0:00

It's actually challenging sometimes for employees because they're like, hey,

0:02

I joined this. It seemed like you knew what you were doing. I was like,

0:04

oh, now I go out of my way to be like, I have

0:06

no idea. I do not know

0:08

how to build the businesses I'm building. I'm figuring

0:10

this out as I go. And and I think that's probably

0:12

the the biggest misconception.

0:14

Everybody's like, I'm taking an I take

0:16

ice baths like the secrets of highly

0:18

productive people or the secrets of so and so

0:20

and it's like there aren't any secrets. You know,

0:23

some people, you know, it's like still waters

0:26

don't always

0:27

run me. What's up

0:29

everyone? I'm Alex Lieberman.

0:31

And I'm so for your Amaruzo?

0:33

Yo. This is Jesse Pucci. And

0:36

this is the crazy ones. What's

0:38

up, guys? Welcome back to the crazy

0:40

ones. The show entrepreneurs, four

0:42

entrepreneurs. I'm Alex Lieberman, and I'm

0:45

excited to be here again today with my crazy

0:47

cohost, Jesse Pucci,

0:49

and Sofia Maruso, who

0:51

have rejected the nicknames

0:53

that I gave them in our last show. So

0:55

I I will not be saying them. Instead,

0:58

I'm giving our audience full

1:00

freedom to come up with new nicknames. So

1:02

if you have neck nicknames for Jesse

1:04

or Sofia, shoot me an email at

1:06

the crazy ones at mournymour dot com and we

1:08

will try to run it back. They're they're very tough

1:10

critics. Today, here's

1:12

the rundown. First, we're gonna be talking

1:15

about a little known secret that is

1:17

airline loyalty programs and

1:19

how massive they are.

1:21

We talk about just how big they are,

1:24

why they've become multibillion dollar businesses

1:26

and lessons that any entrepreneur can take

1:28

away from them. Then we're gonna talk

1:30

about year end strategic planning for your

1:32

business. It's one of the most important

1:34

things that you can do as an entrepreneur. We'll

1:36

talk about ways to strategic plan,

1:39

how we do it each our companies and

1:41

what you should walk away with at the end of

1:43

planning every single year. And

1:45

finally, we're back with startup AMA

1:47

where an entrepreneur assess a burning

1:49

question about building businesses.

1:54

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dot com slash crazy ones,

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dot com slash crazy ones,

2:40

all lower case.

2:44

Let's

2:45

do this thing. So hopping right into

2:47

it. Let's talk about airline

2:50

loyalty programs. I was watching

2:52

this video recently by Wendover Productions,

2:54

which If you haven't heard of it,

2:56

it's an amazing YouTube channel that does these explainers.

2:59

And the video was called airlines

3:02

or banks. And it's like a twelve minute video.

3:04

And it basically explains how

3:06

massive airline loyalty programs

3:08

are. Jesse and Sofia, have you guys seen

3:11

this video? Or were you aware of how big

3:13

loyalty programs were?

3:14

Not to the extent that they

3:16

are. You know, I was just reading about it more

3:17

recently, and it's like,

3:19

you know, airlines or banks, like,

3:21

who would ever, you know, think of that.

3:24

Right? Obviously, the airlines

3:26

Yeah.

3:26

I'm I'm a nerd. You know, when I when I worked at

3:28

Goldman, one of the biggest holdings was Aeroplan,

3:30

which is basically Air Canada's, they

3:33

spun it out of the company. And

3:35

then to, you know, having been a student of of

3:38

and I don't want that. I don't want the baby Buffet.

3:40

I'll go back. But there's this this

3:42

famous story of one of the first companies they bought

3:44

is this company called blue chip stamps. And

3:47

I think I showed you guys in the prep. I have it right

3:49

here. Yeah. I'd say it. But, like, I literally this

3:52

is one of the first loyalty programs.

3:55

And it was this thing called blue chip stamps.

3:57

It you know, if you were a retailer in the fifties,

4:00

you would pay this company for the stamps.

4:03

So you would get, you know, they'd pay

4:05

you pay blue chip stamps a dollar for every

4:07

stamp they bought. They'd hand the stamps out to

4:09

their customers, and then the customers

4:11

could redeem those stamps for

4:13

toasters or whatever cool things they

4:15

wanted. And Does

4:17

that sound familiar? It's the same thing as as loyalty

4:20

points, especially when you connect the credit card aspect

4:22

of a loyalty point. So they essentially

4:24

created that triangle very early on. It turns

4:26

out Warren

4:28

Buffett goes, wait a second. This company has

4:30

hundreds of millions on its balance sheet. The market

4:32

cap was like fifty million or something. He's

4:34

like, I'm gonna buy this whole company because

4:37

It has all this cache and there's two big elements

4:39

of it. One is I get the cache

4:41

upfront and then I pay it

4:43

out over time via getting people toasters

4:45

or whatever they ask me but then there's a huge amount

4:47

of breakage. Like, thirty percent of people never even they

4:49

lose their stamps. They don't come back for their stamps.

4:51

And I love to use this example just because

4:53

it's it it it really feels real. It's

4:55

it's easy to understand and grasp before you get in

4:57

all the complexities of airline points and redemptions.

5:01

But it turns out he took a lot of the capital

5:03

for that they did this businesses printed

5:05

cash for a while. And I think

5:06

they they estimate that he took it and made about

5:08

ten billion dollars worth of investments because

5:10

he bought C's candy, bought all these other things

5:12

using the cash. From

5:14

Blue Chip Sam. So I just actually got this out

5:16

of Etsy. My wife got it for me to, like, I'm gonna soup

5:18

it up in my office, but it's just a cool way to

5:20

remember there's such innovative businesses out there

5:22

and and Also, cash is king.

5:24

Yeah. It also just reminds me

5:26

how even

5:28

when a business seems novel, it's probably

5:30

been done before. It's a totally different space, but

5:32

I was reading yesterday,

5:35

this amazing explainer

5:37

that Andrew Chen, who's now at Anderson

5:39

Horowitz, he used to run growth at Uber.

5:42

He wrote this he this whole tear

5:44

down on referral programs. And,

5:46

you know, I feel like people

5:48

credit Morning Brew with having a great referral

5:50

program But it's like referral programs have

5:52

been around for so freaking

5:54

long. And in Andrew

5:56

Chen's hair down, I have no idea

5:58

where he got this information, but

5:59

he basically said, that the original

6:02

referral program was created in, like,

6:04

fifty five BC by Julius

6:06

Caesar who would pay soldiers

6:10

who attracted their friends to fight in the army.

6:12

They would pay them a third of their wages. So,

6:14

yeah, like,

6:15

these business models and ways to

6:17

monetize have been around for so

6:19

long. And Sofia, in a second, I want you

6:21

to talk talk about, like,

6:23

other interesting loyalty programs,

6:25

but just to talk about airlines.

6:28

There was a research report that was written

6:31

by a Stifel Nicholas

6:34

analyst, I think,

6:36

two years ago. And the the

6:38

long short of it is he put

6:40

by buys on basically all of the

6:42

major airlines. And the reason was

6:44

that he didn't believe that Wall Street

6:47

was effectively valuing airline

6:50

businesses because they were just being valued

6:52

on the cash flow from their operations. But

6:54

they weren't being valued for the value

6:56

of their loyalty programs. And

6:58

so at the bottom of his report, basically, the

7:00

summary was

7:02

all of these massive airline programs,

7:04

these loyalty programs are worth

7:06

tens of billions of dollars. So he valued

7:08

American Airlines Advantage Program at

7:10

thirty seven billion, Delta

7:12

SkyMiles program at thirty three billion,

7:15

United's Mileage Plus at twenty

7:17

eight point seven billion, And

7:19

the reason there there's only

7:21

recently kind of been interest

7:23

or just like transparency around

7:25

these programs is because at

7:28

the beginning of the pandemic, obviously

7:30

travel went down.

7:32

And these airlines were losing a

7:34

shit ton of money and they needed to borrow

7:37

relief funds from the government. The

7:39

only way to borrow those relief

7:41

funds or take loans was to show

7:43

their financials in a way more transparent

7:45

way than they ever had, including their

7:48

mileage programs, which are like

7:50

their most profitable parts of their business,

7:52

their huge revenue drivers for the

7:54

business. And so only in the last two or

7:56

three years, have people become

7:58

actually aware of how big these businesses

7:59

are And so just to explain

8:02

to people how

8:02

this works.

8:04

United MileagePlus in

8:06

June of twenty twenty, had a hundred

8:09

million members. Five point three

8:11

billion dollars

8:12

in cash flow from mile from

8:15

mileage sales, from miles sales,

8:17

and one point eight billion dollars in

8:19

profit from the MileagePlus program.

8:21

That's twenty six percent of

8:23

all of United's EBITDA or profit.

8:25

And the way just like very simply

8:28

how this works is there

8:30

are co branded credit cards that credit

8:33

card companies have with the different

8:35

airlines. So for example, I actually

8:37

have a Chase United

8:39

card. And what happens

8:41

is as you use your

8:43

credit card, you you earn

8:45

airline miles. But

8:47

people I don't think have really thought about

8:49

who's paying for those airline

8:51

miles. And the the way it actually turns

8:53

out is Chase is paying for it.

8:55

So Chase is actually spending,

8:58

roughly, this is an average. No knows the exact

9:00

number. Two cents per

9:02

airline mile that Chase

9:04

cardholders are earning.

9:06

So that Chase is literally paying

9:08

United those two cents. But

9:10

then that mile is

9:12

either not

9:12

getting redeemed by customers

9:15

like as in, like, being used to fly an

9:17

airplane for a long time. And back to

9:19

Jesse's point about breakage, some

9:22

people will just never use those points,

9:24

which means that United

9:26

is either making a hundred percent

9:28

on these sales because they're getting

9:30

paid two cents by Chase,

9:32

and then they're never getting redeemed so there's

9:34

no cost. Or if there is a cost, it's

9:36

not too sense to United. It's like

9:38

you

9:38

know, an eighth

9:40

of a century or something like that.

9:42

And so it's just amazing this arbitrage

9:45

that exists because United

9:47

has a

9:48

massive customer base of people who pull out

9:50

their wallet to spend thousands of

9:52

dollars with them every single year. Anything

9:54

you guys wanna add to that? Yeah. There's

9:56

there's a couple of rifts. Let me riff on in a few different

9:59

directions because there's so many interesting parts to

10:01

this. One thing you you mentioned about the one

10:03

eighth of a sudden, Well, guess

10:05

guess who controls how the inventory is redeemed

10:07

in an airline? The airline. So

10:09

when their seats are emptier, they try to

10:11

get more mileage ticket flights because it's cheaper.

10:13

It's basically incrementally cost of zero to them.

10:15

Right? If an airplane is flying,

10:17

and it's gonna go and there's a seat empty,

10:19

they should sell it for whatever points they can get because

10:21

those points they come back in value from them.

10:23

So that's

10:24

a really interesting and cheap way that airlines

10:26

can redeem it. There's

10:27

inflation in these programs where they make the

10:29

points worth less, which is just purely bottom

10:31

line to them. But there's two other angles I think that

10:33

I I just fascinating here. One is, let's

10:35

not forget about how amazing the credit card

10:37

business is. So every time, you know,

10:39

Chase gets a swipe, they

10:41

take two to three percent of that

10:43

transaction from the retailer, from

10:45

whoever they're taking it from, from

10:47

that, they then pay out to the airline or wherever.

10:49

Sometimes you cash back cards. It's all the same

10:51

thing. Those are words going back to people. They're

10:53

just they're getting revenue from, you know,

10:55

from one side and then they're they're paying that out as

10:57

a cost to get it. These mileage but the

10:59

last thing that's kinda crazy is

11:01

these mileage part of the reason these programs

11:03

have become so big is the mileage

11:07

Credit cards are a new a new phenomenon.

11:09

AMEX was like on this hustle for

11:11

decades, not doing anything

11:13

with and you know it's become such a big deal

11:15

that I don't know if you guys remember this, but fifteen

11:17

years ago if you had an Amex Platinum,

11:19

you could get into any lounge.

11:21

In the airport. Every airline partnered and

11:23

said, you can use the lounge, no big deal. Then the

11:25

airline said, wait, I have my own credit

11:27

card. I'm gonna build the lounge. You know, you

11:29

can't use as AMEX. And it got to the point where

11:31

now AMEX is making lounges because

11:33

all the airlines are blocking them out with the exception

11:35

of Delta. So, like, this whole, like,

11:37

loyalty, you know, rewards, like,

11:39

it's it's so big that that's where the centurion

11:41

lounge strategically comes from. Like, it's a crazy

11:43

thing that it's become such a big

11:45

business that it's led AMEX to like start building

11:47

lounges and all these airlines to start having

11:49

their own credit cards. It's a relatively recent

11:51

phenomenon, but that's what's led to these things being as big

11:53

as they And one last point I'll just

11:55

make is the thing that airlines

11:58

love most in this whole structure

12:00

is when there are huge up

12:02

from bonuses for when you open

12:04

up credit cards. So like a lot of credit cards

12:06

will have if you spend five thousand dollars in

12:08

your first three months, get a hundred thousand points that

12:10

you can use for United flights. Well, the

12:13

way that this functionally actually

12:15

works in the relationship between United

12:17

and Chase is Chase

12:19

is paying for those hundred

12:21

thousand points upfront. So now,

12:23

like, in terms of just thinking about your

12:25

your cash as a business, you're getting

12:27

so much upfront cash to be able to do

12:29

things with because of these upfront

12:31

bonuses. So it's fascinating. I

12:32

just wanna say you're welcome. To these guys

12:35

because I've spent so much money on these

12:37

cards and I've earned earned so

12:39

much money on these cards and

12:41

I'm delta diamond medallion,

12:43

and I didn't do it through

12:45

flying. I did it through using

12:46

the credit card, and I'm actually

12:48

with

12:48

someone right now who's spent

12:51

fifteen thousand dollars on flights this year

12:53

literally just to get Diamond medallion --

12:55

Oh, right. -- status. And it's such a,

12:57

like, it's such a game for people

12:59

and gamifying loyalty.

13:01

I mean, that's like that's what it

13:03

is, but to do it so that you don't have to

13:04

pay for I mean, of all the benefits. Right?

13:07

Not having

13:08

to pay for travel

13:09

or not having to pay for business class

13:11

air travel is an

13:13

amazing thing. So I use the Delta

13:15

Reserve It's like

13:17

it's like Amex's Delta Reserve credit

13:20

card. It's like this purple card. I

13:22

have one for Amaru's own

13:24

code, which is one business. I have one for

13:26

business class, and then I use one

13:28

personally. I have three of these purple cards.

13:31

And we run all of our Facebook

13:33

ads, you know.

13:33

It's like, five hundred thousand dollars maybe

13:35

like four hundred thousand dollars a year

13:37

in Facebook ads. And through my

13:39

business, I mean, I'm not sure about you guys,

13:41

but I'm able

13:42

to rack all of those points up and

13:44

those are obviously dollars

13:46

that Delta's using to

13:48

finance their business, but I'm also

13:50

using to finance my travel,

13:52

which is like you know, nobody

13:54

really loses. I guess the credit card companies

13:57

kinda lose. But in the end, I think

13:59

everybody probably ends up making

14:00

That that was one of the side of money. That's

14:02

one of the one of the sad parts of to your

14:04

point of spending a lot on marketing on the

14:06

credit cards, one of the sad parts of

14:08

doing our deal and selling our company is

14:10

before that. I knew exactly where

14:12

our points were. I used all of our

14:14

points we were racking up for personal

14:16

travel. Now I have no idea where those

14:18

points live. And I know there's a lot of them I've been afraid

14:20

to ask.

14:23

But it's like

14:23

who's using them or someone's using them?

14:26

Like, is Matt using them? Who's

14:28

using them?

14:28

Email. I got answered in Austin. Is it your

14:31

finance team?

14:32

Yeah. And

14:33

then I was doing research similarly, I

14:35

guess, on Starbucks. And this is

14:38

something that's a little bit

14:38

easy easier for I think most people to

14:40

grasp is just like, I use I'm

14:43

sometimes want my Starbucks

14:47

chi, soy

14:49

chai, no water or

14:51

something like that, extra foam.

14:53

And I'll punch it in the app, but it's not

14:55

like, you know, the blue bottle app when you

14:57

buy a coffee, for example. You

14:59

just it's Apple Pay. It's just, like, ding

15:01

ding and you pay whatever it is, ten

15:03

dollars for your fucking matcha

15:06

at Starbucks, you have to, like,

15:08

load in money in

15:10

increments. So in, like, I don't know

15:12

if it's twenty five dollar increments, but I

15:14

have money, and I use this very very

15:16

infrequently. I'm not really a

15:18

Starbucks person. But when I want

15:20

Starbucks, and of I just wanna, like, walk in and be

15:22

efficient. I will I will, like, order a

15:24

coffee ten minutes before I'm, like

15:26

I, like, walk into a Starbucks or a blue

15:28

bottle

15:28

because I don't wanna sit and wait.

15:31

Do that with Postmates too. I like to, like,

15:33

intercept my orders that makes me

15:35

feel like a really smart

15:37

person. Yeah. You'll like So I have money

15:39

sitting in this Yeah.

15:41

I am. And just and

15:43

then this. So

15:45

yeah. I've got, like I

15:47

don't know. I mean, not at ton sitting in

15:49

my Starbucks app, but between

15:51

that and the same thing with,

15:52

you know, gift cards, you

15:54

know, and

15:55

this goes for any business that has

15:57

gift cards that's kind of like the simplest,

16:00

I guess, not it's

16:02

not loyalty, but it's your

16:05

customers giving you

16:06

a loan in advance that you can use

16:08

to run your business. And,

16:11

of course, on the books accounting

16:13

wise, that's not necessarily what it looks

16:15

like, but American can

16:17

go spend the money that

16:19

they've in some ways been

16:21

advanced buy the credit card

16:23

company before they have to

16:25

repay it. Right? It's it's like

16:27

something called

16:28

float. Do you guys understand float?

16:30

You're like way more finance guys

16:33

than I am. That's what it's called.

16:35

Right?

16:36

Yeah.

16:37

Yeah. I mean, it's the insurance business,

16:40

like, you know, again, buffets is famous for

16:42

understanding flowed, and it turns out when you're

16:44

underwriting policies. Again, what's insurance?

16:46

I you pay me now. that

16:48

later on, I may or may not have an obligation

16:50

if you get into a car accident to pay. And it turns

16:52

out, as you scale these things, they're

16:54

all super predictive effectible, and you can know that as

16:56

I as I underwrite more policies, I collect more

16:59

upfront. And now, normally,

17:01

insurance companies are like decent, and they're they're

17:03

like, okay, investors. They put it in safe stuff. But

17:05

again, Warren Buffett took that money and

17:07

is able to invest it very

17:09

effectively. I think that pivoting to

17:11

to to the to the misfits listening.

17:13

Like, I think why this is important

17:16

for you? I think the most important thing I would I would

17:18

say is, like, the concept of thinking about cash

17:20

in your business and getting

17:22

cash earlier in a cycle of a

17:24

transaction. These are genius

17:26

versions of it where they're literally collecting cash. They

17:28

might not have to pay out ever or for years. So that's a genius

17:30

part of it. But even I'll just compare two

17:32

businesses that that I built, you know, Am

17:34

Bush, we would spend money

17:36

on ads you know,

17:38

we would get to the end of the month after thirty days of

17:40

spending ads for a client, then we'd invoice them

17:42

and then they'd get thirty to sixty days depending on

17:44

their size to pay it. So we would have to spend a

17:46

hundred, two hundred thousand dollars, let's say, to

17:48

get some leads or somebody some clients for

17:50

someone. We might not

17:50

get paid for seventy five days.

17:53

Guess

17:53

what? That money went out of our bank account or a credit card

17:55

or something, and we didn't get we didn't get it

17:57

for seventy five days. And that's brutal,

17:59

brutal if you're growing.

18:01

If you're not growing, people depending how much

18:03

money you have. And I think entrepreneurs walk into

18:06

that problem all the time without just getting a

18:08

little ahead of it. To compare that with

18:10

growth assistant, every customer grows this

18:12

business this way, but our starting our sales team

18:14

goes, hey, guess what? It's so easy. You can put it on a

18:16

credit card. People go

18:18

great. Here. I want my I want my full time person, the Philippines, on a credit

18:20

card. Well, that's a little bit of a trick there. We

18:22

get to charge them on the first of the month. We pay

18:24

we take the money before we pay their

18:27

their person. Guess what? We get the money you know,

18:29

that every the first of the month is a great the bank

18:31

account fills up every month of charging every

18:33

single person. We never have to think

18:35

about cash or receivables. So just as

18:37

a comparison for someone listening, a

18:39

tiny little switch in the business model,

18:41

which actually

18:41

most customers like, has and there's a cost to

18:43

it, of course, we have to pay their credit card. But

18:45

but totally

18:46

worth it. It makes the business so much easier to

18:48

operate and so much less stress. Yeah. I think

18:50

to that point, it's like

18:53

most businesses don't have this luxury

18:55

and they perform a service,

18:57

and then they get paid at some point

18:59

later, hopefully not too far out

19:01

in the future for that service. So

19:03

Jesse was using the example

19:05

of his businesses at Morning Brew.

19:07

It's like we will deliver the deliver

19:10

the service of advertising in our

19:12

newsletters to our advertisers. And depending

19:14

on who the advertiser is, the

19:16

payment terms will be anywhere

19:18

between net thirty and net ninety, so a

19:20

month to three months. It's actually pretty funny because

19:22

there was an article that came out recently. I can't

19:24

remember who the advertisers was. It was like, Pepsi

19:26

or one of these massive conglomerates, that

19:28

they had some contract where they

19:30

tried to have payment terms of

19:32

net three sixty five, which

19:34

several listening means, they they were they wanted the

19:36

person delivering value to wait up

19:38

to a year for payment.

19:41

And so, yeah, this this negative cash cycle where you're

19:43

paid upfront, then you deliver the

19:45

service effectively is a

19:48

zero interest loan from your customers.

19:51

But going back to Jesse's point about breakage, it's

19:53

actually better than a zero interest loan

19:55

because with breakage, it means basically

19:57

people who are getting Starbucks gift cards or

19:59

have money in the app. Ten percent

20:01

on average will never actually use

20:04

that money. And so they're basically what's

20:06

happening? Starbucks is getting lent

20:09

one point six billion dollars,

20:11

and they're getting paid a

20:13

hundred and sixty million to be lent

20:15

that money. And just to provide a

20:17

little bit of nuance, only Starbucks and a

20:19

few businesses can do this because

20:21

you're getting Starbucks dollars and

20:23

you can only redeem it for

20:25

goods in Starbucks. If

20:27

you're a company like Venmo or Paypal who,

20:30

again, you can load money into your Venmo

20:32

account, but then you wanna be able

20:34

to get dollars out there's

20:36

way more regulation on how

20:38

those businesses can use that money to

20:40

actually fund their

20:43

operations. One other just lesson

20:45

I wanna share and then see if there's anything

20:47

else before we move on to the second topic

20:50

is The other thing other than

20:52

just like kind of the the cash

20:54

business model here is going back

20:56

to the airlines. The

20:58

higher the LTV of your customer, the the

21:00

the value of your customer, the

21:02

more that someone is willing to pay

21:04

to acquire them. Right? So at the end of the

21:06

day, if we go back to, like, why are credit card

21:09

companies willing to pay

21:11

two cents per point to

21:13

airlines? It's it's acquisition

21:15

cost. It makes it more

21:17

attractive to get a united or to get a

21:19

Chase card because you get United benefits or

21:21

get XYZ credit card company to get American

21:25

points. And the reason they're willing to pay

21:27

for it is because I try to look it up

21:29

online and no one has any answer

21:31

in this. But I would assume lifetime value of a

21:33

average credit card customer customers in

21:35

the thousands of dollars. So

21:37

Sofia, you and I were going

21:39

back on going back and forth

21:41

on Slack the other day, just

21:43

about business class. Like, I was asking

21:45

you just about how the business

21:47

did this year, how the financials are looking,

21:49

what your game plan is for

21:51

twenty twenty three. And so just

21:54

got me thinking about, like, we're we're at that time

21:56

of year where some people have already

21:58

planned for the next year, other people are

22:00

doing it right now. And I

22:02

figured, you know, it's not considered the sexiest topic, but I

22:04

think it's probably one of the most important we'll talk

22:07

about is, how do you go about goal setting? How do you

22:09

go about planning? I

22:11

know we we all have thoughts on this, but just to to kick it

22:13

off, Jesse, how do you go about planning

22:16

for your businesses?

22:20

Yeah. Yeah. This is a topic I could talk about for a

22:22

long time. You know, for the first few years, we

22:24

didn't really do it. I mean, what

22:26

we did, like me and Nick would sit and look

22:28

at a spreadsheet, and

22:30

kinda drag the cells out and toy around with them a little

22:32

bit and go, yeah. Okay. That looks good. Let's do that.

22:34

Which which by the way is fine. I mean,

22:37

you know, depending on where you're at and and your

22:39

business, I don't think that's a terrible way to

22:41

plan to think about your business. Over

22:43

time, you know, we we we played with OKRs

22:45

for many years and just struggled

22:47

with them, and and I'm happy to talk more about that. And

22:49

then we sort of

22:50

started pulling together a variety of different

22:52

systems that we sort of made our own

22:55

which

22:55

I'll talk a little bit about in a second. But but we really started thinking

22:57

about how do we do this ourselves. So so I'll

22:59

talk about the system a little bit. Before I say that, you

23:01

know, one thing I tell every entrepreneur I

23:04

work with is

23:05

the best planning system is the system

23:07

that you will use. That's also

23:09

my philosophy on software, by the way.

23:12

Because a lot of people and I made this mistake with OKRs for

23:14

many years is like it became this hugely

23:16

administrative burden. Nobody nobody ever touched

23:18

them. No one used them.

23:20

They it would feel so annoying to everybody to do

23:22

them every quarter, including me. And then

23:25

we didn't really use them. And we would just go do

23:27

things in the business. And so Even if

23:29

you're planning as a whiteboard that you never

23:31

erased for the whole year, but at least you use it

23:33

and you look at it and you refer to it, like,

23:35

great. That's as a starting point, that's

23:37

perfectly fine. Right? You

23:39

know, the way the way I do it, we have a few pieces

23:41

to it, the way I think about it. But it starts

23:43

everything starts with what we call a desired future

23:46

state. And in any of my companies, you'll hear

23:48

people say the DFS. What's the

23:50

DFS? And desired future state is this

23:52

future vision that you think

23:54

is is what you want. You don't have

23:56

to get it. It's totally a choice. It's supposed to be

23:58

inspirational. Not like, oh my god. I have to

23:59

do this. And

24:01

typically, again, internally at any company that

24:03

that I've been a part of, a big part of, you'll see

24:05

what's the what's the three year five year

24:08

DFS? What's the one year DFS? What's the

24:10

three month DFS? So people will

24:12

start to say at different time periods, where do I

24:14

wanna be? And the point of the DFS is

24:16

to forcibly disconnect people from reality. We

24:18

actually want that. We want people to have an open

24:20

and big vision for what can be.

24:23

Now obviously, we always equate it with with John F. Kennedy is

24:25

the man on the moon. Right? He just said, hey, in ten years,

24:27

we're gonna get on the moon. And he did not

24:29

care the

24:29

fact that that was completely impossible at the time. It didn't

24:31

he didn't have much regard for And

24:33

so obviously, the further out you go, the crazier,

24:35

bigger

24:35

your DFS is the the more near term, you know,

24:37

it's it's gonna be a little bit closer.

24:40

So that's how And for Then we look for scripts. Second.

24:43

For DFS, like, what

24:45

what are examples of things you're actually writing into

24:47

the DFS? Is it specific numbers?

24:49

Is it a little bit higher level and squishier than

24:51

that? Like, what does that look like? No. It's

24:54

yeah. It's it's everything. It

24:56

here's what I hope I my revenue you know, in January

24:58

of twenty four, here's what I hope the revenue and EBITDA

25:00

look like. Here's what I think my headcount will look

25:03

like. Here's the offerings I wanna have. Here's

25:05

what I product will do the more

25:07

vivid you can make that future vision, the

25:09

better. Got it. And right now, Connie,

25:11

growth assistant, you're all doing this. What's

25:13

January twenty four? What's our DFS? And it's

25:15

it's the hardest thing I like, I am kind of

25:17

the opposite of most people. I love that

25:19

part. Like, I can be a la la land all

25:21

day long. Most of the people I work with

25:23

Go. Yeah. But we don't really know how to do this

25:25

or or that's gonna take too long. Like, wait. Wait. We're

25:27

not this is just pure dream for

25:29

a sec. Can. Right? Dream within

25:31

reason. Right? You can't say the companies have a

25:33

billion in revenue next month or something.

25:35

Right? It is I mean,

25:37

theoretically, because but you won't. And

25:38

then we flip the script and we go, okay,

25:41

now let's acknowledge

25:43

current reality. Okay. So

25:45

now forget about where we wanna be near. Where

25:47

are this moment. What is our revenue? What is

25:49

our headcount? What is

25:51

what are we offering? And we wanna get really

25:53

vivid. And this is actually when I struggle more with it.

25:55

Most of my executives and teams are better at

25:57

it because I like to, like, look at things with the rose

25:59

color glass.

25:59

But but, no, what's our actual numbers? What's our

26:02

actual churn?

26:03

And and and once we have those super

26:06

clear, those two. And and there there's some iteration that

26:08

will end up happening once you put them both on a chart

26:10

or whatever, but then a lot of the

26:12

strategic planning is, okay, cool. Well, how do I

26:14

get from here? To there. Right?

26:16

And and then we say, what are the most

26:18

important questions? What are the most important doubts? What do we

26:20

have to validate? What do we have to

26:22

prove? And we call those, and this is the only I picked up

26:24

from my coach. We call those WayPoints.

26:26

And the Waypoint analogy I love because,

26:28

okay, ours, you know, okay, there's, like, go hit

26:30

this big goal. Go get your objective in your key results. It's

26:33

okay if you're point seven within it. In my

26:35

experience, OKRs are really good when a company

26:37

understands itself really well. Most

26:39

people listening, me, you guys, like, we don't know our business

26:41

that way. I don't know I don't know what it's

26:43

gonna happen with Kahani. I don't know if it's gonna become huge

26:45

or the product's gonna work. Like, I have a lot

26:48

of doubts. And so okay, I don't really work because it's not I don't know

26:50

what to do. I don't know what to predict. Instead, if I

26:52

say, I have certain doubts I wanna approve, I

26:54

have certain things I wanna validate, those

26:56

are waypoints. In the waypoint, I guess, I'm not a sailor, but

26:59

apparently, when you sail, you know, if you're

27:01

sailing from California to Australia, you

27:03

don't go in a straight line. Instead, you kind

27:05

of go First,

27:05

let me go to Hawaii, then let me go to Japan. Like, you

27:08

you you make your way through these

27:10

different sections to eventually get

27:12

to Australia. So it's the

27:12

same thing in the startup. You don't know at any given

27:15

moment. You go, well, next, I think the most

27:17

important thing is and and I could tell you some of them

27:19

like, kahani, we wanna

27:21

better understand churn in the

27:23

first quarter. That's one of our big waypoints. And

27:25

we think if our churn is, you know, if we can

27:27

retain eighty percent of the customers in the

27:29

first three months, we're gonna we're gonna tell ourselves, oh, our product

27:31

seems fine. If it's below eighty percent we're gonna go, I

27:33

don't think we're making it on product right now. We need to

27:36

improve the product. We gotta do more with the product.

27:38

So that's it kinda sounds like a goal, but it's

27:40

really a doubt. It's really like a what's gonna

27:42

happen, and let's let's see where we end up.

27:44

Got it. Yep. That's an example, by

27:46

the way. When do you do this process

27:48

typically? Like, have you already done it for next

27:50

year? We're in

27:52

the process right now. So the the other

27:54

thing that I forgot to mention was, like, typically,

27:57

we'll have the leader. So, like, say, Adrian

27:59

and growth assistant, for example. She put

28:01

together the DFS for the team. She

28:04

also

28:04

put together the current reality. And

28:06

she starts to share that with the team. And this is

28:08

the alignment process. The team goes, you're

28:11

crazy. You're a crazy CEO. That's not gonna

28:13

happen. Are you we're not gonna 3x

28:15

the business? Here's why. And she starts to go,

28:17

well, tell me why. Tell me what are the issues.

28:19

Well, we needed we need two more

28:21

salespeople, and we need this, and and it's it's actually a

28:23

wonderful way to go, oh, great. You're me what we

28:25

you think we need to do to get to make the business

28:27

work. And so that there's actually an iteration

28:29

process, so it starts with that, then

28:31

we iterate it with teams and executives from an alignment perspective

28:33

until ultimately early on in, say,

28:36

January, we'll we'll go, okay, everyone knows

28:38

what they need to get done. And and I'm big on

28:40

focusing on the next quarter. With

28:42

some perspective on the rest of the year. And then each quarter, you

28:44

kind of, like, focus the lens on that quarter

28:46

versus trying to, like, you're not gonna know what you're

28:48

July. Most I mean, some companies

28:50

but July knowing July sales for any of the businesses

28:52

I'm running, impossible. I mean Right. So

28:54

it's just like focus on where you wanna be or which It

28:57

sounds like the way that you think about it and you didn't describe

28:59

it in this way. So tell me if it's different is,

29:01

like, you very much

29:03

enjoy the top down approach to

29:05

it, hypothetically saying,

29:07

like, Kahani is gonna do I'm just

29:09

gonna take a random number. This is actually at,

29:11

like, three million next year. And then let's

29:13

say, it does three million as you're planning for

29:16

twenty four you're gonna work on your planet.

29:18

It's gonna be like, no. I

29:20

think the most ambitious but realistic

29:22

look at this is we can

29:24

do seven million feel

29:26

it's you know, mostly art a little bit of science. I

29:28

think to get to seven million, we're gonna need

29:30

thirty people. I think we're gonna need mostly

29:32

growth in engineering, whatever blah blah

29:35

blah. And then you're gonna have this list of what your

29:37

future state is for Kahani

29:39

in twenty twenty four. You're gonna

29:41

share it with the the team

29:43

at Kahani, and then they'll look at it from

29:45

a bottoms up perspective to basically

29:48

say, okay, three to seven. How

29:50

do we actually get there given the

29:52

trajectory we're on right now. How many

29:54

people we have? Who our customers

29:56

are? Like, is Jesse Bachett crazy?

29:58

Or is this actually within the realm of possibility. Is

30:00

that kind of what the dynamic

30:02

is? Yeah. And and there's a couple iterations

30:04

in there. Sometimes we'll say, well, here's

30:06

Jesse's EFS. Now by team, let's come up with

30:08

a DFS. Say sales team. What's your DFS? Hey.

30:10

Marketing team. What's your DFS that kind of aligns?

30:12

It's not that different from OKRs. It's some

30:14

different words. The other big thing that

30:16

takes place is

30:18

you know, ultimately, you have

30:18

to come down to who's gonna do what? Like, what are the

30:21

actual actions people are gonna take to try

30:23

to accomplish the things that we're

30:25

talking about? And so that's the other piece of it that

30:27

you gotta go, like, well, who's actually

30:29

you know, if if we're trying to get five hundred

30:31

leads for growth assistant, there's

30:33

there's twenty ways to do that. You could do more Twitter.

30:35

You could run light up Facebook ads. You could

30:37

become an email guru. You could go do affiliate

30:40

partnerships. Then eventually you have to go, well, I'm

30:42

gonna bet on these few things with the with the hope

30:44

of this goal, and then we're gonna look at it in a

30:46

few months and see whether or not we got there. We're gonna do an

30:48

iteration cycle to kind

30:49

of figure that that part of it out. So there is this you

30:51

also want people thinking about future state for

30:53

the the part of the business that they run

30:56

and freight in addition to some of the kind of bottom up

30:58

validation and what's gonna go on

31:00

there. Howard Bauchner: I think for, you

31:02

know, because

31:04

that you're we're assuming that your, you know, companies

31:06

will finance, that there are teams, that you

31:08

have direct reports, that you're collaborating

31:11

with people. And for smaller business

31:13

owners, I think a

31:15

lot of it has to do with

31:17

satisfying your

31:19

personal life and starting with that.

31:21

And for me, after having been

31:23

through more

31:23

formal planning processes like

31:26

this, which usually I'm I've

31:28

hired a COO or

31:30

an executive to do with me at this

31:32

stage in my career. And sometimes people are

31:34

smart enough to start earlier in their career,

31:37

thinking about their personal goals and some

31:39

what of a thesis of how they

31:41

what they wanna build their how

31:44

they

31:44

can wrap their business

31:46

around the lifestyle that they wanna have. And this

31:48

is something that I learned kind of late because

31:50

as entrepreneurs, it's really easy

31:52

to let our business dictate

31:55

what our life looks like and to commit to

31:57

things and say, this is where I wanna be

31:59

and not

31:59

really think about whether we're gonna

32:02

enjoy that what's

32:04

gonna be required to do that.

32:06

If it works and, you know, I've

32:08

had a few businesses now that

32:10

really work,

32:10

Once it works, you're really committed to it,

32:13

especially if you have

32:13

employees, if you have investors. And so

32:16

knowing what you're getting yourself into when

32:18

you set those goals is really

32:20

important, And I like to start with, like, moon

32:22

shots. So if there was no way

32:24

for me to fail, like, what would

32:26

I do? And then also think,

32:29

like,

32:30

do

32:31

my goals that I set kind of based,

32:33

you know, obviously, there's the moon shots.

32:35

Like, what's possible based on

32:38

alright. And and you call it, like, your

32:40

ideal state. Right? Desired

32:42

future state? Based on

32:44

that, like,

32:44

what's possible? What are my goals? What can

32:47

I afford?

32:47

And then what am I willing to

32:50

do? You know? Because we don't think

32:52

about it's easy as a founder to just be like,

32:54

I'm willing to do anything. And

32:56

for some of us, it's just like, I'm at a point where I don't know if

32:58

I'm willing to do anything anymore. And

33:00

I think there's a lot

33:02

of rhetoric for entrepreneurs just

33:05

around, like, you need to do whatever

33:07

it takes to get done. You're a

33:09

crazy one. You're a misfit like hustle,

33:11

hustle, hustle. And

33:13

that's not necessarily for everybody, and you can

33:15

be an Kipnora without necessarily

33:17

having to do that. Yeah.

33:19

So are you willing to do the work? And then

33:21

based on that, obviously, an action plan,

33:23

and I guess, you know, again,

33:25

just for the entrepreneurs of one, you

33:28

know, the way, you

33:30

know, in addition to moonshot, then I'm gonna you guys

33:32

something, which is really cool. So I have something

33:34

called the flight planner, which we put together

33:36

at business class, and it's, yes, it's an annual

33:38

planner, but the beginning of the year does start with

33:40

moon shots and all that starts with in

33:42

twelve months. And I'm gonna be filling this out really

33:44

soon. You know, the things start the beginning.

33:46

In twelve months, I'd like to quit,

33:48

learn, have, Start,

33:50

stop, and do. And that can relate to

33:52

your personal life. It can relate to your

33:54

business life. And it should probably start with

33:56

your personal life and then figure out

33:59

again, like how you can

33:59

build a

34:00

business that satisfies your personal goals because in

34:02

the end when you're laying on your best bed. And

34:05

hopefully, we all get a bed to

34:07

lay on. Is how you're gonna rate

34:09

your life. You're not necessarily gonna rate your life based on the okay hours that

34:11

you set with your team. And I don't mean

34:13

to minimize the importance of this, obviously, when you're

34:15

running larger teams. Everything that

34:17

you're talking about is is

34:18

really critical. But I wanted to

34:20

add something a little bit

34:21

maybe more. Yeah. No. I I think it's

34:24

super important because

34:26

I think to to your

34:28

point. There are

34:29

a lot of these kind

34:31

of company planning frameworks, and Jesse did a great job of

34:33

hitting on one of them, but also that is

34:35

just like part of life. Right? So the question

34:37

is is, actually, the

34:40

only way to to make the

34:42

company plan

34:44

realistic is to understand

34:46

where that fits within your other

34:48

buckets of life. Right? Because if,

34:50

hypothetically, your goal is, like, you

34:52

wanna prioritize, I

34:54

don't know, family, religion, and fringe

34:56

just as much as work. But the

34:58

the accountability that's on

35:00

you to

35:02

complete the goals, the quarterly goals or the annual goals that

35:04

are necessary to hit your plan for

35:06

your business requires you to not

35:08

do any of those three other things. While

35:11

at the end of the you've just created a plan that actually

35:14

isn't living within the world of possibility

35:16

or reality. So I actually think

35:18

looking at it, from a little

35:20

bit more of a twenty five thousand foot

35:22

perspective, like what you described with the flight

35:24

planner is huge. I

35:26

don't wanna talk about morning Brew's plan

35:28

really much at all because I think

35:30

Jesse did a a great job of laying

35:33

out how the annual plan. But I would say

35:35

we do something relatively similar to

35:37

Brew. We use the EOS process, which is the

35:39

entrepreneurial operating system, and

35:42

kind of the the the very quick and dirty,

35:46

is that There are, like, three or four of these systems that

35:48

entrepreneurs have used for years up. There

35:50

you go. Jesse has traction in front of him,

35:52

which is

35:54

book. By Gino. I'm reading it because I actually I've heard great things and I

35:56

wanna learn. Yeah. It's awesome. So we've been using

35:58

it basically. We've

36:00

been using EOS since

36:02

when was it? Middle

36:04

of twenty nineteen. And I vividly

36:06

remember when we read it. Because I

36:09

vividly remember that being kind of the inflection point of the business. I also

36:11

vividly remember it being one of the only

36:13

times I've seen Austin Matt

36:16

at me. Because we were in a WeWork

36:18

still. One of our

36:20

investors, the the founder of

36:22

the Snuggy, who

36:24

is an incredible businessman and a

36:26

great operator. He had

36:28

told Austin, you guys have to read this

36:30

book traction

36:32

because Austin had been talking about how we're constantly just, like, you know,

36:34

we're basically constantly just, like, fishing water

36:36

out of our boat that's taking on water

36:38

versus actually paddling forward because we're

36:42

just trying to keep the machine together today. It's like you guys need to

36:44

learn how to think more proactively plan

36:47

for weeks, months, and

36:49

quarters rather than literally the next

36:52

twenty four hours. And

36:54

Austin read it. He told me over the

36:56

one weekend, he's like, you you have to

36:58

read this. And I he hit me up a day

37:00

or two later being like, what do you think of the

37:03

book? And I knew I knew my

37:05

answer was not gonna be satisfactory to

37:07

him, and I was like, I didn't

37:09

read it yet. And he he went off on me

37:11

in Slack again very very justified

37:14

because it's

37:16

so incredibly important. So then I spent a full day and WeWork did no

37:18

work, just read the book. The the

37:20

very quick and dirty is there's six parts

37:22

of the entrepreneurial operating system.

37:25

Vision. So if you ask all employees what the

37:28

vision is, you should get the same answers. If

37:30

you don't, it's probably not

37:32

tight enough. People. Do

37:34

you have the right people in the right

37:36

seats? Data, managing your

37:38

business through a scorecard, where you have

37:40

a weekly report of five to fifteen numbers that

37:42

you're looking at that are kind of giving you a

37:44

litmus test of how the business is doing. Issues,

37:48

process, and traction.

37:50

And my best my favorite quote

37:52

about what traction means

37:54

is in the book it

37:56

says, Vision without traction is merely hallucination. And I

37:58

just always think about that myself, like

38:01

ideas without execution or hallucination.

38:03

You need kind of the

38:06

to back up these big ideas that you have. The

38:09

the one other thing that I'll

38:11

share is a great story from the

38:13

book that I feel like all

38:15

of these planning processes allow you

38:18

to avoid. So the story

38:20

is that you picture

38:21

you picture a

38:23

small plane that's flying over the Atlantic Ocean. It's a

38:25

little prop plane. And halfway

38:28

across

38:28

the Atlantic Ocean,

38:31

the the captain comes over the loudspeaker

38:33

and he says, I've got bad

38:35

news and I've got good news.

38:37

The bad

38:37

news is that the gauges

38:39

on the plane are not working. It's like pretty bad

38:41

news. He's like, we're

38:42

hopelessly lost. I have

38:44

zero idea how fast we're flying

38:46

or in what direction and

38:49

I don't know how much fuel we have

38:51

left. And then everyone's waiting there, like, what's the

38:53

good news? And he goes, the good news is

38:56

that we're making great time and what

38:58

it can feel like to run a business

39:00

that is not well planned, that doesn't have

39:02

a North Star, that it has no gauge

39:04

of if you're working towards the right place.

39:07

And so I I don't have it up on my wall,

39:09

but I should probably put that up on

39:11

my wall. The the final thing

39:13

I'll mention, I have a

39:15

buddy. His name's Aiman. So Aiman was the

39:18

CEO of Sumo Sumo was a

39:20

business that provides discounts

39:24

on software. He actually took over the CEO role

39:26

for a period of time from another body named Noah

39:28

Kagan, who's an amazing entrepreneur,

39:30

early employee

39:32

at Facebook. And Eamon

39:34

grew Sumo to from ten million dollars to

39:36

a hundred million dollars in revenue and uses

39:38

this great analogy for his planning

39:41

process that he's developed over years

39:43

where he basically says most

39:45

people don't realize that in the

39:47

game of chess, ninety percent

39:50

of chess outcomes can be

39:52

predicted by what the two center

39:54

pawns do on the board. So you have all these pieces

39:56

on the board. I'm not a chess player, so I don't know by

39:58

heart how many pieces there are, but the two

39:59

center pawns are

40:02

the basically the biggest dictators

40:04

of what's gonna happen in the game. And

40:06

he thinks it should be the same exact thing

40:08

when you plan in business and you focus

40:10

in business. If you wanna take revenue from, let's

40:13

say, two million to four million, you

40:15

should create constraints where you narrow

40:17

down all of your focus

40:19

as a company to the one thing that is preventing you

40:21

from closing that gap from two to four.

40:24

And so said differently, he believes that you

40:26

need to always be thinking and

40:28

focusing on what are the two

40:30

center pawns in your

40:32

business? I love

40:33

it. And

40:34

speaking of action, yeah.

40:37

Yeah. I mean, I have a tattoo, oh, man,

40:39

regrettable. I don't regret any of them, but this one's so conspicuous.

40:42

It's on my forum, but it says words

40:44

tend to be

40:46

inadequate, which sounds like very

40:48

emo, but I very

40:50

much believe it because,

40:52

I mean, most people live in a

40:54

world of words. And while I love words,

40:56

so few people take the

40:58

action and live up to what it is

41:00

that they say they're gonna do.

41:02

And when

41:05

you're planning, obviously, accountability both

41:07

as a founder and for your

41:08

teams is

41:09

number one. Yep. Hundred

41:12

percent.

41:12

Okay. Let's

41:13

let's finish up with a little

41:15

startup MA. We haven't done this in a few weeks,

41:17

so I'm excited for this one. Let's

41:19

watch the video roll the tape of an entrepreneur asking us

41:21

a question and then we'll go around the

41:24

horn. What are

41:27

the biggest miss or misconceptions that

41:29

people have about startup founders? I think one of

41:31

them is

41:32

like that were resilient.

41:36

Like, that were resilient by nature. I think, you know,

41:38

I've had this journey where I've had

41:40

ups and downs and people are like,

41:42

you're so resilient. And just because I

41:45

stick around, like, doesn't mean that I'm

41:48

resilient. Like, you've no idea

41:50

what happens inside my

41:52

head. You've no idea

41:54

how much I've actually

41:56

bounced back. And just because I keep going and

41:58

I'm not hiding out,

42:00

doesn't mean I'm resilient. It's great that people can project that onto

42:02

me and be inspired by it, but it's

42:04

not completely true.

42:06

I'm just a masochist. Right? I'm

42:07

just

42:08

yours. Can

42:10

be mask. Yes. And that can look like resilience, which I just don't

42:12

even those are, like, those things stand

42:14

in such contrast, one another. So

42:18

so if he hasn't asked me, Jesse,

42:21

what's yours? I

42:23

feel like my biggest

42:24

misconception when before I was

42:28

entrepreneur, the one I hear the most often is that they know what they're

42:30

doing. Like, that they that they actually

42:31

have some sense, like, some skill or

42:34

some special

42:36

secret sauce that they're like, oh, I know I know what I'm

42:38

doing versus just, like, no idea

42:40

on every day

42:41

you're like figuring it out as you

42:43

go and you're you're curious and you ask questions, I just

42:45

think that's the biggest one. People think

42:46

I know what I'm doing. They thought, like and I now

42:48

go even it's it's actually challenging sometimes for employees because they're

42:50

like, hey, I joined this. It seemed like you knew what you

42:52

were doing. I was like, oh, now I go

42:54

out of my way to be like, I have no idea. I do not

42:57

know how to build the businesses I'm building.

42:59

I'm figuring this out as I go. And and

43:01

I think that's probably the the

43:04

biggest misconception. Everybody's like, I'm

43:04

taking an I take ice baths like the

43:07

secrets of highly productive people or the secrets

43:09

of so and so and it's like

43:11

there aren't any secrets. You know, some

43:13

people, you know, it's like still waters

43:15

don't always run deep. Yeah.

43:17

And

43:17

not and not all founders have ice

43:20

baths or

43:22

go to Burning Man. Yeah. Yeah.

43:24

I

43:24

I think that. What's yours,

43:26

Alex? Yeah. I have a few I'll

43:28

run through. I I was honestly And

43:31

when I say these are the biggest myths or

43:33

misconceptions, these are literally just, I

43:36

think, things about myself that I'm just

43:38

saying in the third

43:40

person. So founders love risk. I

43:42

know I am not a risk loving individual

43:44

and I actually was very calculated in making the

43:46

decision to become

43:48

a founder. I think some

43:50

founders have a an

43:52

absurd amount of risk. So, you know,

43:54

for example, I know like Mark

43:56

Lawrie who built jet dot com and he built

43:59

diapers dot com that he sold to Amazon,

44:01

he put a very large amount

44:03

of his money in

44:06

every next business. I actually don't know if I would have the risk

44:08

tolerance to do that. The second one

44:10

is that founder should stay the

44:12

CEO forever. I had this

44:14

perception that you need to be like

44:16

Elon or Bezos or Gates where

44:18

you take the thing from idea

44:20

to IP PO and, you know, you're the captain of the ship.

44:22

You sail this ship

44:24

into basically the horizon or you

44:26

go down with the ship. That is also not

44:30

the case. Founders are great role models. I

44:32

have found that actually founders are

44:34

horrible role models in certain areas

44:36

of life.

44:38

And two more I'll share founders

44:41

are super passionate about their

44:43

business on day one,

44:46

like you you have to do what you're passionate about or else you

44:48

won't end up doing it for a

44:50

long time. I don't know about you guys, but I

44:52

was not wildly passionate about writing

44:54

a newsletter. In

44:56

the early days, but I got passionate because it felt like there was momentum, and

44:58

I got passionate because people felt like they

45:00

were getting value. And that's what ultimately gave

45:03

me kind of, you know, the

45:05

foundation to stick

45:07

with it. And I

45:09

think speaking to that, the whole, like, your business, and I've heard

45:11

this so many times, like, your business

45:14

is your baby. And it's like,

45:16

it's not my baby. Stop telling

45:18

me that you don't know anything about me

45:20

or

45:20

my motivations, and it's like,

45:22

no. On my baby.

45:24

If

45:24

it's your baby, you're way too attached to it.

45:26

I I don't have any babies, but that's

45:29

what I would imagine. Love it.

45:30

Any last ones or parting words before we sign off

45:33

until next week? No. This is

45:35

great. Awesome. Sofia,

45:37

Jesse, as always, love

45:39

doing this with you guys. And thank you to

45:42

crazy ones listeners for

45:44

another great episode of the show. Shoot

45:46

us an email at the crazy ones at morning

45:48

boot dot com if you

45:50

have any ideas or feedback, and we'll see you miss Fitz next

45:52

week.