How to ACTUALLY Sell a Creator Business

There's a 50% chance I'm gonna cry on this podcast.

Pat walked into the studio joined by SPI's Community Director, Liz Wilcox, to announce something big he's been keeping a secret for months.

18 years into SPI, I am officially no longer the owner of Smart Passive Income.

Pat is someone who's defined the creator economy and helped so many creators get their start, build their businesses, and more.

I kind of needed to let go of this to grow into something else that was calling me.

Today is day one. I mean, you're hearing this for the first time. Pat and I have a very similar mission. We love early-stage entrepreneurs. We want to make sure the audience know that they're in good hands.

My biggest worry with all of this was the audience at SPI feeling like I abandoned them.

Yeah. And my favorite thing is how he's continually reinventing himself.

I have been told a lot that I am the MrBeast of the Pokémon space, and I'm like, no, I don't want to be the MrBeast. I want to be Mr. Rogers.

I love that. I can't wait for you to hear what he's up to in this next chapter.

This might be the first time some people are hearing about this too, but I recently bought a building. Didn't lease it. I bought it. 8,000 square feet. So big to build.

So insane. All right. So the big news, you sold a business, Pat. Liz, you bought a business.

Yeah. And it's the same one.

It's the same one. Yeah.

Hey, there you are. Yeah. Big news. I never thought this day would come. 18 years into SPI. I am officially no longer the owner of Smart Passive Income, which is insane.

Started in 2008.

2008, uh, after getting laid off and thought it was going to be something I would do forever. But, you know, I'm sure we're going to dive into the why and the what comes next.

Yeah, and how you're going to be fully retired after this.

Definitely not. No.

Okay, we'll get into that.

Yeah, no, there's a lot coming, but I kind of needed to let go of this to grow into something else that was calling me, you know, and I'm very grateful to have Liz come in and take the baton, not to replace me, but to kind of continue the legacy of what I've started. And there's honestly, I'm so lucky to have you. There's nobody better that could take this and take it to the next level and give it the attention it needs in the audience.

I'm so glad we're recording this. That feels so good.

We'll clip that and then you can just play it.

Right, right. That's going on social immediately.

There's nobody better.

There's nobody. Just anytime I have a bad day.

No, I I'm so grateful. Just like Pat, I wanted this because I wanted to step into the next bigger, like, calling for myself. So it just was very, I don't know, uh, kismet or—

Serendipitous.

Serendipitous. Thank you.

I like that. So Liz, what was the thing that made you go, what was the moment where you're like, I want this, I wanna buy this business?

Yeah, so actually my sister works for Pat. Uh, in his Pokémon channel and does like helps him with his card parties and stuff. And we were on the phone and she was talking about it and just saying, oh, you know, Pat just seems so stressed. Like, you know, he's trying to juggle everything. You know, I can tell he's having so much fun with the card parties, but I wonder what's going on with SPI. And I remember I was on the phone with her walking through my house. I remember exactly where I was. And I said, I wonder if Pat would sell me SPI. I, I would take, I would love to take over. I love SPI. And she was like, huh? And then I was like, well, that was kind of ridiculous. I don't know why I said that. And she's like, no, no, I think that's a good idea. And we just kept talking about whatever. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, yeah, you know, Pat and I have a very similar mission. We love early stage entrepreneurs. We love, you know, just helping people make that first dollar and knowing that it's real.

Mm-hmm.

And when I first started in 2008, I was working at a gas station and I was, I think, 20 years old. And, uh, so I started my entrepreneur journey in, uh, 2016 and he was releasing a book. Which one was it?

Uh, Will It Fly?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

And so I first heard of him because he was everywhere launching his book and I thought, yeah, I like that guy. And I followed him periodically here and there and I've just always really resonated with his message. And so the more I thought about, oh, could I be the next person to take over SPI? The more I thought this just makes sense.

Yeah. I mean, you eventually became a guest on the show. I mean, before even this was a conversation, you were a guest on the show. Liz came on and just dropped some incredible knowledge about email specifically. That's what Liz is known for.

That's what my Craft and Commerce keynote was about.

Yes.

Yes. I mean, Liz is amazing. And to have her come in and not just bring her email expertise into the world of SPI, but her community building. I mean, she has— how many members do you have in your community?

Over 4,000 right now.

Wow.

Yeah, it's, it's crazy. Yeah.

So you know what that, what that entails and how to bring people together. And I was even a guest on one of your community sort of gatherings, and I was so impressed with just how, like, you knew everybody. who was there and what they did. And I was like, this is exactly what a person who I would want to take over SPI should have. Because I've actually gotten offers before.

Yeah.

For SPI. Um, 3.

Okay.

One of them was from another creator a while back, but they didn't, it just didn't, just didn't mesh well. It didn't make sense. But the other 2 were from venture capitalists who saw the brand, who saw us ranking really high for all these keywords, who saw the size of the email list and were like, That's worth something. Yeah. And that was flattering and the money would have been incredible, but I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night because I knew that they had no idea who this audience was and how to serve them better. And so that's why I kind of tabled the idea of selling when it even was a thought, um, until Patricia came and was like, hey Pat, like Liz is interested in maybe buying SPI. Are you willing to sell? I was like, you know, I've thought about that before, but I, I Maybe, I don't know. Let's, let's talk and see what happens. And then one thing led to another, multiple conversations, of course, deal-making and all that stuff is a part of it too, but it just made sense. It just made sense, especially with my calling into the Pokémon space and the things I want to do there and the events that I've been hosting. We just hosted 9,500 people in San Diego.

That's so insane.

We have 2 more events this year and to be able to fully go into that, I mean, there's so much that I want to do and so many more ways that I can make an impact beyond SPI, I feel at this point.

Yeah. So I want to dive into all of that in a minute, but first, one of those things, Liz, where I feel like there's some ideas that they're not a thing until they're verbalized. And then once they're out in the universe, it's like, oh, well now we've all got to— all right, that's like an actual thing. And, you know, what if I bought SPI is one of those things that you're like, not an idea, not out there. And then once you say it, you're like, all right.

Yeah, I, I tend to do that. I'll just, I'll just have ideas or, you know, something will come to me and I'll just blurt it out loud. And I'm not the type of person that's afraid to, to make the ask. I mean, the worst thing he could say is no, or the worst thing the bank could say is no, right? But it just, it just felt right. Like Pat mentioned, my community, I love these people so much. I love entrepreneurs. Like, I always say, and maybe this is a bit much, but like, God strike me dead if I forget where I came from. I mentioned my last job was at a gas station. My mom didn't get past 8th grade. I statistically, I shouldn't be sitting here, you know, in Kit Studios right now.

Right.

It's, it's insane. Um, and so I, I always think about that early stage person who is, you know, finding someone like Pat or me or finding Kit and, thinking, oh, may— maybe, maybe. And I wanna be that person that says, not maybe, yes. And so when I heard about, you know, Pat feeling stressed out, I was like, I'll, I'll take it. It's fine. It's fine. Uh, I would, I would love to help those people. I have such a freaking passion for it. And I just, like Pat, I feel so blessed.

Yeah.

Like, what an honor to be able to step into this bigger calling.

Well, so I think there's so many things that creators are gonna be curious about. Uh, one is even like, how do you, how do you sell a brand? Is it even sellable? And that's probably something that you thought about a lot, Pat, of like, oh, if I, if it's ever time to move on from SPI, like, could you even sell it? So I'm curious, how did you think about turning it into something that could be sold? Um, and what went through your head of like that process?

Yeah, I mean, there's a book out there called Built to Sell. A lot of us know about it, and it's this idea of whether or not you are going to sell to structure your business in a way that you could, such that you could remove yourself from the process if something were to happen to you. That was the thing that was most on my mind as I'm in my 40s now. It's like, hey, I'm getting older. We don't know if tomorrow is going to come, but I want to make sure that this business and my family and the audience are all taken care of. So with the way that it used to be back in the mid-2010s, something happened to me, the brand is done.

Right. It's effectively a job and a salary in that sense that like it requires your time entirely.

Right. And although there were passive opportunities there, you know, create things once and have it sell over and over again and, you know, nurture sequences that are automated and all this stuff, like if I were to go, you know, it would still run for a bit because, you know, we build business in an automated fashion. But, you know, it was very much tied to, to me. I mean, Smart Passive Income was synonymous with Pat Flynn, always was until 2020. The interesting thing that happened in 2019 was I hosted a live event in San Diego for 500 entrepreneurs, and it was called FlynnCon. People are like, dang, you're so self-centered, like you named it after yourself. And I was like, well, the audience Called themselves Team Flynn, right? Because they wanted to be on the, this side of the internet. And, and so here's FlynnCon. Now that I think about it, we probably could have called it something better. But anyway, the whole purpose of that was to bring people together, the community, having everybody meet each other for the first time, similar to why you do Craft and Commerce. And it was a massive success. I mean, it was one of the most fulfilling times of my life. And then 2020 happened. COVID, everything shut down. Getting together in person was impossible. And I craved that connection so much, but not just connection from me to my audience, but the connection that I knew I could create audience to audience. When I ran a survey about FlynnCon, the number one thing people said that they enjoyed the most was the time in between all the talks.

Yeah.

The time in between all the activities. I was like, oh, if I could do it all over again, I would just have nothing on the schedule and just put you all in the same room and it'd be, you'd be fine. Right?

You need like just enough structure to bring everyone together and to give them like Purpose for conversations and whatever else. But then it's like, yeah, just—

But the things that were most stressful were booking the speakers and all the activities and all that. So I was like, oh, I just need to put people together in a room. And I of course couldn't do that during COVID but I could bring people together virtually. So that's when the SPI community launched. Uh, it was called SPI Pro back then in July of 2020. Uh, we're coming up to our 6-year anniversary now, which is pretty cool. Uh, but it's gone through many changes, but the one thing that hasn't changed is just how much the community comes for each other because I wasn't even very present in the community. Like it wasn't centered around me.

Yeah.

It was centered around the values that we share and the goals that the audience had, the early-stage entrepreneurs and those who were kind of starting to see some success, who wanted to scale and grow but do it in a smart way and learn from each other, almost like mastermind but amplified. And if we could come in and facilitate those interactions, then we would have something that could live beyond me. And one person I think about when I think about this kind of level of community is Scott Dinsmore. Yeah, rest in peace, my friend. Uh, Live Your Legend. I don't know if you knew who Scott was, but he had a brand called Live Your Legend, and he had set up these communities that were almost like satellite communities in different cities all around the world. And he had— And this was in like 2012, early 2010s.

Yeah, yeah, like he was— I mean, I met him in 2012, and then In 2013, one of my favorite Scott Dinsmore memories is, uh, being in Portland and we were walking down the street probably like 10 PM and the drivers in Portland are like the nicest. Like, I remember being in London and, you know, you look across the street and the drivers in London are like, yeah, yeah, cross the street, I dare you, see what happens. In Portland, like 4 lanes of traffic stops like, oh, did you want to cross? And Scott like looks over, does a handstand, and then walks across the street on his hands. Oh, how fun. And it's just like Scott, that's Yeah. Who he was.

I mean, he was adventurous, he was kind, and he had brought this community together. And these communities would meet with each other without Scott there, right? Because they all shared the same values and the love for what he was building. And then he tragically passed away in a hiking accident.

Yep, on Kilimanjaro.

Um, which was just the worst thing ever. But the community came together to support him and his family, and they still meet with each other. And that is living more than a decade later. More than a decade later. And that was so inspiring to me. And that was very much inspiration for me as I thought about, well, what could it be like if I sell SPI?

And, you know, what could you build that's bigger than you, bigger than your brand, and doesn't, doesn't rely on you being there and everything?

Right, right. And of course, when the community came about, that offered me a little bit more time back because, again, it wasn't centered around me. Um, then I had time to explore and I explored the space of Pokémon. I talked about that the last time I was on your show and how big it has gotten. It's gotten even bigger.

Yeah. What are some of the numbers that we're getting? Because it's, it's gotten completely absurd.

Yeah. The long-form channel Deep Pocket Monster is seeing, uh, we're at 2.3 million subscribers and growing faster than ever. Every time we create a new video, it hits about a million views in 2 days. And these are long-form videos. That are about an hour in length.

Right. And people are watching it like they're primarily watching on TVs, right?

They're watching on television. 65% of our audience are watching on TVs.

Sitting in their living rooms with their families, like—

Eating dinner, just opening packs with me on screen, those kinds of things.

Right. We're talking Pokémon in case you missed that.

Yes. Um, I go live every Monday and I go live for 2 hours and I'm opening packs and doing these giveaways. Uh, we are. We are seeing anywhere between 8,000 to 12,000 people concurrently watching live during those 2 hours. And it just is continuing to grow.

And you have the Shorts channel as well.

And we have the Shorts channel, which is seeing about 10 to 12 million views a day. And we are approaching 2 years of a 60-second short-form video being published every day. Wow. We're approaching 2 years now. Uh, we're closing in on episode 700.

Wow.

And that has gotten me access to the biggest brand deals of my life. That has gotten me into the world of celebrities and artists and musicians and athletes who now follow my channel and want to open packs with me. And I'm like, what the heck? Kiki Hernandez is like in my DMs from the World Series champion Dodgers. And he's like, yo, let's, let's hang out. I'm like, what is happening here? This is crazy.

You're in football stadium.

The Detroit Lions invited me out. There's gonna be something going on between, uh, us and the 49ers. George Kittle's a big Pokémon fan. He is a big Dragonite fan. It's like, what is happening here?

I think it really goes back to what you said about values. Like what I'm hearing is, you know, over at SPI you put so much work in 2008, you know, so much work. And then you said, okay, well now we've got this foundation. Let's talk to each other. Let's build this community. And that's what you're doing over there, going live for 2 hours. That takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Like, even if you're just opening packs, like, you obviously love your audience so much. And that was what attracted me to SPI and to saying like, yeah, I'll step up to the plate. I want to pour in the way that you're, you've poured in for 18 years. And now you're doing that over there. Like, it's just such strong values. And I think. To Nathan's original question of like, how do you get somebody from a personal brand? How do you step back? It's really lined in those values. And that was one of our very first conversations. I said, where is your mission statement? Where is your vision? And where are your values? Because I wanna read those over. I wanna make sure that's in alignment and that's something that I can take over.

Liz, I love that you're talking about values when you're both wearing like OG kit shirts that have default to generosity, create every day, like the values that we preach so often, you know, many of which, you know, Pat, you shaped over the last decade or so as an advisor.

I mean, it's so, it's so true though. The values and the mission, they are just so completely aligned here. My biggest worry with all of this was the audience at SPI feeling like I abandoned them. That was, that is my biggest worry. And I knew that there are always going to be people who are, are going to be upset or sad by that for sure. There are people who I've told though, who are like, oh, we knew this was going to happen eventually.

Yeah.

Like they could just feel it and see it. And, and they see the joy that I have with Pokémon. Like, I feel like I am SPI 2008 in the world of Pokémon right now, where I'm moving fast. I'm playing. I'm just being curious. And it's like.

Right. Look at his face. It's completely changed. That's what we want.

But I still love SPI. I mean, it's like, that's my baby, you know? And my baby's 18 now.

Yep.

Literally 18.

Literally 18.

Going off to college. Yeah.

But I can, I want to say this to you, Liz. Thank you for helping me feel like I'm not abandoning them.

Aw.

Of course.

This couch is very big.

I was like, there's a 50% chance I'm going to cry on this podcast.

I mean, there's so much that I wanna get into in that of the, how do you take care of the audience? How do you take care— audience is the wrong word. How do you take care of the community through a transition like this? We all have friends who have sold businesses. You both have sold multiple businesses.

Yeah.

That's the most important thing. Like you've poured 18 years of, of my life, care and love into this community. Like tomorrow we're gonna be at Craft and Commerce. There's gonna be 450 creators there.

Yeah.

And dozens, if not 100, can trace some aspect of their inspiration, strategies, tactics, success back to SPI in some way, right?

Absolutely.

And so—

That's crazy.

It is.

Like the impact is just huge. But, and so like, you know, sitting with the juxtaposition between that level of impact and the amount of time invested in everything else, and then Like the opportunity and what you have in front of you and like how much the Pokémon world lights you up. It's like, it's such an interesting tension. And I see it so much of like, oh, you have to let go of the one in order to fully go all in.

I'm very lucky that I can let go and be confident that because of Liz and because the team, because of the way we shaped SPI over the years to not be just centered around me now, that it will thrive. I mean, it here's how maybe we can go into a little bit of the announcement structure and stuff. You're hearing this maybe for the first time. We had this transaction happen in April of 2026.

Yep, and we're we're recording this in June, airing it in September.

In September, yes. And our audience won't really hear about this publicly until right around now, September. Maybe later you're watching this, but September. Surprise! So September 26th. So one way we could have gone about this is in April when the transaction happened, I could have made an announcement. Hey guys, big news. I sold the company. Liz is going to take great care of you.

Yep.

She's amazing.

All of that. And I'll still be on as an advisor.

Right.

Something like that.

Right. And I'm not going to be completely gone. You know, I'm still going to be around and help. And of course, like you said, advise. But I know exactly what would happen if that's the way we did it. People would make up stories in their mind about, well, how the community is going to go. Like, it's, oh, there it goes. Pat's gone. It's going to be bad. And, you know, I don't know who Liz is. I can't trust her. How do I know that what she's putting into this is going to work? And the truth is, we had this transaction and we had a plan for me to continue to stay on, even though I've sold the company at this point in June.

Right.

I'm still writing emails. I'm still involved and we're still recording podcast episodes. But it's kind of like We're starting to teeter the seesaw to the other side, to your side now a little bit. But the big overarching story is let's have Liz come in. She's going to come in as director of community to start, which means she's going to be front-facing into the brand alongside me. And we're going to inject a lot of her ideas. I also wanted Liz to have control early, not be like, hey, this is how you have to do it. Like, let's— Liz, what are some ideas you have? And we could probably get into that as well.

No pressure.

No pressure.

And you were up to the challenge. And even though it's been only a couple months now, the size of the community, for one, has nearly doubled because of, number one, your email expertise. It's working. Uh, but number two, the new life that has been injected, Liz's energy injected into the community. It feels like it's day one again. And so we can say now, like, oh, you didn't think it was going to work? Well, it has been working already.

Right.

She's proven herself and it's amazing. And again, some people are going to be like, well, I was here for you, Pat, so I'm out. And that's totally fine.

Yeah, of course.

But some people are going to be like, oh my gosh, I was here for Pat, but I'm staying for Liz and everybody that Liz brings in and how she and the team manages. That's, that's the story we wanted to tell. And we've been getting into that. That's what we're in the middle of right now.

Yeah. I love that you said this is day one because when I bought the company, it was April 1st. You know, day one. Yeah, yeah. And I also—

Yeah, exactly. Could you imagine if you announced it on April 1st?

Oh my gosh, dude, we should have. That's a missed opportunity.

It would not have been a good idea. It would have been funny, but not a good idea.

Right. But every day I've been waking up and going, you know, to work with SPI and the team and the community and the people. And I've thought, today is day one. Today is day one. Every single day, even this morning. Today is day one. And that's just, I love that you said that.

Yeah.

Because that's how I've been thinking of it because today is day one. I mean, you're hearing this for the first time. It's day one for me and it's gonna be day one always. And I think it's day one even for our audience. Every day you've gotta wake up and you gotta make the decision to be an entrepreneur, to pursue those efforts.

Right.

Right? Like Pat, 20 or 2008, right? You don't get to 2026 and beyond. Without choosing every day, like today is day one. Today is day one. So I love that.

Create every day. Amen. It's not about creating every day. It's you get to decide how you want your day to be. That's, that's what, how I always read this. Yeah. Um, one thing I wanna share, going back to the Pokémon thing and the why, you know, a lot of people see it, they're like, oh, you're like 40 years old. You're a grown man with a beard playing with cardboard. This is a kids game. Um, that's why it started, but there's a lot of people who were kids who are now adults and have kids who are using Pokémon as a way to bond with their children today to get them off of devices. And that's really important to me. I've always wanted to, and I've mentioned this on podcasts in the past, I've always wanted to have some agency to help change how kids are educated and how kids are growing up in this crazy world. I mean, I have 2 kids myself.

Yeah.

And I've seen what Pokémon has done for us to bring the kids in closer with, with my wife and I. They're even now in the videos. They are on stage at card party and all this stuff. It's been so fun. But there is so much more meaning to Pokémon than just the cards. Um, there's a reason why when I named the channel, it's Deep Pocket Monsters, not just deep pockets for money. It's, we're getting deep into who we are as people and connection and Pokémon brings people from all walks of life, all ages, all backgrounds together. And it's like, we can all, like, if, if you're wearing a Pokémon thing on your shirt or backpack, I immediately can connect with you because we can talk about which Pokémon we like or which cards we collect. I mean, that's, that's what we do at Card Party. That's what I'm doing on my channel. But I am very similar to SPI in the early days. In SPI in the early days, I would get handwritten letters and notes and I still get some every once in a while. But from people who told me how much of an impact SPI has made on their lives. They've been able to now go on a vacation that they'd never been able to because they've generated more revenue. They quit their jobs and they're able to spend more time with their family. Like all these really heartfelt things. There's been a few people who have been able to achieve lifelong goals as a result of listening to the SPI podcast. And I hear about that and it just makes me so happy. And I expect more of that with Liz's credit now. But in the Pokémon space, I'm seeing even more of that. On the livestream yesterday on the channel, a woman shared in a Super Chat that her son, who is autistic, who doesn't talk, the only time he talks is when he watches Deep Pocket Monster.

Oh my God.

That's amazing.

It's in— it's just like, what is happening right now?

We're all going to start crying.

Right.

I've gotten personal messages from people who say that They decided to stay on this earth because of the community that we've, we've been able to bring together. Um, because they feel bullied, they feel left out, but in the Pokémon space, they feel a sense of belonging. That's why the, it's going to sound weird, but the, the mascot of the channel, if you will, is a Pokémon called Miltank. It's a cow. Its special power is it just makes milk. It's like, who cares?

Yeah.

And I chose that as the mascot because it doesn't, Breathe fire. It doesn't shoot water cannons. It doesn't have any of these special abilities. It's just a cow. And in life, a lot of us feel like we are not special, that everybody else has all these cool things that they can do. But the channel Deep Pocket Monster and the community that we've created is the space that welcomes everybody. Because even if you just make milk, even if you're just a cow, um, you're special. You are unique and you belong. And man, like at the end of card party, every card party, I stay till the very end and I sign as many autographs until the last person's done. Usually I'm there for four or five hours straight at the very end of the event, and people pour their hearts out.

It's crazy.

This this is gonna be maybe the first time a lot of you are hearing this, but I have been told a lot that I am the Mr. Beast of. The Pokémon space, right? And I'm like, no, I don't want to be the MrBeast because MrBeast, as great as he is, it's gotten to a level where it's all about the money and the spectacle and the craziness, his little Squid Game stuff. Like, again, incredible creator. I'm inspired, but I want to be a different mister. I want to be Mr. Rogers.

Yes.

I want to be this generation's Mr. Rogers. And whether that's through Pokémon or maybe Pokémon evolves, pun intended, into something else, I feel like I have this unique ability with the experiences that I've had, with the resources that I've been given, the opportunities I've been given, and the people I've surrounded myself with to bring back a lot of the values that Mr. Rogers had. He had a boring TV show, but we all loved it and watched it and learned from it. And right now, I think the world needs it. So that's What Liz is allowing me to do. That's what the SPI community has allowed me to do and has taught me to do, to take these things that I've learned to even deeper levels here. Um, so yeah, Mr. Rogers.

I think there's so much of the, the sense of belonging that SPI created for entrepreneurs of like, oh, there's people out there who are trying to do things that I'm only just now learning are possible and live in this different way and Make money online.

Yeah, we were the crazy ones back then.

Yeah.

You know, and now creating that at, at a much larger scale.

Yeah, I love this. Pat just shared a bunch of stories about, oh, so-and-so told me this, told me that. And this is why I want to, you know, wanted to, you know, continue SPI because creators are so important. You know, Pat's work has been so important for tens of thousands of people, if not millions, right? You know, I added up his YouTube channel the other day. As of June, it was like 5.5 million across his 3 channels, right? That's a lot of impact. And that's what I want for the SPI audience. You know, maybe we don't ever get to Pat Flynn level, right? Maybe you don't even get to Liz Wilcox level, right? But your work matters. Creators matter so much, even to that one guy that watches every time you go live, or that one lady that replies to every single email or shows up to You know, just hearts your Instagram every single time. You matter to that person so much, and I want to help you keep going the same way, you know, he wants to reinstill values and help those people have that sense of belonging. And I just, I feel the same way. Like, I feel so blessed to carry on that work.

This conversation would've been very different with a venture capitalist who would've—

Oh my gosh. Could you imagine?

Got the email list.

Bye. So the thing that I'm most curious about is, as an entrepreneur, when you, or anyone who's invested so much to build something, but then you feel your calling in a different place, like often you, you know, you have to let go of one to go all in on the other. I don't know. I think I've heard you talk about, I use an example of, is it talk? Do you talk about Tarzan swinging between vines? Have you given that example?

No, mine was the ladders. Ladders. It's similar, right? But you have to let go of one to fully Right. If you try to climb 2 ladders at the same time, it's ridiculous. It's so inefficient and you can't climb that high. But if you fully let go of one, then you can grip and rip, essentially.

So, but how do you know?

You don't. You don't. There's, there's no— in my life, every time there's been something huge and incredible, it wasn't because the time was right. It was because I just decided that this was the time. You know, from when I bought my first house with my wife to when we had kids. To selling the business, right? Like there are so many things on paper that would have said like this is not the right thing to do. But there's also so many things in my heart that say it is the right thing to do. And I think when it when it comes to let go letting go, you know my son is sixteen, my daughter's thirteen. Eventually, I'm gonna have to take this thing that I love and let go. It doesn't mean I'm no longer a part of their lives. I am them. They are me. And so they carry on the legacy, right? And SPI is a kid, my first kid, I guess you could say. It had its infancy, and then it had its teenager years, and now it's maturing. But I know that Liz is not going to just completely dismantle it. I think she will improve it. She will add her own spin on things. But it's always going to be with some SPI DNA within it. That's why you just can't sell to anybody, right? And I got so lucky, dude. I got so lucky. It's all happening so fast. But that's how you be okay with letting go, because you know that at least you know in your heart that they're going to be taken care of. The audience, the community. I've had many conversations with community members who We're sad but also stoked. Stoked for me, stoked for the future of SPI. And, you know, even the team, the team has seen new life as a result of having Liz come on. I think every once in a while you need a big change. You know, you need to, you need to swing big or else you'll either just be complacent or get bored or, or something.

Yeah, I think it comes back to what we've been saying about callings, right? Really learning How to hear that calling. You know, I've sold a personal brand as well. I used to, I, y'all, I started as an RV travel blogger. I didn't even have internet on my phone when I started in 2016. It actually feels like a miracle to be sitting here. It's like, wait, what? Um, but it's, it's that calling when I knew, okay, this RV travel thing, it's gotten me to here, but it, it's not gonna get me to the next thing. It's not my forever home, or you know maybe it's my baby, but my baby has to go to college now, and I've got to let go. And just listening to that calling, and the same thing when I was hearing my sister talk about oh you know Pat's got two ladders right now. I was like oh well tell him to throw it at me. Like I'll take one. It was that it was just that hearing my calling. Yes, I've been I've been at it's so weird. I've Literally, I was driving one day and I thought, I just, I feel kind of stuck. I feel like, you know, I want to get to the next level, but I'm not sure what the, what that looks like, how to, how to get to the next level. And I thought, where's my teleportation machine? I would just like to move on from this level that I'm at. And within days, you know, my sister brought up SPI and I said, there, there's my time machine, there's my DeLorean. And, uh, I just, you know, I had to take that shot. I had to listen to my gut. I had to know, yes, my calling is to help those creators so that they can have Pat Flynn stories, right? They can have those stories of, oh, this helped my son, this helped me, this helped my family. You know, that lights me up like no other. And so I think it really is just knowing or getting to know what your calling is.

Like Moana, just go to— go into the ocean.

That's right.

Yeah.

We're voyagers.

Yes, we are voyagers. We're voyagers.

Honestly.

So, okay, let's go really tactical. I think a lot of people listening would be like, are wondering like, okay, how do you even price and structure a deal like this?

Yeah, there's a number of different ways to do it, right? In fact, one of the things that was interesting about my conversations with venture capitalists is if we were to hit certain benchmarks, like if we get to X million dollars a year, Then the multiple that they would pay would be that much higher. Like the difference between a 2 to 3x multiple and a 10 to 20x multiple. And it's just like, we're just talking numbers now. And it's like, is that because you see now how much more money you can get back by squeezing this out of the audience? Like, that doesn't feel good to me. And it's like, I don't need that.

There'd be an earnout with it.

Earnout. Yeah, right. Typically it's some multiple of, you know, annual revenue. And that multiple's, I mean, this is where the negotiations happen and what it looks like. And if, you know, we're on like a payment plan, right? So it wasn't all like cash upfront, some cash upfront, but then over a period of time and, you know, it would be more if it was longer or less if it's shorter, that kind of thing. And to me, I was just like, this is Matt Gartland's realm is the finances and stuff. This wouldn't have happened without him. Shout out to Matt, by the way.

Shout out, Matt.

Uh, he really helped Both of us actually understand. Matt is, was a small owner of SPI, so he got some out of this as well, but he very much put in the work to help us both wrap our heads around the financial part of this and design. Yeah, I know you have familiarity with that as well.

I'm just a creator.

That's what I was like, I just want everybody to be happy and I want to create.

Yeah, I felt the same way.

And so, you know, maybe I could have asked for more, maybe Maybe, maybe I could have lowballed you.

I don't know.

So when you actually get to this point of like, hey, I want to buy this thing and I'm open to selling it, right? You have this, this back and forth. It's like, okay, so where do we go from here? Did one of you throw out a number?

Matt started with a number based on a multiple. He's had experiences selling businesses before too. And so he came to me, he's like with his spreadsheets.

He sent, yeah, he sent me a Loom with the spreadsheets.

Oh gosh, the spread— Matt's spreadsheets. He's such a, We love that. We love that.

Yes.

Um, sorry.

He's gonna die laughing.

Yeah, he will.

He would love that.

I was like, yeah, that sounds fair. You know, that sounds fair. And we shared that with Liz and, and I said the same thing.

I said, okay.

So Matt threw out a number and you both said, that sounds fair.

Yeah. Honestly, it was pretty, I mean, that was the simplest part. I think really, I think the most questions I had were again about the mission. Where, you know, Pat, what, how would you describe SPI? You know, what's the team like? You know, what, what would you like to see for the next 1, 5, 10 years of SPI? You know, why do you think I'm the right person? And, you know, think that was what I was most interested in because I wanna see it keep going. I want, of course, if I'm buying it, number one, financially, it's got to work.

Right.

Uh, but really, You know, I, I wanted it to work and I didn't wanna come in and rock the boat. Of course, you know, if you Google me, you'll be like, whoa, this chick is really toned down in this interview. But my values are still there. You know, I wanna make sure the audience and the people that have, you know, worked with Pat and followed Pat for so long know that they're in good hands. And so that was the majority of our negotiations was just getting to know.

Yeah.

where Pat's head was at with the community, with the audience, making sure it was the right creator, the creators I was thinking of that I want to serve. That was the most important part. The, the money, like I always joke, like I'm, I want to put the I back in SPI. Like I love money, y'all. I really do. Um, and I want to help people make, make it. But as far as the sale went, It was more about making sure I could be the right person, 'cause that's very important.

It was an interview on both sides to make sure it was the right fit. I mean, that's, that was where a majority of the time was spent. It was less about the numbers and the nuances of that, which I don't know if that's unique.

I think it is though. I've seen more people, people that I really respect, uh, do things like this. Like when we were putting together a secondary round for Kit, It actually was pitched by Dharmesh Shah, the CTO of HubSpot, who's been a longtime friend. I don't know him really well, but I think I first met him in 2013 or something. And he had reached out and said, hey, if there's ever Kit team members that wanna sell, I'd be open to buying shares. And so now it was up to me kind of as the steward of the transaction. I wasn't even selling any of my shares at that time, but I was like, what should we set for the valuation? He's like, You know what? I don't really want to negotiate. You pick and I'll either just say yes or no. And it was such an interesting problem. One, as a negotiation tactic, because you're like, oh.

What's he doing here?

If I say something—

He's good.

If I say something too high, he's like, oh, no thanks. It's not a good fit. But it really gets you to think like, okay, what is fair? And I've heard of other people doing this where they're just like, hey, throw out what you think is fair. And if I generally agree that that's fair too, then great. Because we're trying to optimize for the long term, optimize for the relationship, the community, all of those things. And so long as we're within, generally within the ballpark, then great. Yeah, I'll move on.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I will. I don't, I don't know if you, if you want to cut this, but I will say there, what the structure of it was, the faster I pay it off, the less money it is.

Time value of money.

Yeah. So I took a 2-year deal. I was thinking 3 years, but then I said, you know what, Liz, every time you bet on yourself, You win. So let's go for 2.

With a lump sum up front.

Yeah.

And then quarterly for 2 years. Second payment's coming up, Liz.

I know.

Is that a July 1st?

Yes, July 1st.

But honestly, it's like, it's, it's, yay, I made money. But it's like, I don't even think about that.

Right.

It's, I want to make sure everybody's taken care of. We want to make sure we do right by what SPI has done for me. I don't discount that at all. And I am ready to move on to the next stage.

Right.

And I've already started investing into that, thanks to some of the money coming in. Like, I recently— this might be the first time some people are hearing about this too, but I recently bought a building. Didn't lease it. I bought it.

I've seen the building. It's pretty epic.

Thank you.

It's awesome.

We have 8,000 square feet.

It's so big.

To build a film studio. That I will be livestreaming out of and filming out of and, you know, having a group of people in there who are a part of the team to essentially tell the best stories that we can. That's what we're leaning into is the storytelling. And, you know, part of our long-term vision, we have, we have some plans to do some amazing things with the studio. We want to build a podcasting space in there. with these now connections I have with celebrities and athletes. So if you've heard of Hot Ones with Sean Evans, where they're eating hot wings and they get progressively hotter, imagine that, but instead of wings, it's packs of cards. Maybe it's sports cards. We can maybe pull themselves out of the pack. Um, but there's so many celebrities now that are coming out and saying, oh yeah, I've, I opened Pokémon. I, I have, I have a collection too. Tom Brady started his own.

Yeah, we do a bunch of work with Tom Brady and he's, I mean, he's opening physical retail stores around For collectibles.

What? Wow. Um, and then Gary Vee already being in the collectible space, having his own trading card collectible. He and I are friends. There's so many opportunities now to build the Hot Ones, but with Pokémon packs, which would just open up again, new opportunities, new ad revenue, et cetera. I am very inspired right now by a lot of YouTubers who are making legit Hollywood movies. Um, a 20-year-old directed The Backrooms. I don't know if you knew that.

I haven't seen that.

He was a YouTuber. He has, um, I don't know, made over $100 million, and he's 20 years old because he was a YouTuber. Another YouTuber made another horror film, um, and they were just kind of skit YouTubers who, you know, directed this, this film. Again, Obsession is what it was called, is what it's called. And they went around the traditional model And just did it themselves. And there's another YouTuber, Markiplier.

Yeah, I just saw him on stage at Colin and Samir's event a couple weeks ago.

Oh, you did? Oh yeah, I saw that interview actually. He's incredible. He self-directed, self-wrote, self-funded his own movie.

And he starred in it as well.

Wow.

And starred in it, and it got into 2,500 theaters and became the number one movie. So it's like, I feel like there's a surge now for creators to start telling better stories in a medium like theater that wasn't accessible before. Um, and if we can get on the front of that, we, I mean, we could tell some, we, we already make movies. Our videos are 1.5 to 2 hours in length. When I write a script for the voiceovers for those, they're book length, every single video. That's why it's like once a month. And I'm loving it. And we're leaning into it even more. And then maybe Pokémon evolves into Maybe we make an anime. Well, I don't know. Just when we have the skill of storytelling in these mediums that we're a part of, the sky's the limit. And we'll see where it goes.

The thing that stands out to me the most is first your passion for whatever you, you sink into, right? Of, we saw that with SPI over the years. You were always the person who's like, hey, I'm gonna try this challenge. I'm gonna do this thing. I'm going to, you know, during, during COVID you're like, I'm gonna go live, all of these. At times, like, I'm gonna start— I'm gonna go above and beyond to serve the audience. But then the second thing is how you have to let go of one thing in order to go all in on the next. And like, you can have these multiple things that are great and impactful and all that, and there's a story that you tell yourself of like, oh, but I have to keep serving this audience. I have to keep serving both audiences because of the impact that I'm having. And you have to let go of the one in order to go all in on the other.

I mean, I tried. And I feel like I did a decent job, but each of these aspects of my life got half of me, and therefore I wasn't best serving either of them, in my opinion.

Well, I mean, that's evidence of Liz coming in and the, the community doubling.

Just exploding, like, on day one. Because people can—

even if the, even if the different aspects of it where someone might not, might not be able to put their finger on it, Of like why something's different, like, or if there's a different tactic or anything, like they can feel the passion, they can feel the energy and they can feel the focus.

Yeah.

I mean, we started running these challenges which had, you know, our first one had like over 10,000 people participate in it. The conversations that are being held in there, there's just so much more talking and conversation in the community now since you've come on.

Yeah. And I think it's what Nathan just said. There's, there's energy, there's excitement and people even, you know, DMing us and Emailing, oh, I'm, I'm loving this again. I'm logging in again. Uh, I don't, I don't know what it is, but yeah, I'm excited to be here again. Or getting new members in creates a lot of new energy.

It was her.

It was Liz. Oh, thank you for the endorsement. Um, and that's just been so, so awesome. And I love that you mentioned, you know, Pat loves to pour into his community. I do too, and I'm so excited. To be able to do that. Like, I'm just super jazzed. Yeah. That's amazing.

Liz, I'd love to hear from you. What is the future of SPI?

Yeah, so Pat talked about his FlynnCon and people used to, you know, used to be Team Flynn. And I remember when I was buying the business or, you know, we were in negotiations, I said, well, if I'm gonna buy this, I should read one of Pat's books. I've never read any of them. And so I actually, I was so busy. I actually downloaded the audio version of Superfans and I listened to it and he was talking about Team Flynn and things like that. And I said, well, how could I change that? Because it's true, you should name your audience. For me, my people are big senders. I want them to go out and— Yes. I like that. Hit send. Yeah, it's so fun. Right? And so I'm like, what, what could it be? Because I think right off the bat, in order for people to, you know, accept this transition, It has to be about them, right? And I thought Team Flynn. I said, well, what about Team Win? And I was like, oh, that's kind of corny, but so am I. So is Pat, you know? And, but what, what does it mean to win? Because a lot of creators don't feel like winners. We go in, we create every day, but you know, the needle moves so slowly at first. And that's who we, we talk to. We talk to those at-first people.

Yeah.

Right? And I thought, well, what, what does WIN stand for? And I thought, what's important now? And so I wanna take it from Team Flynn to Team WIN, and I wanna help creators focus on what's important now. Uh, people like me and Pat, That's good. We'll, we'll sell you a webinar, we'll, we'll pitch you, uh, day after day, right? And so you're getting thrown all these things, email, Instagram, ManyChat, Pinterest is still on the board, I think, you know, and it's, But we've got to focus on what's important now. And every day that's different. And that's where I wanna take this community. I wanna help each individual creator recognize their thing. Their, this is what's important right now. I'm gonna forget about the rest and I'm gonna focus on this. If I'm growing my YouTube channel, that's what I'm growing. That's what I'm focused on. If I'm working on email, that's the thing. If I'm starting my podcast, Mm-hmm. That's the thing, because creators, we try to do so— we, the 2 ladders. Pat's guilty of it. I'm guilty of it. Um, and so we're taking it from Team Flynn to Team Win, and I'm so excited.

I love that. And everybody has a different definition of what win means to them, right? Um, and you need to celebrate the small wins too. I think there's so many levels to that that speaks to the values and the mission completely. And Winnebago.

Okay.

All the way back to RVs. Shout out.

Going back to RVs.

That was one of my first sponsors.

Really? There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shout out Winnebago.

Team Win.

Team Win. And I love it. And part of the transition we've been doing, I've already been implementing that into the community. Hey, around here we're Team Win. We're Team Win. Uh, Pat and I have been co-creating the newsletter. And so there's a little, uh, little win of the week and it goes perfectly with what he Writes, you know, cuz normally he'll say, oh, this and that, you know, here's your challenge of the week. Here's what I want you to do with that. And so I'm like, this is your win. This is what's important now based on what Pat said. Here's what we want you to go out and do. And we've been getting replies to the inbox. Oh, I, I love this. This gives me something to do. I feel like I'm actually, you know, logging off accomplished versus I spent 8 hours on the computer today and I don't know what I did.

Mm-hmm.

So I love that so much.

So good.

I'm stoked.

Oh, so am I.

That's so good.

Oh yeah.

I have another financial question I'm very curious about.

Okay.

Diving in, so you're talking about the, you figure out an acquisition price and then you're figuring out, okay, a payment plan, like what to, to buy it over. I think a lot of entrepreneurs early in their careers would be surprised at how many things actually happen with payment plans. Like even the kit.com domain purchase, they made us a deal on a payment plan and we're like, Yes.

Oh, really?

We will take that. We paid 50% upfront, 50% over a couple of years, and we've got a, I don't know, maybe a year left, and then we'll have that paid off. But it's a very common thing. What were you gonna say?

I mean, learning finances in this way where like the magic you can do when you move numbers around in a certain way, this is again Matt's magic.

Yep.

Um, I'm learning this as a person who has now built a little bit of wealth and can now understand what to do with trusts and, you know, taking a loan against something I already have so I don't actually have to use that capital. It's like, what is happening? Like, this is all new to me and I kind of learn it as I go. And I'm like, wow, there's a lot of tools that we can use that can help you get these things a little bit, you know, faster or, you know, actually have access to stuff that maybe you didn't know you could. Because, I mean, I bet paying 100% would have been A lot, you know? Yeah.

And it, it was doable, but when, you know, you think about, oh, we can keep this capital reserved for something else. Liz, I'm curious for you, how did you think about, you know, the payback period of the acquisition? Or there's obviously the, if I invest in the community in this way and we can grow it in this, it can turn into these other things. But, you know, you're taking on a lot of risk.

Yeah. I don't know if the camera just showed me swallowing. It's a lot, it's a lot of risk for me and You know, you can do the math, uh, $4,000 times 9, you know, that's quite a bit of cash. But to buy something like SPI, you know, I'm gonna need some more. Right off the bat when we first finally started talking about finances, I told Pat and Matt, because he was, you know, a big deal of making this work, I said, well, we might have to get creative, boys. You know, I might be the right person, um, but you know, Like you said, you know, I don't want to spend everything, take out loans, et cetera, et cetera. That's a huge risk. And so I asked for seller financing, you know, hey, can we make a deal that way? And they were super open to it. And I think that's a testament to what Pat said about finding the right person. And so for me, that felt really comfortable, again, being able to bet on myself, knowing that, you know, Also seeing the financials of SPI, you know, signing the NDA and, you know, taking a look behind the curtain and also looking at SPI, really analyzing it, you know, joining the email list, seeing what they're launching, what they're not, what they're making money with, uh, sponsor, who's sponsoring them right now and who isn't. What are your past sponsors? Uh, how much money did they give you over there?

Mm-hmm.

Why did that deal go south? Or, and, you know, like What are the missed opportunities? And so for me, that's where my head was at of how can I come in and, you know, double the membership in 90 days? How can I, you know, get with past sponsors? How can I, I know we work with Kit closely as a, an affiliate. How can we, how can we double that number in the next 2 years? You know, so I can, where is this money going to come from? And so for me, again, it was just literally listing out all the missed opportunities that I saw. A lot of our conversations were me just poking holes like, yeah, you guys didn't reply back to my email.

You know, you're calling us out on our shortcomings.

But why, why don't we have this? Why haven't we done that? Uh, what in the past was working and then you just stopped doing it? You know, where, why did you stop doing it? You know, thinking to myself, is this something we could maybe try to bring back or, you know, flip it to do it X, way instead of why. And so that appears to be working really well.

Yeah, you definitely surprised a lot of the team members on just calling us out on what was wrong and what, what, you know, from your perspective on the outs, this is the nice thing about having people on the outside, whether they're incoming buyers or advisors or other people, just they have a separate set of eyes that are not so deep into what you're doing and they could see things that are so obvious. that are not to you who is on the inside. I think a part of what helped with finances is that the business model that we adapted in 2020 was the membership model, which has recurring income, which is a little bit more predictable, a lot more predictable than the sort of like launch and hope model that was always kind of around. So that was also a part of the idea in 2020 when it was built to sell again. I didn't have the idea of selling it back then, and then I got a few offers once we went recurring and the membership happened.

Yeah.

You can see how attractive that is. Um, once that's there, then you have a lot more security and a lot more predictability to help a buyer understand what they're getting into. And, uh, you know, some of the funds I imagine are gonna come from what you knew was gonna come as a result, and you just wanna level that up.

Right. And for me, coming from my business where I have a membership model as well, I'm serving a very similar audience. Um, I, I knew that I could come in and, you know, implement what I was implementing over here, and it seems to be working really well. And I love the plan that Pat came up with of let's introduce Liz as the community director, you know, so it makes sense why she's sending emails about the community. It makes sense why she's the one, you know, doing the workshops. Now we added in office hours, you know, Pat. Had to, because he was holding 2 ladders, you know, he had to go from 4 office hours a month to 2. Oh, that's perfect. I'll do 2, you know? And so it's worked really, really well in that way and it's made me feel super secure about those payments.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm curious, you both have sold multiple businesses now. What are the things that, you know, you got right in those exits, either this one or, or others, you know? In structure, packaging, how you built up over time, then maybe what, what are some of those things that you're like, ooh, if I could come alongside me, you know, 5 years ago or 2 years ago or now in a previous exit, and I would give different advice.

I think for me, I, what I get right is the buyer. You know, similar to Pat, when I sold my personal brand, it was really important that it lived beyond me. And now I sold in 2020. I only owned that business for 3 years. And now that business is 8 years old. So the owners have owned it longer than I did. Right. And that just blows my mind. So I, I sold it to the right people.

The buyer, the right buyer is more important than the right price.

Correct. Yeah. And so if I was to look back, I was, oh, I could have gotten more money, or I should, I should have extended that deal. Um, you know, I should have stayed on longer so I could have made more money. But again, it, it, That didn't feel right in the moment.

For me, having Matt has been absolutely key because I just wouldn't have been able to wrap my head around the logistics of a sale and the numbers. And, you know, if you are in a position to not have your own Matt, you know, a CFO or somebody like that on your team, you're going to have to hire potentially somebody on the outside to do a lot of that auditing and all that kind of stuff. And it's just like, It's a lot. However, as you are building your business, keep track of everything. Keep track of everything. Build systems. The more that you have systems and standard operating procedures, the more that somebody can come in and just kind of now be the one to operate them versus again before, if I wanted to sell my business, it would have been impossible because the only way I would have been able to sell it is if I had gotten money, but then essentially became an employee, right, of the, of the, of the buyer. Um, and that's not what I want.

Yeah, I think that the, the built-to-sell is such an important idea. I think it's, it's important for every creator, really every business, whether you want to sell it or not, because you can look at, okay, what would— if someone were to buy my business, one, what would they fix immediately? And that's basically what Liz is doing, right? You come with fresh set of eyes and you're like, okay, do all of these things.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and if things on that list make sense, it's like, okay, well let me do it even before I sell the business. Um, but 2, what are they gonna value, right? You brought up recurring revenue. They're gonna value that a lot. Maybe we have a business that's very like Instagram and social media heavy. It's like, okay, well where's the email list on that, right? They're gonna, they're gonna value that. Um, a really good team, really good SOPs. Like all these things that investors or a new acquirer care deeply about, do that because they're just good business practices.

Yeah.

And so focusing on running a great business that is built so it could be sold also makes it so that it's a great business to own and continue to run. And that'd be the position you would be in if you didn't have a much bigger, newer calling to pursue.

Correct. I would still be able to have more time. I'd be able to have a lot more peace at which, you know, the business can run on its own. And, you know, again, beyond me, how could it continue to live? And I think that's really important. I think I'm curious, Liz, because you have this community, you have acquired another one. Are you willing to share any plans on like how—

Are you going to balance and reconcile those 2 different communities?

Yeah. So I don't know exactly how things will go, um, logistically. But of course the 2 brands will merge and lizwilcox.com is going to move into SPI, Smart Passive Income. You know, it has more staying power. It's been around since 2008. Uh, you know, luckily Pat sold me the podcast. That's a large audience.

Oh yeah.

You know, like come over here and, you know, listen to the podcast, join this email list. Um, I'm not—

Your membership is per— like your membership that you have, that's you.

Yes.

Is like the lower level stuff.

It's a lower—

that SPI never had.

Yes.

We never had a lower sort of tier item. And so like, yeah, there was like a perfect—

So it's, it's a, it's definitely emerging and we're definitely going to be taking assets from my email marketing and bringing them into the The Superfan System, which is something that Pat came up with and is generous enough to let me use, uh, inside of our community. And it helps you create superfans, right? And so I think a big missing piece, if I'm gonna poke holes, is email, right? That's my expertise. I wanna help people, uh, make a living online, right? And so that's what I do with my little membership. And so putting those assets Into the community and letting everyone, uh, learn from them, I think is a really, really, um, important next step for the community. I'm very excited about.

Yeah. And you have 4,000 members that several of them, I imagine, would just benefit so much from this, the, the other kind of things we teach in SPI.

Absolutely. I, yeah, I'm so excited because I, I've always taught very like granular. I'm a horse with blinders. Email, email, email. I've even had business coaches, you know, Liz, you're bigger than email, you could teach all this stuff. And I'm like, I, I haven't hit 10,000 members yet. I haven't hit— when I hit 10,000, I'll, you know, talk about it. But yeah, it's a perfect segue. You know, I want to teach people not only email, but how to, you know, get on podcasts and host a podcast and start a YouTube channel. You know, I've done all of those things in different industries as well. So I think it's a perfect, uh, union, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of people purchase businesses to essentially fast forward, right? To get to the point of that, right? It would take you forever to build SPI from scratch.

It was taking me forever. I've been at this 10 years, bro. It, it was, like I said, teleportation machine. Right, right. Let me just get in there.

Yeah.

And I, I, I love my people so much, like, I want to help them do the thing. And a lot of people would ask me, okay, Liz, you know, I've got this email thing, it's working, but I wanna start a YouTube channel. Or Liz, teach me about how you got 50,000 downloads in the first 6 months of your podcast. I'm like, I don't teach that. Give me $9, join my membership. You know, that's all, that's all I'm available for. But now I feel like, you know, I have, I've signed my own permission slip of, okay, yeah, actually I can teach that stuff and, you know, you can come over here now. And so I think it's going to be just so amazing for not only the SPI community to get that email expertise, but my community to get, you know, a much broader sense of what it means to be a creator.

I think this is a perfect example of 10x is easier than 2x.

I just bought that book today, bro.

Yeah.

Shout out Dr. Ben.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, Ben Hardy.

Um, so Funny.

To take— it is risky. It feels risky. But oftentimes when you try to 2x something, you're just doing more of what you were already doing.

Yes.

Right.

But this is that big, bold investment, that risky thing that can get you so much more in return. And so I wanna commend you for that.

Thank you.

Even if you weren't buying my business, I would say the same thing.

I'm sweating now.

Uh, but I'm glad you bought.

Yeah. But I mean, it's—

I didn't want anybody else to.

Yeah, thank you. But I, I want a 10x for the audience as well. Like for the people I've been, you know, working with, hustling with, helping. I, I wanna help them 10x too. And I think this is a bold, brave, risky move that shows people, oh, maybe, maybe I can 10x. Yeah. Maybe I can do something like that.

Um, that's why I bought the building, right? Yeah. Same exact idea.

Take those big, make those big swings.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I wanna touch on one more thing, which is selling a personal brand. You both now have done it. I mean, SBI! has grown out to be much bigger than a personal brand because of the deliberate moves that you put in place.

Right.

But if someone is at this, this place where they're like, oh man, I have a YouTube channel, maybe they're, uh, like a Veritasium or, you know, one of the other things where like they've built something of value, it has an audience, but it's so closely tied to them.

Mm-hmm.

What advice would you give You know, if you were like, okay, I've, I've 12 months before I'm going to sell this thing, what steps do I take?

It's hard to sell the thing if the thing is your name. That's number one. Yeah, right. Veritasium is not the seller's name. And so we were able to see the new person come in and he's all over my social feeds now. It's awesome. I love him, actually.

Yep.

Um, with me it was Smart Passive Income. And so I had the benefit of not having my name. I still have patflynn.com, but that's more of a personal, just Here's what I'm up to versus business education, smartpassiveincome.com. So by over the years removing myself as the center of the brand and making the community the center, we were able to make that happen. However, I also think there's a lot of opportunity for people with a personal brand who have their personal brand as a name to create an asset that that name and that brand creates and is associated with but is separate. Just like how I knew a person named Nathan Barry create something called ConvertKit and now Kit and so many other people, Clay Collins creating LeadPages. You know, when you have a personal brand, you have an immediate connection to an audience who's there for you. And so you can also tap into that audience to go, well, what do you need? What other problems might you need to be solved? Let me go build that. And I'm going to build it in a way that's separate, still with the help of my brand pushing it out there. But then now it becomes its own asset that can be sold, that could be pushed, that could be partnered with on somebody else, with somebody else. Right. Just like the SwitchPod with Caleb.

Right.

Which I also recently sold with him as well. I'm just clearing the runway.

Hustler, baby. He's a hustler. I love that you said change the name because I Made the mistake of my first, my RV travel blog was lizwilcox.com. And about 18 months in, I knew I didn't wanna do it forever. Like I was having fun with the audience, but I wasn't like so passionate the way I am about this. And I thought, what am I gonna do? How could I sell lizwilcox.com? And I thought, I can't. So I changed the domain over to thevirtualcampground.com. Mm-hmm. And I started making it about the community and I started doing like, you know, inside the RV blogs where I would interview people and give tours of RVs and things like that. And I just eventually moved myself out. The only place where it was very strong, my voice still was the emails, right? Which is, I think, similar to SPI. And, um, that was the very first question my now owners, you know, uh, asked me. They said, Liz, how can we buy The virtual campground, your Liz Wilcox, because in that space I was really making a name for myself. And I said, but you see, actually, if you look at all the assets, it's the virtual campground. That's why you want to buy it, right? You understand the values, that core, and you, you want to grow it, right? And they said, yeah, I guess, you know, we like it because it is community, because you have this Facebook group, because you go to events and You know, run a, a summit and this and that. And yeah, we could, we could keep that going. So I think it really is making sure it's named properly and then, you know, having really core values that are, um, obvious to the audience and then making the audience talk to the audience. Things we've been talking about for the last hour.

Okay. The last thing that I wanna talk about, we touched on at the beginning, is transitions. Life is full of transitions and how you do them matters so much. And you two have been very, very intentional about how to handle this transition. And exactly as you said, Pat, like if you came out and announced it, like we all love big splashes, we love big marketing moments. And so to say, you know, I sold the business, um, and then exactly as you said, people will tell all of these stories about what happened and, and everything else. One of my favorite examples is Actually, the first like blog being sold that I knew of was J.D. Roth selling Get Rich Slowly. I don't know what, what year he sold this, but it was— One of my favorites. Yeah, probably around when we met. So it was like 2012, 2013, 2014, some— somewhere in there. And I remember they announced that, you know, he'd sold the business and people were saying, oh, now it's gonna be completely ruined, all of this stuff. And he said, No, I actually sold it a year ago. I just announced now, you know, they're like, yeah. And so you two have been so thoughtful with the transition because you want, as I see it, you want the community to experience the authentic thing of what it's going to become before any of their preconceived notions can kick in. Talk about that more.

We just want to show proof that what we are stepping into is going to work versus Hey, trust us. It's trust me, bro, right? I don't—

never trust somebody that says trust me, bro.

It's like, trust me, show. Like, we will show you.

Okay, Pat.

And then we'll tell you, right? And like, yes, a part of that could be like, oh, I feel deceived, right? I can imagine some people maybe saying that, like, oh, you had sold it this whole time? Like, I was here for you and I have— I'm I hadn't gone anywhere. I'm still here, and I will continue to remain here and there. But I think it was really important. Like, that was important for the audience, but also, I think, really important for Liz to be positioned as a leader that could do it right. And to already have 6 months behind us of, like, her doing it right is going to get rid of any sort of like, oh, well, what's gonna happen? Well, you've seen it. And if you didn't like what happened in the last six months, then maybe it isn't for you.

Right.

You might have already left.

And right. And some have. Yes. Yeah. But that's okay. And that was one thing I was I was talking to a friend before. It was right before we signed the deal, and I said, "Oh, you know, this is our transition plan." Da da da da. And my friend said, "Wow, Pat must really care about you. He really wants to see this." things succeed because we did want to make a big splash. Who doesn't want to? We're like, oh, we're gonna go to Craft and Commerce and we're gonna write on stage. And, uh, you know, Pat came to me, he said, that's not right. I said, you know what, you're right. Let's think about what would work best for the audience, what would make the most people— because you can't please everybody, that's part of being a creator— comfortable and understanding and on You know, going from Team Flynn to Team Win, right? How can we do that? And you know, I'll give him full credit for the transition plan. And I thought, yeah, you're right. This sounds really good. Because in the beginning, I said, oh, I'm thinking of this like a gradient. But our plan was not. Our plan was a big splash on the canvas, right? So that's been it's been really remarkable to see the audience. To see the plan come together, to see the audience, you know, I got my first reply of, Liz, I'm a super fan of yours. I was like, oh my God, it's working.

I've had a lot of emails from people saying, I love that you've brought Liz on. Like she's bringing the energy that I felt has been missing.

And then you're, you know, you're like, oh, thank you. And then you're like, you don't even know the half of it yet. Like there's so many good things coming.

I know. I wanna tell everyone, but I'm so excited we're doing this cuz It feels so good to finally have it out there. And, um, yeah, it just, it just feels really good. I'm so happy we did it this way.

Yeah. And hopefully it's a lesson to all of you who are watching and maybe are curious about what that might look like. And maybe you hadn't thought so hard about, well, who would be taking over my brand? And maybe this gives you some inspiration for different conversations you can have to, to hopefully do it right. And Is this perfect? No. There will probably be things that we missed and we'll get some feedback on that and let's learn.

Oh, we sure will, I'm sure.

But at the same time, we did a lot to think about trying to do this the right way and to do it in honor of those who, from my perspective, have helped me get to this position to be able to move into the next phase of my life. And it's crazy because the kids now are just a few years away from college years and, and getting into their own lives and families that I'm gonna have a lot more time on my hands to go even further in this new mission of mine. Um, you know, reading a lot of Walt Disney books and things like that. I mean, I'm thinking big. I'm thinking big.

So I love it. I'm so excited. And yeah, I, I understand, and I, I don't take it lightly, the 18 years of work that it took to build this audience and build that trust, like real trust. And that's something I'm excited to carry on and something, you know, it's, it's really big shoes to fill and I'm taking it seriously. I'm also reading books, like I said, oh, I just bought that book. And, um, you know, I'm reading books, I'm listening to podcasts, I'm, I'm journaling, I'm meditating, and I'm listening to every person in the audience I can. I'm asking so many questions right now in this transition period. Every email I send, hit reply, hit reply, hit reply. Do you like this? Do you not like this? What about it? You know, I'm sending video after video to customers. I'm getting on 20-minute calls with new customers.

When you even went to a workshop About leadership, right? You with Lee?

Oh, right. I'm working with Lee Cockerell, the retired vice president of Disney, so of Walt Disney World, because I wanna make sure I can take care of this many people. Yeah. I look at April 1st as, for me, you know, yes, it's day one, but it was also like the biggest day of my life. I'm stepping in, I'm stepped into that teleportation device. I'm, At a new level now. And so I need to be a new person. Who I was March 31st, that girl is gone. And it's not even the audience, also the team stepping in and making sure they're happy and want to come to work. That's a whole new set of problems.

New skills to learn, ways to level up.

But it's very the same way he's lit up, I'm lit up. I feel energized again. That was something, um, I think I'm, I don't know, uniquely equipped for smart passive income because I actually created it. You know, I have this $9 membership, y'all at $9, you really don't have to deliver a lot. You're spending a lot of time at the beach. And I spoke in 2025 at Craft and Commerce about that, about how much freedom my membership gave me and now stepping in. I'm energized again. I'm excited about the audience. I'm excited to, uh, fill these shoes as best I can and take it to the next level and help creators.

I love that. Well, in a very authentic way to the SPI brand, you two have told the whole story of the acquisition publicly in the same way that, you know, you built niche sites publicly way back in the day. Yeah. Had the income reports and everything else.

It's important for us to be open so we could show how it's done. And if we don't do it right, you can learn from our mistakes too. That's always been the case. I've been— Chase Reeves was the one who coined me the crash test dummy of online business. And that was more of a placeholder for a website he was building. And I loved it.

Yeah.

Because it doesn't always go well. Sometimes I might crash, but hopefully this can inspire people to know that even though you might not get it right all the time, you can go to places that you didn't know you could go. And I'm just so grateful again that you're all here listening. Thank you, Nathan, for having us. And we're going on this little media tour now to start sharing this more publicly. Um, and new adventures await.

Yeah, yeah, I can't wait to be the new crash dummy because I've got a lot of ideas and I'm sure a lot will hit the wall and hopefully some of it, uh, you know, will take us to the next level.

I love that. Well, Liz, you've been an incredible partner to Kit over the years. Uh, your keynote at Craft and Commerce is fantastic. Anyone who's obsessed over the world of email and memberships and all that can learn so much from, from you. So thank you for coming on, Pat. I mean, we go way back. Kit was—

You do.

And I'm not going anywhere. I'm still here with Kit.

Oh yeah. Kit was a, a few thousand dollars a month in revenue, uh, when you came on. Now, uh, you know, we're a few million dollars a month in revenue.

Doing pretty good. Yeah. I, I like to think I had a little bit to do with that.

Just a little bit, just to play that.

But no, thank you for always a little guiding hand all the way through. I, you always give me, a lot of credit for, especially on the early days, certain decisions. And I appreciate that. But I'm, I'm still in love with Kit and will remain, and I'm on the board and will continue to fight for creators through Kit and still through SPI. But we got big things coming. Yeah.

And I think seeing the new frontier of the creator world and everything you're going into is so exciting.

So thank you.

Thank you both so much for coming on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If you enjoyed hearing Pat talk about building something that can outlast him, you might also enjoy the last time he was on the show in episode 90. He breaks down how he grew Smart Passive Income by putting relationships and community first, which is exactly what made what he announced today possible. Like the video if you enjoyed it, hit subscribe on YouTube or wherever you're listening, and I'll see you next week.