# The 17-year-old Making $500,000 a Year

Channel: Brett Malinowski
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0wEbk157to
Duration: 1 hr 2 min
Language: English
Words: 14636
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/O0wEbk157to

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[0:00] This is the crazy thing. I went from knowing nothing about entrepreneurship and not being motivated at all. Just wanting to work a normal job when I was older to raising 3.15 million dollars in 7 months. So I went on the LinkedIn and I looked up everyone that had mountain biker and investor in their profile and I sent 550 people this deck of yo, I'm a

[0:18] 17 year old trying to make a bike park. If you want to invest or if you have advice or if you have connections, let me know. And now that that's clicked for me, my whole entire life is completely different. There's a thing where if you motivate the right kid, he'll face it. I'm building the world's best bike park. Fully set on that. I'm making that happen next year. All right, how much money do you make? We raised 3.15

[0:36] million dollars. And how old are you? Just turned 19. Okay, so what do you do? I run a mountain bike park believe it or not. Okay, a mountain bike park. A mountain bike park. And so you have a mountain bike park. And so you raised 3 million dollars to like what? Like build it? Yeah, so I raised 350k for the park itself to like hire people to build the trails and then 2.8 million for a 130 acre piece of property. How did How did you So you Let's just set the stage here. You built a mountain biking park like for people that go on trails and

[1:08] like ramps. So it's like sick trails and people pay 50 dollars to ride the trails for a day. It's one hour west of Austin. Okay, so it's like you bought land an hour out of Texas and then you just built these like ramps and parks and like built the paths and everything. Exactly. It's like the best trails in Texas that people pay money to ride the trails for a day. Ski resorts our

[1:26] business model. Interesting. But you were like 18 when you did this. You had high school literally. I was 17 when I did this. 17. Oh my god. How did you get people to give you money? Crazy story. So I went on the LinkedIn and I looked up everyone that had mountain biker and investor in their profile. And then I made like a 10 slide deck on Google slides. It really wasn't that great and I sent 550 people this deck of yo, I'm a 17 year old trying to make a bike park. If you want to invest or if you have advice or if you have connections, let me know. And then I

[1:55] talked with them for like 6 months and raised the money that way. And like 100k was from family friends but most of it was family. So you literally just cold messaged people on LinkedIn that had interest that were investors. That's what they do. And they were interested in mountain biking themselves. And then you just sent them a message

[2:10] and they just hopped on a call with you. And I was like yo, here's my financial projection sheet. Here's the pitch deck. If you have advice or connections, that's what I asked for and then later I'd be like, well also if you want to invest. Oh, so you kind of reached out just saying you're like a young kid looking for advice. So it's kind of like the mentorship. That's smart cuz old people love Dude, so many old people love it. They just love the ability to like talk to a young kid and like pass down their knowledge. Kind of like feels good. It's a feel good thing for them. So you asked

[2:37] for advice with your deck in there. Just kind of and then obviously like then presented the investment opportunity after you built the relationship. Some people I asked for it straight up but it didn't work as well. Interesting. Interesting. Okay, so how did you come up like how did you know how much you needed? Were you literally like on

[2:52] Zillow looking for land? Yeah, so well I actually started without having land. And then I grinded for like 3 months and basically everyone was like bro, you need land if you're going to reach out to us. So then I went and looked for land. I researched everyone in Texas that owned property within 2 hours of Austin. Got everyone's personal

[3:12] phone numbers and personal emails. And then I sent 123 cold calls and handwritten envelopes to like a bunch of land owners near Austin. Everyone all 123 of 123 said no. So for So for some timeline, started in January, pitched to people January through March. No one wanted to invest cuz I needed land. Tried to get land in April. Everyone said no. At this point I was like, maybe this was all a pipe dream. I don't want to actually build this park. But then one of my potential park investors reached out to me and he's like, bro, I work at this big software company that actually has a real estate investing

[3:46] division for stocks on the side. If you buy land outright, they might want to invest in your park. And then after a series of pitches later, it took a lot of work but they basically bought this land for me on a deal that I would pay a 25k a month land lease and give them 40% equity. So for

[4:02] them it was a net benefit. And then I went back to the investors and was like, bro, we got this sick 2.8 million dollar property which by the way the land thing was like a crazy journey and then they were like, oh you got land now. So then it took me only like 3 weeks to actually raise the 350k because I already built up these investor pipelines that were just waiting for me to get land. So you So there's this tech company you had this lot and they Is that the deal you went through? The No, this big software company had a real estate investing division and I was like, hey this bike

[4:33] park's going to be successful. You'll get 40% equity on top of the land lease if you buy this land. So they bought the land, they own 40% of the actual company. money once you had the land. You said hey the land's built, this is real. We're going to start developing ASAP if you want to get in. Here's how much. Okay, great. And so you

[4:54] raised 350k cash to actually develop it. And then the 2.8 million is basically on a deal where I have to give them a positive return. Right now we're actually selling the land because we're selling it for like a 7% positive return cuz then we're going to have no more land lease. The park's future is going to be set. Once we do that, the park's going to be very

[5:15] profitable. So we're trying to sell the land to a buyer who's going to keep the park open. If you want to build a hunting range or horse trails, like a bike park could run on your property just fine. Or if like a RV resort, a bike park will make the RV resort more profitable. Like hey, if you want to build this, we'll we'll run the bike park. Once we get this land sold, we're going to be profitable. And the

[5:34] land investors will will get paid back. So that's kind of the plot that we had from the beginning. How much are you having to pay for the land per month right now? 25k a month. And then you have to beat that from your revenue. So right now it's too hard to make significant profit. Okay, cool. That is really cool, clever and good for you for actually putting in the work. So many people are like scared to message people and actually put the 550 messages, 123 land investor messages. Okay, so how long did it So assuming once you have the land and you have the investors, you

[6:02] bought the land, it all went through, you have the 350k. What was the process of actually like Like are you literally just have like land and you have to like excavate, cut down trees? And this is where I was not good. Yeah. Yeah, so I hired 10 nationwide trail builders that were that were some of the best trail builders in the nation. I'm like, yo come down to Texas. I'll pay you I'll pay you this amount of money if we build

[6:22] this bike park from scratch in 3 months. So it's like me and like 10 30 year olds living on this ranch in West Texas working 6 days a week building trails from scratch. It was crazy. So this is like This is actually like a thing. Like these people are like trail builders. And they like live in their van and like travel the nation building trails for different bike parks. They're like contractors. Exactly. So you literally just get like a Like what kind of Are they using shovels? Like what do you

[6:49] They use excavators and shovels. Like like big excavators but also hand work. A lot of water work. There's plate compactors. It's like a It's like a whole construction project. So they're literally just like on these excavators like carving out like bends and then like carving burms and jumps like and you have to bring in dirt. Like No, we had a lot of dirt on site. But no, it was like a whole construction project. It was weird cuz I was just 18 year old kid re leading like 10 30 year olds through construction project that I had no idea how to build. Did you have to like render out or like map out what

[7:26] it would look like on a computer first? There was a lot of like 3D imagery. I mean there's a lot that goes into it. Truly is a full on construction project. But did Was there just like one company that kind of outsourced like the project management to or did you literally find like 10 ragtag guys who did this? 10 ragtag guys and me trying to figure it out as we

[7:43] went on. It was a mess bro. I mean we figured it out as we went on but I mean I definitely didn't really build the park I exactly wanted. Really? Why? What do you mean? I mean just managing 10 employees as a kid who's never done it before is really hard. I mean now if I went back and did it, I could make a park that's three times as good than than than we built but I was horrible at management. I was horrible at kind of

[8:05] asserting myself. I mean I To be fair, be nicer to yourself because like that's I'm sure that's how Elon feels when he's trying to build Tesla. Like trying to build the cars, going through one iteration and then trying to make a factory. Like having to use that big of machinery for each order of the car. Like and if you have to switch, okay maybe we should make the doors first and then we make the body and then you flip that. That caused like a huge headache in having to fix the actual manufacturing plant. And so like this is just a part of the

[8:31] process. You're 19, it's your first park. You got it built. That's insane. So That's really impressive. Like actually insane. But okay, so how long did it actually take once you had the land to actually get that first like to go be open basically? Well, it took like 2 months for the legal work to actually close on the property. Starting in August we built and then the park fully opened on November 3rd. And basically once the park opened, the 10 builders that built the park headed out and I brought in five new permanent employees to like drive the shuttles, be a

[9:00] cashier, run the food truck and stuff. Okay, so explain Let me Let me understand the process. So this is like mountain bike trails, ramps, mountain bike park. Okay, that's the product that you're selling. It's an hour from Austin. So anyone who's in the mountain biking comes out there. They pay 50 bucks a day. And so they're just like Is

[9:17] there like Is there like a parking lot? Is like a parking lot and then there's a cashier and then you get your ticket. Once you get the ticket, you get to ride the trails for the day. And the way it works is that we have a three shuttles that carry 24 people and their bikes each. They drive you up the mountain and then you ride down the mountain. Takes

[9:32] like 10 minutes for you to ride down. You repeat all day. Just like a ski resort with ski lift in a chair. Yeah. That's interesting. So it's literally just like a toll booth with a cashier to pay 50 bucks. You get your ticket and then you just get access to these shuttles. And then they take you out. We have drinks, snacks. I mean we have rental bikes. I mean it is a whole business. So Yeah, so you Okay, so you

[9:49] monetize through like a snack bar also. Yeah, but it definitely doesn't make as much money as the tickets. So okay, it's interesting. You have a You seem to have like a uh Like you not regretful energy, but like you feel like you're not like stoked about how things are going. Is that like I mean, I'm very stoked, but I chose a hard business. I I like the like the bike park industry is hard. I mean, when I went into it uh I thought there was like 20k core riders

[10:17] in Texas and that I'd get 90% of them. And the 90% stat is right. Like if you live in Texas and you're in in your core rider, you need to visit Station Mountain at least once. But the scene is small. It's like 1k riders in Texas. It's a brick and mortar business 1 hour outside of Austin. Like me and myself, I haven't really made a single dollar for myself. I mean, I'll I'll be able to pay back the investors at a positive return, but it it like it just is a hard company. So, Station Mountain, your bike park, has the ticket cashier, then it has three shuttle bus drivers. Are there

[10:43] any other employees there? Yeah, there's a cashier and there's a guy at the bike shop and then we have trail maintainers. Uh yeah, the park's only open on Saturdays and Sundays. The trail maintainers during the week. Mhm. Mhm. So, it's only open Saturdays and Sundays. Mhm. And then you have how many employees working it? Saturdays and Sundays? Like five. I mean, but they're all part-time. And

[11:04] then trail builders, like two or three. Like adding to it. And then one full-time manager that we Got you. Mhm. And how much does it cost with all those people to run? To run it in total? A month? it up. Per month? Per month? Uh I'm going to say probably like 9k a month. 9k for all those part-time employees? Mhm. Okay. Yeah. And then you just have Is there So, are you feeling like you're at the point where Like have

[11:29] you done any sort of marketing for it? Or is the that community so tight-knit that it's like you just go into a few online communities, people know it exists, and this is like word of mouth in the community? there's marketing you can do for sure, but the thing is that if you live in Texas and you mountain bike, you are very aware of the Station Mountain as a

[11:43] park. What were the biggest unexpected things? Once you had the $3 million, once you were building Station Mountain, what was the biggest surprise that you thought this was going to be like a walk in the park and then it was actually like your biggest mistake? Or a biggest learning lesson or mistake, but Building the trails. Building the

[11:56] trails. build well. I'm like not happy with my trails. I could tell right in the beginning. So, could you tell Could you explain what you thought at the beginning, why you made it that way, and then why it's wrong? I was so dumb in the beginning. At first I was like 10 guys, let's go in the woods with shovels. Like we'll Actually with your

[12:13] hands. Yeah. Yeah. But no, there's trail planning you got to do. You got to grade the trail to perfect 6.5% flow. You got to make drainage. You got to like rock grade everything. I mean, there was so much that goes into building trails. It is actually a science. Like it's a hard construction project. And I thought it was just like, "Oh, let's just start cutting in this mountain. It'll work out." So, you literally thought it was going to be like literally hand shovels, just like make I like knew that there was going to be machines, but I thought we could just like start building some rollers and

[12:42] like it'll be fun. So No, like there's a You have to exactly build like a 45° lip on a jump and like perfectly plan out where the jumps are placed for them to be like flowy. And then you need like an engineer to measure it basically. Like Like you got to engineer everything. And I also thought that being a leader is going to be hard. And like I do not blame the builders at all, but 30-year-olds don't want to listen to a 18-year-old that doesn't know about trail building tell

[13:03] them telling them what trail to build. And I was bad at like putting my foot on them and like being assertive. So, these were people who did this for a living. They kind of had the ego. Yeah, and then I was like, "I want to build these trails." But every bike park has the problem where trail builders disagree on what to build. And I'm not blaming any of my builders. Like they are all great guys. I just did not manage them. And they were just passionate and like had their opinions based off what they liked as riders basically. And it was like 10 guys on this property six days a week,

[13:29] boys only, testosterone fueled, bad employees here and there. I mean And these guys I Okay, actually all the employees are like great. But they were also like a like a few players on the job that really liked me and really wanted to see me succeed. Like there's this ranch neighbor and there's this other dude that was like a mountain biker in Austin. He was like, "Oh my god, Rat. I see my 18-year-old self in you. I'm going to work for you like so much. I really want to see this bike

[13:53] park succeed." Uh-huh. It's cool to see. Yeah, it's awesome. And so so you're saying the problem was really just not having like like the law set. Like this is exactly how we're building the park. This is not up for negotiation. We funded it. This is what we pitched investors. This is how it has to be. And they were all Since you didn't have that, these people were all like trying to make subjective decisions based off what they wanted to do. Yeah, and I also did a bad job making like a master plan. I should have made a master plan. These exact jumps go here. I did a bad job of going in the

[14:21] middle of like, "I want jumps here, but let you figure it out." And then I would like micromanage them along the way. Yeah, so you were like you were like nice. Like you're like, "I trust you. You You know what you're doing. You've done this forever. Whatever you think." But then when they would do something you actually didn't agree with, you're the one that has to Yeah. Yeah. And then you're like, "No, we can't do that." And they're like, "But you said." And then you're like, "But I'm the boss." And then it's just Okay, I see. Yeah. Yeah. It's a young

[14:42] You described that well. You'll learn. Perfect. I totally But I'm like I'll do so much better in my next park. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's how you The only way to learn, bro. And also now I know mountain biking is like engineering trails. I know how to engineer a banger trail. I know exactly what degree and measurements go into a perfectly flowing jump line. That's the funnest jump line you've ever rode. But I haven't even gotten the chance to build this jump

[15:03] line yet. Mhm. Yeah. That's so cool. This See, this is something you you couldn't learn in school. No. You can't No other 35-year-old that's making this type of stuff will understand cuz they never conceptualized it, built it, understand why 1° difference doesn't feel the the same way. Yeah. So, I I I urge you to stick with this and never jump businesses. Don't even allow yourself that to be an option. But I do think that uh I was curious what you're saying about like you literally have to build like drainage under it. So, you have to have like it's not just building the ramps. You have to literally have like sewers so

[15:35] like if it rains, it doesn't stay wet or Yeah, drainage is an issue. It washes away so much dirt. You have to use the right dirt. You have to mix the dirt. I mean, there's so much goes into it. Interesting. And so that was probably the just the managing the people part was the part you weren't expecting to be so

[15:50] difficult, you think? Yeah, but Yeah, managing the people. And the trail building, too. The trail building. Is that the same thing essentially? Or like I mean, no. Like I just didn't really know how hard it was to build a really good trail. Are you like literally like you buy you have this land and then you're just like in your mind just like Like how are you

[16:08] showing it to people? Yeah, so there's a 130-acre mountain Uh-huh. that we had. Uh-huh. I was like, "How are we going to build the most banger 15 trails from the top of the mountain to the bottom?" Okay. Yeah. And then just Are you drawing it on like a I mean, yeah. Like We're drawing it It's more of like satellite 3D stuff where you draw the trails exactly foot per foot on like a satellite map. Oh. And then you flag it in the ground. You'll flag

[16:34] where like the jumps and berms are. Yeah. Interesting. And then the those people just have the picture and then they start trying to do it. Exactly. And there's like flags in the ground. And then you also just like walk the trail and point out what features you want where. Yeah. How long did it take to build it,

[16:49] you said? Three months. That's not horrible. But I can I'm imagining that's a very stressful three months. Yeah. Yeah, it was stressful. Interesting. So, what's the favorite part about running the business? Favorite part? Favorite part? Ooh. Riding with the people. Like when I'm at the park, I'm not managing. I'm literally just on the shuttle riding with all the people that are there. And I like show the people there. Like it is just the funnest thing ever. I love doing that. I love it so much. It like makes my day. And you could ride for free. What are other businesses that

[17:18] Yeah, so I can ride for free. What are other businesses that could spin out of this? Cuz like obviously like other revenue sources that you could add. Like obviously let's not go as far as like your full dream, but like what are the options that you could add? Like obviously like concessions. Yeah. Like that's something

[17:35] you could do. I mean, within the bike park we're we're kind of already doing everything. You can hold events, races, drinks. We have rental bikes. We have camping. Lodging. Camping? Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, we have camping. We have like a big like nice property with ponds. I think all the big revenue avenues are going to come once we sell the land. So, this guy is going

[17:53] to buy this land and build a RV park. Oh, okay. You can bank off of like a RV Yeah. resort, things like that. Yeah. Is there anything close to you like at all? I mean, yeah. I mean, there's nearby stuff in the Like 5, 10 minutes close? Hill Country. No. Okay. I mean, Marble

[18:07] Falls, the town is like 20 minutes away. So, okay. So, the closest civilization is like 20 minutes and it's probably like a small town. Mhm. Mhm. Okay. But then these people are going to put a RV park out in the middle of nowhere. Like it by the not middle of nowhere, but 20 minutes away from that town. Yeah. Yeah. And then this is like met RV parks like gross. It's What if you had a cool RV resort where each RV had its own private spot next to their own big oak tree like hidden away

[18:30] in the bushes next to a pond. So, I'm assuming van life is pretty big for the mountain bike community. Yeah, I want to do it. Do people pay for camping? Or is it just a $50 ticket? Uh no, camping is 13 a night. $13? Yeah, $13 a night. Interesting. There's You You got the park itself. You got the

[18:50] rental bikes. You got rental gear. Oh, how many rental bikes do you have? Like 13. 13? Yeah. Interesting. And then 50 bucks each on top of that. Interesting. What else? Anything else? Anything else major? I'm trying to think of the flywheel. Anything is interesting. was events. So, like someone will You Okay, so you will do that. So, mean, we've held like five races. We We did summer camps. Uh Uh like 900 bucks per kid for like a overnight camp for a

[19:16] week. Where do they stay? And then we put a bunch of bunk beds. There's a three-bedroom house on the property. That was You guys built or was already there? Was already there. And it's like just a full-blown house? How big is it? I mean, it's like half house, half like warehouse. Yeah. Uh three bedroom. Yeah. And then you're just putting bunk beds for like 20 kids. We

[19:34] have a Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a summer camp and you have like a counselor then you guys just like teach them and take them on the trails. Interesting. Is that a good revenue driver? Yeah, but the scene is 12 to 15-year-olds with rich parents that weren't already going to a camp cuz I did I didn't start marketing until

[19:49] June. Got you. For this. It was just a small market. But I think in total we made we got like 30 kids to go to that and 900 bucks each, so Yeah, that's pretty good. And it's like 1 month or 1 week each? Yeah, 1 week we had like three sessions. This is where like if you like double down, that would be like where your edges come in and like where the system comes in and then it's like a word of mouth thing and then it's like a thing they do every year and it's like a family tradition, you know? So it's like something that'll compound over time. That's all in place

[20:14] for you now, so Exactly. Interesting. And that's you could partner with churches, you could partner with like all these like so much stuff that you can do. But when it comes like the doubling down on like putting hundreds of total hours into maxing out these camps I already have my investors paid back at a positive return. Yeah. I'd rather put 300 hours into making way more revenue at like the World's Best Bike Park. And I want to potentially make this apparel business or combine that with Station Mountain in some way. Like I still have

[20:44] time to work Yeah. Would you brand it the same way? Would you brand it as Station Mountain? No, I'd be like minimalistic Apple style sleek marketing. Interesting. And it's just the best mountain bike pads out there. They're super super comfy. Yeah, there's there's the the biggest trap I've fallen into the last 7 years in this vein since I have like an audience

[21:02] and a following. It makes sense to spin off like all these like side brands that are like in line. Just make sure you get the first like the first one down and you seem to have Station Mountain down, so that's good. And then once you get the second one settled, obviously Well, I'm betting it's going to be so much waiting in between like work hours that I have that would be put towards the World's Best Bike Park. I'm going to put it towards the World's Best Bike Park cuz just that I don't think I'm going to be needing to work on that 60 hours a week even if I maximize the

[21:26] amount of stuff I can do. It's not like it's 60 hours a week for for the next 9 months. Yeah, there's so much waiting in this game, too. But still Station Mountain and World's Best Bike Park are a priority. Have you ever partnered with an online You said there's a lot of online creators that are making mountain biking content. I'm sure a lot of people wear GoPros or vlog

[21:43] it or whatever. biggest mountain bike YouTuber came out to my park. Did he make a video on it? He did. Did you pay him to do that or did he just do it? No, he did it for free cuz he wanted to support me, which is like really really cool. Yeah, so did that did how many people have you seen any noticeable Have you seen people go out of their way to

[21:57] go to your park and they reference that? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah, it was huge, but the problem is that his fan base isn't really in Texas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But it definitely helps. Yeah, is that what like an event could be? Like you could like partner with a creator like that and say we're going to be here this day and it's like a planned thing and yeah, it's just the

[22:15] the upside's going to be like 50 people. To get like a big guy costs like 10K. It's just not going to be possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you thought about this. Yeah. Huh? Yeah, I did not I definitely have thought about it. Yeah, if you were going to if you were going to do an event, you have to do it like big. You need like an a music artist, a big name like that, playing like a whole Yeah, I see. And it's like a big bet, ton of marketing. I see. And it's not that big of an upside. Like this is the crazy thing. I went from knowing nothing

[22:39] about entrepreneurship and not being motivated at all, just wanting to work a normal job when I was older, to raising 3.15 million dollars in 7 months. I literally went November of 2022 to June of 2023. $0, no ambitions, I'm going to work a normal job. 3.15 million dollars raised, bike park on the way.

[22:55] I know. It's crazy. And it's crazy like there's a thing where if you motivate the right kid, he'll chase it. If you motive If you motivate the right kid in in the right way. Oh my god, dude. Yeah. So well said, too. So is there like a bigger vision at play and this is like the first step? 100%. I'm building the world's best bike park. Fully set on

[23:13] that. I'm making that happen next year. Yeah. So what does that look like? So the World's Best Bike Park is going to be somewhere in like Seattle or at a huge mountain resort that already has a big base area and the lift system and all that, right? The World's Best Bike Park is going to be 100 times bigger at least than this bike

[23:29] park. I'm talking like 100 plus trails. We get 250,000 plus visitors, the outright definitive world's best trails. So Whistler, which is the current world's best bike park, they're pulling 250K visits per year. I want to make something that's better than Whistler. And now that I've got I've learned from hundreds of my mistakes, right? I feel like I'm armed with this knowledge to build the world's best bike park cuz I've learned so much. There's literally like 30 other people in the US that have founded and developed a bike park. I'm one of those 30. I'm like I know what it takes to build the world's best bike

[23:58] park and I know it would be profitable because the normal bike park industry is not is not that profitable. But because Whistler has a monopoly because they're that good they make crazy profit margins. So that's my goal. What makes them good? They have they have really really really fun trails. Like all like they have trails like 200 jumps top to

[24:16] bottom, crazy good downhill trails. There's 100 trails there. These other bike parks have like 15 trails. They're not really built that well. So it's like a full-on like ski resort essentially where you have multiple Whistler makes more money on in their summer bike park than their winter ski resort or when it when when you add up

[24:31] like the hotel and restaurant revenue. Mhm. Uh from Yeah, like it's crazy. And I'm like, okay, let's go build a bike park at the level of Whistler. It would be so successful. There's no Whistler in the US. That's in Vancouver. Oh. Yeah, and I'm like, why doesn't Colorado have a Whistler level bike park? Cuz Whistler is literally pulling 50 times the revenue as your best bike park in

[24:53] Colorado. And so what's the main source of revenue? Just They're doing 250,000 visits a year. How much is a ticket? Well, the ticket's like 70 or 80 bucks, but hotels, restaurants, and ads. it. Yeah, it's like a ski whole-on ski resort. They're making like $400 So that's your main goal is to work towards building like a full-on ski resort like I'm like already working like I've already sent 600 plus cold calls to mountain resorts. You said you're

[25:19] looking for a mountain resorts. Exactly. What is that? So I'm So imagine like a big ski resort that has a lift and a base area. And I'm like, look, if I build this bike park on your land, I'll give you like 40% of profits or something big. Oh. Uh and it's going to be so successful. So you're saying like in like Colorado, like if you're going to like Steamboat or something. During the summer, there's no snow, you could build a bike park. Most ski resorts have bike parks in the summer, but they're very very small. Okay, so you're looking for a a established ski resort, but the

[25:51] summer there's no snow, so you can use that same land, the same mountain and just add revenue to their business. Exactly, cuz they already have the infrastructure. Yeah. Yeah. And most ski resorts have like have bike parks, but they don't I mean, it's kind of notorious that bike parks are way less profitable than ski resorts. It's notorious to be a hard

[26:09] industry. Bike parks close, it happens. But I'm trying to say, look yes, the bike park industry is hard, but Whistler is making crazy profit. Let's just build another Whistler, the world's best bike park because it's going to be a monopoly. It's going to be really really really good. That's my pitch. So you don't want to build You don't want to build the hotels and the restaurants necessarily. I could. Like I'm I am considering the route where I buy logging land like 50 minutes away from Seattle and build the lift and the base area from scratch cuz then I wouldn't be working within people's bounds. Like I could just build

[26:41] whatever I wanted and it would be purely mine. Um So I'm kind of debating between that or the work at a ski resort path. I'm going to do it at a ski resort if the regulations are chill, but forest regulations and corporate regulations hit hard. Interesting. And then if they're like, it's going to require a 5-year survey process, then no, I'm just going to go build it myself. Yeah. Survey process isn't like looking at the land and like verifying if it's like safe, you mean? And make

[27:03] sure it's safe, environmentally safe. Then there's corporate regulations and they prevent trails from being built. They want you to build trails. Like I just don't want to be bound to someone. I want a ski resort where they're like look, just do whatever you want. We're not going to tell you what to do. Build us a bike park and give us a percentage of profits. Okay, I mean this in the nicest way, but this is like so audacious. Like I love your confidence. So you like seem

[27:25] so set that this is like doable. It is. And you know for a fact since you built the first one, you made 50 mistakes and you're aware of it. You know how to make everything better and you've proven yourself that you can actually bring a vision to life. You can get the investors. So it's not not like I'm curious cuz for me, I've never raised money. I've bootstrapped everything I've done and we've done well with it, but raising money from investors feels like it adds a different type of pressure, especially at your age. And so you've had this first experience with these investors. You had the first bike park. You seem to be like

[27:53] doing them solid. Like they seem to be like somewhat And I'm going to be able to give my investors a positive return. I'm just not going to be able to pay myself. Interesting. And so it was like successful enough to prove of concept, but you can take all those lessons and make the next one the right

[28:09] way in your mind. Exactly. And so that's why you're super confident with the next vision and being able to raise money from people again. Exactly. And you're completely comfortable with that. Yeah, exactly. And like right now I'm so set on making another business and I have other business ideas, but I know so much about the bike park industry. I'm thinking of about this like travel group business idea, but I don't know anything about

[28:28] travel groups. Yeah. So So you I'm assuming you were just like really into mountain biking in high school. Yeah. And when when you were younger even than that. So you were just really into mountain biking, you did it all the time and then you were like, I can make I want to make a better mountain bike park. Exactly. Cuz I noticed that in Texas there was a huge population and only one bike park. I mean, in Colorado you have six times less people and like 30 bike parks. Yeah. How much would this bigger vision cost? How much would you need to raise? It depends. Land is about 5 to 10

[28:56] million. Lift about 5 to 10 million. Trails 10 to 15 million. But assuming I don't have to get land or a lift and I'm at a ski resort, it's going to be cheaper. So do you have a preference on how many investors you have if you were to do that? No. If I can get the money, I'm in. So I just want to point out here, dude. Like this is like a really important lesson for anyone that's in entrepreneurship is that you have such a clear focus and a clear goal on something that you are naturally interested in and passionate about and you like and then it's just pure will and

[29:26] determination to bring that to life. Where so many people on the internet, I guess we were kind of talking about this before we started recording, like you see all these people with content agencies making 100K a month or whatever, partnering with influencers and managing them making $3 million a year at 17 years old. And there's a real big comparison that you have to be having of you make doing these mountain parks that are going to be slower, way harder to build, raise a lot of money, but it's a huge vision. And so, you've seemed to be able to avoid that shiny object syndrome just because you've

[29:55] at least decided internally that this is your passion, this is what you like, and this is your goal. And then just with that one backing, you're tempted to start other businesses, but that's what gives you the ability to say no to other opportunities that seem shinier. Exactly. Exactly. Yes, you worded that so well. And Name some brilliant partners who got it done. Procter & Gamble, Ben & Jerry, supply and demand. What about the perfect partners when it comes to growing your business? Well, that's you and Shopify. From the launch your online shop stage to your first real-life store stage, all the way to that did we just

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[31:03] all lowercase. That's shopify.com/wgmi. Thank you, Shopify, for sponsoring today's podcast. I really want to talk about this. There's a lot of people out there that I know that are like 17, 19 years old that are making a lot of money for themselves in the content creation industry. They're like, "Rhett, if you did if you spent a year and a half of your life grinding content creation or AI or tech or something, you could like actually have crazy profit for your for yourself right now. You just chose like a hard business." I'm totally fine with that. And this is my passion, and I think a lot of people see the huge

[31:36] numbers online. In fact, a lot of the people with those huge numbers online, that's like top line revenue. The actual profit for themselves is not that big. That's interesting. Some people are are are like actually making huge profit for themselves. let's be honest, there's not a lot of 17-20-year-olds making a million dollars in general. Out of those, a lot of them are flexing the top line just cuz it's the flashiest number, which is totally

[31:57] fine, too. Yeah, which is why I'm like, "I raised 3.15 million," which is true. I did. Actual profit for myself was like zero. And revenue, like two like 250k. The fact that you're 19, you built a bike park, and raised $3 million is huge accomplishment. Like, there's no rush to be making money here,

[32:13] too. Yeah, I know. There's a Imagine that that was impossible 20 years ago for anybody. Like, that's just insane that you could even pull that off. So, mind-blowing. But, I'm curious Like, this sounds like this is like a really lucrative thing over 10 years cuz you have the real estate play for the land. You could have a full-blown ecosystem of Like, this is This next one, the same way you feel about your first one, you're going to feel about that resort the first time you do it. Cuz you're going to be like, "Well, this time we need this type of restaurant, we need a steakhouse, we need a seafood place, we

[32:38] need a pizza place. We shouldn't just do a cafe. We need a luxury five-star hotel, not the three-star we built." You'll feel the same way your whole life in business. My current path for me is my next step, starting in May, putting shovels in the ground next summer, is the world's best bike park. Whether it is at land from scratch or whether it is at a mountain resort, I don't really want there to be a middle step. I'm just going to make this world's best bike park happen no matter what. And for me, in my long-term grand vision, I probably do not want to stick with the

[33:07] bike park industry my whole life. Interesting. Yeah. You could I mean, you could make the world's best bike park, and then the next step from there is world's best bike park plus resort. Yeah, but maybe I just grow that from scratch. Maybe I make this world's best bike park at Vail or on land, and instead of building a separate one, just

[33:23] kind of build this up over the years. But, when I'm like 30, I'm probably not going to still be only working on this bike park that I made. I'm just so curious. Like, there's a There's a thousand riders in Austin. You're saying? A thousand core riders. There's like in Texas, there's more than 100,000 mountain bike owners, but they ride like

[33:43] six times a year or less. And so, the reason that you don't I'm curious if you like Could you not like throw like tournaments or like challenges or like host events? You do. And you market it nationwide with like prizes and stuff? Nationwide, probably not. Cuz if you're going to hold a nationwide race, people are going to go to Colorado where they have like a sick 2,000-ft vert track rather than this tiny hill in Texas cuz we don't have mountains. It's also a terrain issue. There's only so much you can do with a 300-ft hill. So, is there like There's a professional mountain

[34:15] biking scene, I assume, right? What is the And what is the How is that set up? Like, what is It's like a race down or is it like six major downhill races per year throughout the world. Pull crazy crowds, more than 100,000 people watching each one. Online or in person? What? More online. The mountain bike scene is huge. Like, it's it's it's it's bigger than people think, and it's a worldwide thing. The top mountain bike creators have like more than a million subs each. Some have 5 million plus. So, you don't think that the current your current uh What is it? Mountain

[34:45] Station or Station Mountain? Station Mountain. So, it's Block's Station Mountain. You don't think that has the appeal to be able to host stuff like that? No, because it's a 300-ft hill, and you just cannot make a track even if you build the best track ever on 300 ft. People don't go there. So, it's not a full-on mountain. Yeah. So, that's why you want to build the best

[35:05] don't like we don't have mountains. That's why we have a smaller scene. I mean, I've thought Dude, I've thought for the past 9 months, how do I how can I maximize revenue here? And it's just hard to do it when the scene is small. And it's hard to make it a tourist spot because in Colorado, they have a European-style base area with a huge mountain. Like, they're just going to beat us when it comes to being a tourism destination. Now, I'm kind of in a position, "Look, I'm going to be able to pay back my investors at a positive return. That is what I was doing. I'm

[35:31] happy. Let's go. I'm going to actually make my big money in making a tourist destination at the next bike park than trying to squeeze it in at this bike park when my investors are already happy." What was What does the world's best bike park look like? Obviously, it's on a mountain. You have So,

[35:45] I'll Yeah. So, imagine that you're at Vail, which is a ski resort in Colorado, with a huge base area with all the hotels and restaurants. It's European-style. And now, on this mountain, you have like five lifts running that feed 100 trails top to bottom on this mountain that have like 500 jumps in one trail, like really cool downhill lines. You got the green easy trails for people that haven't tried mountain biking, mountain bike rentals, you have cross-country trails that deep in the woods, you have moto trails, you have like a foam pit at the bottom for like BMX stuff. Everything Every best biking, most fun flowiest

[36:18] trails ever, all in this one place. How does this compare to like Is Is Woodward only skateboarding, I assume, and BMX? have skateboarding, they have scootering, they have bikes, but they're more of like a kids camp, and they're not building big downhill mountains. Yeah. And that's kind of where the money is. Interesting. So, you're building this whole ecosystem, and then the professional events could come in as

[36:38] well there. And mountain bikes are also super expensive, like 5,000 bucks each. So, if you're already spending 5,000 bucks on a bike, like you're in the scene. Everyone wants to visit Whistler, man. But, there isn't a single other bike park that everyone wants to visit. I'm going to make the must-visit destination where if you live in the US and you own a mountain bike, you're going to really want to come here at least once in your

[36:57] lifetime. Uh Why? imagine if there was a ski resort that was like the ultimately by far like outrageously the best ski resort, everyone would want to go there at least once, you know? Yeah. Interesting. And so, you want Why Seattle? Why is that the Seattle is if I'm not going to get a lift in a resort. Got you. has cheap logging land right next to the city that has a lot of big mountains,

[37:21] right? But, if it's uh based on a ski resort, which is honestly what I prefer, probably Utah or Colorado, but I'm not going to accept the ski resort option if the regulations are big. And I'm probably going to know whether I'm going down the land route or the ski resort route in a in it in a few months. I'm 600 I'm 600 cold calls deep right now on logging companies and mountain resorts, and exchanging a lot of emails back and forth. I'll actually probably

[37:46] know within the next month or two. Logging companies, like literally people who are going to clear the trees off the mountain for you. Yeah. Well, they wouldn't clear the trees. It's basically they own land where they clear the trees once every 40 years and sell it for like paper and stuff. Um and you know, the logging company doesn't make crazy money. So, if if you offer them like a high price per acre, they'll sell their land to you. Cuz they own millions of acres. Yeah. And they can

[38:07] only cut the trees once every 40 years. Interesting. And they're like, "Oh, we'll sell this for a high price per acre, just 500 acres. Yeah, sure deal." So, you're like deep into working this out right now. Deep into working this out. I've like Since since May, I've been working hard on Sage Mountain, caring about it, but I'd say actually the majority of my time has been towards pitching the world's best bike park because it's about uh like a few months into the bike park operation, I realized my only chance at big money is the world's best bike park, might as well dive into it right now. And I've just been grinding

[38:36] on it kind of in the background without anyone knowing. Not a lot of my investors know, not a lot of people Sage Mountain know. I guess they'll learn through this podcast. But, I've been grinding out this world's best bike park for a while because it is on my mind, and I want to do it right.

[38:49] What do your parents do? My dad owns a fake teeth business. My mom's a stay-at-home. Like, dentures? Yeah, he just makes dentures and sells them uh to just random dentists. It's like a local business in Austin. Uh yeah. And also, so some more on my on like me and my life growing up, this is pretty important. This is really

[39:08] important. So, I was in I was I was in a very normal school my whole life, but then in ninth grade, there was a school called Alpha uh that I sought, where basically they had no classrooms, no tests, no teachers. And I was like, "I want to go to the school. I hate homework." And then

[39:26] I went to this school in ninth grade. It's weird. I was like, 12 kids in my grade. I went from a public school. My parents were like, "Why are you doing this?" And I'm like, "It just seems like the right school to do." I had to convince them to like pay for the private school and all that, right? And then, about a year into the school, uh they started teaching their students about entrepreneurship, which is why I didn't go to the school for entrepreneurship. I went to the school cuz I hated school. And then they started to teach us about entrepreneurship, and I was like, "Hmm,

[39:47] entrepreneurship. This is cool." I heard about entrepreneurship here and there for a year, and I was like, "Okay, startups, I get it. Entrepreneurship." And then in my junior year, I'm still, by the way, doing nothing entrepreneurial. Uh they kind of pushed me, and they're like, "Brett, you should like follow your passion. Come on, like go make a project." And I was like, "Great. I'll make a bike park." So, I actually made a local bike park. I pitched to this neighborhood. I worked with like three dads building this pipe. Uh it was like a two-trail park. I We raised 13K. It was all volunteer-built, 13K from the government. And then we

[40:18] built it in 2 weeks and left, and then that was it. And that was like halfway through my junior year. I went back to my school, and I was like, "Aren't you so proud of me? Look, I built this entrepreneurial project, like started a bike park right in my in my neighborhood. It's whatever." And then keep in mind, I'm part of a startup school. I'm the first ever uh first ever class to like be there. And then the head of the school, he sat me down. He's he's like this famous billionaire. I can't name him Okay. for reasons. But then he sat me down, and he's like, "Hey,

[40:51] you have the opportunity to make a $3 million business. You don't understand. If you actually put your mind to something, you can pull off a huge bike park. This This 13K bike park is nothing. Think way bigger. You can be like one of the pioneer kids. You can be one of them. Build a big bike park. You know what? Just make a pitch deck, send it to a bunch of investors, and see if you can raise See if you can raise $3 million. Just

[41:13] try it out." And after I got given that talk, this is halfway through my junior year, which I'm doing nothing by this point except that small bike park, right? And it clicked, and I Something in my brain clicked, and I was like, "Oh my god. I actually can, this week, just make a 10-slide deck on Google Slides, send it to a bunch of investors on LinkedIn, and just see who's interested. Why not? Let's just

[41:33] try this out. It's going to take a week. Let's start. This is January 2023. And uh then from then, this is how I made the park. And it's because that one mentor in my life I mean, he isn't like really close in my life. He uh but he really wanted me to succeed. And he was like, "Look, I'm

[41:51] not going to give you any money. Like I'm not going to help you in that way. But I'm going to give you a lot of support cuz I want you to pull off this bike park." He didn't give me any free advertising. He didn't give me any money. He He didn't give me any of that. But what he gave me was, "You can do it." And ever since that guy told me that I can make this bike park, I

[42:08] decided to pull it off. Damn. He He instilled the belief in you. He instilled He basically sat me down, and he's like, "You can raise $3 million. It's possible." Is this like a Montessori school, or just like a full-on just weird school, no tests, no classrooms. He basically This guy hates the education system. the same page with him. Yeah. He thinks it's the worst thing. He's like, "Why do we have classrooms? We can learn with AI

[42:29] on Khan Academy. We can learn Algebra 2 in 50 hours total of work. In school, if you add up all the homework in 180 days of school, it takes 500 hours to do Algebra 2. That is not a course that requires 500 hours of work." So, basically, at my school, the goal is 2-hour learning. It's called 2HL. Uh and you only do schoolwork 2 to 3 hours per day, like 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. And outside of 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., you do workshops that help you build life skills, or you work on a business, or like you grow your concert creation page. And then basically, he promoted

[42:58] everyone in the school to make a masterpiece, right? Um and this masterpiece was like build a business, or get a bunch of followers, or make like a charity project, or something like that. Because we're part of the first class, only about four of the 12 kids of the first ever class really built a

[43:17] masterpiece, and then I was one of them. But that number's going up. Like the school's getting really, really good. I'm excited to see the future of the school. He wants to make like 1,000 Alphas in the nation and revolutionize US education system. doing this for his kids, too? Like they built their own school. he kind of just did it in like

[43:30] Brownsville, Texas, and that was it. He's like, "Oh, I'll I'll actually do it for my kids." Just for his kids. Yeah. Yeah, but he's like, "I really want to revolutionize US education system, the best private school, no classrooms, no teachers. 1,000 of these out the US." And I was so, so, so lucky to randomly join the school as a ninth grader with like no ambition in mind. And then I didn't even learn about the entrepreneurship stuff until my junior year. I just happened to be a part of the first ever graduating class at the school, which would be really cool if it ends up taking off. I

[43:55] mean, it's still very, very small. But I think it is going to take off. And literally, all it took for me was like a 5-minute conversation from this billionaire dude to say, "Hey, you actually can make a business. I did it when I was in college. You can make a $3 million business." 5-minute conversation, and then it clicked, and I was like, "Boom, you know what? I'm just

[44:11] going to try it." Yeah. You just inspired the out of me, dude. That was awesome. Do you think that there's like Do you encourage Like I'm curious cuz when I was coming up, when I was like I was 20 when I was really starting entrepreneurship. I was trying to get all my friends around me to like get excited about it, too. And like I would try to start businesses with like two of my friends, but they were the smoking weed, playing video games all day type of friends. And I left them that matrix and started trying to do this, but was trying to pull everybody with me. Have you had

[44:40] experiences like that, or since you were in that one school, it was like everyone around you was hustling? No. What's unfortunate is I think most of society, no matter how hard you push them, don't have that brain. Like I think a small percentage of people think like us. And then people in my school in there for 4 years with like the craziest coaching did nothing all 4 years. So, there's kids in that school who did

[44:59] nothing. So many kids that are just going to a normal college, getting a normal job, not thinking about anything. Kids that even like left the school. I mean, not a lot of people have the brain. And many of my friends don't have the brain, and I don't care. Like I And so, you got

[45:10] over that. You're like not even friends. Yeah. So, even at the like bike parks when you're there, you're like are you encouraging anybody to like start a side hustle, or is it just like this is my mission? Occasionally, if I like see a see the spark. but you're not like hounding them. No. Dude, it's so interesting that you went to that private school. That fascinates

[45:26] me. I know. I got so lucky. I got so lucky. But you said there's people in there that also like it's not like 100%. Yeah, but I feel like the school's really going to take off once those people get filtered out. Once 100% of the students at Alpha are wanting to do something big, it's going to be great. It's just like the first ever class happened to have a lot of people that Yeah. Did you have to test to get into

[45:45] it? No. It's just like if you like a Dude, it's so weird. Okay, interesting. I know. It's I'm wondering how they got like permission to do that. Is it like uh licensing with the do like the AP tests and and like the SAT. Yeah. So, it's like as long as you pass these benchmarks, you you guys are good. Yeah. And we I know that anyone can start a school. the top-scoring school in Texas Yeah. Uh uh Like oh, of all

[46:08] schools. school in Texas, we're we are the top-scoring school. Like public, private, everything. Interesting. I didn't know you could have started a school as long It's like I guess it's like homeschooling, Yeah. Well, yeah. That's technically what we are. But the school actually got accredited last year. But for the for the first 3 schools, we we were technically

[46:22] homeschooled. So, it's homeschooling. That's the curriculum they follow. That's how they get like registered. And then they kind of just have a group we're accredited. That's so cool. That actually I've never thought about that. That's like you were literally like I mean, we can make this building like a school and just like teach people the way we want to and help them achieve

[46:37] these same SAT scores or whatever. Optimize it for them. Yeah. 9:00 to 11:00. Did they choose that time for a reason? No. Well, I I was different cuz they said 2-hour learning, only learning 2 hours. And I was like, "Yes, I hate school. I'm going to literally minimize my time as much as possible mathematically." Some people still did like 6 hours of work, but now most of the kids are only doing like 2 to 3 hours of

[46:57] work a day. Makes sense. That's pretty much how I That's how I do my like important work, creative work. Yeah. And this is why I'm like so stoked on the college that I'm going to for the networking opportunities. Why do you think it's Why do you say networking opportunities? Is it like a hard school to get into? Is it like No, it's just the the people founding it

[47:12] are like really cool. They're entrepreneurs? Yeah. They're entrepreneurs that like don't like the college system. They're like, "We're founding a school." And I'm like And a lot of the kids going there are cool, too. It's in Texas? Yeah, it's in Austin. It's called UATX. UATX. Yeah, it's right downtown, Austin. First year ever, first college to be founded

[47:26] in like decades. Oh. Are you in the first class there, too? First ever class. So, you're in the first class in both of these, dude. like so lucky. In Austin, like what are the odds? dude. You're like the future of the kids of our generation. So far, the the results have been good. Yeah. So, do these like do they will they uh This is like my most Oh my god, I'm an educator. So, this is like my most passionate topic. Are do they like will they use you as like Like do they have you as like a website

[47:50] example of like a past student? Yeah. They They use me as marketing, and I'm like fully happy to be used as marketing. Yeah. I saw that That's what that video on your on YouTube was. Did they do a video? Yeah. Okay, interesting. I was wondering like what They like funded this thing about me, and they're like Yeah.

[48:05] Dude, you were driving an ex-excavator. Yeah, I was. I I do it a lot. What's it called? Skid steer. The small one? Yep, a skid steer. I drive a skid steer a lot. Did you buy it? Do you own it, or is it rented? No, we rented those machines. And you still have them, or No, I mean we will get one for a week when we need

[48:21] it. They just let you I guess you're 18. If you have a driver's license, you can do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah, it's really fun. So, I do want to make it clear that yeah, for the past few months, I only have been working 10 to 20 hours a week on Station Mountain, and I will continue even though I was working like 50 hours a week when we were building the park and opening the park. But I have a great manager in place. Been working like 18 months on this with zero profit incentive. I'm paying back the investors at a positive rate. We have like a

[48:52] better trail system than we ever had. I think just because I'm not like working to the absolute maximum to like maximize summer camp revenue is really a bad thing, and especially when like the horizon is looking better. And I mean, I I feel like I might get a little bit of hate of like, "Oh, he's like losing faith in his park." Like I don't think

[49:08] that That's not the case. Yeah, I know. There's a ceiling to the business, objectively, cuz it's brick and mortar. Second, any entrepreneur who's working 60 hours a week on the business is a sign that they haven't built the business correctly. Like there's people like Andrew Wilkinson is a huge entrepreneur, has like an $800 million private equity company. Your goal is to build a box, and then hire a CEO to run

[49:27] that company. a great in-person manager that's running the park. Yeah. So, you you built the business correctly, and that's his job. You're delegating that creative work. He will still do that on the company's behalf. You own equity, now it cash flows for you passively, and now you're building the next box. You're building the machine at a profitable margin, that's a business. If your If the company If it's operating is dependent on you being there, it's not a business, it's a job, right? And so that is the whole point. So you've done an amazing job and you've built that earned

[49:55] that ability to think that way. Exactly. So anyone who's thinking that is just not experienced in business. We do this for lifestyle and to buy us time and freedom to spend our family, friends, and enjoy our lives at the end of the day. Yeah, that is the You put a ton of work up front, you build a take a lot of risk. You do it sacrifice a lot of in the short term for that long term benefit, that's why you start a business. So Yeah, the reason why I want to make money, the reason why I'm a hustler, is

[50:18] because I'm a huge believer in charity. And like the reason why I want to make money is to give like all of the money I make to the most cost effective charity ever. And I want to make the world's most cost effective root problem solving charity. I think most charities don't really do it right. And I just want to make a hunger charity that like actually gets past the corruption issues and donate as much money as I can to that and then make the charity go viral. That's why I want to make money. If this If I didn't have that charity belief in mind, I'd honestly probably be a bike bum right

[50:49] now. Ah, so you said root problem solving charity, what does that mean? So a lot of charities don't solve the root problem. If you give food to people uh a homeless problem is also like a good example of charities not solving the root issue. So they're just like kind of giving support, but they're not actually taking responsibility for

[51:05] the problem. lot of charities don't really do it that well. Yeah. Interesting. And what do you mean by go viral? Go viral. I want to make a viral charity. I want to blow this charity up. I'm going to be like, "Look, I literally just made the most cost effective charity of all time. It costs $5,500 to save a life at this charity. We film it really well. No executives have a high salary. This is like the best charity of all time." I just want to get a bunch of people to to like

[51:29] What type of charity? Probably hunger based because hunger just is one of the most cost effective charities that you can do. Seattle would be a great place to to transition into if you get your mountain bike park up there. Probably going to be another country's, but exactly. I mean I mean talking about cost effective charities, the homeless problem is a really good example of a really not cost effective charity because the more money we put

[51:51] towards it, the worse it gets. Interesting. So your whole drive to build the first mountain bike park was so you could make money from that then to just build a not not for profit charity, a nonprofit charity. Exactly. Well, my current life plan, this is weird talking about this for because I'm so young, but it's to build up businesses and probably a business or two after the world's best bike park until I'm like pretty like rich and set

[52:13] up. And once I'm like more famous and rich, then I'll be like, "Here's a charity that I'm making. I'm going to donate all my life savings to this. Join me, we're going to make the charity go viral." Interesting. So that's like the long term Yeah, that's like that's like my long term goal, but I've thought about this since I was a kid. Like I've always thought about I mean I I don't really hate the player, I hate uh society. I I think first world society is pretty greedy. Like I think first world society like I don't know. I think I see it in general as I see like the

[52:43] cars, like I see the watches, I see I I I see the flex culture. And I'm I'm not going to hate any player for playing that game. Like it's whatever, but I just think that the fact that that's our society is like people starving is crazy to me. And it's always been crazy. It's

[52:54] been crazy since I was like 5 years old. I'm like, "Why isn't anyone like caring about people like literally starving to death?" That's what I want to solve. Interesting. And so you think So you But do you think that you have to do the mountain Like why can't you just start that now if that if you're so deeply passionate

[53:08] about it? Because if I have like money and more connections, it's going to pay off way more. If I start a charity now, I don't really think I'll be able to get any big raises or make a huge impact. Mhm, okay. I don't have any money and I don't have the best connections. Well, it's a

[53:22] amazing mission, man. Yeah, thank you. Cuz you were talking about the pioneers. You have this term the pioneers, all the young kids. Yeah, yeah. What Out of all the Out of all the 20 or under 20-year-old millionaires, who Not who, but like What do you I don't know. Talk about the pioneers. Okay, so the the word for pioneer what it means is like a high school age or 19, 20-year-old guy who has like raised more than a million or made more

[53:48] than a million or something like that. They're just like some crazy hustler. There's maybe like a hundred-ish of us in the US. Almost all of them are in content creation, AI, or tech. I'm one of the few like brick and mortar. One of them uh and the community is really cool. Like we all know each other.

[54:04] Yeah. I'm so curious what your perspective on that is. Like just I guess that's kind of a broad question, but like do you feel like an elite human being? Like do you feel like cuz you're like ahead of the curve of so many people. Like you're like the point 001% if they were to make an article on you guys. But like

[54:22] Yeah. How Why do you think other people aren't where you're at or do you Have you noticed like common traits between all these people? Common traits is that they're all really hard workers. Like there's no one else that it's like, "Do you know what I'm going to do today? I'm going to sit down for 14 hours and work on this really hard business." And I'm actually going to do that for a month. Uh-huh. No one really does that. I think there's going to be like a revolution in the coming years when it comes to the game of entrepreneurship cuz I really don't think 5 years ago you had this insane

[54:51] group of 16-year-old hustlers making crazy money or 19-year-old hustlers, right? And I think I'm predicting that in like 4 years or whatever, there's going to be a next wave of startups cuz like the startup tech culture has been known to be dying for like a bit. It really took off in 2014. It's kind of been stagnant since. I think like the

[55:09] next wave is coming. There's never been a time in history when there's been this many 20-year-old millionaires, like people in their 20s that have a million dollars net worth. Like the last 10 years is the first time that's ever really been possible cuz the barrier to entry is so low on everything and like VC funded tech startups are becoming less and less popular. It's like everyone has the power now because all the information is publicly available and there's very few gatekeepers. And so that's what I was saying earlier. Like I feel like I'm talk not a time traveler, but I'm like talking to the future here cuz you were

[55:38] the first person to be If you didn't go to that school, you probably would not be doing what you're doing. Like you said. Very likely not. And like I said, I've been so lucky to be born in the right graduating year, going to this school out of nowhere. Yeah. So it's like I'm like you're like the very first edition of this brand of human. That's how I think about it. You know what I'm saying? And so I I would 100% agree that like in the next 5 or 6 years, this is going to become like a huge wave exactly how you described it. So I would agree with

[56:04] that. I see that the same way. Totally happening. Oh yeah, brother. Yeah, and I also cannot wait till my generation is like 40 years old and at positions of importance using like all the Gen Z slang. Can't wait. Yeah. It's just like the normal way. When they talk about yapping and aura. Yeah, aura. Yeah, aura.

[56:22] one. Aura is so good. We all like all the pioneers are like, "How can we maximize the aura?" And it's not called brand building anymore, it's called aura. Yeah, it makes sense. It is a good It actually is a really good way to encompass that concept. Yeah, I know. Do you feel like you're

[56:34] sacrificing stuff? No. It's totally worth it for the end goal. Wait, cuz I always think about my end goal, right? It's like to make a money for charity thing. Mhm. So whenever I think about money That's really what you anchor all of it It's literally what I anchor all this on. I would be like a mountain bike bum just like living in a van traveling the world riding bikes if it if it wasn't

[56:51] for that motivation. How do And you just had that since you were 5? Yeah, had that since I was 5. I've just like seen Like I've always read and seen stuff about like hunger in third world countries, like people starving to death and I'm like, "Bro, why are we not hearing about this?" Was there a core memory that that was like instilled in

[57:06] you that you have? saw it on the news one day and then I was like When you were like 5 or something? like, "Dad, like why don't we help them or donate or something?" Mhm. And then he like gave me some standard rundown. So I like literally do not hate anyone for like buying the cars or buying the watches or or or that. I just think that it's crazy that first world society here in the US, the people that make money, like that we aren't even thinking about trying to solve hunger. We aren't even

[57:29] We aren't even thinking about charity. People get praised when they donate like 10% of their wealth Mhm. to charity and they're like so rich. It doesn't make any sense to me. They You think they should donate more? Yeah, way more. Yeah, and then a lot of the charity isn't that great. Yeah, it's like this

[57:43] is like actually like my side passion. And in my free time, I like research all the stuff about philanthropy, about wealth, and all that. Yeah. So you've looked into it quite enough to at least have an idea. Yeah. So what is the problem with how people try try to solve hunger right now? With how people try to solve hunger, a lot of it gets tied up in big nonprofit organizations that have like big salaries. And a lot of it doesn't really solve the root problem. Like if you give food to people like for free, Yeah. it doesn't solve a root problem in the region. A lot of it is based off like

[58:13] warlords there that like control all the food and all the farms. A lot of the farms make the wrong food. But like there's a way to do it right, but then what what a lot what a lot of people who would otherwise donate money see is that a lot of the charities aren't doing it effectively. So they in return don't want to donate money cuz they're worried it's going to be used wrong. And I want to change that narrative and I'll be like, "I actually have the most cost effective charity and we're going to make sure this makes a true long term impact." This is where

[58:37] your personal brand would be the thing. Yeah, this is You can say that. This is what I want to make my first So I've always heard about a personal brand and I'm like, "Look, just let just let me cook in the background and then once I pull it off like once I like am ready to launch this charity and I and I have money, that's when I want to that's when

[58:50] I want to launch the personal brand. Yeah, I make all this money and I do live in a van and I own this charity. I like that's where I want it to be." Yeah, that's that's the key. There's two parts of personal brand, the content you make and the value that's created and then Cuz that's what I'll be passionate about making a personal brand. And then it's the anchoring and like the framing who it's coming from. And so that matters. Like Alex Hormozi made $60 million off Gym Launch. He had that anchoring and that framing, that's why his personal brand took off cuz then he made good content on top of that. So

[59:13] those two matter. So you got 100% nailed the mountain bike thing and then that'll just be like rocket ship of a personal brand once you start doing the charity. But I'm curious, when you say solving the root problem, would that just be like buying farms in those countries and growing the right combination of food or like Farming technology, working with

[59:32] the governments is what you need. Mhm. And you think that I'm sure it's a pretty complex problem. Do you think it's Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so many factors that There's so much greed. Yeah. Even not even in the third world countries, there's greed within the governments. countries, yeah. So, you think it's more So, it'll just be like So, you don't

[59:48] think it Is that a problem in America? No. No one's starving in America. If you Yeah. Even if you're like homeless. Yeah. So, you think it's solved in America even if there's homeless people? It's solved in America. Interesting. I'm excited I'm interested to see how your mindset on this evolves as you get older. I know. Cuz you're at like a very prime age,

[1:00:06] very formative age, yeah. But, it's weird cuz when it comes to like all the politics and all, I don't care about any politics in the US. Yeah. Like I don't. I just care about what's happening in like third world countries that we aren't caring about that. That's sick, dude. Dude, thank you. Don't switch. I'm not. Yeah. Okay, good. Like I have other business ideas, but from you and from all the other people that I've talked to, like my mentors, they say, "Be the

[1:00:29] mountain bike business guy." And And from my perspective, like no one cares how much Once you get to 25, 26, or whatever, even 23, no one really cares how much money you have. Like if if I tell someone that I have two or three million bucks in my bank account or whatever, most guys just like They're like, "Oh, that's awesome." But, secretly they get like insecure and like I know. Yeah. Branch out to you. And so, it's way cooler what you do is way

[1:00:50] cooler than how much money you have. Yeah. It's way more interesting. And people will like you more because of that. So, if someone just made a million bucks off of like drop shipping a shitty product, there's like no honor or respect in that. So. You're on the right path. Don't don't ever question that.

[1:01:04] That's great to hear. All right. Well, dude, where can they find you on social media? Uh my Instagram, Rhett Rods. It's like my biking Instagram. Go follow that. And then the bike park Instagram, Station Mountain Bike Park. Okay. But, I'm like an Instagram only dude. Rhett Jones, how do you spell your name? R H E T T. And the Instagram is Rhett Rods, and my name is Rhett Jones. All right. Well, brother, this was a really like actually inspiring conversation. I think a lot of people are going to enjoy this conversation. I appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom and just like

[1:01:31] kind of making it sound achievable. So. It is so Yeah. Here's my last note for people. I know a lot of people don't have the brain, but this is for the people that do have the brain. One day after I got like the talk, I woke up and realized, "Man, this week I can make a pitch deck on

[1:01:46] Monday. I can find a bunch of contacts on Tuesday and message a bunch of people this pitch deck that I made on Wednesday and just see who responds." Literally, just one day it clicked for me that I I woke up and I realized I could make this business. It just takes a few days for me to make this pitch deck and send it to investors. Let's

[1:02:02] just see what happens. Let's try it out. And now that that's clicked for me, my whole entire life is completely different. And I've seen that notion click for a lot of other people. So, I hope it clicks for you, too. Beautiful, man. Yeah. Thank you so much.

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