How to Build a $1B Software Business Start to Finish (He did it) | Cameron Zoub - Whop

How old were you when you made your first $100,000? Probably end of 13 years old, early 14. You made $100,000 at 14 years old. How old were you when you dropped out of high school? 16. How much is your company roughly worth right now? Our last value issue we raised that last year, a little over year ago, was $800,000,000. You've done this whole path for 13 years. I'm interested if you were to start a new company by scratch, you wanted to start a software company just you. How do you go about that? What are the steps in your mind from the idea, getting it built, getting your first customers, and what were the frameworks you would use to scale it? The first question to myself would be like, what annoys me? Like, what don't I like about the world? So I'd probably like, I would just go through my day. Like, what do I do throughout the day? Like, I wake up, that's fine. I don't think I would change anything there. I start brushing my teeth. It's annoying. I get annoyed that I have to hold my toothbrush every single morning. I'd probably, like, one idea would be like an automatic toothbrush that's just like a mouth guard you put in, and it brushes your teeth for you automatically. So I would just go down the sequence of like, how do I spend every minute of every day? Like, when I call my Uber, am I happier? Am I upset? I'm pretty happy. It's pretty awesome. Uber comes in 60 seconds. So like, there's not much room for innovation there. So I would just go down every minute of my day. I would carry a journal with me probably for like a month and force myself unless it becomes like, this is the idea. But I would set like a pretty like unlimited time frame of, I'm just going to write down every single thing that annoys me. Because if it annoys me, and I'm willing to then pay for it, other people will also be willing to pay for it. So that would be step one is, when we started WAP, it was, we had 30 bots of this one bot called Eve. They were selling for $50 a day. When we found this random discord server if I started selling them, we were making like $2,000 a day. I would just had a spreadsheet of all these license keys. I'd have to Venmo request people. It was really annoying. So like, we built WAP for ourselves, because I just wanted to have more time back in the day. Like, I didn't want to sit on a spreadsheet while they resetting keys and Venmo requesting people. So step one is build something that annoys you. Step one, OK. And it's interesting you have no affinity toward, oh, it's going to be a software company. Oh, it's going to be a physical product. You didn't really have any sort of bias there. You are starting with a root problem that you just feel annoyed by. It's interesting to use the word feel. Yeah, I would say the formula is probably level of annoyance one through 10 times level of excitement on the idea one through 10. So it's like, if there's something that's 10 out of 10 annoying, but you're one out of 10 excited to solve that problem, don't solve that problem. Like, 10 excitement, one, annoyance, don't solve it. So it's like a balance of what is the most annoying problem that you're most excited about solving? Now, how do you build that thing? Depends what it is. I'm not-- I don't know how to program at all. I'm like, I tried learning programming for so long. I never clicked with my brain. So for me, most of the business I've built have been software businesses. I needed Stephen. And Stephen from most of it in the chart became in at the end, but I needed partners. So I would personally never start a software business. I would never start a tech company without a technical co-founder, because I've just seen that it does not end up how you think it's like this notion of contracting a developer to build you something like, WAP today has been iterated on 1,000 times. So it's like, you need someone in the ring with you. So it just depends what the business is. Like, I've tried selling physical products before, found this woman from China named Sonia, and became friends with her, and she had a factory, and we started building shit. So it's kind of like, whatever it is, how do you go-- it's just like, find-- if you can create the thing on your own, then do it yourself, if you want to work alone. Or if you can't, go find whoever the best person in the world is in your-- like, who you can get connected to right now, that can build it with you. So step two, find a co-founder. Yeah, find a co-founder, I would say. I would say-- I would not build a business alone. We'd never build a business alone. OK, so you did that. You know you need a partner. How do you find a partner? That's a hard question. Answer how you found yours. I made a post in a Facebook group, just saying, hey, I need an iOS developer. I'm looking for an iOS developer, and Stephen responded. So that doesn't go on that hard. It's pretty simple. Sharky was the same. I found Sharky in a different Facebook group, but I mean, it's just like, go-- it's dating. I got very lucky. It's like, Stephen, I've been working together since we were 13. So it's like, we've been working together for almost 14 years now. That's like a marriage. Like, I got very lucky. But it's just like, go date, like, go find these people and go just post in a bunch of groups, go to meet up, just go to whatever you think. Wherever my and people are, you need them in Discord servers, go to Z-Fellas events, do whatever. So make-- so you would join online communities. Where developers might hang out, and you'd just make a post. This actually wasn't even developed. This was a sneaker reselling group. So it was like a sneaker reselling group. I just said, hey, you need an iOS developer. But it was for an iOS sneaker reselling tool. Yeah, it was just a bunch of-- No one in there was technical. It was like, very serenipitous. Wow, OK. So you just went to it. It was all resellers, yes. But you asked. And the right person came. OK, interesting, spiritual. All right, so step one, found an idea that had high annoyance and high excitement. Step two, you needed to find a co-founder. So you joined a community where those people hung out and you just made a post looking for a technical person just asking the universe for this role. OK, now that you have your co-founder, you have your idea. What's the next step? Build it. Build it, fast. How do you decide how to build it? Whatever the-- for the bot rental marketplace, V1-- I mean, whatever the-- bring your product to market as fast as humanly possible. Someone changed it to the-- it's just like bring it live, as fast as possible, get people using it. The faster you can get someone using it, the faster you get feedback. You should be building for yourself. But at the end of the day, you have customers who have different needs and wants in life. So you want to get it in their hands as fast as possible. They understand what they like and what they don't like. So you can calibrate. Step 3 is get-- if you start building today, can you get someone using it tonight? If the answer's no, OK, well, what's the earliest? What is the least, if you're building-- for us, it was the actual minimum viable product was a place where you could-- it was a list of bots. You could click a bot. You could see a calendar, and you click a date on the calendar or give you a price. You would click purchase. That was the most basic-- there's nothing else you need. If you remove any of that, it's broken. I think the good philosophy is whatever your scope is, cut it to where you've deleted 20% too much, where you're like, shit, I need to add that back. So when you start deleting shit, and you're like, I have to add that back, or else the product doesn't function, then add it back. So for us, it was, what are the bare minimum things we need for this thing to function? If we remove any one of the pieces, it is broken and it doesn't work, and then you get that live. So step 3 is get a product live. While Stephen was building that in our world, I was getting customers lined up. So it was like, I was starting messaging sellers before the platform started. Hey, this is going to be ready in a week. Get ready to list your bots. We're going to have customers for you. So it's kind of just like everything's almost like its own factory line. If like get everything to the next checkpoint as fast as possible, it's kind of how we get it. So since you were building for yourself, you had a good feel of what the V's point was. Exactly what it needs to be. So it needed a basic version. But you wanted to get that out as fast as possible with the minimum amount of features, so you can just get into customer's hands and then start getting feedback from the market and to go from there. OK, so you could be wrong. Artists are wrong. Like you could make a song that you think is a banger than no one likes. So it's like you still have to get validation. OK, so now that you have it, the first version is built and you need validation. How do you go about getting feedback? Get on the phone with people. How do you find them? What are you selling? Where are they? Go find them. Like for us-- oh, just use examples that work for us. It was sellers of synker bots and it was buyers of synker bots. So where are the sellers or in these discord servers? First, it's like a very clear. It's like people who own cyber soul, people who own easy cop. Whatever the bot is, be very specific. Where are those owners? They're probably in the cyber soul discord and go find them and then message them and then pay them to get on the phone, do whatever. Just get on the phone with them. If you take another random example, if you're selling a software-- what's a random software company? CleanShotX, a screenshot tool that I love. It's such a good tool. Who is their customer? Someone who takes a lot of screenshots. Who takes a lot of screenshots? Product managers, developers, product designers. OK, cool. Where let's take product designers. Where do product designers live on the internet? They probably follow Figma on Twitter. There's probably discord communities. There's Reddit communities. There's meetups in the city. So it's like, just pick the one that you think you can infiltrate the best. And then go and just talk to people and be like, yo, I'm building this thing. I would never start it. Bob was free for the first 18 months on the seller side. We didn't charge sellers anything outside of just normal stripe fees. It was just 2.9% and 30%. So I would never give someone a reason not to use your products. So it's like, go find where those people are. Very literally, in real life, forget on the phone with them. And then make it free and let them use it and just listen. Have them share their screen and use it and watch them using it. You're like, click the fucking button right there, but they don't click it. They go over there and you're like, I'm interested in asking them. Why didn't you click the button that said, like, list my bot, why didn't you click that? And they're like, oh, I didn't, it's the button next to it was brighter. And I didn't actually look at it. And you're like, oh, you start to learn. So that's how I think about it. So you find out, yeah, the type of person that, it's not like a, it's like, it literally who is it? Like, it is a product designer in New York. And like me, it's specific as possible. And even better than that, it's like, the more specific you can be the better. So it's just like, very specific who is the person. Okay. So I have screenshot tool. I need screenshots, product designers, designers, whoever that is. I just pick one of them. Word of those people, hang out on the internet. Oh, they probably follow Figma. They're on Twitter, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Then I go through Figma's follower list. Okay. Then I start identifying these people. Then I DM them saying, hey, I'll pay you $500 if you hop on a call with me. Okay. Whatever. Maybe not in the beginning. Let's assume someone has no money. It's just like, hey, like, my name's Cameron. I'm 20, like, use things to your advantage. I'm 18 years old. Like, I'm building a company. We're trying to build a better screenshot tool for product designers. Like, can I show it to you? Like, I want to build it for you. I want to build the greatest tool you've ever used in your life. Like, can we call for 10 minutes and you try using it and you tell me what you think. And if you send that to a thousand people, 10 to 20 will reply. Like, you will get responses. Okay. Interesting. And then once you're on the call, you're literally having them, or you're just asking questions up front and then you give them the tools, I hate could you try it real quick? Yeah. And then share screen. I mainly say, like, hey, like, you give a little bit of background, like, I built this, I'm building this product. Like, this is the problem we're trying to solve. Like, we think, whenever I take screenshots, I have to go and put it in Photoshop to draw an area. I want you, like, first I'd ask them, like, how do you take a lot of screenshots? If they say, no, I'd be like, okay, cool. Thank you for your time. I don't know. If they say, yes, okay, cool. What do you take screenshots for? Like, understand what they use it. They take screenshots because they design prototypes and they want to send it to their team for feedback. Okay, cool. Like, have you ever wanted to like edit, like, like, whatever it is, like, you go down these rabbit holes, you understand. Okay, cool. Like, here, would you mind sharing your screen? Here's the tool. Like, please show us how you use it. And it's not like, let them log in and then share their screen. Like, they start, like, if it's a downloadable file, like, they start when they click the download button, or, like, even when they go to that page, is it easy to click the download button? And that's like, that's the end of an experience. So watch them use the entire thing. And then the best version is you give them a goal. Like, I want you to, in this, I'm going down the screenshot example, but in this, for the WAP example, it's like, list your bot, like, get your bot lot. That's actually get your first sale. Like, get your first sale on this platform, go, and then I go and mute, and I force myself not to talk. And it's so painful. But they'll be like, what do I do here? Like, do I click this button? Like, whatever you think, like, trust your gut, because you see where they get stuck. So they share their screen. You should shut up. I should shut up and just watch them use it and see where they get stuck. Okay. So you challenge them, like, okay, this is the end goal you want. So for you is, get listed on the marketplace and get a sale, basically. And so you're like, all right, start from scratch, go, and you're not a lot of talk, and you're just watching them. And you're just taking notes, like, okay, he could not figure out that the start now button was right here, or he could not figure out the edit description was down here to the left. Are you asking him on ideas and where he would, like, after that session is over, are you then asking them? Yeah. What are you asking them? What was most confusing? What step did you enjoy the most? What? Like, that's really it. Like, what was most, like, we go through anything. I saw this, like, when you were setting the price per day, you stopped for like 60 seconds. What were you thinking about? Because that's kind of like, when you're building a product, you become so deep in the weeds where you can't actually, you're biased. Like, you cannot see it from the lens of a new person who's looking at it for the first time. It might not make sense to anyone else, or inverse, it might make total sense. So, it's really like, under, when someone pauses for 30 seconds, the only way to figure out why they pause is to ask them. There's no data that will really show it. You can see they dropped off there, but like, they might have gotten distracted, like, it might have been, it was hard to find, or it might have been, you have the coolest animation ever in the background. They got distracted by the animation. The animation's actually not that helpful. It looks cool, but it doesn't actually do that much. So, it's like, why did you stop for 30 seconds on this page? And they tell you, and then you can decide, maybe you like that they stared at the animation. So, that's what you're going for. So, it's like, then you can decide what to do with that animation. That's where intuition probably comes in. That's where intuition is. The only thing that matters, once you've collected the context from the market. Fascinating. How many people are you going to talk to, and when you decide what's enough people? I don't know. Let me think. How many people are we going to talk to? It doesn't matter. Just until you feel like you have a good grasp. Yeah, like you know what to do. Okay, cool. So, it could be the first person. Yeah. Like, damn, that was crystal clear to anything. I gave you 20 things, I wouldn't go talk to number two, because like go solve those 20 things, and then go talk to number two. And then get the feedback to the next person and base off those iterations. It's good sometimes to get like a couple different takes, but like generally don't waste people's time. If you talk to someone, they gave you 30 minutes of time, they pointed out a ton of shit before you go on to the second person, solve those problems. So, the next experience is more enjoyable. What are the five most unique ways you've gotten on a call with somebody, methods that you used to get on the call? Find someone's address and send an Uber driver to their house to knock on the door. Was the most unique. You knocked on their door. We needed to get on the phone with someone. They weren't answering. So, we got their address. And we sent an Uber driver to their phone. The Uber driver was like, "Yo, I don't feel comfortable doing this." And it was like, "I will tip you $100, like go knock on the door." And then the person was taking a nap, and they woke him up. So, you paid an Uber driver to go to his house and get out of his car. Yeah. And the Uber driver knocked on the person's car. Yeah. To wake him up. Yeah. Okay, give me more. That's fun. That was probably the crazy thing. I mean, the other easy ones are like, you find someone's address. You send them edible arrangements. You find someone's, I'll give you an alpha, there's, most people's primary email is tied to their iMessage account. Like, their iCloud account. So, if you get someone's email and you put it into iMessage, it'll often, if they have an iPhone, it'll often go through. So, if you get my personal email, you can text me because it's connected to my iCloud. That's baller strap. We've gotten in touch with a lot of people doing that. It buys someone's product. Like, if you want to talk to them so badly, the best thing you can do is be their customer. Like, hey, I just bought, like, I bought your bought, like, want to get, like, someone selling cyber soul for $60. Cool. Like, when we were starting, like, I'm going to buy, I'm going to rent it for a day. They sell it to me. Cool. You can go sell it to someone else. I don't actually want it, but can we call for 10 minutes? They're like, sure. That was, it's just like, someone gave, someone told me this recently, which is like, memories are sparked from things that surprise people. So, like, if you go through a mundane day, we've lived, I've lived so many days, I don't remember most of it. The things that remember, the things that shocked me, the things that catch me off guard. So, you have to catch someone off guard. You send them into their house. You send them a gift. You buy their product. It has to be like, if you message them saying, hey, can I get on the phone with you? They're probably not going to get on the phone with you because that's not very, like, there's no effort that went into that. That's how I look at it. Nice. Wow. Okay. Very cool. WAP just released a new app store that gives software developers instant distribution. WAP is a community platform where creators install apps into their community. Think of it, like, Discord bots, but instead of bots, they're full-blown web apps. There's just list their apps on the WAP app store and then creators install them in their community and sell them to their audience for you. This is a very high-leveraged distribution channel because just getting one creator to install your app into their community could get you thousands of paying users. There are over 100,000 mainstream creators on the platform, like Eric, Druski and Imangazi who are waiting to install your apps. And WAP does more than just distribution. The new WAP API also has payments, memberships, and authorization built in. So you can handle billing, manage access, and fetch user data, which is a few lines of code. This works for all web apps, whether you host on WAP or on your own site. If you want to ship fast, validate quickly, and start earning right away, I highly recommend using the WAP stack for your app. I'll leave a link to the WAP SDK below so you can get started today, now, back to the episode. Next, you've got the feedback. If you have a usable product, the person finally likes it, you've iterated at the right amount. That's the first person, maybe two or three of the people are testing and playing with it, they like it. They give you approval. What's next? Are they using it every single day? It's kind of like my limit is test. So if they're not using it as their primary, for us, if people are still renting their bots in botmart and on these other platforms versus WAP, it's still not good enough. So why are they not doing it? The problem might be they don't have enough customers. We have to go to install the customer problem, so it's like, are people becoming power users? So once it's like, you don't want to over optimize, like at some point, you want to go get more people. So it's a healthy balance of like make the product better, get more people, make the product better, get more people. So it's a dance of like, if you're only making the product better, you're not getting people, you have no customers. You might as well. You're actually providing no impact on the world whatsoever because no one's using your product. So I would say once your power users that you onboarded for free are using it and getting value out of it, then they then go get more customers. You've proven that their power users, they're using it day in and day out. Now it's time to get more customers. How do you get more customers? I'm going to assume you have like no money and you have no network. Like the hardest, it's probably like you have no brand to rely and you have no money to rely on. So that is where we were for most of it. So it's like gorilla. Like go find the customer. So still make it, I, we, we, it was free for 18 months, like I said that a couple of times. It's just like, it was so important because we didn't give anyone a reason not to do it. It was like, at the very least, this is going to be cheaper. You get more mass on platform. So I would say do whatever you can to acquire users. Like make it free, charge a little bit, like whatever works for you and then go find these customers. So it's, I mean, for the beginning for a while, for the first year, all of the Zoom was just sales calls all day long. Like talking to like anywhere, I could, each conversation was about 30 minutes. So I could probably talk to like 20 to 30 people a day and then manage the existing relationship. So it's go acquire new logos or merchants at any, anywhere you can get new people using a platform, get them using it. And then once they're happy, find out how you can get people from their network. So whenever we'd get a seller on our platform, it would be like, okay, cool, like do you have any friends who are selling? Like give them the greatest experience in the world and then ask for a favor. Just like, do you have any friends who like want to use it? So like, yeah, actually, I have a, like, building, it's also, if you give them such an amazing experience, they'll refer their friends. Like, I've told you to buy products in the past because I like them and they're, like, I want to, if they're good for me, then I think they'll be good for you. So it's kind of like people like referring products to their friends if they're amazing. So just go get, cause, like, the, the tactical answer is back to, like, back to the first example of like, who is your client? Is your customer still the same person? Great. Where do they live? Go get more of them. And now instead of, like, needing every single person to get on the phone, it's just like, hey, I built this. It's free. I think it solves a big problem. Like, try it and see if it solves it and get more people using it. Build a community of those people. Have them all talking to each other. Have them inviting their friends and then it just compounds over time too. And then when you have, when you get to a point where like so many people are coming in, they love it. Then for me, personally, that's when I would start charging for something. So when there's thousands, it's just like, it's, it's back to the example of like, you're either planting seeds or eating the fruits off your treats, when you start charging, you're literally eating the fruits off your treats and your planting seeds and something's free, it could spread like wildfire. So, I would just lean on the side of, if it were up to me, like, like, it's probably good that this happened, but it probably still would be free. Like I would probably have kept them up free forever. And that's why, like, Steve and I complement each other well because he's like, no, we actually need to generate revenue so we can hire more people and like, that was a good call. But I would just like, because it's like, if you go paid tomorrow, you cash everything in. If you stay free for one more day, when you go paid the next day, you have a bigger pot. I'm just kind of going to look at it. So, I would just keep, I would probably build too big of a pot that I'd never cash you with. Technically, it's still free. It is still free. We are back. I guess we're back to where we started. It's now free again. That's funny. Okay. So, that's very interesting. So, you have the product that you've proven that people are using. So, it's providing value for them. And now you're going to use that exact same method that you got the person on the call and you're going to pop out 20 to 30 sales calls per day. And so, instead of just like, hey, can I get product feedback and say, hey, I have this tool that, how's the pitch different to get them on the call, though? Well, it also depends on the business. For us, we're focusing getting, it's not like a SaaS, where a customer wasn't like a normal consumer. Like, these are sellers. So, it's like for someone to move their business, like, if you're making more than 10,000 dollars a month. Yeah, it's B2B. You're probably not going to move your business. So, that strategy would probably be different if it was more of like a B2C play. Maybe not for your first 20 or 30 customers. Yeah, yeah. Still for sure. Yeah. But the, how are you, like, how did you get on the phone with the people that you're actually going to try to sell now? Instead of, like, hey, is it still product feedback, like, is it still the pitch, or is it, like, slightly tweaked? Like, hey, what do they care about? I think this would help you. We've proven to show a loom video of how it works, like, is it different? How many emails that have, like, a loom video in it, do you respond to? I don't get a lot of emails with loom videos. If someone sent, like, you probably, the most people don't, like, no one wants to be sold to. It's kind of like the answer. So, you need to, like, what do they-- The way they discover something. Yeah, the way I look at it is there's, like, there's two things that have stuck out. One, when writing messages to get someone on the phone, read it out loud, and if it sounds weird, don't send. It's, like, when you-- when people write copy, they often, like, write an email. It's not how you were talked with human at the bar. Like, pretend like you met your customer at a bar, or on the side of the street, and you have, like, 20 seconds to pitch them. And film a voice memo. That's your outreach message. It feels very different when you're reading it. So, if you type and email this someone, it feels like you were emailed. If you film a voice memo, like, if I met someone on the side of the street, like, yo, what up? Like, I noticed that you rent cyber soul and botmart. Like, we just launched-- if I was talking to someone on the side of the street, it'd be, like, we just launched a platform where it'll, like, you set the price per day, and they get paid automatically. You withdraw your bank instantly. It's all automated. Like, that's probably how I would-- if I was writing an email being, like, hey, reaching out on behalf of a plot-- if I was meeting someone on the side of the street, I'd never say, I'm reaching out on behalf of a platform, a lot of the-- so many people do that on their email. So, I think the first thing is, the copy you write, you need to read it out loud and make sure that it sounds human. And start by not even writing just voice memo. You're saying you're going to speak into it, but it's going to transcribe it. Just like-- you're not sending the audio. Listen to the voice memo then, right? But try different strategies. I've tried sending it. I've sent so many selfie videos. That's another-- because it's like, you have to-- everyone sends cold emails. Everyone sends cold messages. You have to do something different. Like, some of the best response that you've gotten is a selfie video. Yo, what up, Chad? Hitting you up from off HQ right now. All the engineers are grinding. They're so locked in. They're not leaving the office tonight until you respond to our message. Like, he's going to watch that and be like, what? Like, they clearly didn't-- they only made this video for me. Like, why are they doing this? They're showing care. They believe it in, like, you have to stand out. Like, there's notion of like, automated messages. Like, that does not work at all. So that's one component of it. And then that's all I remember from what I was saying. That's good. No, that's perfect. So you're just going to grind 20 to 30 sales calls a day, which is an unbelievable volume. And it is an absolute grind. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then what do you say is, like, what do they care about? So it's not-- you have to look at it from the lens of, like, what are they going to read and be interested about? So if you're messaging them, your pitch might be different than what they care about. So when we were talking about people that were renting, if I was reaching out on behalf of WAP, when we were doing the Sneak about Rentals, I would probably say, like, we built this platform. You can list your bought automatically. You can set the price per day. But the actual part that was most annoying for sellers was the fact that they had to manually collect the money and they had to manually reset the keys. That's all that matters. So it doesn't matter what I think the value is. The only thing that matters is what is the value in the eyes of the person who you want to use your product. So they care about the fact that we haven't-- we built an API that would automatically reset people's license keys. So the example it would use is, like, if you're renting out your Netflix account, imagine every time you got to sell you to reset the password. That's what the world was like. And we built an API that would hit the bot's API and reset the key automatically. So now, if you get someone renting your bot at 10 PM on a Friday night and set them on to go to your computer and reset the password, it would be automatic. That was the first thing. The second thing was, you would have to then request people. That's really annoying. So when I'm reaching out to them, it's like how you-- your question was, like, do you still ask for product feedback? No. When you have the value established and you're clear that you have value, show them the value. It's like, there's two things we're going to do for you. One, when it's 10 PM on a Friday night and someone buys your bot, you're knocking you have to reset your key. It's going to be done automatically. When someone wants to buy your shit, they're going to pay. And it's going to instantly go to your bank account, the next thing you don't have to do anything. And then they're like, wow, like that does solve my problems. And then you get them using it. Okay. Amazing. So then how many users-- you've basically had two core differentiators that made your product better than the other competitors. So you had very clear product market fit at that point, would you say? At least in that micro niche. And you have probably a few thousand customers at this point. Then are you deciding to either raise money or to go paid? And why did you make the decision that you guys made in? Was that the time? The raising money-- we weren't actively trying to raise money. We got an acquisition offer from Hypert, the company that was describing. So they were like, the biggest company in our space, far bigger than us. They'd raised like $100 million valuation. They tried to acquire us for millions of dollars. And this was like three to four months into starting up. And we'd come off of like five to six years of just eating shit in our businesses. We're doing horrible. And we were really just like living off of savings at that point, getting like pretty deep into it. So we had millions of dollars over here that we could take. Or we could build it on our own. And we got introduced to somebody named Corey Levy, who was a program called Z-Fellows, which is like a better version of a Y-combinator, shout out Corey. And he was just like within minutes, was like, we'll invest-- he got the founder of Tinder on the phone, Justin Metine. And they were both within like 30 minutes. It was like a live shark tank deal. They turned their-- we're going to Zoom call with them. And they turned their video and mic off for like five minutes. And that we pitched them. They went on mute for five minutes. And they called this back. And they committed the first investment. So at that point, it's kind of like this company that we're competing against. They have $17 million in the bank. If we had more money, we could probably get better talent. We could probably go faster. We could get a nicer off-- we could just go harder and put ourselves in a better position. So it was-- and it's also, there's something-- honestly, the most valuable part wasn't really the money. Because we were making money at that point. We were making probably like 75K a month. It was just the three of us. So it wasn't that bad. It was like meeting Cory, meeting Justin Metine, ending up meeting Peter Teele, like getting surrounded with these people who have built, like Tinder's a massive business. Like being able to call them when we get stuck and get the advice was really helpful. So that was why we raised at that point. So the main reason was strategic-- like you wanted to have strategic investors, be around people like and guide you, like the professional structure. Yeah. I don't think you-- like if I was going to-- I don't-- I hope I never start any other businesses. That's how I walk. I love walk so much. But if I did start another business, I don't know if I would-- like if I have my own company. I don't-- you don't need to raise, like by any means. It's not the-- like I think there's so many-- like you don't need to raise by any means. It was more so for us, probably at the time it was like a cushion more than anything. It was like let's have like a million dollars in the bank so we know that we can trash it out and fail but know we still have money. And there was like a way we could really better ourselves. But if I was starting a new business tomorrow, like I don't know if I would-- it's all-- like do you need money right now? You don't raise just for the purpose of raising. Like if you need money, if getting N number of dollars would allow you to scale faster than without it, and that gets you to like a destination fat, it's just like a EV bet. Like is there-- is there value in taking the money to grow faster? Did you say hyper had $17 million? Yeah, they raised $17. Is that why you guys raised the certain amount you raised the rest of the time? No. I actually don't. Maybe it was $15.70. I don't remember the exact number. We raised $17. I don't know if they raised $17. Okay. Maybe I'm mixing it up. That's all I was wondering. They raised like $100 million. I think they raised like $15 million probably around there. Mm-hmm. Okay. So you guys just raised because was it like-- that's all I'm curious to say. Do you guys just raised because it was like the thing to do, did you raise because you wanted to build a really big company? I know that's Stevens kind of thing. He's always wanted to build a really big company, was it just like kind of those more reasons than just like-- I mean, it just gives you-- It was a necessity. It wasn't a necessity, but it was like, we could go faster. Yeah. We weren't thinking about higher. It like shifted. There's also something nice about the pressure of like other people own equity in this business yet. Yeah. Like, let's deliver. So we didn't need to raise money by any means, but it gave us more money to play with, which just gave us the ability to take more shot. Actually, like, the thing that there was an early-- looking back, it was like amazing that we did raise, because we ended up making like a really strategic acquisition of this other company in the space, which was-- it would have been hard to like compute with Hypert, but we acquired this one company called Freddie Dashboard, which was this one dude who built this tool that had like 40 people on it. It was like the biggest spot. Stellar was using it. Haven was using it. It was like this custom white label dashboard that he built, but he wasn't making any recurring revenue. It was $3,500 up front for the client, and then it was $50 a month, so he was making no money. He was able to buy that really cheap relative to the value of the customer on his platform, because he had no reason to contain the businesses, and having not raised, we wouldn't be able to do that. So it gives you-- for us, it gave us-- we had cash in hand to make moves when the time-- it also forced us to start being way more aggressive, because now that we have a million dollars in the bank before we had 75K in the bank, so it's like, okay, now we can take like way bigger swings. But we didn't know exactly what we were going to spend on that. Do you think that if you didn't raise, it would have been-- like, the business would have capped at like a few hundred K a month, and then it would have been harder to pivot up. Like, do you think that because of the-- that what you're saying, like, you raise money, you have accountability from external investors now, which I think is actually very, very important for like, a motivating factor. And then simultaneously, it forces you to be aggressive, because you do have to use this money. You can't just not use the money. You think that if you guys bootstrapped, I'm just very curious if that-- I think it's far cooler to bootstrapped than to raise, like, it's harder, like, you did it all on your own. So I think, like, each person should optimize for, like, them raising money has become a very, like, cool thing to do. And it's-- you're literally giving up equity in your business. So if you're bullish on yourself, this is, like, your-- your life's work, you're giving up equity. So, like, there better be a good reason to do it. It's not, like, you're not going to-- there's not-- won't buy you a house. Like, you can't use the money you raised to, like, change anything about your personal lifetime. If you do, you're fucked. Like, that's a horrible place to be. And you should not be building a business at all. So-- Okay. It has to, like, help create more value in the long run. I think it's going to be less and less popular. I think it's culturally cool. I think the counter-culture is coming very, very soon, especially with the prices sass going down. But, okay, let's take that out-- let's take that out of the equation and go back to our conversation. Yeah. So, let's just say you have-- either you raise money or you're making, like, a hundred k per month, which is very profitable, and you have cash flow to invest in the company. I'm imagining this is, like, okay, of five-- maybe, like, five million dollar paper with nice, healthy multiples, whatever, if you really wanted to go for it. How are you going to go from this five to ten million-- one to ten million dollar company, range to a hundred million dollars, with the money that you're bringing in for your business? It's the same. It's-- nothing-- it never changes. Like, it's-- like, what market are you going after? Who is the customer in that market? Why are they not using your product? Like, how many of them are there? So, you visit me. It's always the same. So, you developed this playbook for the bot rental marketplace. Like, you found, like, stellar. You found these big people. You found this guy. You acquired them. So, you found, like, the biggest players. You got them on the platform. And then it just just became-- you basically monopolized or won the bot rental market. And it's like, OK, we have this playbook now. We can just duplicate this playbook into a different market. Yeah. And that's where you guys went after Discord. Yeah. It's also, like, how-- and how does any business at the end of the day scale-- I don't know. You tell me. They pick a market they want to focus on. They define the customers that they're building for. Like, the market might be big. There might be different customer segments in the market. They pick a customer they want to build for. And then they build the best product for that one customer. Once that customer's head over heels excited, they go find every other person who is exactly like that customer. And they just go get it. And like, you get to a point of maybe diminishing returns where it's like, if there's 10-- if you've gotten 1,000 and there's 10 people that remain, but there's a new market that is 100,000. It might make sense. Like, you don't need to get-- it's not like you have to get 100% of the people. We didn't get 100% of the bot rental, but like, we had the majority and that was all that mattered. So the playbook is just like market you're going after. Who are the customer-- what is your, like, Sam? Who can you service in the market? And then, how we do is we prioritize, like, this is the biggest whale. This is the smallest. And then start with the smaller people to make sure-- if the small people aren't joining, they're never going to get the big person. So you start with the small people. Get the small people joining. Get them really excited. They start referring to their friends. And then immediately go for the big person. And do whatever it takes to close a big person, like fire festival. And do it as responsible for getting the water vibe. Like, do whatever it takes. And this is something that you guys have done time and time again now, because if we look at WAP, it was bot rentals. Then it was like discord groups. Then it's sports betting, crypto trading, clipping, info. And you even ran that playbook with EMA for the info. You started with the smaller people. And you got the big key figure. So you found this like core product that had product market fit. You won the market by getting the big people. Everybody kind of has a consensus. And you just duplicate that across different markets that you want to go after. And that's how you guys got to $800 million. Yeah. And I don't think we-- I think with-- it becomes harder. So it's like to monopolize the sneaker bot rental marketplace, the market is $300,000 month in volume. Like, $300 to $500K a month in volume. So it's not that big of a market. It's still a lot of money. Like, to be netting, like, you're making like $100K a month at peak. So like, that's a lot of money for like three people running a company. But now, we haven't by any means like won these markets. I think we're like really clear in the markets we're going after. And we have-- we're off the ground. And like we're in a critical mass. Yeah. But like, in any of the markets, like coaching courses, we've not won that market. Paid groups. We have not won that market. Agencies. We were just scratching the surface. Software. We are the smallest person on the block. So I think it just become bigger. They become like multi-year projects versus like a couple months sprint as the business gets bigger. But what's interesting is you're following that same playbook end to end, even from what you just started. Okay. We want to go after a new market. We need to talk to our first customer. Get feedback. What features do you want? Okay. We've got those features. Let's go talk to the other people. Let's get 20 to 30 people to the sales team to go after them. Let's continue to iterate that product. Now you're just doing that by business model, by business model, by business model. Where WAF is now this platform that you can just run your entire business no matter what business model you're in. If it's paid group, coaching courses, agencies, whatever, you've like built all the tools. And then you have the same go-to market strategy for each individual category. And you can do separate the teams internally because now you have raised a lot more money. We have a way bigger team now. And so you just kind of bucket those different business models. I mean, the things that got you off, like the strategies don't need to necessarily change. Like I was thinking about like, if you look at, like, maybe this is a bad example, like Amazon doesn't look that different than did like 15, 20 years ago. It's like when you find something that works, like you stick with it and you like obsess over what you're best at. So it's kind of like, you could take like Uber's UI hasn't really changed. So I think it's kind of like you don't need to, I think we got, I personally caught up in this. Like we need to change. Like as we get bigger, we need different strategies. But it's kind of like, no, you just need to do your same strategies bigger and like do them more math. So, and there's also like, as you, we now have, like you, we have media channels. Like we didn't have a lot of YouTube a year ago. So it's like, it's not to say you should only do what you did. Like you should add new strategies. But it's like if something's working, it's kind of like you, when you find a strategy that works, like you should juice the shit out of it until it dies and until you, like continue pouring more money into that strategy until it breaks. As a marketer, I just find it, like it broke my brain when I found out you guys had an $800 million valuation without ever doing any like one to many marketing. Like it was just pure on, amazing product and then a sales team basically going after the best people in that space and then you just won these markets. So that's very, very fascinating. I don't know if there's probably an alternative universe where we like focus on marketing early and Mops way bigger than it is right now. So it's like, who's to say that's the best way to do it? All we know is it worked, at least to the level in which we're at today. And so it's just opposite to me because I'm like, first thing I think of product. How am I going to market this? Like before I even think about the product, I'm like, how's this going to be talked about in the world? And it's just very, very fascinating to me. And I've never heard you articulate it so systematically. And so in order. So that was very cool. Listen to you. I've noticed, like you can't market a shitty product. But it dies. I watch a video on this the other day and it's kind of like they give the analogy of like a ring of fire. So it's kind of like when pretty much the example is like you want to look at use, if you're users that come to the platform die over time, you're going to eventually run out of field. So the if like your like Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp, or not, Uber, sorry, Facebook Instagram WhatsApp. The users that they acquire on day one will be more engaged on like day 30 to 60, like people that join Instagram become more engaged over time. That's where you want to be because you acquire a user and they become more engaged. If you, this ring of fire example was pretty, if you acquire users and your users, if you're only focus on top of funnel and you're acquiring users, but if you have a leaky bucket where they end up like dying and leading the platform, you're going to eventually run out of users. So the analogy that clicked for me was like you throw a flame in a field, a grass field, it'll start with like one fire and then it'll start to grow and it turns into this like ring of fire. So the ring, like the fire gets bigger, the inside gets burned. So once it hits like the, if this table was a field at one point before the fire runs out, the ring of fire will be this entire table. It's going to be massive and you're going to feel like you have the biggest fire of all time. It's amazing. Everything in the inside, dead. You killed the entire inside. The second it hits the end of the table, the fire dies and not all you have is a field of tar. It's nothing left. So it's like, if you can't get burning the market, you're burning your market and there's eight billion people in the world. So you'll always be able to fill top of funnel, but if your top of funnel is not retaining and grow, not just retaining but growing, you're going to run out of people eventually. So you have to grow the basic people you have. That's all that matters. Top of funnel is very easy. You can spend unlimited money on ads and fill top of funnel. So the top of funnel is not hard. It's like retaining. It's sorry. It's still hard, but I think retaining is far harder. Interesting. So I think that's very, very important people understand because this is kind of the age old, clearly question. I love Roy Lee. I think that the concept of the product is extremely, extremely cool. Like that is a really good use case at AI, but it is to be determined if the product will stick. And it's like, is too much attention. His whole concept of mind share is that going to a cause a lot of people to try a product and have a bad product experience, never come back or is the mind share worth it? Get enough initial users, enough initial revenue to keep the company going to then eventually build a good product. We'll see what happens. How it goes. What I'm describing works for me and Stephen, like in Sharky, like that is like our squat. Like if I was good, I'm not good at marketing. If I was good at marketing, our strategy would be very different. It would probably be like a marketing playbook. So I think this isn't, people should lean into what they're uniquely good at. Like I love talking to people and I love selling, like I fucking love selling. Like we're going to be probably a sales led company. That doesn't mean like we should expand into other things. But I also think the Cluelie example, I'm like, they're going to crush it. Like I'm confident that you like to get that much mind share at that cheap of how much they're paying for it is got is unbelievable. We're talking about Cluelie right now. Like it's good. So he though, they'll figure it out. I'm bullish on Cluelie. Yeah. It's just an interesting thing. I'm like, okay, if you market a product too early, do you like, I just the burn analogy with familiarly? Yeah, I know. Okay, you market it and then they have a bad experience. They definitely burn. Well, they come back. They're strong. They'll figure it out. They're like Royce 21. He will figure it out. But they've definitely for sure burned people, which is also like that. If you want to look at the negative side, like that is negative side. But they also grew quick like everybody knows who they are. And then once the product does get good enough, snap their fingers. Or they burned everyone and do them care anymore. But probably if the product is really good, it'll probably be easy for them to respark. Something that I think makes you a world-class performer is how serious you take your habits, how serious you take your health, how serious you take your sleep, how serious you take your routines, work out everything. So, I would love to understand a day in the life of a 26-year-old billion-dollar tech startup founder. Okay. My days, I guess my philosophy is kind of the, I'm a product of how I feel. So if I feel really good, I'll create the best work possible. So how do I position myself to create the greatest work for the next 50 years, is kind of how I look at it. So, day in the life is I'll wake up, I need to get eight hours of sleep every single night minimum. Not sacrifice that. Some people can, some people can do great with six and seven hours. I can't. I'm dumb. It's a rock if I don't get eight hours. So, I get eight hours of sleep, I'll wake up anywhere from 5.45 am to 10.30 am, based on the time I go to bed. I have to get out of my, I have like an eight sleep mattress and then a hoop wristband. So my alarm on my bed goes off first. So, I set my alarm on my bed one minute before my wristband. When I feel, it's like a vibration. So when I feel my bed vibrating, I have to get out of my room within a minute or else. I think I'll have a bad day. That's all for this. So, my bed starts vibrating. I know I have 60 seconds to get out of my room. So, I make my bed, open my curtains, open my window and then have to get out of the room and close the door within before my wrist starts vibrating on my wound. So, that just forces me to get out of the bed in the morning. I start with that then I brush, then I'll just drink like as much water as I can until I feel six. I'll just pound water. Then I will brush my teeth. Then I stretch for like 10 minutes or so. So, I've just like the stretching routine I do in the morning, then I'll work out six days a week. So, I'll go on a run, go to the gym, then I have this chair called like a shift wave chair. It's like a vibration meditation chair, so I'll do that for like five minutes usually before I work out. Then, I come back from my workout, I'll usually take a cold shower and then I meditate for about like 20 minutes in the morning. And then I usually just like, well journal for a minute or two, just like what is the goal of today? What do I want to accomplish? Go to the office. I drink pretty much the same drinks everyone, I have decaf coffee with ghee butter. I have this big bucket of water that I fill up, which I'll drink in a second. And then I drink this like longevity mix thing, and then what is the longevity mix? It's like a brine Johnson mix. It's just like creating in it. Yeah. A bunch of other shit. So, take that. I've just been like a bee testing my body for a lot of people will be like, it's not forever. Like some people, Steven, I co-founder, doesn't know this shit, it doesn't care about anything and he performs great. So, it's kind of like, I've just been a bee testing my body for a while and this one makes me feel the best. I'll usually eat my first meal of the day. I haven't eaten anything yet today, it's like 4 p.m. but I'll usually eat my first meal of the day anywhere from like 1 to 6 p.m. I get a massive meal, I eat the same thing every single day. I try to just condense it into like one or two meals max. I've tested a ton of different food, the meal I have right now makes, like I don't feel any crash, I don't have any meat, I don't have any sugar, very little carbs, so it's just like, I don't really, it just gives me fuel, but it doesn't, there's no need to eat. I'll have an egg mushroom broccoli avocado burrito with, it's not like bread, I don't know, it's some like healthy wrap and then two vegetable purée soups, one miso soup, a salmon, like 10 pieces of shrimp, tofu, protein smoothie with like strawberries and bananas and then this is lunch. This is one meal. Yeah, one meal. And then like an orange, like a immunity drink, like an orange drink. So it's a thought process that's soup, like it's faster to metabolize, you're not tired of that. There's no thought, I just feel the best when I eat that. So I don't know like any of the signs behind it, it just makes me feel good. So you, but you are, like this is something I've very much witnessed from you, you are obsessed with optimizing. And so you're split testing stuff and it's more based on how you personally feel, like you're being a scientist on yourself rather than watching Andrew Huberman or, you know, I don't know any of like the real, I know like sleep is important. But like outside of that, I know working out, like I know I feel good when I work out. So it's kind of, I've done, like I got a sugar, a blood sugar tracker that I injected, that I wore for a couple of weeks and that showed me like how my blood sugar would spike when I eat different food. But you can kind of feel like if I eat a big tub of ice cream 30 minutes later, I feel like shit. Like it's not rocket science. So I'm, yeah, I don't really know any of the signs behind this stuff. I've just tested like, this is personally what makes me like feel the best right now. So I do that for lunch, then I'll drink this like cacao powder and almond milk. I don't drink any coffee, but that has like a little bit of natural caffeine in it. So I'll drink that. And then some days I'll do dinner, some days I won't, if I do dinner, I'll just have like a vegetable soup with salmon. And then I'll go home. I'll try to, I try to cold plunge in sauna every night for like 20 minutes. It just forces cold plunge is just the hardest thing ever. Like it, it's so hard every single time. So it just grounds me like no matter how hard my problems are during the day at work, it just keeps me pretty grounded in remembering like it's not more painful than the cold plunge, like the cold plunge is pretty hard. And then I'll journal in the sauna every night of just like what went well today, what didn't go well to just like reflect on the day of the things that happened. Then I go upstairs at some point I'll turn off my phone and then I will stretch for another like 10-15 minutes and then do like a nighttime meditation and then fall asleep reading. So you wake up in the morning to a vibration and you give yourself one minute before your whoop wristband goes off or else you're going to fail. Yeah, I have to be outside of my room. Jump out of your bed. And then you sprint to the sink to chug water until you make my bed, open the curtains, open the window and then get out of the room. And the chug water until you feel sick, stretch, go into this insane massage chair with headphones and a blindfold and meditate. And then I just imagine you're sprinting, I was sprinting, yes, and then you sprint to your run and you come back from your run, meditate longer, shower, come to the office, and then eat, drink your health, the one thing I miss also, I have a whiteboard in my apartment and I have, every day I have to rate myself one through ten and if I'm happy or not. And I used to have it be like way more regimented, it used to be like six things, like how focused was I today, how honest was I, like all these things, but I recently changed it to just happy because I feel like at the end of the day it's like, you know, I'm always like this, there's at least going through, there's like death and those things which are really difficult, but outside of that, like this work has been by far the hardest thing I've ever done, it is like extremely difficult and very rewarding, but I need to, if I'm not happy, it's kind of like the problems won't be gone, there will be more problems tomorrow, every day there will be problems, no matter what, like guaranteed there will be so many things, that we're trying to grow really quickly so there's always gonna be things wrong. So if I'm solving, like how am I solving those problems, am I solving them from like a stressed out, like unhappy, self or am I happy, and like I think you can even in times of like extreme dire and shitty things, I think you can still be happy, so I'm trying to always just say, even if things are going horribly wrong, like you can be happy solving those problems. I am very glad we are on the same team, I'm glad I'm on your team, this is awesome, me too Brad, help me out, you want to see, I don't know how to put it into words, like there is no faster moving person I've ever came across, and I'm like someone that's like, okay, we have a big win, enjoy the win, like you worked really hard, you guys have this very short window of like, all right great, we killed it, what are the next three biggest problems we have to solve to stop us from the next leg of growth, and it's like less than like a two minute acknowledgement, there's never a acknowledgement other than like good job, but immediately move on, it's never brought up again about all the things you did right in the past, it's like what are we fucking up right now consistently, is that a mindset that you have had your entire life, or is that a mindset that's been adopted through like you're in the tech startup world, you guys raised money from Peter Tio, you guys raised money from all the biggest, like you guys are like true and true, like as esteemed startup vibe you could possibly come up with, how is that something that's like personal to you guys, or is that taught to you guys by like these like advisers that you have, I think it's been just like a day, like I think since like the day we were, I mean like Stephen and I met when we were 13, so we've just like, we've matched pretty well for 13 years now, but I would say it depends, when something goes well and you get a win, it's all real, I don't think you should never celebrate anything, like when things go well, I get very excited, like I was like, yeah, I was literally jumping up and down in my apartment last night, so like I closed the deal, and I was so excited, I was literally just staring at myself in the window, jumping up and down very excited, so I think it's good to celebrate, but it's kind of like, I did that for 30 seconds, and then I was like, okay cool, what's next? I mean it really, I think like the way I look at it is what time horizon are you celebrating with it, like a win is all relative to what like, it's just what are your goals, like I want hundreds of millions of people to be making money on what, so when like we closed the deal last night, there's still only 15,000 people that made money on what last month, so it's like, it's fun, because I like to feel excited, it motivates me, but it's also like reality check, there's still a lot of work to go, I think someone gave me the analogy once that has honestly changed the way I look at everything, which is at all points in life, you're either planting trees or you're eating the fruits off your trees, and when you're planting trees, you're creating like new crops, so anytime you're planting seeds, it's a long, if you plant a seed in the grass tomorrow, you're not going to see anything, it'll take a couple of months before you start to see like a blossom and a tree comes up, and then once it's fully formed after a number of months, there might be apples on the tree. You could then start, like in my opinion, there's like two phases of life, you're planting seeds or you're starting to eat the fruits off your trees, and when you're eating the fruits off your trees, you're not creating any new long-term growth, so I try to always, it's like, I had dessert yesterday for the first time in like three or four months, and I was thinking yesterday, I was just like, I want a treat, like I haven't had a treat in a long time, so like it's, so that in my opinion is like taking fruits off my trees, like I'm going to feel shitty for meeting the dessert, it doesn't actually help me, but like sometimes it's okay to feel good, it's all right, like people should do whatever makes them happy, like this makes me very happy, so some people might love eating dessert, you should eat dessert every day, maybe not, if you love it, probably not, but if that makes you happy do it, but I think for me it's just like always obsessing over how can I be planting more seeds, because the seeds won't feel great today, but a year from now I'll have a really ton of trees, and it'll be awesome, in ten years, in a hundred years. How clear are you on what you're trying to accomplish, because you have sacrificed more than I've ever seen a human being sacrifice in their life, like I thought I was some cool successful person, made a few million dollars in my 20s, had a big YouTube channel, whatever, huge ego, coming to you, I'm like, hey, super humbling, and I'm super grateful for everything that you do, because I see how much you sacrifice from your day-to-day life going out in the weekends as non-existent, you face the biggest problems here firsthand, if there's a problem you have to dive in, you have to hire people, it's incredible pain that I've seen you physically go through, but you power through with a smile on your face, and you always maintain high energy, so how clear are you on your goal of what you're trying to build, or how do you think about it, because what is driving you to go through so much pain? I think first is the perspective of I was born into what I've used, the greatest country in the world, and a good city, and I had loving parents, so it's kind of like it's all, there's kids in the Congo right now that are childhood slavery that so exists in the world. Why was I lucky enough to be born into this country, in this city that I was born into, and have my parents that I have, and my sister kind of thing? So I think first is, I feel like I almost have a duty to humanity, to do good work, because I was fortunate to be not been born, if there's so many things that could have happened. So I think that's the first thing, I think the second thing, what's the question? How clear are you, like are you goal driven, mission oriented, are you how clear is it in your mind of what you're trying to accomplish, or is this just your natural state of being of like, today I optimize, today I solve the next biggest problem. I have very clear goal, number one I'm always going to be working, I love to work, I love this grind, so that will never, if I have enough money one day to buy anything, it won't change it for me at all, like I love this shit, I think I, I really want to open a ton of Montessori schools, that's like my personal goal, like I was fortunate to go to Montessori school growing up, it's something I talked to my mom about a ton, like we talked together about opening a ton of Montessori schools, so that's like a personal project that will take a lot of money and resources that I will do in the future, and I think the goal of WAP is, that drives me for sure, like a ton is a person, that is what I want to accomplish, I think like the way you change the world is you start with like kids, like you, that's really it, like once someone hits, like once someone's, like every year that goes on, it's harder to change who the person is, so if you want to change the world, it's like start with two year olds, like that's, or start with like whatever, whenever kids go to school, so I think that's how I personally can have the biggest impact on the world, which I want to, I want it like very grateful to be a lot of, and I want to, I get immense, it's almost like, there's a thing like campus for the counselor, like I get a ton of joy out of helping people, like if I can donate to a certain cause, or if I can help someone, like it might help them a lot, but like deep down it probably helps me more, because I'd love that feeling of helping others, so that is personal, what drives me, what drives me work, I think we, I started making money when I was like 13, 14, I was making more money than my parents, by the time I was 15, I was able to drop out of high school when I turned 16, it is awesome to do what you love, and to make money be able to provide for yourself and your family, and not have to like wake up in the morning, dreading going to work, so I think making money in your own accord is like the ultimate freedom in life, like you don't report to anyone, you do it yourself, you're able to like, if you want to go to the beach or you can go to the beach, if you want to go to the library, you can do whatever you want, you can provide for your family, and that, so I think with WAP, I think what we're building, that to me is like what calls me, it's like how can we, if we want hundreds of millions of people to make money on the platform, most of those people have no idea how to launch a business, so over the next like five to ten years, how do we productize that, and how do we take someone who wouldn't have otherwise been able to make money on their own and help them do it through the tools that we built, so that, and it's just like, I've had so much fun in my life when I was 17, I wanted to go travel, so I'm unable to do that, when I wanted to like get my sister a gift, provide for my family, my mom, all that stuff, like it's pretty awesome, and I feel like everyone should be able to do that, and I think the world has gotten like pretty divided where it's like there's these big corporations and everyone's like slaves to the corporations, so how do we help people escape, and I think we were able to figure it out, so we need to build the tools to help others do it. How did you go about getting your first few people to put their bots on your platform? Yeah, so we've always had, it's always been very like guerrilla style, so it wasn't like let's do a big marketing campaign, let's do a big push, it was literally just like who would use this platform, so in the early days with the SneakerBot rental marketplace, the people, we needed sellers and buyers, so the sellers were people who owned the bots that were selling them, the buyers were people who wanted to purchase, so where did the sellers live? They lived in a couple of discord servers, and like we just found those discord servers, and went in there, didn't have a relationship with the community, I would just DM each person one by one, so like anyone who was a seller, DM'd them being like, yo, do you still have this bot for sale, they'd be like, yeah, and I'd position it as like I was a prospective buyer, then they would say, yes I do, I'm like okay cool, like I have someone who will buy it, and I would just tell them to list it on the marketplace, and then that was how we'd get the seller, so it was just DM all these sellers, and the beat, it was unique, we got lucky, like we actually own some of the bots in the beginning, so we listed the first like 20 to 30, so if you have a marketplace, you need two sides, if you can solve one of the sides at the gate, it makes it a lot easier, so we listed the initial bots, but to get more supply after ourselves, we just went to DM sellers who had them for sale, so hey, it's kind of like when Airbnb launched, they just like reach out to everyone on Craigslist, like, hey, is this a part of the sale available? Yes, great, listed on the platform, we'll get your customers. On the buyer side, we were really focused on, since we had the initial bots, we made them free, so that attracted buyers, and I think in the beginning, you should make as much shit free as possible to just get people using it, don't like leave any reason for someone not to use it, if it's $5 and there's a reason not to use it, if it's free, everyone will try it, so we made the initial bots that we had free, and then we would go to customers, it was the same vibe, so we had a 25% take rate in the beginning, so we would just give anyone who wanted to try it as a buyer, 25% coupon, but at a high level, it's just like who are the sellers, not like vague, it's like, oh, it's these kinds of people, no, it's Jimmy, Jimmy owns five bots, go get on the phone with Jimmy, do whatever it takes, share screen with Jimmy, sit there with him, get him to list the bots on our platform, and then who wants to buy it, message him, hey, what bots are you looking to buy, curate it for them, okay, here's the link to purchase, as soon as it purchases, like make sure it's fulfilled, so very like connecting the pieces. So you were the broker, basically, even though you had the tool, you would make him list it on your tool, and then find the buyer for them, just for usage. So in their mind, that they thought the Wallet Marketplace was getting them a customer, even though it's just you, but that perception built, and then it became the norm in the industry. And that's one thing you guys have really done really well, because it's like first, you started with the bot rental marketplace, then you just did that, you got the five, ten biggest sellers on the platform, just started selling these bots for these people, and then it became the platform for this entire category, and then you guys kind of evolved into this discord role, paid discord marketplace, and you did the same thing, you captured the crypto crowd, and then you captured the sports betting crowd really early on. And so you found these markets, you would get a critical mass of the most influential people, and then it became the norm in that industry. Were you thinking about it this way, or how would you describe how that process has evolved? Yeah, I think it's some hunter's talk about this in your eyes, I was in appeared groups, but in the very beginning, we had sneaker bots, we captured that, then we wanted people selling access to discord servers on WAPS. So where are people doing this right now? The biggest company was called Hyper, they were probably processing like five, six million dollars a month with a couple thousand sellers, so it was like the next logical step was go join Hyper's discord server where they had all their customers and start talking to their customers. And I remember vividly, they had a channel called Suggestions where sellers, merchants on the platform could request new features, I would just sit in that channel all day long. Any time a new suggestion came in, I would message a person saying like, hey, we'll build this for you right now. So we found another company and just got closer to their customers and they were with their own customers. And then anyone who uploaded the suggestion, you could see on Discord who reacts to a post, message all those people. So it was always working backwards of like, we have a market we're focused on, where all other people get extremely close to them, solve their problems, build their product. Once you've kind of like filled that, once there's nothing left to pull from that market, pick a bigger market, a different market, and then the Hyper example was like with discord, we just got so close to them, we would solve their problems. And then within a couple of weeks, we had a better platform than they had because we were just talking to their customers, and then you just go down the list. And it was again, just message every single person one by one. So something I experienced first hand three years ago when I first met you. We were in the Discord world selling access to Discord communities and I get on a call with you. And you were the most, I never met someone who talked faster and was more willing to help me. I think I thought of WAP as like my own personal development agency for like three months without even really understanding that what the platform was. But you just came to me and you would constantly be like, what do you need? What do you need? And I'm like, why is this guy doing so many favors for me? And then you would just like every single time, you just pound out this crazy list of everything that I said and then bring it back to me. And is this just like your method to building good product? Yeah. You seem to be on the growth side, but you seem so product oriented. Yeah. On the, for the, when we did the bot rental marketplace, we had a 25% fee, but when we started letting people sell access to Discord, we made it 100% free. And then the philosophy was like, in your example, you were one of the biggest YouTubers at that time, entrepreneurship space. So how do we get like, if we can build the perfect product for Brett, everyone that follows Brett will want to use this product as well. So the philosophy was like, you, you might see it as us doing you favors, but you were doing us favors by telling us what you wanted. And then we just built that. And then if we had the perfect product for Brett, then everyone who wanted to be like Brett would also be this as a perfect product. So that's how I kind of looked at it of just like make it free. So there's no reason someone wouldn't use it. And then just continue working with them to build whatever they've used the best product. Do you remember how you got in contact with me? Yeah, was it, did Hunter introduce us or was it? Maybe. Yeah. How do you get in? I'll, I'm trying to ask it, how do you get in contact with like these really well-known people? Yeah. In the beginning, we would just pay for introduction. So if it was, if we're, if there's money to be made, I would always give up as much, like, I will give 100% revenue. I don't care. Because it's kind of like the world is very big. There's a billion people in the world. Like I want to, I don't want any reason to hold this back from working with someone. So I don't care at all to, in the beginning, like, didn't care at all to make money off of anyone that was existing. Because you're already existing. It's like hard enough to get in contact with you. We're also going to try to charge you why would you join? So how we get in contact was if there's money to be made, we'll give the person who introduces us is much of our revenue. I don't really care. Because that, if we get that figurehead, they'll bring someone to the people with them. If we're not making any money, just pay people for introduction. So in the, back in those days, we were paying people anywhere from 500 to $1,000 to just introduce us to people. Once they joined the platform. So it was just literally paying cash for introduction. You're also a very unique blend. Because you're like the tech startup founder. You're a CGO, but you're like, hell it in the product. Like you influence the product a lot. So you're like, this tech person understands growth. But then you're also like more intuitive and you're meditating on a regular basis. So just tell me your perspective on intuition when it comes to the tech world when everyone loves data. What's that blend and how do you think about it? I think at least for me, like I didn't, I dropped out of high school. So I didn't go to college. I didn't finish high school. I don't know that much, to be honest, like from like an intellectual state. Like I'll lose most intellectual debates. But I think from it, there's like a really good Rick Rubin clip who's just a really famous music producer who is very much on the side of intuition. And they ask him like, do you know how to, do you know how to play any instruments? He's like, no. Do you know how to work a sound board? Absolutely not. And then it's like, well, what do people pay you to do? And he says, I'm, you know, I know exactly what I like and what I don't like. And I'm like uniquely, like I'm very specific on what I like. And I think that's kind of, I think there's a lot of people, there's a lot of really, really smart people in the world who are very successful because they're very smart. I think for me, it's kind of like, I just know what I like and what I don't like. And sometimes I can't really justify it. And sometimes I'll be wrong. Like I don't think my intuition is always right, but it's done me well. Like I'm grateful for my intuition that I have. And I think it's kind of like why, why fade your intuition? Like if you have like a, you sent me a clip once that was kind of like, if you walk into a store and there's 10 jackets on the wall, one of those jackets is going to speak to you the most. Like why fade that feeling? Like why be like, no, like I don't, like this thing that spoke to me at first, I don't actually like. So that's kind of what I'd think about it. So it should be, when I'm most tapped into my intuition, even the hardest decision in the world can take a couple of seconds because it's kind of like, you just know if it's right or wrong. And you also, it's a muscle that you like develop over time that gets stronger. So I think that I think data is important. Like I've, but it heads a lot with Steven and others on like my lack of data rigor. And I think it's kind of like, I don't think the, I don't think the best version is like only intuition, because like your intuition, what, what helps your intuition is more, at least for me, more context. Like if I can feed myself more context, if I'm going to be, if I'm picking the jacket example, but I know that I'm going to be in Antarctica for a month, like that's a data point of it's going to be really cold. So it's like, this one might look the best, but like I should probably get something that protects me in the cold. So I think into it, it's like, it's just a, there's no like, I don't think there's a formula of like how to be successful, have this much intuition, this much intellect. I think each person is like born different for me. I'm much heavier on the intuition where I need to get stronger is probably trusting my intuition more and not being like afraid of it, not not being afraid of like justifying why I believe something should be the way it is. It's just like, if that's what I believe, that's what I fucking believe and like go do it. And then also data is context. So like I should be yearning for more context to give my like more context can help out intuition more. That's how I think about it. I'm all on the intuition side. I don't think I can even process data. Like I very much have come to the conclusion that I don't know where our thoughts come from. Like where are these ideas coming from? Where are the words that I'm saying coming from? Like I don't even think I'm in control of what's going on. Like I think I'm just like set, I set a goal of wanting to buy a counter strike team and all of a sudden I moved my entire life to New York and I'm working with WAP. And I think that there's, I can like try to explain to myself why I'm doing these things. But it's just like, I personally think you can accomplish anything you want. If you're just willing to, if you set the goal, this is going to sound and people are going to hate this. They're going to be like shut the fuck up. Call me what to eat so I can be productive. Say it. What is it? But I love anything you just set the goal. Yeah. And then every single morning if you meditate, you get like excited about something or like the, like you could either go to your computer or go to the office or go shoot a video. Whatever one sounds most exciting, that's probably the right thing you need to be doing. And there's all these different like guilt or external points that come to you. Like you should be doing this, you should be doing this. But I do genuinely think that anyone could just take their path. And then you're going to obviously be challenged in how much pain you go through as long as you're willing to do that work and grow and face it head on. I think that that is like, yeah. Anyone can like achieve anything. Yeah. I think, I agree. I think there's some, I've thought about this a lot of like, if you believe you can do something, then you can, like, then you can do it. If you don't believe you can do something, then there's no shot. Like, it works out. So I think like, I think about that a lot of it. Like throughout the day, all the time, it's like, you can't do this. I can't, I'm not good enough to do this. And it's like, well, if I believe that, then there's no shot, I'll be able to do it. Because it's like, you guys didn't, the way you guys have like iterated and pivoted, which isn't really like iteration or pivoting is like, like, you could never have planned that path to get to this product today. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so I just think it's like, that's why I was asking that, how clear you are with your, your mission or your goal or whatever. Like, that's just interesting to me. Yeah. I think it's important to, I think there's like a lot to impact. It's like important to have, I like working backwards from things in life. So it's important to like have direction. It doesn't need to, someone gave me this analogy once if it's kind of like, it's, it's my responsibility to be really clear on like, where we're taking off. If you take a plane, it's like, where's the plane taking off and where's the plane landing? Like, you need to be clear on that. But how someone flies the plane? It's like, no, like, if every flight from New York to LA takes like a slightly different path and like, there's probably like a world record time that has been taken, but like, someone will break it and there'll be like, someone will build a better plane, someone will find a faster route. So it's kind of like, getting crazy, the takeoff and destination are important. The, how you fly the plane is kind of like, if there was a right way to fly the plane, then there's no innovation. There's no room for innovation. So it's like, there's a beauty in the fact that one, someone one time is going to fly from New York to LA and go through Mexico. And that's what we know is a dumpster. But like, you have to try everything to see what works. So I think I kind of see it as like, the exact, and the plane example, maybe that's a bad example, because you need a runway to land us as an exact, for me, it's kind of like, as long as I'm direction clear where I want to go, like, life will unfold. I'm reading this book right now that there's like a good, there's a good sentence that I read two nights ago, which was kind of like, earth has been around for like 13.8 billion years. There's so many, like, we have food, we have water, we have, like, the ability to procreate, like, there's so many amazing things. And like, I'm going to be a human that's born on this planet and decide that, like, I need to control everything. And like, when, like, this thing has just been, like, it's pretty magical, like, what exists in life. So it doesn't mean you shouldn't work hard, like, it almost motivates you to work even harder, but it's kind of like, open up my eyes to, like, things will just present themselves. And when they do, like, follow them. And it's not, like, wake up and chill on the couch and play video games until they present themselves, like, put yourself in a position to have these opportunities open up. But be open to the fact that, like, it's pretty amazing, we're all, like, there's a, like, the fact that we're all here is much more exciting than any company that's ever been created. You have to be paying attention for the opportunities to be able to, like, spot them, but you're almost like observing. You're, like, looking left and right. But working through observation, of course. What do you think you're the best in the world at? Shit. How many books a month do you read? One? Not that many. I don't, I don't think I'm the best in the world at anything right now. I think what I've learned recently was, like, in the, in the beginning of business, I think, like, yeah, I don't know. I don't think of the best in the world at anything right now. I think, can I answer? Sure. I think you're the best in the world at when you receive new information at immediately changing your mind, and then immediately taking the first step towards that direction. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think there's probably someone. I think you are. No, no. I'm putting it on the record right now. Guinness World Record, fastest person from new information, new idea, first action, camera's app. Congratulations. Maybe, maybe. I think, yeah, I think it's important. When you get new information, I think it's important to change as fast as possible. Well, how many books do you read? One a month. Yeah, one a month. Why do you read books? To learn new information. Do you read books with intent? Do you read books? Just guess there's, you just know there's more information out there. You don't know what you're going to find. Do you read books because you have a specific problem in trying to solve your seeking specific information? I think right now I'm reading books about things that are like fascinating to me. So I'm reading this book right now called Surrender Experiment about this guy who just like surrenders to life. He built like a pretty large business, like a multi-billion dollar business, but it was all through like, he was really deep into meditation. And it was just like, he first focused on going inwards and like, building a better relationship with himself and understanding how like the voice in his head works. And then he started just like, being open to what life had to present and like, pretty accidentally built like a big business. And I think what I, I think I went through like a period where I was forcing myself to read business books because like, I need to get smarter for purposes of making the business bigger. But I've since like, just started reading about things that like peak my interest. And if I'm, it's really because at the end of the day, like, to build a generational business, it takes a very long time. It takes like tens of years, if not hundreds of years. So I kind of approach it from like, everything I do is, how do I ensure that when I'm 70, I'm still, I'm performing you to hire output that I am right now. So if I have to do things that excite me, like I can't, I can't read a book that's not exciting to me. Like if I were to read a book I'm like, and it's something that's not interesting to me tomorrow. I wouldn't, I wouldn't retain. I'm not interested in it. So I kind of, whatever I'm excited or curious about in the moment is what I will try to learn about. How big of a company are you trying to build? Massive. How big. Like, infant, I don't think like, I don't, I don't, there's not like a number. It's more like, there I wouldn't stop ever. Like I hope I'm working a walk until the day I die. When you are making decisions, how big of a company are you trying to build? What dollar amount? Infinite. Like I want, I want hundreds of millions of people, if not billions, I should say billions, but it sounds like too big and scary for number. But I want like everyone in the world to be making money and walk. Like why not? So that's kind of the lens. If you do that, it's probably worth a lot of money. It's probably many trillions if you can accomplish that. But I think for me, I don't, a number is just what someone's willing to pay for it. So it's kind of like, that's not what true success is. Like valuations are what the market decides something is worth. That doesn't actually mean that's what the company is worth. It's kind of like, for me, I'm looking at this from the lens. It's, if I were to try to give practical answer, it's kind of like, how does this decision we make? I don't think about this consciously. It's probably more subconscious, but how does this decision we make impact us a week from now and how this impact us two years from now is probably the lens I'm looking at right now. So it's more so, like if we're only optimizing for the two years, we might die. We need to, we need to survive, we need to grow tomorrow to get more resources to be able to fulfill this two year, 20 year, 200 year vision. How have you convinced yourself that you might, you take this very seriously and that if you don't do this, you're going to die. That is something I've heard you say many times. Explain that perspective. It's kind of like whatever you box yourself into is what you will do. So if the target for something is we want to build a $5 billion company. We'll probably build like a four to six billion dollar company. Like you'll miss low or miss high, like a little bit. If the target is help 100 people make money via WAP, if like we're not going to stop until we do that and we will get, like we'll hit it. So it's kind of like the or die, like one thing I've done, whenever I'm running, if there's someone in front of me, like I have to catch them or I think I'll die. And it's kind of like if I, I don't want to die. So like if I set that target, then like I'll figure out a way to hit it. So it's kind of, I've just realized this about myself is at least for myself, I will work backwards from, I mean, I'll miss some targets for sure. Like I actually probably miss most targets. But when I set these things, I will give it my all. Like I will do everything I possibly can to hit this and I'll just work backwards from whatever I set. So how do you set a target? It depends on, like I think I could try to answer. No, I don't want to use too many hypotheticals, but if I, it's really like, it should be some balance of like it's not impossible, but some shit's going to have to go your way. It's kind of how to look at it. So it's like, for as a business, like if it's really, at the end of the day, it's honestly like what sounds scary, but exciting to you. So like if running an eight minute mile, you're like, yeah, I could do that. It's not a good enough target. If running a six minute mile is like fuck, like other human beings have done it. So it's definitely possible. But like it's going to take me a fuck ton of work, then that's like the range I like to operate within. How do you convince yourself to the point where you actually think you could die? Because I, like for me, if I said that, I would immediately just like laugh and be like, that's all good. I'm running like this is totally fine. Like I'm doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing. I don't actually think if I don't catch the person I'm running, I'm going to die. Like I don't expect to like have someone walk up behind me, be like, shoot me in the head and like immediately, but I think it's more so. My life is just a game of like my relationship with myself is kind of what I look at it. Like I don't know if I think about the Truman show sometimes of like that analogy. I don't think other people are fake. I think other people are very real, but it's kind of like I can only control myself. Like at the end of the day, like if we put a cup of water on this table, you and I are both going to leave away with a different perspective of that cup of water. Like you're going to look at it one way. I'm going to look at it a different way. I might see the glass and you might look at the water. So it's kind of like I can't control how other people think or what they do. I can only control myself. So I'm I know what gets the most out of myself and I feel the most fulfillment in life when I'm driving impact when I'm pushing myself. So that's what makes me happy. So it's kind of like in terms of how do I convince myself? Like I'm not going to lie to myself. Like I'm going to be true to myself. So it's like if I say I need to catch that guy running in front of me and if not, I'm going to die. Like I need to catch that guy and make a commitment. Yeah. And I'm just not going to fuck myself. Like I'm not going to like lie to myself. Like I will. Like I this is like an exciting. I'm too grateful to be alive to like lie to myself and hold myself back. Like why am I in this position? I have no idea. But like I'm so grateful and like might as well make the most of it. Mm-hmm. I just I'm just curious how you take us to seriously. Like I'm very impressed by it. Like it's a very admirable trait to have. And I think it's one of the core things that drives you to be a successful person. I'm just so curious. I think it's like where that kind of came from. I think I'm not from a place of like cockiness whatsoever. But I think I have the ability to like change the world. Like I want to open a ton of Montessori schools. And I think that'll leave a really positive impact. So that is what ultimately like pushes me forward. Like I need to for I'm just like very grateful, very, very grateful to be alive. So I want to help people as much as I can. So a deep duty to educate people through Montessori School. Mm-hmm. And maybe that's not what it turns like this is I've been saying this for a while. So maybe like it turns out to be something completely different. But that is like right now at least what sounds really exciting to me. Like I think that's where you can drive the most impact. And I think like life is awesome. Life is really awesome. And if we can make the world like I don't believe in the notion of like yellow. So and so it's like I don't like the goal is not how do I extract max value from this life. It's like how do I use this life to create like riches for the future for myself and for all other living beings. Like I'm able to be in this position because when I was one years old everyone else in the world was fighting on like making the world a better place or at least like in America. So why like not pay that for it. So it's like it's like you feel like you have the ability you are given gifted this ability to operate and you can accomplish the highest things in the world. It's your duty to accomplish that so you can because you literally are obligated to help people. Not like that sounds like I didn't word that correctly. But like you like feel blessed that you are able to be like this competent and your true potential could be yeah making billions of dollars to then turn around and to help like you have the ability to help millions of people. That's like possible. Yeah. And you have that you feel a deep responsibility to help millions of people in your world. And it's also I'm not like I'm not like thinking about that 24/7 or it's not like the only drive me. I think it's just like I don't like I think everyone's alive for a reason. Like I don't think there's like such a thing as like yellow like you're just born like like I think everyone is alive for a specific reason. And I don't know why I have this mind that I do. And I also like I've so much told I'm like so excited to like get your humble. I think I'm just like I want to I don't I want to make the most of this life. It's kind of hard look at it. And some people might hear yeah for me like pushing myself really hard is awesome. I love it. Some people are probably like oh like you like that whatever it's like I love it. So it's kind of like for me that for other people might be completely different strategy. But for me like I care a lot about getting like the most out of every single day. What are the five most unique ways you've gotten on a call with somebody methods that you used to get on the call. Find someone's address and send an Uber driver to their to their house to knock on the door. Was the most you knocked on their door. We needed to get on the phone with someone they weren't answering. So we got their address and we sent an Uber driver to their phone. The Uber driver was like yo like I don't feel comfortable doing this. And it was like I will tip you $100 like go knock on their door. And then the person was taking a nap and they woke him up. So you paid an Uber driver to go to his house and get out of his car. Yeah. And the Uber driver knocked on the person's car. Yeah to wake him up. Yeah. Okay. Give me more. That was probably the crazy. I mean the other easy ones are like you find someone's address. You send them edible arrangements. You find someone's I'll give away alpha. There's most people's primary email is tied to their iMessage account like their iCloud account. So if you get someone's email and you put it into iMessage, it'll often if they have an iPhone, it'll often go through. So if you get my personal email, you can text me because it's connected to my iCloud. That's baller shot. We've gotten in touch with a lot of people doing that. So you've built sales teams. You've attacked multiple markets. You guys are in the multi nine figure valuation range. What is the way to scale from here? You guys have operationalized. Now hiring is a much bigger focus. You're trying to build up the org. You have over 60 to 70 employees. What is that? What challenges is that facing and how are you approaching things now? From like a business standpoint, it's through business. If you look at its business model. So like how did Amazon scale? They started with books and they went to electronics and then pets and then toys. How did Uber scale? They started in SF, I believe. And then they went to new. It was just like a limo car service. So it's like you just go whatever your cut is. So for us, it's business models. Like right now we're really focused on coaching courses, paid groups, software, agencies, platforms. Those are like the five we're focused on. Tactical like how do you actually do it? It's no different than like how we scale the sneaker about rentals. Like each of these it's a market. There's someone who should be in charge of the market. They have targets. We push them really hard and that's like pretty much it. So it's kind of like the at this point all that I think really it's all the matters is the talent like the people at our company. That's the only thing that actually matters. It's all that really matters at any stage from the beginning. It's just the talent of the founder. So it's like the a lot of the figured out if they won't. So it's like who do we to me it's kind of like this tree like if I close my eyes like you can kind of like visualize the entire company which is like what do we care about? Who owns what we care about? Will that person pull it off or not? It's kind of how I look at it. And like I think we have we have like a very unique team. A lot of like young folks, a lot of people like coming from all sides of the internet. So it's really like how do we scale from here? We decide what we care about. We make sure that we have the best people we can possibly find owning the things we care about. And we push them as hard as feasibly possible to pull it off. And we're in the trenches with them. I'm in the trenches as much as I can be to help them with any problems that come up. But it's no it's no different than like we're got us to like a million dollar business. Like it's all the same things. It's just larger scale and it just takes like a village. I think it's very interesting how you set targets. Could you just explain like high-level systematically like what that looks like? Like okay we want to hit a hundred million dollars and GMV here like explain just like the thought process behind that. I think I'm pretty horrible at sending targets behind us. I think my track record's horrible but I think the framework I'm starting to care more about it because personally I don't care targets at all. Like because a target is like you're putting your boxing yourself into something like the target is infinity for me. But I think when you have a team of people it's important to rally around like it's important to how do you measure success? Like if everyone is if there's no targets and like what does success look like? So you can use it as like micro benchmarks to just like micro checkpoints to align their moving their interactions. So how we set targets should really be like what is the opportunity? If we're talking about coaching courses like we do a hundred million dollars a month and coaching courses as a business model. There's probably like a two point five billion dollar month opportunity. That's the target. How long will that take us? If we crush it probably a year like that's probably like six to 12 months is like if we play all of our cards right and we dominate it. Realistic the realistic answer is probably a little bit longer but the target is like we're doing a hundred now it's just chipping away like we pick how how would you actually capture all that two point five billion dollars worth of volume and you say like 20% is going to come from this 30% is going to come from this okay let's focus on this one this quarter and now the target is that number like let's only obsess over that that becomes the target we're going to capture that 20% which is two hundred million dollars a month in the next 90 days and like we're just going to sprint and go do it. So that's how I usually think you just work back like you yeah so you set the target yeah have a hundred million dollars for the quarter yeah how do you just make sure that everyone on the team is like operating clearly everyone knows what each other's working on like how do you actually just go about like organizing 50 people yeah I mean if you if you go bottoms up again it's like everything everyone is going to like every minute someone is choosing how they want to spend their time and then you can say that's the same for every hour and you can say for every day like for today I'm choosing how I'm going to spend my time so then what I've personally seen work best is this concept of just like weekly plan like what are we going to do this week function by function so each person every function is that exactly what they're going to do for the week we do that before the start of Monday morning and then you that is the goal for the week it's just relentlessly go at what what are we doing for this week and each person owns what they say they're really just like at the end of the day it's a to-do list like what is the to-do list for the week and I like boxing it in weeks because you can get a lot done in a week like we've tried doing two weeks sprints you've tried doing month long sprints when you have a month to finish something you're going to take a month to finish it when you have a week to finish something you're going to get it done in a week so box as much as you can into one week without sacrificing quality and then yeah I think everything needs to have like everything in the world needs to have one owner not two owners not zero owners like everything in the world needs to have one owner and there needs to be like a clear scope and and directionally I don't think so like I like setting deadlines for purposes of making sure that like people commit to what they say they're going to do we should if you miss a deadline because you think there's more quality to be had great if you miss a deadline because you're being lazy not great so it's like not it's not like when the deadline hits we're shipping exactly what we have but it's like good to have targets of like we are going to get this done by Thursday and it's going to be really someone who's really talented never needs to sacrifice time for quality like you can get something done amazing in a short amount of time so that's how I look at it and yeah yeah so it's basically like a a week long like this one going to this is what I'm going to ship this week like it's very outcome focused yeah like I'm going to work on this or create a plan it's like I'm going to send I'm going to close 20 creators or I'm going to create five social media posts it's a very like tangible outcome and you're making you're having those people commit to that weekly plan and then you have like owners so like this person owns paid ads this person owned the sales team this person owns this business model and then you're very very diligent on like okay you decide what you will do but I need to know when you have this really cool saying who will do what by one explain that because that's like one been like the most effective thing I've ever seen in a company yeah um who is the person who's owning it like will do like do what is the scope and by when is the time so it's like who will own who's in charge of this scope by this time it's kind of hard to look at it um and then you ask the person like you you define that and you talk to them and let them define their time let them set it so then they're not being like micromanaged or what them said is so buying okay so like they say 8 p.m. on Wednesday night great I'm excited to see you 8 p.m. on Wednesday night and you set a calendar yes and so like you ask them when will this be done and then you say or they say 8 p.m. by Wednesday you say great you schedule a 15 minute call on their calendar with them to review it yep and that's accountability yeah and then just end of the week we have this like company wide all hands where everyone can show off what they did yeah that week yeah there's something I met um cfo of like a pretty big company recently and he said the reason ownership is important is because um you need someone who you can like he said verbatim like you need someone you can choke at the neck and say why the hell is this not going up or why is this going down so I think ownership is really important because you every want I can only do so much you can only do so much like people need to own their surfaces and feel extreme ownership over it and they need to be responsible for things going up okay well cam's out you are the most high performing person I've worked with I fucking love working with you very grateful to be a part of this and I can't wait to run this back when we can learn how to go from zero to a hundred billion so my friend thank you bro thank you dude