it. There we go. Um... Dude, I saw your YouTube video where you go to a donut shop.

Yep. The rescue plan.

Was that inspired by a Gordon Ramsay-type thing?

Yeah. Kitchen Nightmares, or whatever it is? Yeah. Unfortunately, I think only, like, 20% of the businesses survive, even with Gordon Ramsay coming into it. It might be even less. Which is so far I'm at 50%. The first business that I did to, uh, helped failed, but then this donut shop, they're crushing it. They've opened another store.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, they're doing really, really well. So, um, is that like a thing you're, you're doing now?

Like, is that like a, a something you're doing consistently?

So when you start YouTube, you need to find a way to figure, uh, stand out. And you know how many pretenders there are in the space.

Yeah.

You know, naturally I have, you know, almost $1 billion in e-commerce sales, which helps me stand out. But one thing that I realized is that TV still has this really sweet spot in people's hearts in terms of creating authority, right? Like, if you are on TV, people will start watching your social media content way, way more.

You're automatically credible.

So I was like, look, Shark Tank's going really well. Was obviously on, on that for 2 seasons. And then the— I was like, I need another show, and this show would work 100%. And then I was like, rather than go to the networks, pitch it, go through that process, I was like, I'm just going to create a YouTube. So I paid 50 grand for a YouTube production studio, to a creative production studio, to come in and shoot it as a TV show. Oh wow. And then, yeah, it went really well. I think one got, you know, 600, 700,000 views, still climbing really quickly.

Yeah.

And I think that format I don't think I'm going to pursue it because it's just too time-consuming. I want to kind of get back to fixing my own businesses. They've all got their own problems. But I think, yeah, it's a good format if anyone wants to try to copy it.

I would love to try to copy that.

Yeah.

It sounds so fun.

Yeah, it is really fun because look, truthfully, beginners, you know, we'll talk about this today, but like they have just so many blind spots. You know, we are naive, you and me who have had a reasonable amount of success about where this information has come from, either from osmosis, mises, actual studying, nonstop practical, practical applications. And if someone is just running a basic business and hasn't been surrounded by all of these amazing people, they don't have those lessons. And that's how we transmute those lessons, right?

You learn so much in everything that you do. It's almost like, you know, you look at like, like a video game, your character is doing a bunch of things to get stronger and stronger. Yeah. Then when you go fight, you know, in Pokémon, you go and battle the small guy, it's like, it's no problem. Kind of. It's really interesting, though, and it looks like a lot of fun. When I watched the video, I was like, man, Davey's living the dream. Like, that would be like so much fun to do that.

Yeah.

So you're not going to keep doing that? That could be a big TV show.

The past 3 months I haven't worked. I've kind of had this big— I went away with all my friends, spent, you know, $200,000 on a trip, went to Vegas for my 30th, South America. It was just incredible. And I got home and I, throughout my 8 years of successful businesses, let's remove the 4 years before that where they were all failing. I've just had so much chaos. Like everything has just been so difficult. You know, it went, my business went from $3 million, $20 million, $200 million in like 3 years. And with that came a lot of issues. And then 5 of my other businesses that I tried to launch at the same time started all failing at the same time. It was just chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos. And what I realized was I finally reached my goal, which was to remove that chaos. Right. I had diversified income streams for the first time ever. It wasn't just like Woody printing money. Yeah, I had stability long term with, you know, personal branding and creating YouTube and stuff like that. At the very least, I could just run off YouTube revenue and pay my bills, right? So all of this urgency suddenly got taken away from me, which was kind of just the most displacing thing. And it made me realize, what do I actually want to be working on? What would I be working on if money wasn't an issue? Because it's not an issue anymore, right? And that's kind of been this inner turmoil. So maybe I'll do these rescue plans because I do enjoy giving back, and I do think that they provide lessons, But Daily Mentor also does that. Oodie, you know, I think that I would probably regret trying not to take Oodie to a half a billion dollar business. So I'm a bit lost at the moment, but the cool thing is I'm just so happy. I'm just chilling, you know what I mean?

I can tell, I can tell.

I'm just, uh, really, really enjoying taking a step back. And I think there's a lot of hustle culture on, uh, on social media as well, and I'm part of that and I'm guilty of that in some, some regards, but I do want to spread the message you can just chill and recalibrate the compass.

Well, I think by doing that you figure out what you need to do. And it's rather than hustling your way in a zillion directions to make progress, you can make a few very strategic decisions that are in line with your intuition and make exponentially more progress. Yeah. You know, the, the having that feeling of, okay, I want to decide what I want to do with money not being an object. I think just being in that flow state alone is going to put you down a really cool path.

Exactly. If you, if you're a pilot and you've got 1 degree off your destination and you just go full steam ahead going as quickly as possible, you're going to be in a much worse position than someone that's maybe 1 degree off, goes much, much slower, and then recalibrates.

100%.

And I think there's, there's different forms of recalibration. So we have coming to meeting someone else that's in a similar situation and asking them, yeah, learning from their experience. Then there's deep internal calibration, which is meditation, which is a bunch of other stuff that you can kind of pursue, uh, to find out more about yourself rather than find out more about the external world. And I think both of those are important.

I agree, um, but when you look externally Sometimes it's kind of dangerous because oftentimes people project their fears into the things that you're talking to them about. Their experiences maybe didn't go the way that they could have went. And, you know, you have to— I guess the point is you have to be careful who you share your, your thoughts with and your plans with.

Yeah, definitely. I think Naval has a famous quote: if you asked everyone for their opinion, it'll all cancel out.

Yeah.

And I think that's where But I would rather have their opinion than not and form my own judgment. Because even if I get someone else's opinion the first time and it puts me on a bad path for 5 years, which has happened before, and then I learn, oh, oh shit, I shouldn't have listened to that person 5 years ago. Now I have the skill set to identify bullshit. Yeah, right. So it's like, especially, yes, you need to— some people have a great bullshit radar, radar. This is kind of why I've struggled as a CEO in the past. People just lie to me and I'm just like super, super trusting.

Yeah.

But yeah, I totally agree. Beware of the external, but develop the skill set to filter the external.

So have you been going deeper on the internal recalibration and things like that?

Yeah, definitely. I've been doing like a lot of breathwork just in the morning, you know, 45 minutes of breathwork, which I think creates an extreme— I've always been into meditation ever since I had, you know, my first bout of anxiety. I figured out that, uh, meditation was very, very effective. I never got into breathwork until I watched a couple of YouTubes on it and tested it out, and I was just like, oh my God, that just like accelerated the meditation process.

45 minutes of breathwork you do?

Well, not entirely. So I do like 20 minutes of breathwork, 25 minutes of breathwork, and then I sit there and meditate for 20 minutes because it just forces you into that state.

Yeah.

Um, and it feels good. It just feels amazing.

You start meditating, sometimes you're just like, you either feel itchy or like your back hurts or do shit.

Yeah, yeah.

Get—

wonder what my ad account's doing, that kind of stuff.

So the breathwork makes you feel great.

Yeah.

So it's— so once you're feeling great, then it's, it's easier to sit there.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But yeah, uh, Aside from that, I've just been, um, making sure that all of the teams and everything is, is going consistent, which it is, and trying to decide, yeah, what's next.

Yeah. And you're living in Australia still?

Yeah.

And you— I mean, last time I saw you was what, 6 months ago?

Yeah, 6 months ago, probably.

Have you been to the US since then?

Yeah, yeah, I come to the US a fair bit. Yeah. I first, when I was just out of school, I'd failed 6 businesses and I was like there's just got to be a better way. Like, what is going on? So I moved to Melbourne, which is another city in Australia, and I started working underneath someone. It was my first proper job, and it was incredible. I learned so much in that year, which finally allowed me to launch my successful business. But I instantly real— like, I started to miss my girlfriend that I'm still with, like, for 12 years since school. I miss my family so much, who since I've purchased the house next door to my house and they live there. So, and I missed all my school friends, like all my top friends that I just talked to Vegas and stuff. They're all from school as well. So I think for me, travel is a great way to create space, uh, create room to be missed with all of those relationships. But I'll just never leave Adelaide. Like, it's just, it's a small town, but it's great.

It's great that you know that that's a really important thing to you.

Everyone should move away. Yeah, every single person should move away for at least 6 months because either you're going to get obsessed with it and realize that you're in the wrong spot. Yeah. Or you're going to realize how good things are at home and appreciate it more.

Yeah.

Um, but choosing where you live is the single most important decision probably of your life, aside from who you live with.

100%. And if you don't move away and you don't explore, then you can't really decide what you like and what you don't like and make the best decision for, you know, exactly at some point when— what do you Are you 30 now?

Yep.

So I'm a bit older than you, but at some point, you know, you, you have a family and you have— or most people do— and have kids, and, and you're going to be in one place for a pretty long time. At least that's best for the kids. So it's good to be able to pick the place that's great. A lot of people don't explore. A lot of people I grew up with still live in the same town that we grew up in. Yeah, it's such a limited, uh, experience of this world. Yeah, that's really good advice. So, but I want to go back, um, —was your first successful business Oodie?

My first successful business was Calming Blankets. So it was a weighted blanket that did, yeah, $10 million in its first year. Then 6 months later, I launched Oodie. That did like, I think, another $5 million, almost $10 million. And then I launched another one, which in its 7th month did $1 million. 3 products at once. I was like, this is so easy. Yeah. Like, why doesn't everyone do e-com? Obviously it wasn't easy because the rest of them failed eventually. Right. But yeah, it was calming blankets.

So what made you pick blankets?

I think I just learned the ability to understand where trends were in life cycles. Yeah. So people were— I saw that there was this recent peer-reviewed study about proprioceptive input, which is basically pressure. Yeah. Um, and that was opening up the ability to finally market weighted blankets accordingly for things like insomnia, that kind of stuff. So I saw that that was a massive inflection point, and I built my own test and learn framework. Now obviously, saying that to a lot of the dropshipping audiences that I'm sure that watch you, that's obvious now, but it wasn't as obvious when I started. Yeah, um, finding a product, testing it, launching it So I figured that out and I got ridiculous. It was like 15 ROAS off a boosted post. I didn't even run a conversion campaign. How— when was this? Um, this was like probably 8 years ago, 9 years ago now. 15 ROAS? Yeah, it was 15 ROAS off a boosted just photo of my mum with the blanket.

Why doesn't everyone do it?

Yeah, why doesn't everyone do it? Super, super easy. And I think that's, uh, you know, that was— there's a couple of things we can unpack there. First is, yeah, where the trend is on the life cycle, but also the Australia arbitrage. The Australia arbitrage is all of the US brands that create these kind of crazy new trends. And the fact that you guys just have absurd budgets from Coca-Cola, all of this kind of stuff that the market— Facebook market— Facebook marketing doesn't really work that well here, especially in the early stages. Yes, there's a big win at the end, but the Australia arbitrage is basically doing exactly what you do there. Yeah, in Australia. And you'll probably double your ROAS in the early stages.

Stage. So it's very— I used to do that when I was dropshipping. But like, so it's similar, like when I got into e-commerce, like my first product, I don't think I was at a 15 ROAS, but I was at like, I was pretty close to like a 10. Like I was spending $5 to acquire $50 customers. Yep. Like clockwork. Um, and it's not that easy anymore, but it's still very doable. And we got a lot of validation early on, which propelled I mean, it propelled you down a path, propelled me down a path. It's a bit harder to get that first bit of validation these days, but it's still very doable and it's still a very good opportunity. Do you feel fortunate to have gotten that, you know, that bump in the beginning?

Yeah. Without that bump. And if we, if we zoom back, probably both to our childhoods, we got that bump a long time ago. It wasn't just our first Shopify sale. We got that, we got this kind of weird reward with something else financial, um, and that probably then stemmed into the next wanting to— like, mine was selling cookies in school and the teacher gave me $5, and I was like, this is crazy, it's a note. Yeah, it was crazy. But yes, it is, we, we often give up on things too early, and the people that stick with it are the ones that just got lucky in the early stages. This is why so many people in Daily Mentor, just like my mentoring for million-dollar brands are from like the Netherlands, right? And stuff like that. Because they're like, I'm going to launch in this country where this trend isn't currently selling. I'm the only one that speaks the language. And then they just get that first bump. Yeah. Then eventually they go to the US and start crushing it there. So I think the main lesson is stick with something long enough so you can get that dopamine hit, then everything else kind of flow from there.

Has your perspective on challenges transformed over the years? I can clarify the question if you want me to. Yeah, clarify it. So when you first have a challenge, it's very dark and gloomy, you don't see the other side. You get through that challenge, you get a bit of, oh, I got through that, like everyone said I'd get through it, but now I actually felt it. Next challenge comes up, dark and gloomy, you got past another one, uh, you know, in the back of your mind, maybe I will get past it eventually. It's like, does your perspective change on challenges?

Initially, I think there's two types of people. There's the people that look at a challenge and go, holy shit, that's going to be easy. And then they start doing it and they're like, it's still going to be easy. And then they go, holy shit, this isn't easy. Yeah. And then there's the people that are like, oh, this is going to be so hard. Oh, it's worth it. I'm going to do it. And then they kind of get through it. I started as the person where I was like, this is going to be so easy and just like the complete optimist. Yeah, same. Now I'm probably the pessimist where I'm like, because I know how hard it is to be in that top 1%. Yeah. Like everything I've done to this point has been scrappy, fast, unpolished. Yeah. And I know that I am not going to become in the area of the Skims, in the area of these, you know, Lululemon, these kind of people. Without my ability to close that gap of the 1%. Yeah. And it is so hard. So that's why I know I look at these challenges. I can easily create a business that cash flows $100K a month. Like, that's why I'm not stressed in my life anymore, because you take away all my money within 12 months, I'll be making $1 million a year, like easily. Right. But I understand that, that, that, that's nothing to me. So therefore the thing that I would do it for is that last 1%.

And I know how hard that is. Yeah. But on the same token, you know, a lot of people listening that are kind of early on, they look to people that have had success or whatever they define success as, and often they assume, oh, that person knew what they were doing. They had a plan, they executed on that plan. But the commonality amongst everyone I know who's achieved things of really any kind of magnitude is that they didn't know what they were doing and they still don't really know what they're doing. Like, they know more, but they still don't really— like, I still don't really know what I'm doing when I get up and start my day. Like, do you feel the same way?

Going into doing things like Shark Tank, going like doing over $100 million revenue in a year, like that opened me up to a really kind of incredible range of people. You know, I was meeting billionaires. Yeah. And the one— I, it made me very, very anxious to begin with. Yeah. Paradoxically, it was the, the thing that removed my anxiety eventually because I realized none of them fucking know what they're doing. Yeah. They're just winging it. I am winging it. Yeah. Like, it's— everything is fluid. Yes. Your ability to deal with this shit as it pops up If it was that simple, we would write a business plan, would give it to AI, and AI would do it, and it would already be there, right? It's just not that simple.

That's so important for people to hear, by the way. Like, that's why I wanted to highlight that 100%.

And I think that all of the commonalities, you know, we've launched a, a free course, and, um, all of the commonalities in that, that Discord for the people that are doing $20,000 a month, uh, they just never gave up. Because I've got messages from that Discord's been running for 2 years now, free Discord. I got messages from 2 years ago from the same people just sending screenshots of zero sales, just nonstop. And now they're doing $20,000 a month. Yeah, it's just like they just didn't give up, right? Yeah, we wing it.

We wing it. Every— I've also gotten the opportunity to spend a time— spend time with very successful people, and they're also still winging it. So the person at home that doesn't know what they're doing, that should be very encouraging. Yeah. It's like the message is just take the next step. Just keep taking it.

I'm helping a friend at the moment kind of try to get out of the rat race. And he just kind of creates these limitations for himself saying, no, I can't do UGC. I don't know how to use CapCut. Or no, I can't do e-commerce. I wouldn't know how to find a product. Yeah. And they have, when we say it like that, we are not seeing what the true issue actually is. Which is that you have a fundamental belief that you are not worthy or you have a fundamental skill gap in that you don't know how to understand and develop these new opportunities. And this all stems back from our childhood. Maybe you're told you're super smart, maybe you're told you're super stupid. But rather than being like just trying to— the main thing that you need to do is you need to break that down and really figure out what is blocking you. Chip away at it, be patient, and as we said, just wing it.

Yeah, when you embody the I am not this or I'm not that, that is what you— that's— you make your own reality like that. Exactly. Like nobody's born into this world knowing how to do things. Yeah.

You can figure out— he who says he can and he who says he can't are both usually right.

So true. That's powerful. You know, people spend so much of their time and energy trying to figure out the tactics and the tools on how to succeed, but they don't spend that much of their energy on themselves. And I would argue that the energy you spend on yourself is far more important than the energy— because you can figure out the tools and tactics, the information's there, but your own limitations are the thing that get in the way most of the time.

Definitely. There's, there's times to— there's times to learn, then there's times to action. Yeah. And I think that for most people, you need to just cast the net. Think of it as a net. You want to cast it as wide as possible to absorb as much high-level information as possible. What am I going to possibly do? What mindset things am I missing? Who should I be listening to? And then just refine from there by doing and failing. Yeah. But I think a lot of people can find success by just doing and just throwing themselves in there and getting that quick win, that quick dopamine hit. But I look at a lot of the tutorials that I now shoot for YouTube and I'm like, I didn't realize that YouTube was a proper thing to find information for. Like I created a lot of the methods that I talk about, but someone else had already talked about them on YouTube. And I was like, I didn't actually have to create this, it was already there. Um, so I think, yeah, the, the information stage first. Yeah.

Um, on the same token though, like one thing that I often think about is you can learn something through information, concepts, listening, watching. Um, and you can learn things through experience. Like for example, when, when you have kids, everyone's like, it's going to go so fast. And like, I'm like, I get that conceptually. But then now I have a son who's almost 2 years old, and I feel like I had him yesterday. It went so fast. Like, I learned that through experience, and that lesson is a much deeper lesson. And I think a lot of people spend most of their time trying to figure out the, the concepts and information and not enough time on the, on the actual doing. So like, the information's out there. I agree, like, you must— it's a, it's a, it's a, it's useful.

I think the information stage is a week. Yeah. Like, give yourself a week. You work— yeah, you work your 9 to 5, and then 5 to 9, you're on the information stage. Yeah. Watching YouTube videos, find whatever medium that works, go read blogs, go meet up with people, have coffee. Then there's the action stage after that. Yeah. And the information stage never stops. Of course you're going to keep doing that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. There is definitely this kind of big study stage just for a week and then get moving.

That's great advice. And the, the action stage sounds very daunting. It's like, oh shit, now I have to figure out— but it's like, you know, I was talking to my mom about exercising, and I heard this somewhere else, and it was like, don't think about going outside and going for a run. Just simply put your socks on. All right, then you just got to put your shoes on. Then you just got to open the door. Then you just got to get outside. Then you got to take your first step. And it's a lot easier to think about it step by step than like this big thing.

The, the pain of starting a business is not the thing that people are scared of. They're scared of the shame of failing the business. When I started on Instagram, I remember coming home and, uh, showing my girlfriend the phone. I was like, take a look at this, and swiped, uh, refreshed, and it was 115,000 followers on this fitness page. And she was like, what the hell? Like, we've been together for like the past year every single day. And you haven't told me about this. Yeah. And that's because I was too scared to do it if I failed and everyone saw. Right. And I probably had 3 or 4 failed things that nobody even knew during school. Yeah. So just don't fucking tell anyone. Just do it in silence. It's sure you have nothing to be ashamed of, but if that is the roadblock that's stopping you from getting action, then just don't tell anyone and just get started.

Well, it almost never really serves you to tell people about what you're doing. Because then they just, again, they project their fears. Depends on people.

It depends what people tell me. And I'm your friend. I will go above and beyond for it. But if you tell a friend that tried and failed, they're going to bring you back down.

But most people fall in the bucket of not like— unless you have a great friend who's done tremendous things in their career and is, you know, can give you great advice. But most people, they're seeking external validation. Hey mom, or whatever, whoever, like, I'm starting this business, like, make me feel excited about it also. And they're like, okay, like my mom did that. She's like, yeah, okay, like from— she would always say, from your mouth to God's ears, like, and that was her version of saying like, yeah, I hope it works, but like, you know, make sure you have a job, like, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, I don't want to hear that. It just doesn't—

you got to pick your influences. Yeah, you just got to pick your influences and, uh You know, life needs to be a meritocracy similar to a company. If you— you need to listen to people based on their merit. I'm not going to ask a non-business owner whether I should start a business, right? I'm going to ask a business owner. I might ask my mom about emotional intelligence. Yeah. Or how to be a good parent, right? I definitely will. Yeah. And I'll definitely take that on board. But the quicker we can figure out who has merit in the situation, the quicker we can learn.

100%. I want to talk a little bit about Shark Tank. Yeah. So you've been on there 2 seasons?

We've only shot 2 seasons, but yeah, I've been on both, um, and should be a 3rd season, which would be cool.

What's that, what's that experience like?

It was, uh, it was incredible. So it kind of pairs all of my favorite things, which is early stage e-com businesses, because it's primarily consumer businesses because they're so exciting, um, and they can relate to people. And then also content creation, which I absolutely love. It also combines talking about myself, which I don't actually like that much, but, um, it's good because you can obviously talk to about the entrepreneur's business and really kind of change their life as well. So yeah, it was a, it was a life-changing experience. It's very different from YouTube where I'm setting up one camera and shooting, and there's like 12 cameras pointed at you. Yeah.

Um, do you have to fly somewhere to, to film?

Yeah, it's filmed in Sydney.

And how far is that from where you are?

Uh, it's like a 2-hour flight. Okay, so quick. But it took me, took me 2 days to get here, so yeah, I'm pretty used to it. Yeah, yeah.

So is there anything you do to prepare before an episode starts?

Before Shark Tank, before the first season of Shark Tank, I was sitting out in my backyard, the house that I just kind of purchased, with my dad and mum, and they're like, don't do Shark Tank. Really? Because I was having panic attacks for the first time ever.

You were worried about going on set?

I, I didn't even know what they were. Ah, I like— this was like, I just started having them. I just got back from a trip.

Well, and but you knew Shark Tank was coming up, but you didn't know if that was causing— you just felt—

it wasn't. It definitely wasn't just Shark Tank, it was business. It was just things were too overwhelmed. Yeah, you know, Shark Tank was still 3 months away, 4 months away. Um, And I remember just like this, you know, I could not take meetings, I could not travel, I could not do anything without having a panic attack and just having deep anxiety. I thought my like heart was going to explode. Wow. And I then just, I was just like, this is one of these once in a lifetime opportunities. And one thing in business, we all, we all have a shit, right? Like I think that if you don't have anxiety, you've got other shit. It is what it is. Yeah. Our ability to, our ability to really fight discomfort, and even if we're not feeling great, providing we are not going to die and push through, is what makes us great, right? And pushes that 1% that I was talking about before. So I decided to do it. So I did prepare. I was like, I went full carnivore, I studied non-stop, I canceled all my meetings, I like shut down businesses, I did everything that I could humanly do possible because I knew that that was a 10x opportunity to be the best version of yourself when you show up.

Exactly. To—

oh, just to, to even be able to sit in front of a camera. Yeah. To be honest, even to be able to catch the flight across to Sydney.

Wow. So it was really bad.

It was really bad. It was really, really— did it come out of nowhere? It was very dark. I've always had like kind of general— I always thought I had generalized anxiety, but like now I know that maybe I didn't because now I do. Yeah, like, yeah, it's pretty full-on. So There was certain catalysts, like I was like, uh, not sleeping. I was taking modafinil. I was like having nicotine as well. I was having like 6 coffees a day. I was like partying on the weekends. Yeah, I've had— I was just working non-stop.

You were dependent on substances to get you through everything you had going on.

Every single worst thing that you could do for anxiety, I was doing it. I was super— I was super like negative about myself. I was like, you're unworthy of having this much money, you're not— like, this business is failing, ignoring all the successful shit I've done. Yeah. Um, so yes, there was— genetically, we're like, apparently 50% of our happiness or our anxiousness is genetically wired, right? But the other 50%, we have a lot of control. And I would probably say from personal experience, anecdotally, 25% of that is mental, but then 25% of that is physiological. Yeah. Um, and I think that I was doing everything wrong.

Wow. So what did you do to start making change? You went carnivore?

Yeah, so I fixed my diet massively, uh, really eased up on work. You know, I, I've gone through this huge journey. I can, I can share most of it. So I started with a psychologist, which is cognitive therapy, and his solution, which worked very well, which is was stop working. As soon as I stopped working, the chronic stress went away, right? And inflammation came down and I was all sweet. Yeah. Then I went to hypnosis, which I had a crippling fear of public speaking, and that ended up allowing me to get on stage for the first time and do my— yeah, hypnosis worked really well.

Like, would you say like hypnosis works, or like it helps me a bit?

Wow. Hypnosis works. That is the topic I want to hear about. Hands down, it works. Okay. Um, and it's the main thing— my main lesson with hypnosis is get a very, very good hypno coach. What does it look like?

Like, what is it? Are they waving a thing in front of your eyes?

No, no. So I've had one where I have been physically with them, but you can just do it virtually. You can get a really, really good coach. Really? They will record the session. Yeah. Some— I've had one where they went back to childhood and it was like you basically forgive your child self for feeling ashamed or feeling insecure or something like that. And then, uh, yeah, bring them along kind of for the journey kind of thing. Yeah. So that's— they'll put you in this deep state and they'll talk about that, but then they'll also give you these— this long kind of winded, uh, with a bunch of keywords and a bunch of situations. Like, picture yourself, you're on stage, blah blah blah, and you feel confident, your legs are steady, yeah, that kind of So, and those words, like, I can right now, because you get the recording and you listen to it, you know, every morning, every night before you do the thing, you— I can tell you the pitch and the pacing of every single word and the gap. And I could basically repeat this whole tape to you. Wow. I have like 7 of them. Wow. Um, so that's, that's where it is. I think it's a lot about just like repetitive positive affirmations.

So, okay, and I won't go too deep down this tangent, but like you see the videos of someone like, you know, snap their fingers and a guy like turns into a dog or something. Like, is that real or is that like— is it so deep?

I was shooting a YouTube video for my public speaking. I was— it was going to be titled Getting Over Public Speaking, and I ended up not doing it because I had a speech for my old high school and I started having chest pains the day before. It wasn't even panic attacks. It was like, I actually feel like I need to go to hospital. Wow. So I had to cancel that. So I never posted the video, but in the video they talk about, um, he basically puts me under and my videographer's there. And I came out of it and I was like, if you did your live show where you turn someone into a dog, would I be a good student? And he was like, you'd be the life of the party. He's like, I would pick you first every single time for everything, because I could make you do anything in front of people. Yeah, it's crazy. Did he do it? No, he didn't do it then, but that is all real as well. Really? Yeah, it's all real. The fuck? Yeah, because you'll see them, they'll try to put people under and they won't work and they'll just send them off stage. Yeah.

Oh, so some people doesn't work for some people.

It doesn't work.

So I want to see if someone can do that today.

Yeah, let's get a hypnotherapist. I'd love to call someone. It's Miami, I'm sure you can get someone on Uber Eats.

Yeah, or someone might scam me. Yeah, true, true. Okay, so that's really interesting. So you're doing hypnotherapy, cognitive therapies, um, and, and you're, you know, you're changing your diet, your physical, and you had 3 months to prepare. Yeah. So, okay, what else were you doing?

Yeah, the main thing is, uh, is really just that diet, proper habits, Mentally meditating, uh, looking after that side of things, and then just easing up on the triggers, which is work. So that if you do all of those things, it should work.

What about, what about like the coffee, the modafinil, nicotine?

The craziest thing is that I reckon, anecdotally again, is that 20% of people that experience generalized anxiety that are drinking coffee at the moment would have zero anxiety if they quit coffee tomorrow, straight away. Wow. Like, it was the instant trigger. It got rid of all of my anxiety. Just couldn't— coffee. Yeah. So have you— for like 2, 3 weeks. Yeah. Um, like, I haven't had coffee today. Yeah. Um, I have had some nicotine, but that's because I was working. But I do that in such small amounts of moderation now. Yeah. Like, I never let it snowball.

Ah. Um, I do. I let it snowball. Yeah. It's— I'll be having a zin in my mouth like all day sometimes. Yeah. Two of them at once sometimes.

Yeah, definitely snowballed. I, I think I think if you wanted to optimize— life is about what you're optimizing to, right? If I'm optimizing to zero anxiety, there I would not have nicotine, I would not have coffee. But I'm not optimizing 100%. I'm willing to have anxiety for my greater goals, to create my businesses, right? Like, you got it. Whenever you have a goal, you sacrifice something. You do. Yeah, it's so true. I'm sacrificing some level of mental health for my goals. Yeah.

You know, something that I've done really over the last few years, it's in line with what you're talking about with my business. There's typically like one quarter or one, like, couple month period per year where I just grind. I go, I open up everything. I look at in deep in the weeds on, on deeply question things like really get people aligned, but it's not sustainable. Like, Because then, you know, I'll have like— I'll be in all the meetings, I'm in all the Slack channels, and I have all the messages. Now it's like a non-stop flow of communication, and after a few weeks of that, I get completely burnt out. Yep. And I try to do less work. But I think, you know, people think in the hustle culture, like, you have to be fully grinding all the time. I don't— I don't think it's sustainable.

It doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't work.

I, I feel like a huge sacrifice to my, to my physical and mental health.

I don't know what the optimal thing is. I'm still trying to figure that out. I don't know if I want to do these 3-week bouts of like, you know, 12-hour days every single day and then just burn out and have a week off. Yeah. Or do I want to just prevent burnout completely? And I'm sure scientists— scientists on both— the scientists would probably say that just don't burn out, right? Because there's huge physiological problems. Yeah. But they're not rich. So, so like, I don't think they understand where I'm coming from. Um, and again, it's like what you're optimizing. Yeah.

I don't know, from my experience, a lot of the things that brought me a lot of wealth came from the, the times when I was working less and I was spending more time on myself in, in solitude, like getting into my intuition. Like that's where a lot of the big things have come from. I think you build the big things, they could be successful or not, they might get really messy, then you have to go in and grind on them. That's, that's the way I see it. It's like I gotta go in and fix a bunch of shit, and then once it's fixed, it's like the ship is sailing again, and then something breaks down. It's like I gotta go and fix a bunch of shit again. So for me, it's like I dive in and then I like get my head out of water and take a break, and I dive back in. But I'm— more of my time is with the head out of water than it is dive in.

Yeah, grinding. I think over time you become more head out of water because your intuition becomes the most high-leverage thing that you can provide to the company, right? Initially it's like, hey, I need to be head down and implementing the levers. Yeah. And my intuition is shit because I don't know the world yet, right? So I think I'm seeing that as well, that I'm—

because the more I'm coming out of the business, as you grow, the decisions have a lot more weight and like conversation, an important conversation could be worth tens of millions of dollars now, where when you first get started, you're in survival mode and you're trying to make whatever amount of money to keep the lights on on the business. So, you're right. I think as things grow, your intuition and your decision-making takes more weight. Maybe in the beginning, you have to grind through it, and that's a lesson and a thing you have to go through. Great. So, 3 months, Shark Tank comes up. Did you feel like, okay, I got myself back on track?

Yeah, definitely. I was, um, I was ability to get a— I was able to get over there, um, and, you know, have a lot of fun with it as well. One of the biggest lessons that I had during this mental health period, and I actually didn't learn it until probably like a year ago, so it's taken me a couple years of pain, you just gotta have fun with stuff. You're taking things too seriously. I was taking myself too seriously. Like, yeah, you know, part of this hypnosis that I was telling you about is where you're like, look at your 14-year-old self, a 12-year-old self, and you're like, you know, I used to be this fun, yeah, like boisterous, like jumping around, just like getting yelled at at teachers, laughing, blah blah blah. And you know, that's kind of gone. Like, you're not letting things be fun, right? And therefore it's creating stress for you, right? And that's what was so great about Shark Tank this year. I just let it be fun. Yeah, I removed all of the expectations.

I think that, that, like, you know, talking about having fun is such a more powerful and deep conversation than it might just go over someone's head. Yeah, I'll have fun whenever. But honestly, when you have fun with things, you become a more vibrant person. You're a happier person. I believe the way you feel creates your thought patterns. When you're having fun, You're, you're like, you'll be a different version of yourself. You'll go down a different path. You'll be more attractive to other people. And when you take yourself so seriously, you, you hold on to things, you get attached to things, you get attached to outcomes, you get— you're less attractive, you're less magnetic. Um, you know, I think every really, really successful person I know are also very fun people, very light, humorous, easygoing.

Let me, let me run you through the story of the dropshipper. So the dropshipper, they create a product and then they launch a store and they get their first sale and it's a dopamine hit. And then they watch some hustle porn and then they're like, I'm going to— I'm going to skip this party. I'm going to skip this wedding because I want to create an extra 10 sales. That dopamine hit of those sales that they end up getting rewards the behavior of skipping that event. Eventually you skip so many events and reinforce the dopamine loop of business and revenue that nothing else brings you joy. And then you get so much money that you realize that that isn't going to provide you dopamine anymore, right? So you have to rebuild all of these unconditional, not reward-centric activities, like playing golf. Maybe some people take that too seriously. You see my guy?

Depends on the day. Maybe, maybe. Depends on the day. Depends on who you're with.

Um, but like, yeah, so a better way to do that— I'm not actually sure if that's a bad thing. Like, that's the path that I took. Yeah, might be the path that you took. Like, it might— it's, it's a path that I've just seen so many people take.

Well, again, it's like you can— it might not be the best path, but you might have to go through that path to learn the lesson inherently.

It's like exactly like what we talked about before, like moving away. It might not be the right thing, but then you grow to appreciate what you have. Yeah. And I don't, I don't care if I make $5 million, $10 million, $30 million next year. Yeah. Like, it's all going to be the same to me. Yes, I can't buy the plane, but I can rent the plane. Yeah. No, no dramas. And I think Growing to appreciate that and allowing myself to experience other aspects of life has been one of the most fundamental shifts.

Well, dude, if you think about it, there's all these external things. There's money, there's the plane, there's, you know, fun, nice dinners, there's people. What do all those things do? They have an impact on how you feel. So if you can feel the way you want to feel, then who gives a fuck about everything else? And other things will happen. But, you know, so many people chase the thing to be able to feel the way they want to feel, when in fact they can feel that way now, straight away. Yeah, I mean, you're going to die in, in 80 years, 100 years, whatever it is. You might as well spend as much time as you could feeling the best you could feel.

Yeah, at any given moment, there's what's wrong and there's what's right, and it's just a matter of intelligence and focus and clarity to pick which one that you want to focus on. And I think that Over time, you just realize that, you know, life is just so short and you just need to focus on what's right.

Yeah, I think, you know, I just want to highlight the having fun thing once more. Um, the person I met that I think values fun more than anyone else I've ever met before also happens to be one of the most successful people I've ever met before, and that's Sir Richard Branson. I was fortunate to spend a week on his private island with him every day. That's crazy. And this man gets up, he goes kite surfing. I mean, we went on a bike ride for like 2 hours. I don't know if I told you about that, dude. It was me, him, and like 5 or 6 other guys. We took a boat across to, uh, Virgin Gorda, and the first hour is just directly uphill. And this guy's 73 years old. He didn't— I had to get off the bike like 100 times to like push it. This guy didn't get off the bike once. Then I finally get to the top and I see we go down, and I'm thinking we go down and then we're done. So I fly down the hill, only to realize we gotta go back up. Oh no. And about, um, there was 3 of us left. There was also a van following us, so everyone got in the van. But my ego wouldn't let me quit because I'm like, I can't be the guy who quits before Sir Richard Branson. He's 73 years old. I'm I was 33 at the time. I'm the guy who's in shape. I can't quit. I'm getting up to the top, my quads, my quads are cramping. I've never had that happen before. I couldn't walk. My quads were cramping. I couldn't bend my legs. And he's just happy, no problem. We get back, jumps in a 6-minute cold plunge. I'm like, I need to go take a nap. I'm dead. This guy goes and plays tennis. He lifts weights. And the whole time he's just this free flowing, fun-spirited guy for sure. I think built a life that is solely focused on fun. Yeah, it's just— it's admirable.

The other thing that you need to know is what's fun to you. Yeah, I had a similar experience with Robert Herjavec. He is, you know, very, very successful. And I was lucky, you know, he came, took me over to the US Shark Tank and introduced me to a bunch of people. I interviewed Jay Leno. And he had just retired, so I was so lucky to have, you know, a proper 2 weeks with him where he had nothing else. We're just shooting content and chilling. And he was the exact same. He's like, I want to go do this, let's go do this, do this. And it was, it was honestly the most enjoyable 2 weeks. And I can tell that he would never stop doing that. For me, that's not fun for me to do 52 weeks. Yeah, like it like, it just— I get really, really tired. What's fun for me is working out. Yeah. And like trying a new workout. Yeah. Or like by myself. Yeah. Or, you know, going to a nice lunch like with my dogs and my girlfriend. Yeah. Just relaxing. That's, that's my fun. But it's, it's, it's very similar. I like to mix it up with both. We need consistency and inconsistency in our life. But yeah, learn what's fun for you because without that you can't break that dopamine. Yeah.

Have you been working out more since last time I saw you? You look good.

Oh, thanks, man.

A little bit. I feel like last time I saw you, you were not quite as best fit.

I, um, I, I've been pretty strict on diet. Yeah. I've been full carnivore the past 3 months. Okay.

What does that look like?

Is that literally just steak? This— in the morning I'll have like steak and eggs, and then I'll have— in the afternoon I'll have like a ribeye, and then for dinner I'll probably have like a large ribeye as well. Love that. Or I'll have um, like mince with organ meat in it, either liver and hearts and stuff like that, as like meatballs in bone broth with like egg noodles. Love that. So I just kind of repeat that. It's a high-risk diet. If it wasn't for anxiety, I wouldn't be doing it, but it also shreds you up pretty quickly.

Yeah, you'd be proud of me. We went to dinner last night. I had 2 burger patties and 5 fried eggs, and the waitress was like, 5 eggs? It was nice. Tell the chef to put the 5 eggs on the plate. I don't care how it looks.

I don't know why eggs are debated about being healthy or unhealthy. They're just empirically— Lucky Charms, you hear that?

Lucky Charms are better for you than steak. That's what the US government said. Oh my gosh. Lucky Charms were better for you than steak. That's— it's so corrupt.

It's so stupid. It's so stupid. There's no way it's better for you than steak. No way.

There's no way. No way. So, full carnivore, how long have you been doing that now?

Past 3 months. Before that, I was pretty meat-orientated, but I would have heaps of fruit as well. Gotcha. Heaps of fruit and avocado as well.

You're not doing fruit and avocado anymore?

Uh, I started getting anxious again and really struggling again, and I was just like, I'm gonna go back to the really strict nature of it. Yeah. And this was like a little bit before that. Um, and then yeah, as I said, the past 3 months have been chilled.

That's really cool. So Shark Tank, were you flying out regularly to film? Was it like a whole day? And I guess actually going back to my first question, When I asked, do you prepare for it, you told me about what you prepared, you know, 3 months in advance. What I would like to know is, is there something you do before the show starts to get yourself in a state, or do you just show up?

Like, I always give myself a couple of days before without work to kind of pollute my brain. But no, it's unscripted TV. Yeah, like that. We don't know what the pitches are.

We're— you're not doing like push-ups in the back, like getting your energy up?

You just I'm in a turtleneck because there's no point doing push-ups, um, hard to amp yourself up, I guess. Yeah, they could get your energy flowing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, um, my energy is up. Like, it is, it is up all the time. I'm trying to maintain a calm energy all the time, right? So like, I'll have chamomile tea, like peppermint tea, just calm myself down. Yeah. Um, so now you just kind of roll into it. It's unscripted. You shoot it over What people don't know about Shark Tank is that you shoot it over 2 weeks and you'll get— we got like 6 pitches a day, 7 pitches a day. The US tank can be even more than that. They're crazy efficient. They have thousands of people working on it. It's like crazy. Wow. Um, and then yeah, they shoot the whole season in 2 weeks and then you go off to your life.

That's really cool. Is it fun? You like— so much fun. Were you on Shark Tank as a contestant ever? No, no, no. How'd you end up getting on as a Shark?

It's pretty crazy that I was in school watching Robert Herjavec. Yeah, on US Shark Tank. And then the thing that a lot of people in the US don't understand about me and my product is that every single person in Australia and New Zealand know it.

Oh really? It's like that? It's like a household brand?

It's like everyone knows. Yeah, I didn't know that. When I come to the US, I never get recognized. Like barely at all. Yeah, in Australia everyone knows the Oodie, so they know me. It's not about my YouTube, it's not about these flexing videos and shit like that. It's like people just like the product. Yeah, um, and the UK is kind of getting there as well. So that's why I was able to be the youngest Shark on Shark Tank because the product was so loved.

If you're an entrepreneur that's known there, the YouTube, YouTube helped. How many of those, um, do you call it an Oodie or an Oodie?

It's hoodie with the H removed. Hoodie. So it's oodie.

Oodie. So how many hoodies did you sell?

I think we sold— we sold over 10 million. Wow. Well over 10 million. How many people are there in Australia? 26 million. I think 1 in every 3 Australians have one of my products. That is— Yeah.

That is a lot. You should have put a little note in every one of them saying like—

I'm going to have to do the math on that. So I'm going to get fact-checked probably.

You could have became the president. You just vote for me in 10 years.

I saved this note.

Uh, yeah, uh, it's okay if you're fact-checking. It's a, it's a ridiculous, it's a ridiculous number, number. Even if it's 1 in every 10, it doesn't matter. Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah. And was it all— I mean, you got into retail as well, right?

We haven't done too much retail. We've been in some like the AFL stores and with some of the licensing stores, but yeah, we haven't really done too much retail. Retailers in Australia just do not have the same push as the retailers here. Yeah, like I was just at a, uh, hanging out with some, um, 9-figure e-com owners and they're like, Target is the best here. Yeah, like we want to get in our product into Target. Target is not the best in Australia. It's like, no, not at all. Kmart is actually like really big, Big W, that kind of stuff. Target's okay. I don't want to rag on Target too much. I'm sure we'll do business.

You couldn't pay me to go to Target.

I'm sure we'll do business one day, but like that, just the polarity, like Target is a premium kind of feeling over here. It just doesn't feel like that.

My wife likes Target. I will not go to Target. Gotcha. There's no chance I'm going to Target. Yeah, no chance.

You maybe outgrown Target. Couldn't think of anything worse.

The only worst place I think maybe if I had to go, like Marshalls. You know Marshalls? The fuck is a Marshalls? Discount clothing.

Just buy it online. Jesus, just buy it.

I FaceTimed my mom the other day. She's— she was in Marshalls returning something. I'm like, that's an activity you will never find me doing.

Oh my God. I haven't returned something in probably 3 years.

Yeah, me neither. Yeah, it's not worth it as well. It's not worth— it's almost never worth it. It's never worth it depending on your, obviously, your financial situation. But even, even—

well, it depends what your hourly rate is. If your hourly rate is over $100 an hour, yeah, then you should not be returning something because it's going to take you an hour and the mental stress.

Just go home on— yeah, call the airline for something.

Oh gosh, no. Just book another ticket. No. It's not even just that. I've actually done that once. I had, I had 2 tickets to the same airlines at the same time going somewhere else. One was business class, one was like not. And that's what I didn't want to go to that country because I couldn't get business class. I wanted to go to the other country. And both of them, the airline was like, you can't do this, like it's breaking our system. And I almost didn't get onto the business class flight because of it. It was a disaster.

I've done shit just like that before. Booked two flights on the same day not knowing which one I'm going on. Yeah, I mean, it's not even just the hourly rate, it's like you also have to spend that hour doing something you don't want to do, which, you know, changes your day. Like, yeah, and returning things, not a— not an item, not— not something I would do. So pretty much everyone in Australia knows the hoodie. You end up on Shark Tank. What's happening now with the company? I mean, it's a pretty niche product, right? Is it— are you guys expanding the product line? Like, how— if everyone has one, how do you keep scaling it?

At the end of this year will be the first year where other products outsell the Oodie category. 3 years ago, part of the thing that was causing me so much stress is I knew that it was a trend like you know, you need to reinvigorate and reinvent products. You need to create a brand, right? And I was like, how do we do that? That's a skill gap that I just don't actually understand. Um, I need to develop that skill. So we launched a bunch of products. We've got probably 7 that do $5 to $20 million a year, maybe a little bit more, $25 million a year. Wow. Um, under the same brand? Under the same brand. Some of them do a little bit less, like Dog Goodies to do like $3 million a year. Yeah. Say, for example, um, which we successfully diversified product and we just successfully diversified markets. But here's where we stuffed up and we're trying to correct now. When we look at across all of the countries, there's a certain amount of management we need. Like, let's take the UK, let's take bathrobes, sleep teas, and dog goodies. We need to change over the imagery, we need to shoot the imagery for each of those products for the UK. Yep, sure, we can use those images in, in Australia, that's fine. But then when it comes to sales banners that we need to create, then when it comes to like ads with the right accents and stuff like that, suddenly it became to a point where we've got all of these regions and all of these products that as a collective makes sense. When you fractionalize it so much across all of it, they don't compound and they are unprofitable in their own business units, right? And I looked at that when I saw it, and I was like, this is so fucking obvious. How did I not see this sooner? Yeah. And now what? And it's just a critical lesson, one that I just keep learning, and I don't learn cheaply, which is focus. Like, I would be much better off having 3 products that do $50 to $100 million, 3 product categories, than all of these fractal things across all of these regions, right? So yes. So now we'll refine that, we'll refine our channels, we'll refine our markets and things should come, come back into a better spot because it hasn't been—

That makes a lot of sense. So I'm curious, like you're— I mean, that brand scaled very quickly. There's, you know, for people listening that aren't familiar, there's obviously, you know, inventory that you need to manage. There's team, uh, team growth to keep up with the growth of the business. Um, and I'm assuming you didn't raise like any or a ton of capital. You didn't raise capital. How did you keep up with— because it's very scientific, like ordering inventory SKUs, warehousing it, like, like forecasting when it's going to come in as you're scaling so much, trying not to sell out. Like, what was—

how did you do that? There was times that we were selling our product on a 6-month pre-sale. Wow. So people were waiting 6 months to get their avocado hoodie, um, and willing to pay the full amount up front. Wow. That allowed us to obviously pay the supplier, get the product in, finance the next round of growth. It's called a negative cash flow conversion cycle. And without that— and I have seen it, I'm advising a business called Comfort at the moment, they're going to do $500 million. Yeah, I've heard of it. Second and a half third year, and they're the exact same. They, they, you, they offer pre-sale. You're willing to wait a bit extra to sell it, or you can buy it now. And there he's 100% bootstrapped as well, crushing that. So I've seen it, and the, the common denominator is, is your trend strong enough? Is the comp— is the market ready for it? Is there too much competition at certain price points? So you really want to create that brand, create that market. Obviously COVID was a bit of a driver for us as well. Yeah, that shouldn't be understated. But the— to get behind the science of it, for a young founder that's just about to find themselves in that position, you need to— if you are very marketing orientated and growth orientated, and you like, when you see a spreadsheet, you vague out, that's when— and it's not a marketing spreadsheet calculating ROAS— that's when you need to hire the yin to your yang. You need to hire an operations manager or a COO if you're growing quickly. Yeah. And you want these people to be very proficient in merchandise planning because it is— we need to look at businesses as what is the most exist— what is it— what is a true existential risk for this business and mitigate that. And for all e-commerce brands, not dropshipping, plugging dropshipping there because it is obviously much better at this, is inventory, right? Like, that is the thing that will bankrupt you, right? Because you, you'll go to pay your taxes at the end of year and you go, yeah, I have taxes, that's crazy, because your inventory counts as profits, right? Yeah, it's like I've made $1 million in profit. Now I need to pay tax on that. All of my money is in inventory. Yeah. Who the fuck's going to pay that tax bill? Yeah. And so many businesses in their first and second year get caught by that.

Yeah, it's so true. Which is why I was so curious how— because like, I mean, you scaled big numbers relatively quickly. On a point we just discussed, I'm curious your perspective. So there's the, like, let's say the spectrum of as you're scaling, you can either, you know, sell a lot and take too long to ship things and preserve your conversion rate. Or there's the people come to the website, hey, sorry, you're not going to be able to get this for 6 weeks. It might hurt your conversion rate because people don't want to wait for it. Obviously, if you have a brand that people want to wait for and maybe it makes the demand higher, but let's take that out of the equation. Do you err towards the over, overpromising and underdelivering on shipping or underpromising and overdelivering but hurting your conversion rates?

You want to underpromise and overdeliver because this is where a lot of dropshippers go wrong. They try to sell shit to people and treat them like shit and then wonder why they won't buy their second product, which is also shit, right? Like you need to build a Trustpilot, need to get good reviews, you need to create a good experience so that the next product— if we didn't do that, all of these secondary products that are doing, you know, that are going to overtake the hoodie this year wouldn't, wouldn't have worked, right? So you need to do that. But this is the thing, being sold out isn't a negative if you spin it the right way, right? You are popular.

It's like Rolex. You can't buy one.

People want what they can't have. Yeah. So it's about how you present this information and frame this information, right?

So you can use it to your advantage. Exactly. I can't get one, I want one more. Sure. I do that all the time. I go to buy something, I'll buy things that you— that I can't get because I want them now more. True. And then I'll just forget I bought them, and then when I get it in the mail, it's like, oh, nice little surprise.

Human nature. Human nature.

That could even be an ad angle, like buy yourself a surprise for, you know, 6 months from now. Um, that makes a lot of sense. What do you value— like, how do you value the lifetime value, the lifetime value of a customer early on in a business, right? You're buying media, they're going to buy from you in the future if you give them a good experience.

How do you kind of figure out what to expect on that in e-commerce in the early stages if you're selling, uh, clothing product for the most part, a gadget, anything like that, just assume you've got no LTV. Yeah, like you've got your customers not coming back. They're going to forget about you. You will not forget about your business because it's your business, but they will forget about you like all the other millions of ads that they see in a day. And I think that if you're selling a supplement or a beauty product, yes, you need to look at cohort data and analyze the LTV very early on in the process. But if you're bootstrapping, do not count on that LTV. Just run profitable first customer acquisition and then adjust from there.

Yeah, but that encourages people not to care about the customer. Sure. Encourages them to ship out shitty products and take too long.

I think you intrinsically value it, but not actual, like put it into the value equation of what you do on a daily basis. This is, this is, this is why so many people don't build brands. Is because it can't be measured easily. Right, right. So I think that I personally build— I look at what all of the other brands do, I look at the emotional connection that I have, and then I look at reviews as a North Star metric. Yeah. And then the rest of it, I run my business in a safe way now because I have money and I have touch points and, and subconscious information about how to do it, I'd probably value it way more. But initially in those stages, there's just too much risk to do otherwise.

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. When you're like, you know, you said earlier you can start a business that cash flows $100 grand a month, you know, right away. And I'm sure you go into all this stuff in your, in your education, but I'm curious about one specific thing is like, where do you find great people to be part of a business early on?

The only people that are really, really looking for work are people that you don't want to hire.

I know. Yeah, the most desperate people.

So therefore we need to go to places where people are really happy and hired because the A-player in this company is like, I would go babysit my A-players like dogs or kids to make them happy. Yeah, like all I need to do is make them happy and they'll print me money, right? And I think that you need to have such a compelling vision and some level of external profile. And I don't know, not saying go make YouTube videos, I'm just saying have a nice Twitter feed. Yeah. And just message these people and sell them on the vision. Catch up, go to the event, talk to them, buy them a coffee, just be really kind. The relationships will stem from there and you will know straight away if it's a perfect fit. They Uh, you know, they've been there for 3 years, they like it there, you're like, can offer equity. Like, that's just a win-win for everybody, right? Um, so I think poaching is the number one way to go about it. Going on to, uh, that's gonna come up.

Should be— no, I won't be on the audio. There's someone sawing something in the background.

For anyone curious what we're talking about, um, so the So you basically go into LinkedIn or Twitter, um, you can post a job on LinkedIn if you want and push people towards it, and then yeah, just go to their company and just reach out to them. Yeah. Or I actually use a recruiter now. Yeah, um, recruiters are just like— if you're doing over a million bucks a year, $2 million a year, you should be using a recruiter.

They're just going to do that whole process for you, weeding out a lot of, you know, because 99% is a lot of waste.

I said I set up e-commerce recruitment an e-commerce recruitment firm. Oh yeah. Just so I had infinite employee flow because it is everything. Like, it's so important.

Yeah, it's tough in the beginning, but it makes you realize that like when you put the extra care into your customer and you, and you, you under-promise, over-deliver, you're also going to have a lot more confidence talking to people about your brand because you care about it. But I think it also just comes down to being a magnetic person. Which comes down to that personal work. Yeah. You ever— I mean, I've been in states where it's like, I don't know how all these amazing things are coming to me, but it's what it's at the times when I'm being the best version of myself.

I think that's an ultimate hack. That's almost a personality thing. You might have some 19-year-old Mark Zuckerbergs watching this that are absolutely terribly not magnetic. Yeah, true. New Zuck, we love him. I would go work for him.

Yeah, new Zuck's the freaking— he's a stud.

But old Zuck, like, you can imagine him. Have you ever watched Silicon Valley, that show? Yeah, a long time ago. And he like vomits and then and like crashes into the window, like, as his CEO, he's like trying to address the, the team. I think a lot of— that's, that was me. I couldn't speak in front of my team. I'd have to do it on Zoom, and then I would have to close the Zoom and pretend I was speaking to myself when I was trying to lead my teams initially. I was like, wow, I was, I was, I was maybe magnetic in some ways where I was like making lots of money and I was young, but like I wasn't an inspiring person. So I think this is where, this is where company vision comes down, right? I can guarantee everyone at Facebook was just like, we're going to change the world, we're going to make the biggest app that's ever existed. Yeah. And I think if you are, yeah, terrible, just make sure your company vision is strong and you can communicate that and you'll be fine.

Yeah. New Zuckerberg is really cool.

Love him. He just—

did you see he brought Dana White onto the board? Yeah, that's crazy.

I can just imagine the creative director or the branding expert just having a slideshow and Zach taking notes, just being like, wear gold chain. Yep. Because she's like, do, do it too. Yep. Kill people. Yep.

Just like, yeah, they're probably thinking like, who's, who's some— okay, we got Trump in office now, um, people like Joe Rogan now, uh, people are starting to like me. Who could we bring on the board to bring more of this into the culture? And like, Dana White. Yeah, like, perfect.

Oh, I mean, he flips and flops, doesn't he? He's like heaps left and now he's heaps right, and it's just like, whoever's Whoever's in power.

Yeah, when Joe Biden was in office, he was censoring COVID things. It's pretty crazy. Now Trump's in office, he's got Dana White on the board. Smart guy.

He's built something incredible. Crazy. Be like water, flow, flow with the tide.

He's the flow. Yeah, he'd be a really cool guy to interview. It would be cool, but maybe one day. Maybe one day. So you're doing— you're also interviewing people, is it?

Uh, uh, just every now and then. What are some of the cool people you interviewed recently?

Jay Leno was really cool.

He's so funny. Yeah, like he's just hilarious. People underestimate what it takes to have a quick wit, and obviously being on TV for, I don't know, 50 years or something like that, yeah, is, is something. Uh, I met Mark Cuban, Robert Herjavec, I met Lori Greiner, um, Barbara, Barbara as well from Shark Tank. She was incredible. Uh, but yeah, I met, met a few. Did you interview all these people? Uh, well, yeah, uh, I interviewed Jay Leno. Yeah, and Robert Hirschbeck, uh, as well. And to a degree, uh, you know, Mark Cuban.

So was it in a podcast format? I didn't actually watch it, I just saw the—

Jay Leno's was, but, um, the rest was kind of just on YouTube.

Yeah, be casual. How do you decide how you're going to make a YouTube video?

Like, I don't know, just kind of wing it. Really? I'm pretty— I'm pretty relaxed about it. I, I don't know, like, if you walk to my— my YouTube is like a look into my brain. It's like, I'm gonna go save a donut business, I'm gonna do 6-hour tutorials, like I'm gonna go review TikTok products. Like, I just do random shit. Yeah, it's like, that's the ADHD part of me. But at the same time, it's just like, it's fun. Yeah, I enjoy it. You have fun doing it. Like, I would be at 1.5 million subs if I just did vlogs, flex videos. Yeah, straight my Shopify screenshots. But like, I don't just like doing that. So I like doing it sometimes. Yeah, like not all the time. But you could do it sometimes.

There's a lot of people out there that do it all the time that shouldn't be doing it at all. Yeah, 100%. There's a lot of that in the, in the culture now, and it's very rare to find someone real and authentic and genuine. And there's like— I'm not gonna call out the— anyway, I'm, I'm selling a car and there's like a young kid who wants to buy the car and he's like, you know, made a little bit of money and he's like way too cool for school, and he was like one of those big flexers. Like, there's so much of that in the culture.

Yeah.

What, what, what do you see happening with, uh, with those types of people long term? Do you think they, they change, they grow? Do most of them succeed, fail? Like, it's hard.

A lot of that— a lot of my initial reason I got into it, into YouTube, was— and a lot of my positioning was around like, don't listen to these scammers. And over time I realized that I was just giving so much energy to that. Like, it was like, I don't know how smart they are. I've never talked to them, right? I don't— I haven't gone and watched every single one of their courses. I've watched some of them, and that's why I have confidence that I can sometimes say that they're scammers because it's shit. Yeah, it is absolutely terrible, that content. Yeah, it's all just repackaged YouTubes. Yeah, like every single part of it. But not the whole— not every kid is like that. Like, you look at some of the top YouTubers at the moment They have built hundreds of millions of dollars worth of enterprise value. Yes, it's selling info. I wonder how much enterprise value they've actually created selling that info. Right. So I'm kind of in between it at the moment. And I think that I want to judge it case by case rather than industry as a whole. But I think giving the warning that you just gave and that I used to give isn't necessarily a bad thing because people will have their guard up. Yeah, yeah. This is why I give all my shit away for free. Like, that's why I'm doing the free course. Yeah, because I, I've seen $10,000 courses that are so bad, and I was like, I'm gonna create the best course that I can. Rather than write a book, I'm just gonna create the best free course that I can with every single thing, not gonna hold back. It's gonna be a bit boring at times. Yeah, but at least then it's out there for someone that needs it.

Yeah, I, I mean, that was kind of the reason why I got out of the info space, you know, prior to to building Zendrop, I had an info business and it was relatively large info business and we put a lot of energy into the actual product, the coaching, the programs, the videos. There was— and it was like all original stuff and things I've learned at HighLevel masterminds. But then you got so many people that would come in and, and they would just run the same funnel with a screenshot of $50 grand on Shopify and it started to get a bad reputation. So I think, yeah, better than just like calling people out, like just put out put it all out for free. That's, that's probably the best move. Yeah.

And I think that the, the new way that the world's structured, like, brands should be paying enough that you don't have to charge any money for it.

Well, now in today's— I mean, we do today.

Yeah, you guys do. Um, and I think that that's the, the main thing. Like, oh, there's so much competition in the affiliate space and to get users, like, that there's no reason— these people are double dipping. Like these people selling $10,000 for their course. Yeah, they are also getting the Shopify affiliate that this free course does for me to cover costs, plus they're taking your fee, right? Like, it— there is no reason to do that. That's why they're making $20 million a year. Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I'm, uh, I am curious, like, being on social media, do you, do you actually have social apps on your phone? No. Okay, I was gonna say, I don't either.

I, I might at the moment because I'm traveling and I'm like sitting on a plane, but like I will never have, uh, TikTok or Instagram or X downloaded. Good.

Yeah, good for you, dude. Never. I'm not saying what team just upload shit and then they just give me reports.

Okay, the only, the only time that you'll change that is if you are in the space. You need to like spend like a week or so like, hey, I just need a refresh, like am I still working? Like your team should communicate it to you, but you like, you need to like consciously scroll Yeah, develop that.

But like, yeah, because I think my question was going to be, and you answered it by saying that you don't have it on your phone, is how do you consciously use social media without getting sucked into the rabbit hole?

Yeah, yeah, I think it's, uh, I think it's about structured time and then just going into it with the right intention. Yeah. Um, and then having like, there should be an action when you're watching the content. Like, I will copy and paste it into a Notion board and I'll write notes about it, like what is this working, what's not. Yeah. And then I'll change accounts. And then if— so I'm not doing that, I'm obviously just watching— gotcha—

dance videos and shit. Yeah, ridiculous things.

I'm like, cooking videos, chiropractic videos. For me, I just like— yeah, it's like dog chiropractic videos. I'm like, how did that dog— what's going on? So I just start watching those, like, on repeat. Okay, I'm off topic now.

Have you ever like caught yourself at night scrolling and then you're like, I'm gonna get off my phone, and the next thing you know it's like 30 minutes later and you're like, how am I still scrolling?

Yeah, honestly, two more videos. Honestly, that like never happens. Like maybe back in the day It used to happen, but it never happens because I'm just dead by 5 o'clock. Like, I get up at— I get up whenever I get up. So it could be 3, 4, 5. And then by 5 o'clock I'm just like, yeah, absolutely cooked. I don't even look at my phone.

It happens to me when I'm traveling because I don't have my routine, my wife. Like, we have our, you know, our setup here. I get you. And I'll be in the hotel room. I never do this. We just scroll for a little bit. It's so addicting. Yeah. And then I feel like an idiot.

Brain rot, man.

Yeah, people got to get off it, but everyone uses it. Yeah, like way too much. Yeah, it's good to have it off your phone. So that's your, that's your piece of advice on it if you could. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, I'm also curious about like what is your, you know, your, the habits that you do or your routines, or like what are some of the things— I know that you've probably tried a lot of things You mentioned breathwork, meditation. Um, like, how do you keep yourself on track and organized and focused on the right things when you have so many things to possibly do and all of them are high impact?

The most impactful thing that you can do is have your own OKR template, which stands for Objectives and Key Results. So it's similar to to-do list, but to-do list is too granular. Yeah, I will never use the to-do list. I'll use calendar blocking. If something is— if something can't be put as a calendar event to do, then chances are it's not a priority, or I just don't have enough time to do it. Yeah, so therefore it should go away. Then I'll have— for each of my companies, I'll have certain objectives, and sometimes there'll be personal objectives. So like, it will be like, this year my main focus is, uh, content creation slash compounding value. Like, that's the one kind of— where do those live?

Like, does it live on a Notion board? Does it— like, you look at it regularly?

It doesn't matter. Like, mine, mine lives on Apple Notes at the moment.

Do you— I'm sorry, I want to ask specifically because, like, specific tactics are interesting to me. Yeah. Do you have one note for all of this stuff? Do you have a different note for each?

One note for everything. Just get the It's all about friction. Just remove friction, right, from this process. Because it's okay if you're setting a 3 or 6 month OKR to go in and change it after a month. Like, I'm— like, you are— like what we said before, which is we don't know what we're doing, we're just winging it.

Just like, change it. You want to remember the things that you should be thinking about.

It's like, you need to have a very good reason to suddenly change an objective. Yeah, yeah. So it's just OneNote, it's got Daily Mentor, it's got millionaires.com, it's got Oodie. And then I'll have certain objectives. And the one thing I've actually been doing at the moment is because I'm now starting to look a little bit— I, my main thing is like compounding value. To do that, I need focus. So I've actually got months of the year with what my main focus for that month is going to be. Ah, right. So like that's an extra thing onto the OKRs that I've recently added because What I found is I was like wrapping up a business in this month and I'm like, I'm not actually ready to focus on compounding value for Daily Mentor. Let's say for example, that's what I wanna be working on. So my main focus still needs to be wrapping up this business so I can do that later. So, and what's really fun about that is if you're kind of feeling a little bit flat of what you're working on later, you can look at that calendar and be like, in October I get to do this thing. I get to scratch that itch. And that's really cool. So you know what dues you need to pay to get to that point.

How often do you look at this note?

Probably every second day, I would say. Every other day? Every other day, yeah. Okay. Just kind of like a refreshment. Well, it's 'cause priorities are so important. Otherwise I just like start flicking back between two screens and I'm like, what the fuck am I working on?

Yeah, you're checking your emails.

It's confusing. So yeah, I usually check it like to set my calendars. Gotcha.

Yeah. So, so how many like individual objectives do you have typically under each area?

Under each area, maybe like 2 per company. Yeah.

Can you give an example of what one would be? Yeah.

So one would be Daily Mentor getting that to, you know, X amount of monthly recurring revenue. That's an objective. Gotcha. And then the key results would be like increase tutorial videos by post one per month or something like that, or like hire full-time videographer to allow me to do that. Like that might be another one. Yeah. So I break it down that way. The interesting thing is I think that's very helpful for a lot of people that are listening to this, probably like they've got two businesses, three businesses, not a huge team, but eventually you your OKRs need to align with the team's OKRs because you can't do anything without your team. Right. Oodie, like my OKRs are pretty much empty. There's a couple of like personal things or things that I want to learn for to help the Oodie team. Yeah. But like there's no point me saying, hey, let's do like X million in EBITDA when it doesn't match the Oodies because they're all the ones that have the leverage of the team. So you've got to match it up there.

OK, so you kind of keep it simple. Couple of objectives. You break down some of the key results. You look at it every once in a while.

Yeah.

Um, and again, I'm asking you these things because like these are things that I want to get better at. Yeah, like, you know, you're going through your day, um, you know, like I'm— for example, we're renovating our backyard and I like I'm dealing with contractors and things and like, all right, I know I gotta, I gotta pay something, I have to like call someone in the gate. Obviously I have, uh, help, like Elliot helps a lot of those things too, but there's just stupid little things I have to remember to do. Yeah, how but you don't keep a to-do list. Like, how do you remember to do things? First of all, you have kids, right? Yeah, one, and one on the way.

Yeah, I think that that changes a lot. Like, I think that those are like kind of to-do things that, you know, I might not understand. But like, my assistant will do everything. Like, she will literally do everything. Like, there will be a calendar note which is like, go wash clothes for like your holiday. Yeah, like, or laundry people coming to pick up your clothes to be washed. Yeah. And I literally just need to to go into my calendar and follow all of these 15-minute blocks. Gotcha. And I will just never forget anything.

Yeah, I don't have to do any of those things typically, which is good. But, um, how do you manage relationships, right? Like, for example, occasionally I'll be like, oh, you know, I should reach out to Davey, see how he's doing. Um, but oftentimes I don't do that with, with people, and I think about them, I don't really message them. Do you have any kind of systems to kind of remember who you want to stay in touch with?

I think I am not very good at this. Okay. I think, I think I could be much, much better with relationships. I'm super introverted, like hanging out by myself then, and I'm like, I don't want to go away, I don't want to meet these people, I don't want to— yeah, I don't want to do this podcast. But then I do it and I'm like, that was incredible. Yeah. So it's like, I think that because of that, that the pre-stage where I don't really want to do things I'm bad at this skill. Yeah. Um, and I undervalue how important those relationships and experiences actually are.

Yeah.

So I don't really have strong thoughts or feelings around it. Typically, as I said before, like, all of my relationships are not business relationships, like my true relationships, very few of them. And maybe I've got like a handful of people that I like really, really value their friendship and business relationship. And we kind of just, when something random pops up, maybe it's about e-com, yeah, it's about their SaaS expert, or like interchange quick messages, right? But one thing that I've always made sure of is that I am not in needy relationships. If I have to text you every 6 months, yeah, for that relationship to be important, then just like, this relationship's not going to work. Yeah. And maybe that's selfish, maybe that's stupid, but I think that I can't get— as soon as you try to give more than you've got, that's when you start getting mental health issues and it's not enjoyable.

So yeah, honestly, when I get up in the morning and I go on my morning walk, like, I'll think of people and then I'll usually just text them. But when my day starts and I have way too many incoming messages, emails, Slacks, WhatsApps, I'll think about someone, but I won't even like want to open my phone to do it. I'll forget to do it. Yeah. How do you deal? I mean, I don't know if you have a similar situation as I do, but like, I have like 1,500 unread text messages on my phone. Yeah. Do you clear things out? What do you do with your communications?

I'm one of those people that I will book you a business class flight to come see me. I'll like pay for our entire dinner. I'll do all of that kind of stuff with zero expectations of returns. Yeah, but I'll also just ignore your text. Okay. You'll ask me a blatant question. I'll just ignore it. Yeah. That's because my brain is somewhere else. Yeah. And like, that's just what I value in a friendship. Like, if you did that to me, I would value that much more than doing a text. So I just reciprocate in how I would want to be treated as well. Um, do you tell people that? Like, I think it's pretty obvious. Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious, to be honest. But yes, I do tell people that. Uh, I do. I, I like— I tell my partner that as well. Like, sometimes— like, I've been traveling for the past 2 weeks, she's not here. And, um, I, I, you know, we've had a couple of FaceTimes, but I'm not going to text her every single day, every single night, right? Because I'm doing things, right? When I get home, when I'm with her, like, we'll go to a nice dinner, like, and it will be great. So yeah, I think defining those relationships. But to answer your point, I, I think that— I think you're right. I think that giving, giving is such a fundamental part of my happiness. Like, I love giving this content away. I love helping people. I love, like, like, uh, but at the same time, I love to give in a business context because that's what I'm passionate about. But I, as I said, I'm not good at it. I could definitely get better.

Yeah, I tend to, um, when I don't answer, which is very often as well, and someone messages me twice, I tend to validate that behavior by saying, oh, thanks for the bump. By the way, in the future, never hesitate to ping me twice. Don't take it personally if I don't answer. Just so they're like, yeah, because you can come off the wrong way with people. Yeah, with communication.

But even if, even if, uh, like I texted someone 3 times and they didn't respond, I'm not gonna go like, oh, this person fucking hates me. It's like, you just, just like, yeah, they might be busy. Yeah, like, like it just doesn't, yeah, faze me. And like, it should go the other way.

Yeah, that's good, that's good. I try to do the, uh, the two-phone thing. Yep. And it just was too complicated. Maybe I didn't give it enough chance. I, I wanted to just, yeah, the personal and then get rid of it. Get rid of my phone, but I couldn't do it. Uh, Davey, what a great conversation. Loved it. Really interesting to hear about, uh, you know, the things you've accomplished in, in 30 years. You're younger than I am. I used to be the young guy that did things, and you're the young guy.

I'm not the young guy anymore, man. There's 21-year-olds. I know, I know.

You, you probably feel like the old guy.

Back's a bit sore. I'm just like, I'm getting a bit slower. Yeah.

So I, dude, I am feeling like the old man in these circles these days. I have young— sometimes I have like, you know, some 25-year-old, 23-year-olds on. I'm like, when back in, back when I was your age, you know. But anyway, um, you know, what you've done in life so far is really admirable. I mean, you've been on, uh, one of the coolest TV shows, um, created— I mean You said Oodie has done over $700 million in revenue.

We're almost at a billion. Yeah, a billion. Like $850 million. Damn. Yeah, that's impressive. That's great. That's across all my e-com brands. Sorry, not just Oodie.

That's really cool. But it's cool to learn about your world. The things that you shared are probably very inspirational to other people, especially like, you know, everyone kind of wings it. Like that central theme is so important to understand when you're first getting started. Mm-hmm. So really appreciate you being open, vulnerable, sharing your experiences and joining me today.

Awesome. Thanks for having me.