How to Get Rich Building Boring Businesses | Codie Sanchez, Contrarian Thinking

0:05Every single time we get on, I am obliged to make fun of Greg's headphones and headset. Um so, let me just register that as something for today. I'm two whiskeys deep. And now I need to make fun of Greg's headphones. I'm actually not I'm I am I am one pre-workout drink and one and a half Dunkin' Donuts large cold brew deep though. Oh my god, how are you not having a heart attack? See, this is what I was saying Cody before we started recording. You said, "Oh, isn't sleeping on a bad isn't sleeping on a soft bed bad for you?" And I said, "Uh maybe, but

0:40like there's a lot of things I do that might be bad for me." And there you have it. There's one. Jeez. No, I don't I I couldn't do that. Not to mention like weren't you a pro athlete? Isn't this what's going on here? Uh well, I mean caffeine was a huge part of that though. Um I mean I the reason that I have to drink this much caffeine is actually because of my athletic days because I So, I'd hurt my shoulder at the end of my career and in order to go into a game pain-free, I literally was taking um not to mention the things they would

1:08inject you with and whatever like, you know, anti-inflammatories, but I was taking um four Excedrins, which I think each have like 100 mg of caffeine plus drinking a large Rockstar before going into a game. And that was at like I was a late reliever so it would be at like 9:00 at night. I would pop four Excedrins, chug a Rockstar, and then go into the game. And there were a few times when I got on the mound and I literally couldn't [ __ ] see. Like the catcher would be putting down signs, right? They're like doing the one, two, three, whatever. And I would have to

1:33tell them like, "No, you have to do body signals cuz we had body signs that you could do because I cannot read your fingers cuz like my vision was sort of shaky. That's That sounds like a good idea. Yeah, you should be doing that. It was a blast. It was a blast, but that's why I have to drink so much caffeine now cuz I feel like I blew out

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3:03love it. So, welcome to the show. Welcome. Thanks. I'm stoked to be here. No whiskey for me, just water. I'll be the healthy one on this podcast. Well, we we're just so excited to have you because, first off, I have been an admirer from afar for a long time prior to us becoming friends of all of the content you put out, the different things you write about, and also how you're actually like a doer. Greg and I talked about this a lot. There's a lot of kind of idea people out there, and I

3:28probably bucket myself into this. You're actually a doer cuz you're going out and getting this [ __ ] done in in a real world and then talking about it and teaching people on the way. So, kudos. Thank you. Sometimes, you know, best days, yes, for sure. Yeah, and it's it's new, right? Like I feel like you're not just um regurgitating other stuff on the internet and putting it out there, like you know, people like you, Nick Huber, um people like that who um are talking about, you know, boring quote unquote boring businesses, um and just like spreading the gospel there. Um you know, we all thought, uh you know, these I thought

4:11like, okay, if you you know, if I'm going to go into business, I got to go raise venture capital, I got to go do this whole thing, I got to move to San Francisco, um and you're and you're teaching people that that's not the case. And so it's really cool to see. Well, thank you. Yeah, it's been fun. I was just talking to a bunch of investors today about it. Although, I get why you guys all moved to San Francisco. I thought you were were nutty back in the day. You couldn't have like paid me to live there during the heyday. But now that I'm in Austin, I do get it. I get

4:39the power of place and that when you walk out and you have investors and people everywhere, I get the I get it. I get why San Francisco existed in its traditional form before like right now. Actually, I think San Francisco, I'm going to go short San Francisco. Um and it's like trendy to be short San Francisco, so it kind of pisses me off that I am. Um like, you know, if you go listen to Keith Rabois, who I think is awesome, or you know, some of these other uh Miami folk that are like very short San Francisco vocally, or you go to the like VC crowd in San Francisco

5:08who is actively um talking about how bad San Francisco is now. I just think the um the previous allure of living there, I lived in the Bay Area for 12 years. So, I lived there until from 2009 until summer of 2021 when we moved to New York now and we're living in the suburbs outside New York. Um but the allure of

5:26San Francisco was exactly what you said. It was that you could walk outside and there was like venture capitalist here, amazing founder here, you know, you go to the Equinox in Palo Alto. I met some of my like most amazing mentors at this random Equinox in Palo Alto cuz you were just in it and it felt that way. But that has just fundamentally changed about the place and they haven't done anything to promote the cost of living being better. I I so [ __ ] expensive to live there and you pay extraordinarily high taxes. The weather in San Francisco is kind of trash. Uh the Bay Area is super nice around it and

5:53really nice, but San Francisco is really cold. Um and people have left. I mean, now that you can work from wherever, and you can live in Austin, all the tech companies have amazing campuses in Austin. People have moved to Miami. People have moved to New York. You just have other options if you want to be a

6:07founder, you want to go build something. You don't have to be in the Bay Area in the way that you had to, I think, 10 15 years ago. No, I totally agree. Also, you know what cracks me up about this being trendy now to say this about San Francisco? Like, I was listening to the All-In pod, which I I really like, and but I was giggling because, you know, a bunch of them were like, "Ah, it's terrible. Newsom, whatever." I'm like, I know that if I looked up the voting record of you guys, most of the people in tech are the reason why it is where

6:32it is today, cuz I think we should just start off by like ticking off at least half of your listeners, and but that's probably good for your show. Um but like I I find it really funny that now it's like, "Oh, the Silicon Valley people are leaving." Like, it's a surprise what's happened there. So, I don't think you're um, you know, while it might be trendy to say it, I think, you know, a lot of us have probably be been in the weeds, kind of like doing the work, trying to make businesses more profitable and not simultaneously talking out of both sides of our mouth. So, I always That always

7:01gives me a giggle. I'm like, "Well, Yeah, I mean, I'd be curious, Greg, for your perspective, cuz you you lived there um for a period. You can That was like the gold That was the golden land for you, right? Like, you came from um living in Canada, and now it was like where you had to be. That was the mecca. So, like, what was your experience with it, and would you live there now? Like, would

7:20you start a business there? Yeah, I mean, when I I left Canada cuz I had to. Um you know, not because I particularly wanted to. All my friends and family were there. Um in Canada, and but what happened was I knew that if I wanted to increase the probability of success, I needed to go there. Um so, I went there, and when I was in my 20s I was like you could, you know,

7:47let's let's put it this way. You increased your odds of success if you went to San Francisco if you were in a third or fourth or fifth or even second-tier city. Um, Serendipity, it's like the surface area thing. We've talked about this, Greg. Like you expand your surface area for luck to happen if you're in those environments cuz you're on the street and there's random people and that you that you see building. So you think that's changed? So like for example, one of one of my first trips to San Francisco, you know, I was at a party and I ended up meeting the CEO of a company called

8:18StumbleUpon and um, you know, he was like I want to buy your company basically at the party. Um, like that only happened in San Francisco at that time. Um, now, you know, the center of gravity is the internet in my opinion and the most like if you want to be really efficient with your time or like you know, bang out a bunch of Zoom meetings, um, organize your day, you know, I just feel like travel time and it's just you know, it's just that it really I I I believe and this might be a hot take cuz I know everyone's like all about going back to the office, go to

8:55places like New York, go to places like San Francisco, but I do believe that the most efficient use your time is to be internet native and internet first. Yeah, I do so so the thing with the um, to to just like connect to your point on the internet is now the new standard. Like I am short on two sides. Like I am short the um, I'm short San Francisco. Like I think San Francisco is dead as a city. I just I think San Francisco is super overrated as a place to live and I get [ __ ] for this all the time. People yell at me. My sister-in-law lives there and

9:27she's amazing and awesome and enjoys it a lot. I think San Francisco is like a pretty crappy place to live nowadays. I'm also short the idea that you literally don't have to be anywhere in order to um, do amazing things. Like I still think that human connection and being in person and seeing people and being in it still matters to some extent. So what I think is the future is going to be this like hybrid where you're either in a city where you can still, you know, kind of have some level of connection or you just spend more time going to the places where you can do that because I still I

9:58still think human connection like our bias is to be connected as humans and to actually experience touch of a physical human in a real way. That you just can't replicate in the internet, metaverse, whatever people want to say. I don't think you can replicate it. Okay, I want to respond to that real quick and then Cody, curious your perspective. So all I'm saying is if I had to pick a default, default being San Francisco in South of Market, like you're in it spending, you know, spending 24/7 there or my default being like anywhere else basically and spending, you know, meeting people maybe once a month in these like short

10:43high burst kind of like you know, if it's like ETH Denver if you're in crypto or you know, there's just so many different like conferences and and and sort of South by Southwest, things like that where you just like come in and you're like, "Hey, I'm a real person, I swear." I'm long that that world. I actually totally agree and I think it's going to be more like deal vacation at the same places. Like I mean, I think it'll be like me running into Sahil in Miami like we did. I was there for something, he was there for something, we both ended up being at the same hotel

11:16and we're like, "Oh yeah, by the way, we should probably do a pod, we should do a thing. What are we like, "Oh yeah, I met you before at another conference." We don't live in the same state but like I probably text you randomly more than I do a lot of friends that live here in Austin. So I think I'm long on that. I think in the future we're going to we're going to live where we used to vacation and we're going to just go work where we used to live and that will be the the default mechanism. I saw it massively. I was just in Santa Teresa,

11:43Costa Rica and the place is booming. Jack Dorsey's got a spot. We got Gisele and you know, Brady's down there. There's dirt roads. There's like no infrastructure and we have this massive tech scene that's happening in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica where the Wi-Fi is enabled by a bunch of tech tech dudes. And so, I actually agree with you. I think and then there's also this other thing. We split time between Austin and San Diego unless you're the IRS then I'm only ever in Austin and the reason that we do with with San Diego is because when you're in Austin there's so much going on right now that

12:15I get FOMO and then I actually miss the deep work and so it's nice to jet in and out as opposed like I couldn't operate like you guys do in New York. There's too much going on. Yeah, you hit on a bunch of interesting things there. First off, I think the infrastructure like just from a business idea standpoint, the infrastructure that will enable that future that we're all kind of surrounding around as being the future is very interesting. First off, Starlink and what it's enabling in terms of being able to live wherever and have

12:40high-speed internet is [ __ ] amazing. And so like people can say whatever they want about Elon Musk and hate him, love him, whatever, but Starlink is [ __ ] incredible and the ability to go get high-speed internet access in the middle of nowhere in Costa Rica or the middle of nowhere in Nevada, you know, Iowa, wherever you want to go build a place and a ranch and have an escape, that's incredible and game changer development world is going to be a total game changer. All of the things that are going to allow you to kind of do more short-term stays cost-effectively and kind of convene these groups are going to be

13:11really interesting. I'm investing in that space a little bit, but it's hard to see like exactly what's going to work because right now short-term rental is still very expensive. It's hard to actually manage as a lifestyle for most people on most kind of living salaries and wages. A lot of interesting things though happening there. Um And then to your point on deep work,

13:28I've never really thought about that. I've never considered the fact that like you need a place to be able to escape and do it. Greg, you have your place in Montreal. I think that's probably a cool example that there's not as much going on there as there is in Miami. I mean I really I mean Sahil, we were literally just texting about this right before where I'm an unhappy person unless I have big blocks of time devoted to like

13:50deep work. Like, you know, some people you know, don't have caffeine and you can just like read it on their face and they're just grumpy. Me, it's like the deep work time. Um Are you Was that a Was that a shot at me right there? Do I get grumpy on you when I don't have

14:08caffeine, Greg? No, you don't get Actually, you It's funny. When I get texts from Sahil, it's either he's highly caffeinated or he's one or two whiskeys deep. And basic That's basically like 99% of my life, bro. And I love it. catch me first thing in the morning or like, I don't know. I mean, but by the way, I don't drink that [ __ ] much. Like I'm I'm realizing my mom is like texting me, "Oh, like are you drinking too much?" cuz I'm doing these threads on Sunday night when I have a couple drinks and I write and it's free-form and it's fun for me. I

14:40really enjoy it. But it's leading to this perception, I think, that I literally I'm just drunk all the time and I need to figure out how to like balance Like I do I enjoy whiskey and I really like having whiskey. Um but I'm also I work out every single day and like I eat very healthy and so I don't know. I think I think I need to like drive a balance in the branding here. I don't know. I think The Rock's proved that you can basically talk about your tequila brand ad nauseam and nobody thinks about you that way. So I think maybe it's just a whiskey brand to the

15:07next step and then you can have an excuse for talking about it so much, you know? Can we um I I wanted to shift gears cuz I have one thing on my list that I do want to talk about before we get into okay a bunch of stuff that we had for Cody. Um this OpenSea hack um because I think we have an interesting group of people right on right now. Like Greg is my web three guy that I learn a lot from. I'm kind of like the I don't know, curious observer trying to learn a lot etc. And Cody I feel like is more openly like questions

15:37all of these things from a first principle standpoint. So I feel like we need to talk about it. So OpenSea just to set the stage like over this weekend this past weekend before we filmed this OpenSea had a hack was what was reported initially. A hacker came in and stole hundreds of NFTs worth you know, well into the seven

15:55figures from a bunch of its users. To his credit OpenSea CEO co-founder Devin Finzer who I think we know Greg I think you know him really like took control of the situation immediately came out and put together this great thread kind of laying out what their investigation was showing. And basically what it sounded like happened was that someone duplicated an email of OpenSea that looked like an OpenSea email and it was a phishing attack. So anyone kind of clicked into it and connected their wallet thinking it was OpenSea actually these hackers had access. And the hackers were kind of smart in that they basically got access

16:30a few weeks ago and then did nothing. They just sat there and there was they had access but didn't do anything right away so that it wasn't immediately obvious. And then what they did was they went in and they stole a bunch of high value NFTs and they sold them immediately at kind of like below market prices so that they would move quickly. Cuz my initial question with this [ __ ] by the way is like how do you steal an NFT because now like it's an NFT so you can't display it

16:54cuz it's like oh that's the stolen NFT. And you also can't sell it cuz it's like dude that NFT is stolen. Like we all know that that's stolen. It's the one image. So I'm curious to get perspectives on this because I think it's interesting. It's interesting in the context of like decentralized versus centralized and the

17:10puts and takes on all of this. And also like what do you do with stolen funds on the blockchain because it's all public. Like I know where those funds are in the wallets that got the funds from these sales. So, Greg, maybe you go first and then I want Cody's take on this. Okay, well first and foremost, I want to say that when when this happened, I think it was

17:32Saturday night. It ruined my my whole night. My night was completely ruined. So, here I am having dinner, you know, some steak, a glass of Merlot. I'm like kind of like relaxing, you know, at the end of a long week, you know, time off. All of the sudden, you know, I'm walking to the bathroom, I pull up Twitter while I'm walking there, and I see like

18:00OpenSea hacked, OpenSea hacked. NFTs gone. Like Ethereum gone, and I'm like having heart palpitations like going into the bathroom. Um so, I end up, you know, try not to think about it, put my phone in my pocket, airplane mode, you know, aka panic mode. And I get back to my apartment, and it was just like two to four hours of me just trying to

18:29figure out what is going on. And it was it was tough. I didn't go to sleep I basically did not go to sleep that night cuz I didn't know if my wallet or set of wallets basically were compromised. Um I think so, that's that's how I felt. That's the first thing. The second thing is um we're going to see more of this. This is just going to happen again and again and again until we figure out playbooks and and you know, yeah, playbooks for security, etc. So, basically, it wasn't a hack. Everyone was saying, you know,

19:06OpenSea was hacked, OpenSea was hacked. OpenSea wasn't hacked. People were being fished. And the difference a hack and a fish is you basically got this email that looked like an OpenSea email, and they basically said, "Hey, connect your wallet." And when you press when you connect your wallet, you know, connect your wallet to go do this like basically housekeeping thing, and when you connect your wallet, it basically like wiped out your, you know, your arts. Yeah, it basically had access to your wallet, and then it wiped

19:32it out. So, Cody, what do you got? Yeah. Greg feels so stressed about this, man. I feel sad. Well, yeah. Well, I'm still I'm recovering. I'm recovering from it, and fished. You didn't get get fished. I didn't get fished, but I did see that original email, and I and I could tell that it was weird. So, I think like for everyone listening, like if it's if it's weird, if it looks weird, like don't click that link. Like, don't click links. Honestly, like don't click links, and crypto's not going to be mainstream

20:07until people could click links, period. Yeah, but that said, I mean, people get fished in their Bank of America bank account today. So, like I my take is like that will always exist, no matter how intelligent the software gets. And in fact, I think it'll probably just get more and more difficult. I mean, you guys know this cuz your name's on the internet, too, but the amount of texts I get every day single day that's like, "Cody, you want me to invest in this crypto fishing or this crypto investment scheme?" And I'm like, "No, that's the 332 fake profiles that are on Instagram that text you from my account that look

20:41like me." And so, um you know, that happens, I think, all the time. And and then imagine like what will happen once deep fakes start becoming real, and somebody can pop up inside of, you know, Greg's Twitter DMs, and it's looks like Sahil's video, and he's like, "Dude, check this crazy thing out that I just got for this new shares. Like, you got to buy it right now on OpenSea." And then you click on it, and Sahil literally told you to do it cuz it's a

21:03video of him. Um but, it wasn't Sahil. It was a deep fake. And so, I think it's just going to get even weirder. Um The difference But then again, you're like almost living in the metaverse right now. How wild is that that OpenSea could not even actually happen a hack to you, but you could have a visceral reaction to it from something that didn't happen in reality. The The difference with mainstream that like with the traditional finance, I agree with you. You can get fished in your Bank of America account, but you're going to get that money back. Um and if it happens, like you'll be either

21:33insured and they will recover the money. I I've had that happen actually. Like I I've gotten like sent a wire to someone that, you know, did a like asked for a wire and it was the wrong wire and you get the money back and like the FBI gets involved and it's there's like real due process around it. With this, there's actually no way to get these NFT back NFTs back in like a traditional way, right? And so, that that's the challenge is like it's not FDIC insured. It's the the kind of the downside of decentralization in some context is that

22:05it you are self-custodying all of this. There is not a bank that's actually holding this where you are the bank, which is a plus and it's a feature and a bug, right? The bug is if you're not really strict and good with security, this kind of [ __ ] can happen and it will continue to happen. I think there are going to be some like cool features and platforms and things that rise so that people are better about their own security and managing it, but it is a unique challenge. As an aside to this, I got scammed, um which is a funny story with all of this that is like a watch

22:32out for it. I want to see if I can actually just share my screen to show you guys this cuz I literally got scammed on an NFT scam where I connected my wallet to something for a friend and lost like one ETH or something like that. I actually don't Here, let me see if I can um Let me see if I can share my screen cuz it's actually pretty funny. So, um context to this is our friend Josh Fabian, uh Greg, uh and I are texting on like a Saturday night. Uh Josh is the founder of this really cool business, Metafy. He's like, you know, it's a

22:58hundred million dollar plus business, amazing. Um and Josh hits me up. He's like, "Yo, there's this dope NFT drop of this Clone X thing. It's, you know, it was RTFKT, um, which like like a few days later got acquired by Nike, I think. Um, it was super cool, and he's like, "Hey, um, you know, I want to I want to buy one of these, but like the money hasn't transferred to my MetaMask yet. Like, can you just get me one?" And I was like, "Yeah, sure, I got you." And so, I buy him one, um, and send it to him. And then, a few hours later, I'm in bed, and

23:25I get a text from him being like, "Dude, they're doing a clone drop of the same thing, but much cheaper. We should get a few more of these." And he sends me a link to this, you know, to the website. And so, I pull it up on my phone, and it looks kind of normal on my phone. And, you know, there's the normal like feature of connect your wallet to buy one. And so, I connect my wallet, and I,

23:43you know, buy three at at .3 ETH each. At the time, I think ETH was like 4,000 or north of 4,000. And I click it, and it goes through. And then, suddenly, it's like, "Hey, put in your seed phrase, uh, in order to access your NFTs." And I remember being like, "That's [ __ ] up. That's definitely not right." And so, I closed it out and deleted it and like disconnected my

24:03wallet. Um, but the ETH was gone, right? Like, I sent it to this thing, and the ETH was gone. And the reason it happened, well, first off, I gave my buddy a bunch of [ __ ] and he had to pay me for my lost ETH, and it was hilarious. But, the reason it happened was here, I'm going to share my screen if this works. I don't know if you can see this. Um, but this was the original site, and it looked like beautiful. It was beautiful design. It like I I took a screenshot of it. It was like gorgeous, really nicely done. And then, this was

24:30the, um, was the fake one. And it wasn't even like size enabled. Like, it wouldn't shrink. It just was like really bad and shittily done. Um, and I fell for it. And it was like, I don't know if anyone could see that, um, on the thing when I was doing it, but it was like very obvious if you were on a computer, not obvious when you were on mobile. And so, I fell for it, and it became this, you know, I lost $4,000 sending money to a

24:55scam. Has anybody ever recovered any of this stuff? Like is there a cyber crimes unit that goes after these sort of things and have they ever won? Well, the Bitfinex thing The Bitfinex thing just happened where um you know, that couple uh just got arrested like a couple weeks ago for like the $4 billion of stolen Bitcoin that they were trying to launder which is [ __ ] hilarious too cuz like it was 70 million and so laundering 70 million feels doable, but all of a sudden it appreciated and laundering 5 billion is literally impossible. Um but they did recover a bunch of that from those

25:31wallets and so I think that's going to either be returned or go through some process. Um but it's very difficult. The most famous example I think was in 2017 or 16 with the DAO. Um Have you heard what happened there with the DAO and the Ethereum hard fork? Oh, yeah. Tell tell that story. That's an interesting story actually. It's the

25:52original DAO. It's the original DAO. It's like DAO number one. So, these people had like the idea for the DAO basically. Create the DAO. Um raise like I don't remember 70 million dollars, millions of dollars, end up getting millions you know, I think it was like 40, 50, 60 million hacked. And Vitalik and this is all in ETH and Vitalik uh the co-founder of Ethereum basically was like we're not going to let these

26:19hackers get away with it. So, he basically forked Ethereum. So, there is Ethereum Classic which is the original Ethereum which is where the hackers they the hackers owned some of that ETH and then the the current Ethereum which is Ethereum ETH uh you know, so he basically That's no way. Hack never happened. So, he was able to you know, that's the most famous example. I think it's so funny and Cody, I want your take on this cuz like so I come from like a more traditional mindset on these things and I think it's so hilarious that you literally can have a world where you're like, I don't like

26:56the thing that happened in the like in the like actual universe that was happening. So, I'm actually just going to be like record scratch like rewind. Actually, no, that didn't happen. That path like that can keep happening, but now I just created this alternate universe where like here's the [ __ ] that happened and we're going to like go down this different path. Don't worry about over

27:13there. Um and the fact that you can do that programmatically and like create a world where those kind of things didn't happen is mind-bending and also kind of hilarious to me. Also, I mean it show maybe shows my naivete, but I'm not sure that I would want if what I want is decentralization and not having you know, autocratic tendencies an individual be able to do that either. And I know there's this critique already about Ethereum and I don't know if it dealt from this originally, but It did. I also don't love that. I might rather they get away with a hack Yeah, the the free market mindset would be get

27:49away with that. You got the hack. Like you you kind of in a capitalist sense, you like figured out and exposed some glitch in the thing and you got away with it and got out. But yeah, I mean this is the big pushback like Bitcoiners hardcore like Bitcoin maxis um think like point to this as a classic example of like if it's possible that Vitalik can literally just stand up and be like, "No, this did not happen." and move in the other direction with his like you know, big whatever. I'm imagining him like putting down a saber whatever those [ __ ] thing a a staff

28:16like, "No, you shall not pass." and we're going to like go in the other direction. If he can do that, what else can he do? Um I don't know. Interesting. Anyway, I feel like I went down this rabbit hole with Cody that was so far off coin laundromats that I wanted to talk about that I want to I want to circle back cuz that's way more interesting by the way,

28:34Cody. Yeah, I don't know. Well, we can happily talk about Well, I'm sure that'll be out of Actually, I was just looking at this ATM deal. Totally random. Investing in ATMs and there are funds that can do this and you can go out of them and whatever. Um, but I had to actually take the model and put a negative assumption on it that like in seven years, you know, this might not be

28:56necessary, you know, or in four years. What does that look like in 10 years? Um, and they were and because how these models work is you really make no money for the first three to four years. You basically break even and then after it you can start to have a pretty nice little return, but my thought was, "Wow, if we do it right, we probably won't

29:12still be printing coins." Mhm. And using them in that that realm. Can we just like set the stage a little bit on you and your experience at? So like I first came across you from a Twitter thread that you wrote about you know, you started at I was burned out in finance working on someone else's schedule tired of having my time tied to money. So I started investing in cash flowing businesses, not sexy startups, but boring businesses. One of my favorite small deals netted $67,000 a year and $100,000 at close with quarters. And it is amazing thread. I encourage people to check your Twitter

29:46out at Cody_Sanchez. Um, but it's an amazing thread about laundromats that you invested in and how you were making money off of it. Can you just like set the stage a little bit on who you are and how you came to be the like boring the queen of boring businesses on Twitter, TikTok, all of the platforms

30:05that you're dominating now? So funny. Um, yeah, making my father proud one quarter investment at a time. Um, so uh, I, you know, I was similar to you. So I had like we've talked about this before, but I was traditional um, investment finance background, you know, how do you know anybody worked at Goldman? They tell you immediately. So like I did that whole thing and um, and basically for a long time when this first happened, I was running an asset management business in Latin America. So that was actually kind of fun. We built up a a business where we sold investments and structured investments for big government sovereign wealth

30:37funds, that type of thing. So I was a young gun flying all around Latin America and trying to talk them about different ways to invest. And to be frank, you know, if anybody's worked in finance, you know, it's really long hours nonstop. And then really long plane flights, like 13-hour red eyes, where then I'd go have like 10 roadshow meetings the next day

30:56about equity deals and whatever. And so I was really I was really burned out. And the but the crazy thing about finance, I think a lot of people connect with this these days with the great resignation and stuff you guys have talked about here before. Um I was like, man, I'm making really good money, but I am so tired. I don't even want to use it. I have more points than anybody could ever have, but I don't want to get on another plane. And so I started trying to think about my exit strategy. And in finance, we don't really have that many skills. Like we can look at numbers and like I guess we

31:24can sell people things uh at varying prices, but um I was like, what could I go do? And at the time um I was investing in a few private equity deals. And we did one deal that made a ton of money uh for the investors, and it was actually in the HVAC and plumbing uh

31:42health services space. And I remember like helping them finalize this deal. And I I can't remember what the exact number was, but at the end of it, the guys who ended up closing this deal, repackaging the stuff, and then reselling it made tens of millions of dollars. And I made whatever I made at the time. Did well,

31:56but not tens of millions. And uh I remember thinking, god, this business is so straightforward. And I bet there are other businesses like this for sale. And why am I like making money for all these other guys? Why couldn't I just go do this deal by myself? And so um I started thinking about what would be like the laziest way to buy a business and have some ROI on it that didn't mean that I had to understand how heating and, you know, cooling units work, cuz I didn't know how to do that, or go clean somebody's house, cuz I didn't want to do that. And so I stumbled upon, literally by

32:27accident, laundromats. Um and we ended up buying one. That wasn't actually the first deal we did. We did I did a slew of them. And when I say we, I've had varying deal partners. Anytime I start on a new venture, I always try to partner with somebody else that's done something like it before so I don't lose a bunch money. But um laundromats, car washes, um things like production services for like this podcast for instance. I just started saying, well if I could do these big deals and finance private equity, why couldn't I do them by myself? And I started my own little mini cold kill

32:58company back when I didn't really know what that meant. So I have so many questions here. Um First off, you're you're crushing it in terms of actually explaining these things to people in a way that everyone can understand, which I'm just obsessed with. Like I I often write about like Feynman and, you know, kind of abstracting complexity and being able to deliver things in a simple way. What you're doing is not simple and you make it feel like anybody can do it in a simple way. And and honestly, you've probably empowered a lot of people to go and take control of their own lives this way, which is very cool and you should

33:31be you should be very proud of. Can you talk about some of the um I don't I hate saying hacks, but like the tricks and kind of um things you've done along the way that have made it um really attractive financially. I've seen you write about like QSBS as an example as something that everyone should understand. Um anything there or with the like holding company structure, you know, ala Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, like things that people that are listening to this should be thinking about if they're interested in going down a path of like acquiring and

34:02operating these operating companies. Yeah. God, there's there's so many things. Well, first of all, everybody talks about real estate and real estate's ability to create wealth and to offset taxation. And it's true, except that if you think about it a higher level, where you make all the money is before the arbitrage happens, right? So like in the beginning of the stock market, people made a lot of money when they could invest in primary when individual stocks because there wasn't a market that was democratized that was really easy to trade access on. Same thing with crypto. People are making a lot of money while there's hacks and

34:36fail points and difficulties, right? And then over time, what happens is those arbitrage opportunities or the difficulty of doing something decreases, which means the return typically decreases, too. And so this has happened in stocks, it's happened in real estate, it will happen in crypto, but I think we're very early stages, and it hasn't happened yet in private deals, either. And so, you know, when we think about buying businesses, my favorite part about it is that it's not normalized yet. It will be, but for right now, people still, when I say,

35:06"Well, I buy businesses for a living." What do they say to me? "Must be nice. How much did dad give you, right?" Like There's also some sexism there, by the way. Yeah, well, yeah. Like I a lot of sexism, yeah. Um but I think the the real thing that people don't realize is you don't need millions to do this, to your point. If I was going to give like two quick hacks on how to buy a business, let me say to my car salesy voice, like, "How to buy a business with little to no money down." But basically, without a lot of Tok headline. Oh man, I know. But it's,

35:36you know, gets the people riled up. No, it works. Anyway, so um there's like two things that I think people should know about. One is SBA loans. And so, if anybody takes anything off of this podcast, I think it should be go reach out to your local SBA loan office, they're all listed online, and just have take a meeting with them and say, "Can you explain to me how I could buy a business using the government's money without having to have great credit or a lot of capital on hand?" And if you say that to somebody at the SBA, they'll explain to you the various SBA

36:04loans, and that's the Small Business Administration. Okay, yeah. So, the SBA is the Small Business Administration. You can go online and find They're basically banks that are SBA bank or that that are SBA partners, and so they're kind of registered with SBA and can make these SBA loans. And you can go, anyone can go and apply to have an SBA loan, and they're extremely attractive terms for people that are going and taking them out, right? Like really long duration, low rates, um really attractive. They are personal recourse though, right? Yes, which means that you have to put your name on the

36:37line. Your money is on the line. Um but I would say like the thing that surprised me and a lot of people is they think, well, I have to have millions or I have to have a really strong credit. And actually, that would be true when you buy a house, right? You buy a house based off their prediction of your future cash flow. That's what a mortgage is. But when you go and buy a business, they do it kind of the same way. They buy You buy a business based off the future cash flow of the business or the

37:01assets of the business, not you. This is the coolest thing about private deals. So, I you you know this, Cody. I spent 7 years working in private equity and it wasn't a perfect fit for me. I always wanted to invest in like the future kind of venture businesses. But the coolest [ __ ] thing about private equity, about private deals, like what you're doing, and it feels unfair. When I explained it to my dad, he thought it

37:23was ridic- He was like, wait, what? You're doing what? You're literally buying a business with the business, which is like the most absurd thing when you break it down in your own mind. But you are buying the business with the future cash flows of the business. So, literally, when you're going to buy a company, you go and take out a loan that is underwritten based on the future cash flows that come from the business. So, you're getting money up front in exchange for the future cash flows of the business and you're taking that money that you just got up front and buying the business with that. So, you

37:52can go in I mean, in the context of some of the deals you're doing, you get an SBA loan, you can get seller financing, so the the person who's selling you the business will actually finance part of it. Like you're going to pay them an annual kind of return on the money they're loaning you to buy it. So, in a lot of cases, you can go in with so little down. I saw a thread recently of someone that was like buying a business for $50,000. It was like a million-dollar business. He was putting in $50,000 to buy a million-dollar business. The return on that equity that

38:20you just put in can be exceptional if you run the business well and it continues to cash flow because you're literally buying a business with the business. That's exactly right. I mean, that's where you get crypto level returns. People joke, but I mean, you know, like that laundromat that I bought that cash flowed $67,000. We bought it for 100k and people were like, "No way, that doesn't exist." And I'm like, "Oh my god, you guys, go to BizBuySell, which is the worst place to buy a business, by the way. Like, you never want to go into public marketplaces. Sorry if they're listening. It's always better to find

38:50the deals yourself, but these these deals are everywhere. They're everywhere. It's totally normalized. Um the average price when you buy a business is two to three X profits. And then go and look at the average, you know, um multiples or or earnings per share of some of the stocks that you see in the stock. There's nothing for two to three X profits, not revenue. Um and so, and to your point, Sahil, 60% of small businesses are sold with seller financing. That used to happen in real estate. Doesn't happen anymore, um really. But, in small businesses, it's very normal. I mean, I bought a I bought into a a video production company with

39:26$10,000 that does $300,000 in revenue a year and about $150,000 in profit. And I bought 40% of the business for $10,000. Um and and the reason I did is one, um the the business owner needed to get um credit, didn't understand how to get financing and credit for the business overall. So, I did help on that value you add. And then two, I said, "Hey, I bet I could take your revenue and like double it with a few tweets." Um or like a couple newsletters. So, how about I give you 10k because, you know, we're buds and if if I don't bring you anything else, decrease me where 10k is

40:02like pro rata, like what I should actually earn for investing in you. But, if I do increase the business, uh I want to have a percentage of equity tied to how much I grew the business by, which is how I got the 40k. The seller financing point I do want to just re-emphasize so that people really understand it. This is like Cody, you want to buy my business for a million dollars. I tell you I will finance or you pitch pitch it to me, but I will finance half of that. And basically, for me, the benefit is like what am I going to do with that $500,000? Where am I

40:31going to put it? I don't know, maybe I'm going to put it in the S&P 500. By the way, like selling it, maybe I'm not going to get I'm going to have to pay taxes on it, so it's not going to be 500. So, if I provide seller financing to you for half a million dollars, you tell me you're going to pay me an interest rate of 8% on that in cash. Now that $500,000, I'm, you know, net now making what, like 40k per year in actual cash income interest on that loan that I just made to you, and I probably have a more tax advantage situation on the fact

41:02that I just rolled that to loan it to you. And so, for a seller, it's actually pretty logical. Like where was I going to go and get 8% in the market today, you know, as a stable kind of like dividend income type situation? Not in a lot of places. So, it's it's a pretty cool thing that actually is

41:17logical for a lot of sellers to do. Totally. Yeah, and I think, you know, I don't know what the average listener is for you guys, but you can scale this up or scale it down. So, like if your wife, let's say, is coming back into the workforce, which is increasingly happening in large numbers, and you know, can't find a job that allows for childcare and the things that she wants to do. I talked to a lot of women about, okay, why don't we buy a business? You used to be a hair stylist. You don't want to go have to do that the whole

41:45time. Why don't you buy the salon? Here's how it would work. You could buy a salon very cheap. You could buy a salon for like 80k here in Austin that does more than 80k in profit because they're hard to sell. Not everybody wants to go run that type of business. And so, I think you can do it at a low level, and you can get all of that seller finance, or you could do it at a high level, which is private equity guys like me and you back in the day used to do, you know, 100 million billion dollar

42:09deals, right? So, it's very malleable. And then maybe the play for Greg is we overlay Web3 on top of it somehow and we blockchain my laundromats. That's probably where this goes. Well, I think you know, I I have a question for you while while I have your time, Cody. Um so, Late Checkout, which is our holding company, we've got an agency, a studio, um

42:33and we've got a fund where we invest. Now we want to do more M&A. So, we want to buy community-based businesses. What advice do you have to someone like me who, you know, is seeing a lot of traditional businesses that could basically apply this, you know, this new world on top of it, be it

42:53community-based or Web3? Um yeah, just what advice do you have to me to give to me? Well, first of all, I think it's brilliant. I was just on the phone with somebody talking about this. One of the guys' name is Alex Hormozi. I don't know if you guys know him. He'd be good to have on your pod. He's um He's become a friend, but he just sold like 40 This is public, but excuse me if I [ __ ] up the numbers. He just sold like 40% of his company for something like either 40 or 60 million dollars to a PE firm and it was called Gym Launch. And what it was

43:24is um education platforms to scale your gym up six figures and they did 85 million dollars in revenue. Um and he just sold a portion of his business and now he's starting something called acquisitions.com where he's basically buying unsexy community businesses and then helping them scale. So, the first thing you should do, Greg, is definitely should let me into all your deals. I'll definitely be value added, which is what I told Alex Hormozi, too. Um but the second thing is um I think it's brilliant. Like my play, I'm looking at one right now that's an accounting firm, accounting business with 300 ultra high net worth uh

44:03um clients. And I was like, wait, do you have educational products like layered on top of this? It's an $8 million a year business. He's like, no. I'm like, oh my god, here's the products we could do that would definitely juice you up to another $4 million. So, I guess my point to you would be like, don't just look at the sexy community businesses because those people are going to over inflate the value and you might be buying into a

44:24hype cycle. Um, but I would say look at a lot of like the unsexy community. What about like the dentist, the accounting firm, you know, because there are those communities all over Facebook, all over everywhere that you could apply really intelligent community marketing and upsell of product on and and make a big difference. And then simultaneously for the sexy businesses, how do you get them into the more boring things? So, we could like case like, do you have one

44:48that you've already invested in? Um, like that you could talk about? I mean, there's not not right now on on this pod, but definitely want to bring you back to like go through it. Um, but I think um, you know, there's for what we're really interested in is community lives in a in a bunch of different ways. Like, it doesn't need to be a crypto thing. It doesn't need to be like, um, you know, a Facebook group or uh, a paid group. Like, to your point, like, community could live in physical locations. It could be like, um, you know, we looked at buying like, um, as an example, like a tennis

45:32magazine / physical event business. You know, it's like it's been around for 40 years and it's it's, you know, this geography, this interest, these amounts of events, but like, what does that look like if you put, you know, NFTs on top of it or or education or or uh, you know, what is the intersection

45:51between digital and physical look like? Totally. Well, one thing we're doing, too, is I've never taken sponsorship dollars before and I actually called Sahil and asked his opinion on this stuff and he helped me out, so thank you. We um did our first sponsorships, where we just submitted them, we haven't put them out yet. And one of the things that I'm requiring from people that we do sponsorships is one, I want to invest in like whatever it is that I'm doing. So, I'm trying to get equity for every deal I do sponsorships with, if at all humanly possible, so that my content creation community can actually create a

46:19simultaneous hold co, which will hold all the equity of the deals that we do inside of the sponsorship aspect of it. Um and I don't think enough people are doing that. Like think about to Sam Parr, like another mutual friend of all of ours from The Hustle, um and I was like, "Man, how many you did sponsorships with X and Y and Z?" And he was like, "Yeah, and guess what? I even

46:39bought some of their stock at the time." And I was like, "You did it totally wrong. Totally wrong. You should have 100% asked for private uh shares in these deals or some access to buy or warrants or options on it, so that you do a deal with them and that you even buy in or give them money in exchange and then you have this hold co of other equity in businesses that you partner with." I should do that. So, this is brilliant. So, I have, you know, I have my newsletter. My newsletter's smaller than yours, Cody. Mine goes to right now, I think like 72,000 people. And I

47:12have a team that sells the sponsor slots. Um and I they're all cash and it's great cash income. I should really, especially in the interesting companies, I should just be taking at least I should be taking 50% equity and the 50% cash um should just be to cover the taxes on that. And so, if my tax rate is 50%, which don't even get me started on,

47:30but I live in New York and it's absurd. Um and I haven't figured out all the Nick We haven't had Nick Huber on or uh someone to tell me how to stop paying so much in taxes, but if my tax rate is 50%, um I could take 50% cash, 50% equity deals, use the 50% cash to pay the tax, um and then have equity in a bunch of interesting companies. It's sort of an interesting idea if they can find a way to do it. Yeah, well, and I mean, think about how did Tim Ferriss make most of his money? He did like some really smart angel investments, right? Into some

47:57early-stage deals. And I I don't think those were tied to sponsorship dollars, but now I would imagine that he has equity in most of the deals that he talks about. Um Joe Rogan did the same thing. Um it's really not that dissimilar to what private equity firms require, too. Hey, we'll give you some investments, some debt, some etc., but we're going to ask for a little icing on top. We're going to ask for warrants for or some equity options in case you do really well, we want the option to buy

48:22you. So, what um what are the things that you most like I I'm I feel like we're painting this great picture of doing this, you know, buying boring businesses. Um you know, the amazing financing, the tax arbitrage, all of these cool things. Um what are the like most common one or two or three things that people [ __ ] up? Like I cuz I can see myself doing this and then being like, oh my god, that was such a headache and I need to get out of this and they're not super liquid, so it can kind of be a pain. Like, what do you if you're going to go do this, what do

48:54you need to be sure of? Um what are the biggest screw-ups? Also, paint paint like the the dreary picture of buying boring businesses. Like, where does this go wrong? Yeah, exactly. Well, the first thing is is our culture is a, you know, instant gratification culture and deal making and deal finding couldn't be less of that. It is like massively long-termish pain for even longer long-term gain. Because, you know, yeah, so how long and Greg you could go buy a company tomorrow. Great, but like probably not the best company if you can close in 24 hours. So, um so I think that the hardest thing is really

49:34just the fact that you have to look for deals for a while. Everybody's like anybody who's bought a house recently, who's had like an awesome experience in house buying? Like, oh my god, they were so cheap. Greg. Beautiful. Deals all around. No, right? Everybody's like, this is a nightmare. I'd rather have an actual colonoscopy. So, that's what it feels like to do a

49:54deal, I think. It's brutal up front. You're like Call me I mean, I went to this We almost bought this dental manufacturing company in Chicago. And so, I had fly out in Chicago in like So, they do like caps and like retainer thing. I think my friend Justin Ring works for this company. Oh, Jesus. Sorry. I don't actually think he does, but he works for like a dental implant company that This made me think of that. Shout

50:20out. So, I might be having a colonoscopy. Sorry, Justin. Unsexy businesses. Yeah. So, so we fly out. It's like -12 in Chicago. It's miserable. I ask for a salad for lunch. They take us to Portillo's or something. And so, it's like cakes and pizzas. Like, it's just my nightmare. I'm lactose intolerant. I'm like so mad that I'm spending my Saturday and Sunday there. And then, we're like combing through If you've ever been to a dental manufacturing

50:43plant, imagine the inside of an office. Then, imagine you take like a bomb of like dust and you explode it everywhere. And like, that's what it looks like because they're like sawing these implants. So, there's just everything's like caked. It's just not a pretty situation. And then, um so, I'm combing through financials like in the dust. And um And I realize that the company the financials that they gave us, it wasn't fraud necessarily, I don't think. But, they basically were either fraudulent or their books were so horrifically tracked that every single dollar amount that they told us was

51:20wrong to the tune of like $2 million. And so, they went from a company that was profitable to the tune of $2 million to to barely break even at like $100,000. And so, you know, and I wasted 3 months on that deal and like 20K in legal costs. So, that's the bad part. The bad part is it sucks to get deals done. It takes a lot of work, and you have to realize that um it's not like content where it like grows little by little. It's like it's miserable, miserable, miserable, and then you do a deal and you're like, "Oh, this is awesome." And one deal can

51:51offset an entire salary or make you independently wealthy. There's also just got to be operating, you know, expertise to it, in my opinion. Like, one of the things that I always saw in my PE days was like, when you had a great team, you always felt like a genius and that you could just do this forever. Cuz they were just great. They figure out a way to win, they figure out a way to grow, or just continue to kind of produce margins and stable cash flows. And when you find those teams, you really want to press it and like go roll other things up and build underneath them, cuz

52:22they're great. But if you don't have a team, or [ __ ] hits the fan, it's a headache, man, owning one of these things. Cuz like, if you if you buy up, you know, Dunkin' Donuts franchise, I love Dunkin' Donuts, shout out. Um, and you don't have an operating team, like it's not easy to run one of these places. A coin like, you know, you're actually talking about one of the things that's beautiful about the things you're talking about is that they're actually not labor intensive and you can run them without having some amazing expertise. Buying a restaurant franchise requires a lot of operating expertise and you need people that really

52:52understand margins and food waste and you know, all the labor, etc. Um, and so you need to think, too, I think, as part of all this, about what businesses are not going to be an operating headache. Like, what are these businesses that are recession resistant, to your point that you make in the original thread about

53:07laundry. People need their laundry done. Car washes have always been one that people really like for that reason. You always get your car washed even if there's a recession. Um, they're also a great place to launder money, apparently, according to Breaking Bad. Um, but that that's the other side of this to me is like, you need to make sure that you're you know what you're getting into from an operating perspective with all of these. Can I add to that, as someone who's run a lot of businesses and and as and as someone who's gotten slapped in the face so many times, because if you run a business, you're

53:38just like, it's going to hurt, you know? Like, we talked about the OpenSea hack and how I was in pain and nothing even happened to me. Like imagine like you're running a car wash and all of a sudden everyone quits or you know, so anything you know, if you're going to buy a business, know that you're getting into business and if you're getting into business, know that

54:00you're going to get punched in the face. And if you're going to get punched in the face, know that it gets hurt to get punched in the face. So that's one thing I want I want to say. The second thing is you're on you know, if you are going to do let's say SBA financing you know, you're on the hook for that, right? Like so my advice would be for for folks is um you know, if you're interested in in buying businesses, start by buying small businesses and and sort of grow from there. So Cody, do you have like did you start by buying smaller like doing

54:33smaller deals and then grow to medium-sized deals and then larger deals? Yeah, totally. I mean I agree with you. Two things I'd say is like one, I think the best business to buy is the adjacent business to what you already do. So if you're an accountant, you like being an accountant, you want to keep doing the thing, but you'd like to own the company, that would be a good business for you to buy. You already kind of know how to run sort of let's say that ecosystem, maybe there's an operator in it so you can just replace your job with ownership. So I think that's a good way

55:00to decrease risk. Um two is certainly for every deal I'm always asking myself, if the worst possible thing happened to this business, what would we do? Do we have plans? And so um you know, if I don't know, if my laundromat operator quit, do I have a backup? Um and the the when you start, you're not going to have

55:21a lot of layers cuz it won't make sense. Your deals won't be big enough. Eventually you get to a level, you know, even definitely past me where you have multiple operators who run multiple businesses and if one goes sideways, they can sort of they can you got to you got a bench, right? You can tap in the next pitcher. Um but I would say in the beginning, yeah, you don't want to I don't I've never done a deal that could bankrupt me. It's probably why I'm not like massively, massively wealthy. I just haven't been comfortable with those risks, but I've

55:46never done a deal that could kill me. Um, and so I think starting smaller that way, even taking investor capital, because you can have multiple people on an SBA loan. It doesn't have to be one. They just have to disclose some disclose some stuff. So, think about how to decrease your risk. Simultaneously, you could buy a business with no recourse, no loans, and do it with equity, other people's money. Then if it goes sideways, not your problem. Or, you could do revenue share and profit share, so you just take a percentage of the business based on your ability either

56:14increase sales or decrease uh costs. Those are a couple ideas. So, I have like three takeaways from this. I know we're running up against the end of time. My three, and I'm curious for yours, um, my three would be number one, uh, zig when other people are zagging, which I just think is like core to a lot of the things you're saying, which is like this is an area that has opportunity because not many people are doing it, thinking

56:37about it, or want to spend time on it. It's like super sexy to invest in venture, growth, crypto, whatever, so returns get squeezed. Zig when other people zag and like do the thing that other people aren't thinking of. Um, the second one would be, uh, running a business is getting punched in the face over and over again and figuring out a way to get back up. Kudos to Greg for that one cuz I think that's um, that's a great overall point. Um, and you know, then for me, I guess the third one would be there's no such thing as a free lunch. So, we're giving all

57:07these tips, um, seller financing, SBA loans, and to Greg's point, you're on the hook. Um, and when you go do this, you have to be accountable and you have to own it when you're going and doing one of these things. And so like, as a broad economic point, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If something's too good to be true, it probably is, and you need to figure out how to actually go and deliver against these things because at the end of the day, you're on the hook and you have to be accountable

57:28for it. I like it. I like it. told Brent. I think you nailed it. I've got a I've got my three. Number one, there's more financing than you think out there. Like I feel like you know, a lot of us, you know, work at companies and we're kind of just like, oh, I wish I can buy this thing. I wish I can do this thing, but I can never do

57:50it. Well, actually, maybe you can. That's number one. Number two is Cody, you kind of alluded that, you know, while there's opportunities on marketplaces, public marketplaces, a lot of the deals are private, like straight up like calling, you know, knocking on doors and pounding the pavement. So, um, I would say my second takeaway is like a lot of action in private deals. Don't

58:15be afraid of pounding the pavement. And my last is probably just get started, you know? Small, it's okay to do start small, too, you know? I think like you don't need to be, you know, Warren Buffett and be buying massive companies from day one, like find something that, you know, is feels maybe makes you a little bit uncomfortable, but not too

58:40uncomfortable, and and just get started. Yeah, I mean, Berkshire Hathaway, right? The original thing was like a cotton mill, right? It wasn't it a It was like a textile mill. So, to your point, exactly, like Warren Buffett started out buying small, unsexy businesses. That's right. Yeah, and I would just add one thing, which is I think about buying businesses like I think a lot of people think about buying stocks. You know how you're like, "Oh man, I'm drinking out of this Yeti cooler and I just paid $70 for it and it Oh, now it's publicly listed." This is a bad example. It's not public, but, you

59:11know, something where like HubSpot. Oh, I use it as my CRM and it's publicly listed, but man, it's so much cooler than anybody's giving it credit for and you go and buy the stock. That's the best way to find deals. It's like, "Oh man, I'm talking to my landscaper and he says his son doesn't want to take over the company, but he services like all the people in my neighborhood, and plus his prices are really low. I wonder what he's going to do when he retires. That's

59:31the way to find the boring businesses. This is um did Did you read One Up On Wall Street, Peter Lynch? This was like one of the first books I ever read on finance. I highly recommend it to people. It's short, easy read. Peter Lynch, he's like amazing, I think Fidelity mutual fund manager. Um but he writes his in this amazing book, One Up On Wall Street, he talks about this exact thing, which is like invest in what you know. And his example was Hanes in the very early days. This is like way back when, I don't know, '60s, '70s, '80s, or something like that. Um and he

1:00:00like saw a tons of people going in and buying these Hanes pantyhose, and his wife kept talking to him about it. And so, he went and invested, and it became like a 100-bagger for a, you know, 100x return on Hanes. Um but that whole book is about investing in things that you really deeply understand, that you see, that you know. Um so, it's that exact thing. I totally agree with that. I

1:00:19think it's awesome. I I could talk for hours, but I'm actually meeting a founder of a play-to-earn game um who we're talking to about, you know, maybe acquiring. So, I'm going to use these lessons. And uh We need to do a whole episode on on play-to-earn with Cody, cuz I I need I need to get her hot takes on that,

1:00:40too. Looking forward to it. into the deal, too. Yeah. Thank you so much, Cody. Um where can people find you? Uh Twitter, Cody_Sanchez, Instagram, TikTok, the same, and Contranian. Follow her on TikTok, cuz that's like my my my feed is like 30% Cody, and I wish it was 70% Cody. That's how good her her like short, punchy videos are. So, check

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