Michael Girdley: Why Fireworks Are A Cash Cow and How to Operate a Holdco Worth $100 Million

You own a holdco. I think Gridly Enterprises is the name of it. Within it, you have a bunch of different things. So you will own stuff as funky as like a fireworks company called Alamo Fireworks. You own like a software rollup called Dura Software. Um, you have like a coffee chain, I think. Is that right? You have like your, a drive-through coffee chain that's got like 3 or 4 locations or something like that. Um, and then you incubate a couple, uh, couple projects. One of them, one of which I used actually recently.

Michael, what up, dog? Sean, where are you? You're in Tahoe?

I'm in Lake Tahoe. Yeah.

How is it?

It's amazing. Yeah, this place is great.

Is it just a getaway from crypto?

No, it was a Father's Day trip. So, you know, came out here with my wife's family and Yeah, it's been cool. Just been like at the lake, in the pool, all that good stuff.

That's awesome. Who, who, so you, Sean, you wanna introduce this guy?

Yeah. Okay, great. So we got Michael Girdley. Is that the way you say it?

Yep.

Yeah. Michael's here. I've been following you on Twitter for a while and, uh, and I think you almost want, you almost bought our NFT for the 5 Minutes of Fame, but, uh, you got outbid at the last minute. Is that right?

Yes. Yeah, I had a whole plan about it. I was actually going to shard it and then try to make profit from it and sell it in 15-second increments. But some really rich crypto person came in and swooped it out from under me.

So Sam loves—

I had a huge plan. I had a huge plan.

And but you— but it worked anyways. You got on the pod anyways without it because you're a pretty interesting dude. I've been following you on Twitter. Mostly because you tweet about Chili's a lot, and I'm a big Chili's guy, huge Chili's fan. Um, but you also, you kind of fit into this sort of like Andrew Wilkinson bucket, which is like you run a holdco, and you run like a pretty big holdco. And so let's just give people kind of like your, your rundown. Here's what I know about you. Um, you own a holdco, I think Gridley Enterprises is the name of it. Within it you have a bunch of different things. So you will own stuff as funky as like a fireworks company called Alamo Fireworks. You own like a software roll-up called Dura Software. Um, you have like a coffee chain, I think. Is that right? You have like your, a drive-through coffee chain that's got like 3 or 4 locations or something like that. Um, and then you incubate a couple, uh, a couple projects. One of them, one, one of which I used actually recently called Near, which is like a way, an easy way to hire people in, in Latin America.. And I found this awesome dude, uh, you know, not a plug for NEAR necessarily, but it did work. It did work exactly as intended. I found this awesome operations guy for my e-commerce business there, Nico. Um, so, so yeah, so that's what you do. And, um, I don't know, Sam, where do you wanna start? We can, we can go into, into the kind of high level or we could dive into any of the details. Where do you wanna start?

He put together this really good document that explains all the different businesses, but to summarize, it looks like it's like 8 or 9 or 10 of them. And so, so I understand the size. It's over $100 million in revenue, right? And over 750 employees for all 8 or 10 of these.

Yes.

Whenever I hear people be like, okay, yeah, my, my kind of the accumulation of the businesses that I own, some percentage ownership stake in is worth over $100 million. Or like a real estate guy will be like, you know, I have a billion dollar real estate portfolio in my head. And I'm, I'm sure there's a bunch of listeners who are like this too. They're like, So what does that mean? Are you a bill— like, are you, are you super loaded? Is this a, like, what, how do I think about that number? Right? Because like, you know, if I get a salary, that's the money I keep. If I run a business and I say top line revenue, that's not the money I get to keep. So when you own a, you own 100% of your holdco and your holdco owns businesses that add up to over $100 million in revenue, does that mean you're just big baller shot calling? Are you paying yourself like $10 million a year or more out of, out of the profits of these businesses? Or what What does that really mean?

Yeah, well, I mean, part of the way I've set up the structure is like I wanted to be very flexible in terms of strategy. So there's some stuff in here that's just like compounders, like Dura, for example, like we want to be the next Constellation Software someday. So like, I don't— that's just compounding the money I put into that and the effort and time that I put into it. Like, I don't, I don't get cash flow from that stuff, but that's by design. Like, I'm just a long-term player, not long-term personal and all this stuff, you know, the things we went through, just kind of the 10 big holdings that I have, those are all things that I have 50, 60, 30, 40% of company. So it's not like I totally am with you. Like, I've, you know, I felt stressed being like, okay, well, I don't want to be the guy coming in and bullshitting about a bunch of numbers, but also like I'm from Texas and like, like I have a hard time like bragging and being like, well, okay, here's some— here's what my net worth is and here's how much money I make and all that kind of stuff. So I'm trying to balance it out to where we can actually get there without getting past my comfort zone.

How do we Let's, let's not balance that out. Let's just go to the other end and make you incredibly uncomfortable. Tell me how your net worth, your checking account number, and what it felt like when you lost your virginity. You can pick one. Go now.

Uh, really drunk, 4, and, uh, yeah.

Yeah. Let's, let's, let's really get into it. And it's like, oh, you don't wanna reveal, you don't wanna reveal your penis size. That's fine. Just tell me about your net worth then. We'll settle for that.

But in seriousness, there's like a, a mental model for these businesses, right? Like some businesses, like you called it a compounder, right? It's like, uh, if you go into a business like this, you're gonna put up, it only takes X dollars to start and then it takes Y years to kind of get to some good outcome. Like, like I'll just give you like a venture startup, right? Like I come from the Silicon Valley venture world. Silicon Valley venture world is you put $0 of your own money up, but you're gonna raise likely somewhere between $3 and $300 million from venture capitalists over time. Uh, you shouldn't expect to see any big money until you exit, which is on average 7 to 10 years. And so like, that's the profile of that versus my e-commerce business took, I don't know, I put in $600K to start it. Uh, like that was my first kind of year, uh, commitment that I had to put in. Um, but we can take quarterly profits now, you know, a year or two, we could take quarterly profits if we wanted to. We decided to roll that into growth. But we think that by year 3 or 4, we should be seeing pretty healthy, you know, quarterly profits that will pay for a, a sweet lifestyle.

Right?

So that's like just to paint a picture of what type of business you're getting into. Most people don't know how the holdco business works. So gimme those sorts of like, what does it take to start? How long do you have to wait to get a payday? How big are those pay? You know, are you playing a software game like a, a VC software game? You can make a billion dollars. E-commerce unlikely to happen, but you can, pretty safely make tens of millions of dollars if you do it right.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think my theory on stuff is it's been incredibly difficult to find good opportunities over the past 5 years. So I've structured stuff that I want to be able to do any opportunity that comes through the door.

Right.

And so like, so the danger is, say, for example, I run across a fun idea to work on that, you know, maybe is in the roll-up space. Well, like, like that's going to require outside capital, right? Dura required outside capital. My partner and I who started the business, he's former head of support for Rackspace. He's the CEO of the business now. We put up our own money to do the first acquisition, and then we started— when we ran out of money, right after a couple million dollars, we had to go out and raise money. And so that's playing that kind of VC compounding game that I talked about. You know, other stuff like the coding boot camp that we start, like, that pays me money every month. It's similar to what you're talking about. So, you know, those— the thing I like about those kind of cash flowy LLCs and stuff like that is like You know, the upside isn't as good. Like, you can't have a billion-dollar exit in that stuff 20 years from now, but you could start cash flowing really quickly. So I like to have a blend of all those things because you can't, you can't live on appreciation.

How much, how much profit does the $100 million make? Or I think you said over $100 million, but let's just say it's $100 million. How much profit does it actually make? And let's say that you own 30% of one company that makes $10 million in profit. Do you, do you say like, all right, we're going to take of that $10 million, we're going to take out $3 million in profit, we own 30%, we get $1 million.

Yeah, well, I typically— the stuff in a portfolio for small businesses like this is going to end up running 15 to 20%, you know, EBITDA margins. So then you do a calculus and say, okay, well, based on that, like free cash flow, potential margins, like, okay, you got to pay off debt service and all that kind of stuff if you have it. And then is it better for you to take the money out or should you reinvest it inside the business? And by and large, most of these things are reinvesting because I don't have better places to put the money than reinvesting in assets and new acquisitions and all that kind of stuff.

Which business is the best cash cow? Is it like, you know, the fireworks company where it's like, well, it's open like 3 months a year and it just prints— it prints profits for 3 months and then we like don't have to think about it for the other 9.

Like, I don't know if that's true.

I'm just saying that out loud.

Which business is the best one and why is it fireworks?

How much revenue does the Fire one do?

Fireworks? It's multiple tens of millions.

Uh, we do it twice a year. Uh, 4th, for the 4th of July, and then we do it again for New Year's. In Texas, it's warm enough that actually New Year's is more pleasant than anyplace else.

Golly, that's amazing. And that's, and that's quite profitable if you do well for the, the, the, like the, the remaining like 3 hours. And that 3 hours you make all your profit.

You're all your profit. Cause everybody shows up at the last minute. That's the other part I didn't tell you. Yeah. Nobody buys anything until the last day because consumers have this habit of not doing things ahead of time.

So that, that business is actually kind of an ugly business then. Um, cause it's like you have to predict things and I don't know, the world is very unpredictable the last few years. Uh, so you have to predict demand, you have to operate really well in a very tight time crunch. Like all your demand gets squeezed into this tiny pipe. Um, you're putting up all the cash up front. So you're taking some, some, some risk there. Did you— you're a clever guy. Did you come up with any clever operating hacks to like make that business suck less that other firework people don't really do?

How much money did you— you said you started this thing with $2 million of you and your partner's money. And then is the rest like a fund that you raised?

So, um, so Dura was something I started, we started with our own money. Uh, the fireworks business, I got that the old-fashioned way. I, it's a family business. I inherited it. So that's why you're like, how'd this kind of with the fireworks business? I was told I have a fireworks business now and it's great.

What about the other things? Did you have to raise? It's like, is, is each one like its own? You raise money for each one? If you need to raise money or you just use your own money?

But yeah. Which of the business— okay, so we thought maybe the fireworks business is the best one. It turns out that's kind of a pretty, pretty gnarly business. What— which of your businesses would you say is like the most in the cash flow category? Like, it's just so beautiful because it works. It's just— it just worked right away. Didn't take a ton of money. It's, you know, it's profitable. It's not like this brutal business to operate. Which one do you like the best?

Yeah, the coding bootcamp is the best one. It's all services, low CapEx. Um, and then, I mean, the thing I like the most about it, like it actually like helps people, like it changes their lives. And that's not bullshit by the way. Like you'll notice a theme, like in all this stuff, I really like enjoy helping people and it, it's a life transformation thing when people go through that and get a better job.

Clearly you've never had a bottle rocket fight, man, because those are pretty amazing too. How big is the coding?

Uh, that is, that is, uh, low 8 figures.

That's amazing.

And very profitable.

Uh, that runs kind of consistent with what we were talking about, that 15 to 20% EBITDA margins.

And, and so, um, so you got a bunch of these. So, um, I like your Twitter because, um, you talk about a bunch of things that I think most people aren't talking about. My feed is very like, I don't know, my Twitter feed is just like the same crypto people, the same Silicon Valley people. And then there's like 5 people that are like just, you know, different. And I think you're friends with all of them. Like that guy Molson, I think is like a total nut. I find him, his feed to be hilarious. Uh, you're kind of a nut. You're hilarious. Uh, there's this guy Jay Vasava, blah, blah, blah. I don't know how to say his last name exactly. Long Indian last name. He's super smart. And like, you know, people just don't follow you guys in the same, like to the same level as I think you should. Um, like I'll make a list of these people. I'll tweet it out because I think you guys are all way more entertaining on Twitter than, than most. Um, but I want to read you a couple of tweets and I want you to just kind of riff on, like, kind of explain it, uh, but riff on what you, what you mean there. Like, what was the kind of the golden thing there? So, um, you had one about going to touristy places, but doing non-touristy things. You were tweeting out, like, you were in China and you're tweeting out, like, what a, a paper recycling mill, like, what is waste paper from the US? Where does it go once we, like, Where does the waste paper go? And you like found where it goes in China and it was this gnarly factory. And so like, I don't know if you could talk about that or just this idea of going, going on vacation or going to a touristy place, but then hitting the non-touristy parts of that country. Uh, talk a little about that.

Yeah. Well, that was a, I mean, that was a business trip. Like I was there training the team and helping them go learn how to buy fireworks. Um, and like, we were just like driving down the road and like, Literally. So the process of going to buy fireworks is there is like a Silicon Valley of fireworks and it's in China and it's about a 2-hour flight from Hong Kong in the southeast of China. And you go to this place and like it's the same thing every day. You go, the Chinese take you to a fancy dinner and there's always the same restaurant, the same food, and then they take you to a factory and then they show you some fireworks and hopefully you buy them. And that happens like for 6 days in a row. And then—

and you have to drink a bunch of nasty beer.

They, they have like Budweiser, Chinese Budweiser. They serve you and it's pretty fun. Qingdao. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty fun. But yeah, after like the fourth year of doing that, like I was there with, with the team and I was— we were like driving along and I was just so sick of going to yet another fireworks factory because they all look the same. It's just like the same little old ladies, like doing the same thing. And all the fireworks workers, by the way, are like 70 years old. They can't hire young people to work in fireworks factories. It's just crazy. And I was like, what is that over there? And, and they're like, oh, that's the box factory. And I was like, a box factory? Let's go over there. And so they pull over to the side of the road, the driver goes in And the Chinese seller to us, like, takes us in for a tour of this box factory. And for me, it was just like an opportunity to kind of push a little bit and like really get underneath and understand like how a culture like lives and really functions. And like he told us, like, look, they're having a problem making boxes now because they can't put the wastewater directly in the river anymore. I was like, oh, this is why things are so cheap in China. But yeah, that's it. Like, just you just kind of start wandering and then magic happens. So that was One of those moments.

What type of trip was that where you, uh, bring a bunch of Texas firework workers to China and like, I just imagine like, just like, what the fuck is this soy sauce shit? You know what I mean? Just like imagine that conversation. And, uh, that must, you must have had a blast hanging out with a bunch of, uh, uh, Texas firework guys and a bunch of Chinese fireworks guys. You guys, that, that we really got brought together there on that one. Our love of blowing shit up.

Yeah, well, I mean, I'm somewhat worldly. The guy, the guy that we took on the trip, actually the CEO for the business, is a former, a former senior military officer who is Romanian and lives here in San Antonio now. Used to work for Aldi, and they didn't know what to make of him. Like, they were just totally confused why we had a Romanian with us, like, going through rural China. So it's pretty good times.

Have you had any of these other, like, have you intentionally gone and sort of gone off the beaten path to like Cause I feel like what you're, when I look at your, your Twitter feed, you've sort of accumulated a bunch of random disparate business knowledge. And a lot of this comes from like, oh, you see a guy selling something on the street and you're like, hey, so what is this? Where does this come from? How do you do this?

Right?

That sort of thing. Can you tell any other stories of, you know, sort of like intentionally stumbling into interesting things? Cause I think more people should do that. Um, and I want to kind of like, you know, hear some of those stories. Hmm.

And does, you went to the Berkshire Hathaway like summit, which I think is kind of like a pilgrimage for like business people slash entrepreneurs. It's like, oh, you gotta go visit the Mecca and like you see the old kind of religious, you know, leader, you know, the 90-year-old guru sitting there and is it worth it? Should I go?

You definitely gotta go at least once. I mean, it was like, so I'm 47, so like I always regretted I didn't see Jerry Garcia before he died. And like, that was the way I felt about seeing Charlie and Warren. And, and, you know, it's like one of those things where I was kind of happy to be there because it felt like a once in a lifetime thing. And the people watching is amazing. Like, it's like, it's like the combination of like cash, like investing and like a NASCAR race. Like, it's perfect. So I just had so much fun doing it. But it's also kind of, you know, I feel like going at this point, like Charlie and Warren are getting up there like they're 92 and 98, like the morning, you know, Warren spent a lot of time just kind of trying to find his words. And then he got into a rhythm and it was like he was his old self again. It was pretty awesome. But I mean, I think if you're a capitalist, you got to go once. You just got to go once because you're just like, it's just such— it's just such an insane experience seeing these people so devoted to the company, dropping $250 on a pair of Roper boots or Justin boots and then walking over and drooling over like how they can buy like a Sunbeam boat. Like it's just like just the coolest thing. So you got to go at least once.

Sam, have you been?

No, uh, I was invited to go. I think you and I were invited with Sieva and Suli and I didn't go. Is it— I guess I, I guess I would go just to see it. Dude, those guys are old, aren't they? Like, isn't Charlie Munger like 93?

98.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

Uh, I guess next year it would have to be the— yeah, I guess next year would have to be like The last one, maybe.

You gotta go just to watch him and see how much peanut brittle he eats in a 4-hour setting. Like, it was unreal. The guy ate like 4 pounds of peanut brittle. And when I like live tweeted the thing, like, it was like, I can't believe he's still eating this much peanut brittle. I'm 47. There's no way I could do that. He was just sitting there pounding it the whole time.

Dude, that peanut brittle from See's is fire. I feel that. It is pretty amazing.

These guys have like They have the most success and they do the opposite of what every, like, you know, success coach and like motivational entrepreneur, you know, tells you to do. It's like, you know, they're like, you know, it's like if you will go on Instagram, it's like, oh, I need to, you know, wake up at 5:00 AM. I need to, you know, meditate. I need to do my ice plunge. Then I need to do my CrossFit workout. Then I need to like, you know, do my daily gratitude journal. Then I need to do my like hyper-focused chamber where I go and I figure out my priorities for the day. Then I need to like speed read and listen to my podcast on 2x speed. And these guys are basically like, you know, they somehow made it to, they became one of the richest people in the world, lived until they, you know, until they're about 100 years old. And they wake up every day, they eat McDonald's breakfast, eat a bunch of M&Ms and Diet Cokes, and then they read and play bridge all day and like go for walks. And, uh, you know, that's where they get their, their, their ideas from. And so, you know, I think there's something to what they're doing. I think it's a, you know, I think they're still alive cuz they're low stress despite what they eat. Uh, and I think they're, they're smart thinkers cuz they don't over overload their brain with information. Like, uh, I'm guilty of, and I think a bunch of people are, when you, when you're hooked into social media, you're just constantly consuming info. This data is wrong every freaking time.

Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.

Whoa, I can see the client's whole history— calls, support tickets, emails.

And here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed.

HubSpot, grow better.

What of your, of the things in your, the things in your portfolio, which company besides the, besides the bootcamp, are you like, this is just the greatest thing ever. I'm so happy we own this. More people should know how easy, or not easy, but how straightforward this business is on. It feels like I'm winning in easy mode.

Yeah, well, I think the Near business, so it's hirewithnear.com. So it actually, this is a, this is the, this is the apex of what I want for Girdley existence to be, which is I want, I've gone from starting businesses myself and working in them, then starting businesses and having other people work in them. And this is one that has started basically with me doing no work, but I have substantial amount on the cap table. Like it's the apex of Girdley automation. Like I'm always scaling stuff. So the Near business, like we looked up and like, like I'm in a CEO peer group and like none of my peers could like hire people. Like it was the past couple of years, it was just such a mess. And then I'd ask them, well, have you considered hiring overseas? And they're like, I don't know how to do that. How would I do that? So we, we, we basically— I took one of my associates and I said, hey, we should go build in this direction. There's this huge wave and here's this problem. Let's go try some stuff and see what happens. And that business I like so much just because everything seems like it's on easy mode because everybody's offshoring, like everybody wants to do this. It was that way when the economy was going well. Now it's even more so when the economy's going poorly. Um, and I've hired personally, of my associates, I have 3 of the 6 that work, work overseas. I've never met them in person. It's like the best.

And you partnered with someone to make this according to the about page, right?

When you're hiring CEOs, how much equity do you give them and how much, how much do you pay them and how do you incentivize them to want to stay with you for a long time?

Yeah, so totally depends upon the situation. You know, obviously if a business is much more established or demands somebody who's like much more like, like mature, that, that makes a situation where oftentimes you have to come up with more. My best situations are when I can partner with somebody. So all this stuff I'm in, while I have significant stakes in it, I have other people on the cap tables. Like that's one of my— like, I feel like superpowers, like I can just like maintain partnerships, like I have 100% success rate on partnerships with people. So the absolute best way is if I can get somebody like Paul at Dura is to be like a co-founder. And the absolute best way of that is if they're a co-founder and they put money in it like me, and then they make that their job. Like that's the absolute best skin in the game kind of outcome. But, you know, you can have anywhere from a 27-year-old who will make $60,000 to $80,000 a year plus benefits to some of these people who are much more senior, like our coffee— our coffee person. You know, he worked at 25 years at Circle K and he's running this. He's running that business. He obviously needs to make much more money than that. And then the equity really depends, totally depends on the opportunity. It depends on how much skin in the game they want to have, what level of commitment they have, and how early they're coming in the venture. But it could be anywhere from 40% to 20% to 5%.

And why does— let's say for Dura, why does your partner want to give you what— let's call it— let's pretend you have 30%. I don't know what you have. Maybe it's 50, maybe it's a little less. Let's just say 30%. Why does he want to give you 30% and he's day to day in it, but you're not, right? So how do you think about that like value exchange when you're not going to be the operating person and then they are?

Yeah, well, I mean, so you're asking that question from the same lens I have, which is like being an operator isn't our dream. Most people, their, their dream is to be an operator. They're excited when we're able to work together and create an opportunity for them to be their best self. Right. And that's what I see kind of as that benefit. And so, and so I think a situation like that where, like, you know, oftentimes I'm part of the very early figuring out what the idea is going to be. I'm putting up a substantial amount of money. I put up more money than, than, say, the other partners did. We did some debt to do the first deal. Like, I personally guaranteed it. And then the last thing is like, like great teams, they have these complementary things.

Like, how much money would you use to fund a new business?

So that one was like a couple million and then some of these are like 50 to 100.

Wow.

Okay. So that's—

but you do put up a lot of money.

Yeah. So yeah, skin in the game matters. Then that also helps me not to try to do too many things. Like I could just be like, okay, like I'm putting real money in this. I better really believe in it. But like, like the last thing with these operators is a lot of the things I feel like I bring to the business where it's like strategy insights, like best practices and connections, like those are things that they're happy to have somebody along on the journey with them who has the same level of commitment and wants to be a board member. Like, I don't want their job and I'm not— I wouldn't be good at it. So, you know, I think that's, that's the partnership I end up having with these folks.

Sean, have you heard of this guy named Kevin Ryan?

Only through you. He's like a media, right? Is that, is that the same guy?

Yeah. So Michael, have you heard of this guy? Kevin Ryan.

I'm Googling him.

Speechless. That's impressive. It's like, yeah, I was like, yeah, those guys are really good.

There's this like holdco model is, is like in vogue, right? Cause it's sort of like, to me, I worked at a startup studio for a while. I think that was like the thing for a period of time. Probably still is a thing where you build one company, you run it for a while, you sell it. Great. Now you got cash. You still want to do more entrepreneurial things.. And so you self-fund a studio where you're like, we're gonna work on a bunch of ideas. And then you try to find like new winners out of those bunches, bunches of ideas. And so like, you know, I worked at out of one, that's how I got into tech. Um, you know, Mark Pincus, the guy who created Zynga, then he created one, the guy who created Uber, he created one, Kevin Rose created one. Like it's just a bunch of serial entrepreneurs who create these and they've actually had a pretty poor track record of success. And then we see the, like, the holdco mafia is sort of the same where you get, you know, um, guys like Andrew Wilkinson who's got Tiny, and then you have, you know, bunch of other people who are doing their own holdco versions of that, whether they buy boring businesses, they buy sweaty businesses, they buy software businesses, they buy whatever. Um, and you're kind of in that boat. You're in that boat too. Uh, what do you think is the, I guess, like, how do you think about that? You know, in terms of like, who do you think should be the type of person who should do this? And, and, And what are some of the misconceptions or like traps that people fall into when they go down this path? Because I'm sure you've seen a bunch.

What's so hard about it?

You know, I think it goes against people's nature, right? So like, like take me for example, like I love to live in this idea space, right? And I'm— I have like a relatively crappy memory, which is like why I have to write stuff down like crazy. But that's different for other people. Like a lot of the people that I partner with as operators, they look at like what I do as insanity because they just couldn't imagine letting go of the vine of these particular things going on. And so, you know, it goes against this human nature where A lot of times, like, for example, those people, like, there's this problem going on in the business, they want to sprint to that problem, right? And they can't imagine even stepping away from it. So it just goes against, in my opinion, who you are as a person and makes it almost incredibly difficult or impossible for so many people.

Yeah, you say that, but at the same time I'm like, oh, everybody I know is like, oh, I like to operate at a high level, you know, the 10,000-foot view, and I'm ideas guy. I don't know anyone that doesn't think they're an ideas guy. Maybe I just run in the wrong circles, but You know, I don't know a lot of people who are like, you know what, I like to grind the operation. He likes to go grind the day-to-day optimizations versus I like to be the idea guy who helps just get it started and somebody else goes and does all the hard work. You know, that seems like, seems like there's a ratio of 100 idea guys to every 1 guy who's just truly loves executing.

You ever heard of Excel, dog? That's my jam.

Oh no, no, you, I lived in the Silicon Valley bubble too. Like I was, I fit right in. I was great there. And then I came back here to the hinterlands of San Antonio and like I started to see these people and like I've got buddies who, for example, are senior executives at the largest private grocery chain in America, H-E-B. Have you guys heard of this company?

Yeah, I love H-E-B. It's like my favorite grocery store.

It's insane. You should see how optimized those guys are when they're running at 3 or 4% EBITDA margins and like they think it's great.

Tell me everything.

About H-E-B? Yeah. What do you want to know?

Like what? What? Why? What makes it so great?

Of all the— it sounds like to you that like H-E-B is almost like a dream business or not a dream business, but it's one that like you look at and you're like, damn, that is cool. That is well run. I admire a few things about that. What else do— what other companies do you admire that most people don't maybe know about or think about when it's like, oh, that's actually really neat for these following reasons?

Hmm. Really good question. What other businesses are super sexy? I feel like I've talked a lot about those on Twitter.

But it's just like things where it's like, uh, man, this is, these guys got it made. They're, it's hard work, but it seems like it's like pretty fun. And I think that what they're doing has a lot of soul and they're doing it right.

Sam, do you have one while he's thinking?

Yeah.

Uh, I mean, it does seem like it's a lot of Family Guy stuff. I would say, um, Do you guys know Black Rifle Coffee?

I've heard of them, but I don't know much about them.

I don't drink, so I don't really drink too much of it. I drink the black stuff because the other stuff has a lot of sugar. They're typically drank by like conservatives. Like they've like do that. They've done like they advertise on Fox. They've done like a good job of it. Like, like this is made in America. It's all about freedom. Like that whole thing, which is, well, you know, whatever. That's cool. And but they're like Yeah, let's sponsor rally, uh, dirt rally race cars. And I asked them, I was like, why? And they're like, because it's freaking awesome. And they're like, what's the point of like having this company if we can't do dope shit? Like, you know, go to a, go to a rally car and give out our coffee. And, or they'll do it with like mountain biking races or they'll do it with the, like they make all this, all this cool content where they're just like doing like the redneck version of Red Bull stunts, you know, like, uh, and I think that's awesome. I love that stuff. I think that, to me, I imagine in their heads they're like, yeah, they're like, we kind of care about coffee, but we really just care about living a really cool, amazing life and letting people have fun. And it just so happens we're, we're selling a bunch of coffee allows us to, to do that. So that's a good example of a business that I like. And they took it public and it's worth like $600 or $700 million. So it's like really successful.

They're located here in San Antonio. Have you seen— it's, it's super cool that that business, you would think it's like a coffee chain and it's actually just a lifestyle brand. It's all like, you go into the stores and there's like a little coffee thing on the side and then it's like all t-shirts and swag and it's good looking stuff. Like I'm not like their demographic obviously, but like it's super fun to like go in there and be like, man, these guys, like I'd wear that even though it doesn't represent me.

I like them a lot. Sean, do you have one?

You know, uh, I do have, I do have a couple. Um, I like to, I kind of admire like, oh shit, that's simple. I like when it's really simple. And the person has, has like good life perspective. So the guy came on the podcast, Mike Brown. I met him through you. I went to the Hustle office and he was, he was just sitting there hanging out with you. And, um, and you were like, this guy's great. You know, you know what's great about this guy? And I think, uh, Sam, you probably know the story a little better than I do, but like what they did was they would go around to families in Texas that, uh, that were like basically living on a gold mine. Right? It's like they were living on some valuable deposit of, you know, minerals or oil or whatever. And they would go knock on doors and they would say, hey, you know, you, um, you're living on this land. I'll like, we'll pay you for the land rights in some way. And they would go of those assets and then they would never go do the oil mining or oil drilling themselves. They would then flip that to the oil company and say, hey, look, we got the title rights, you know, clear and easy for that are in the earth. And they were making a killing. So they were making, you know, I don't know, almost, almost $100 million doing this. Is that right, Sam?

It was like, well, basically we go knock on doors, we call people and we explain what we're doing. And then we make them an offer that they can't refuse. Like, you know, they're not gonna do anything sitting on that land. And so, you know, it, to me, I'm like, this is so simple. You compete with pretty much nobody. Um, and then you, and then he was like, I was like, so your bro, it looks like your brothers work in the business. Like, how's that working with family? You know, some people say different things about that. And he was like, no, it's awesome. He's like, I love my brothers. He's like, you know, uh, he's like, my, my philosophy is you, you know, you find the people that you love and you do life with them. And he said that and it kind of changed the way I, I operated. I was like, oh yeah, who are the people I wanna do life with? And like, you know, just kind of pick the 5 people who are the most awesome and then find excuses to do life with them. That sounded really simple. It's like, oh, I love Sam. I'm gonna do a podcast with Sam. And it's like, oh, our buddy Ramon's awesome. Cool. I'm gonna go on vacation with Ramon. Or, you know, like you want, and like, you know, hey, this person's awesome. Why don't you come work in one of my businesses, right? Rather than just go work in your own job. So I really liked, I kind of admired that philosophy and I admired just the like sheer profits of what they were doing and how simple it was and how it didn't require, you know, genius or like, honestly, I'm sure he felt like he was working hard, but it's not that hard. Like it's not.

Well, he used to say, he was like, everyone we hire, we make them get into cycling. Cause we all, we like going bike riding for 2 hours in the middle of the day. He's like, we all, we all want to go for, we all want to go work out. Yeah.

Yeah. So I kind of admire people who are the anti-hard work crowd. 'Cause I'm more of that, like, you know, can you work smarter, not harder? And then can you even like not feel like you're working? Can you turn it into play by, you know, having people who are awesome, you know, doing it with you? So I like that example. The other one is, uh, Bill Simmons who started The Ringer. Like, I, I really don't think media companies are a very good business. And, you know, ironically just started a media company, but like Bill Simmons is fucking awesome and he kind of changed the game for what he does. Like every sports journalist did things one way. He just did it differently and built his— he built his following, uh, sort of unapologetically.

And what does he do differently?

So he just, like, he wrote from the perspective of a fan. And that sounds actually— that's actually giving it too much intellectual credit. Actually, what he did was he was like, all right, what are the rules if you're a journalist? It's like, you need to be objective. He's like, how can I be objective, dude? I follow sports because I love the Boston Red Sox. I love the Celtics. I'm from Boston. I grew up— my dad used to take me to the games. He's like, I'm gonna write as like this diehard fan, and when my team wins, I'm gonna be so happy. When my team loses, I'm the sky is falling. He's like, and that of course was super relatable to a reader cuz that's who your reader is. It's like a diehard sports fan. So he like didn't pretend to be objective. That was like the first part. Then he would be like, cool, I'm also not just like this flat thing that like I can only like talk about sports. So he is like, oh, you know, I love the Die Hard trilogy. So he'll write a column that's like, you know, If NBA players were characters in Die Hard, here's who would be Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2. And like, you know, he would do these crossovers that didn't— nobody else really took those risks. It sounded crazy. Like, Sam, you know, you and me both watched MTV's The Challenge. He's like a huge Challenge fan and he'll talk about it and he'll do a separate podcast about it, even though the audience is kind of niche. But it's so niche that when it hits, it hits in a very big way. Like, it's a bit like— has a high, like, emotional score when he does talk about something you get, you— that you're in on the joke. Be like the trade value.

So he's one of your heroes or the mailbag, one of your business heroes.

And, uh, anyways, then he spun off, did his own, he was doing podcasting before it was popular, before it was like an obvious thing. And so when he, he'd recently sold the whole company to Spotify for like $200-something million. But you know, that, I, I kind of admired that because it was like, he deserves that. He was podcasting before podcasting was a thing. And so yeah, he now has the number one sports podcast and he can cash out and all along the way, there was never really any plan you could draw up how that podcast was gonna make the guy $200 million someday. It was like, that was an unfathomable thing, but he did it cuz he, again, it's kind of like your Black Rifle example. It's like, yeah, I'm just gonna do it cuz I think it's fun and it's cool shit. And like, I, I kind of believe in this magic, this philosophy that if you take a bunch of cool shit, you put it in the, in the hat, you kind of mix up the hat, like, Something really good comes of that and you don't have to be able to draw it out, you know, ahead of time. So I kind of, I tend to love examples like that because I want to live my life more like that where I just do things without so much of a, of a, of a mind map of exactly how it's all going to pay off.

Dude, I love that. I think, um, I saw this amazing quote. I'm trying to find it, but it was from Kanye and he was like saying, I despise people who do things. I can't find the exact quote, but he's like, I despise people who do stuff and they don't want it to be dope. He's like, I want to, if I'm gonna do a clothe, if I were to do a clothing company, I'm making it dope. Even if that means I lose money, I'm making it dope. I'm making it awesome. But he kept using the word dope and he is like, I'm just gonna do stuff because it's amazing. And yeah, it'll probably make money. But for all the people out there who just do stuff just to get the money, but they don't want to make it awesome in the process, I think that's really weak and not cool and not dope.

Have you heard that Dave Chappelle story he tells on like some late night show about Kanye?

Yeah, tell it.

My life is dope.

Yeah, yeah. I don't remember the exact phrase, but he is like, I was hanging out with Kanye And then Kanye got a call. Who was it? Somebody called him. Who was it?

So it was, uh, it was, uh, Kanye was backstage with Dave Chappelle and Jay-Z and Kanye was just coming up and he was playing a, uh, a Jay-Z song and Kanye's verse comes up and Kanye's like the noob in the room and he goes, wait, stop that track, rewind that and listen to that guy. And he like made him rewind. And then, um, he's like, they're like, dude, what are you doing, man? You're not like the You're like the big shot here. And then, uh, he gets a phone call and he goes, oh, hello? Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. But, uh, can I call you back? Uh, yeah. Well, I'm backstage watching never seen before clips with Dave Chappelle. Yeah. Because my life's dope and I do dope shit. And then hangs up. And then that's—

Yeah, exactly.

I love that story.

That is the best. And also, um, like that philosophy is actually kind of amazing. First of all, to believe in your own life being dope. Like, how many people think that their life is dope, that they are dope and they do dope shit, and therefore they have a dope life? Like, most people don't give themselves that credit, and, you know, they're kind of waiting for dope stuff to happen for them to be able to say that. Kanye's the opposite, right? He's crazy in a bunch of ways, but one of the good ways he's crazy is that he just declares, my life is dope and I do dope shit. And guess what? You'll kind of live up to that reputation. If you believe that about yourself, right? Like if you say, you know, um, you know, I take chances, you know, I'm, I'm bold. I take, I take bold risks. Well, guess what? You're gonna actually take the next bold risk when the opportunity presents itself. Cuz you've kind of hardwired yourself to, to have that identity. When we were, Sam, you'll like this at Bebo when, um, we hired this guy Jason Hitchcock and Jason was, Jason's the best person you can hire because he will believe in you and the cause. 150%. Like, he'll believe in you and the mission if you're like his boss and your manager or whatever, like more than you believe in yourself. And he'll believe that the company's gonna work even more than the CEO's gonna believe. He's like a, I call him a Kool-Aid drinker. Like, he drinks the Kool-Aid and he's not ashamed to do it. And so he, because of that, he's like the amazing person to have at a startup when there's a, actually a lot of people have a bunch of doubt and uncertainty in their mind. And so one day I was talking to Jason and we were like, Um, the HustleCon was coming around, uh, around the corner and I was like, I think I had messaged you. I was like, I wanna talk at HustleCon. And I think you were kind of like, yeah, like, I'll, I'll, I don't know, we got a bunch of speakers already. You kind of blew it off. You're like, you know, we, no. And, uh, and I was like, all right, fair enough. But I asked and I was like, I was like, Jason, next year we're gonna talk at HustleCon. I was like, in fact, not just next year, we're gonna talk at HustleCon. In fact, everything we do this year, I want you to think about how it's gonna play at your HustleCon talk you're gonna give when you're gonna give this talk about how we grew from zero to a million users, how we took took over the game in our industry. Like, I want you to not just wake up and be like, okay, today I'm gonna send out a bunch of emails. It's like, I want you to think about how this could be part of your talk. Like how I landed the big fish through cold emails, or how I, you know, growth hacked my way to do X. And we used to talk about that literally on a weekly basis. Like, this is part of the House of Khan talk. And it was just to hype ourselves up to like do the more dope version of the task we were already gonna do. Cause like, Imagine you're gonna talk about this on stage. That means it must have turned out pretty dope, or you must have done a pretty dope attempt in order to have that mindset. And I, I'll, I still carry that to this day of like, that's a pretty cool way to work.

Um, here's the, uh, here's, here's the quote by the way. So this is from Kanye. He said, for me, dopeness is what I like most. People who wanna make things as dope as possible and by default make money from it. The thing that I like least are people who wanna make money from things, whether they're dope or not, especially make money from making things the least dope as possible. And I read that quote and I was like, yeah, we need to make that the intro of the podcast.

Like we did stuff early on that we kind of like, people got mad at and I was like, They're like, you're gonna lose money, lose customers. I'm like, yeah, but it's hilarious. Like one time we wrote an entire email in Trump's voice. And so we're like, imagine like if you read it and you were saying it out loud, like that, it would sound like you were Donald Trump.

Everybody loved it. Everybody's saying it's the best. People are saying that they're saying it's the best.

Yeah. Like that's how it, that's how it, that's like how it was written. And then another time this was like, pretty vulgar, but it was pretty funny. We wrote the subject was, here's the only tip that you need to know for how to be productive today at work. And you open it up and it was just that picture of Johnny Cash where he flicks off the camera and it just says, close this browser and get back to work. And that, and like, that was, that was, that was it. That was the email. And we sent that to 120,000 people. We didn't even like, we didn't even, we didn't even send an email. And then maybe one final thing. This woman, Lindsay, worked for me and she sent the Tuesday's email on Wednesday, which is like a mistake. She's like, shit, she's freaking out. And I was like, here, do this. I wrote in Slack, I was like, hey, you know, I heard you sent the wrong email. And she replied in Slack, yeah, my bad, it was really messed up. I go, we gotta talk, but until then, just like fix it. And she replied with like, well, what should I do? I was like, I don't know, man, just put the new email in and send it again. Just take a screenshot of this and like put that And they'll understand, I'm sure. And he goes, and she replied with something like funny. And that was just the screenshot that just went at the top of the email. There was no explainer.

Right.

And so we would do like little things like that all the time. What about you, Michael? Are there any companies that you look at that, uh, kind of fall into this category?

It's super fun. Uh, well, I did, I did find one to talk about. The, have you guys done PopSockets before? You talked to them?

We haven't talked about it. No.

Yeah, that's, that's amazing.

Got to be several hundred million at least. I mean, they got to keep growing. Every lady I know has one of those things. Fit your nails in there.

It's great. Sam, you want to know a little realization I had today? When Michael was coming on, I was like, all right, what do I know about Michael? I was like, oh, he does that like Chili's little shtick where he's always like, you know, You know, the only thing I don't even, I don't know how I would explain it, but you basically just find an excuse to name drop Chili's and say how great Chili's is and like why it's the best place for a meeting. And like, you're just like, you know, oh my God, you know, so happy for Mother's Day. I love my mother, but not as much as I love Chili's. Right. Like you just like come up with some way to like integrate Chili's in. And so I don't know if you've seen this, but I actually, me and Ben talked about this once. We go, when we were like trying to build up, uh, my brand, it was like, all right, I got this podcast, it's brand new. I got a Twitter. It was like, you know, a few thousand followers at the time. And it was like, What should we do to like build a brand? So we did this one, like, you know, 2-hour exercise. We just looked at people who had good brands and we're like, what are, what are people, what's some common things that they do? And one of the things we found was that a lot of people had early on in the tech industry, like, uh, or like, sorry, like early on, not early on the tech industry, that's like in the '70s or some shit. But like early on when I got into tech, I was following some people on Twitter and, um, and I saw this guy Ryan Hoover and he seemed interesting. He was blogging. He started this thing called Product Hunt. But Ryan would always, it was always Philz Coffee and LaCroix. Like he would always talk about Philz Coffee and LaCroix. And in fact, like LaCroix kind of became like a startup meme. I really give Ryan a lot of credit for it because he was always effing talking about LaCroix. And then when Product Hunt got popular, it just like accelerated the, like the LaCroix meme in the community as like, you know, what's like low-key great? LaCroix. And like, um, and so he had LaCroix and then I don't know. So Pomp, Pomp does this thing with Domino's all the time where he's like, he'll do like a Domino's pizza. He always says that like Domino's is the best, I think. And, um, and he's just like, and it's kind of this thing where you get this serious business persona in one way, but then you show this like human side and it's like, oh, I'm just like, I love this thing. Uh, you know, I don't know if yours would be like Topo Chico or something like that. Like you used to like kind of pick those out. Michael's got Chili's.

We got to make ours Cheesecake Factory.

Yeah, like I was like Chick-fil-A, Cheesecake Factory, we need something that's like our shtick. That's like, it can't just be false. Like you gotta genuinely have that love for it. The only part that's the shtick is that you talk about it and you don't really talk about it. It's like you're serious, serious, serious, Topo Chico. Cause it's like, you know, this makes the cut. It's that important to me. It's that good. It is. I'm that big of a fan.

You're like Michael. We had a great time. You know what? Let me know when you're, when you're in Austin, we'll go out sometime for some Cheesecake Factory and maybe get the chicken piccata. We'll have a great time.

Yes, that sounds good. Is that on menu like page 14 of the menu or 57?

Yeah, it's on the Skinnylicious menu.

So I think, I think when you pick this thing, the thing I would recommend, it's got to be something that's, well, okay, so here's a story for you. So I'm 25 years old and I'm finally figuring out how to talk to women in my life. Like, it's like I had not figured it out at this point. And so my buddy and I decided to start going to parties and we would dress up in suits. And this is like when everybody's like dressed in like grunge, like in San Francisco, like, so it didn't work. So we show up dressed in these fancy suits and it was just odd enough that the women would be like, why are you guys doing this? Like, it's just, it's just slightly odd, right? And so I think you need to figure—

Peacocking.

What's it called? Peacocking. Yeah.

Okay.

I could have been one of those, like, with the pickup artist guys. Who needs to do this whole cold call stuff? I could be a pickup artist. I have— I could not do that anyway. I don't— I don't like hair gel enough. But anyway, the— I think you got to figure out something that's just a little bit odd. You're like, why does this, like, technology entrepreneur in San Antonio like Chili's so much? So if the Cheesecake Factory is that, I think you're good. But whatever it is, it's got to be just a little like that they're like, why are they— why, why are they wearing suits to this party? Like, what's going on?

You definitely should do that. That's a great idea.

All right. Thanks for coming on, man.

Wait, wait, wait. He's got to promote himself. What's his handle?

@Girdley on Twitter.

Sick. Well, thank you. Thank you for coming on. That was awesome.