Selling Deodorant for $100M and How to Find Your Best Competitive Advantage with Moiz Ali

All right. So Moïse is here. And so I guess what people don't know, so you started, um, you actually started a couple of businesses. People mostly know you from Native. So you created Native, which has the popular deodorant brand. You sold it to Procter Gamble for reported $100 million, which I think is, uh, one of the better D2C exits because you only raised like $4 million. I want to say less than that even.

We raised $500,000 actually.

Oh my God.

Okay.

So you raised $500,000. And by the way, I don't know if you know this. I remember I was in a mastermind group with your brother and I was like, and he was like in between, he had, he already sold his company. So he was kind of floating in between things. It's like, why do you show up to the mastermind if you don't really have a business that you're working on? So I think he was kind of like fishing and he was like, you know, my brother's got this interesting business. And I was like, I was like, oh, I didn't, you know, I didn't even know. I didn't know him very well at the time. I was like, didn't even know you had a brother. He's like, and I was ready for this like big tech idea. And he's like, yeah, he's like selling like this natural deodorant. Like, and he made it sound like you're like sitting at home packing the deodorant like containers by hand. And he's like, he kind of was underplaying it. He's like, it's really cool. You know, it's paraben-free. I didn't know what a paraben was. And he's like, it's aluminum-free or whatever. And he's like, yeah, it's doing pretty well. And then he started to say the numbers and I was like, whoa, that's actually like really good. I was like, so how much has he raised? He's like, I don't know if he's— he's like, he's raised like nothing. And so that's when you got on my radar and you've— I feel like you operated very quietly. You're kind of like me where when you're doing something that's working, you shut the hell up. And when you're not, when you're just thinking about ideas, you're like super loud to bounce them around off people. Is that your strategy?

Is that— what is that? Is that paranoia? Is it just focus? Is it strategy? Why do it that way?

Yeah, I think it's 2 things. I think one One is fear, which is like fear of embarrassment. Okay, my business failed and I was super public about it and now it crashed and everybody's going to think of me as a failure. So I was like, we're not going to fail publicly. If we fail, it'll be really quietly.

And then two was like, we fail the Indian way, silently in personal shame.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. No one will be able to Google me and be like, okay, Moiz Ali is a And then the other one was things were working so well, we're like, okay, we don't know how this is working so well or why this is working so well, but we better not go around thumping our chest saying this is working really well because one, I believe it'll jinx us and I believe in jinx. And two, other people just start copying us and doing exactly what we're doing. And like, you know, I sold our— I sold Native in November 2017. We had a competitor sell their business in December of 2017, a month after us. And, you know, in 2018, 2019, 60 competitors in the natural deodorant space popped up. And every brand that didn't have a natural deodorant was like, "We should create a natural deodorant." And then 60 brands were like, "Hey, we want to create natural deodorant as our flagship or our hero product." And so by like not thumping our chest and not talking about our business, we were able to keep the category a little bit quieter. Before we came out and said, hey, this is a massive category and it's really working, right?

And I, I, I appreciate that about you guys. I've actually learned a little bit in that regard, in that I, I don't talk about my e-commerce business on here ever, um, or I'll reference it but I'll never say the name or the brand or whatever.

For some of those same reasons also, someone takes—

yeah, I also have a business partner. Yeah, I have a business partner and they don't want me to talk about it, so I'm also like, okay, cool, you know, I'll honor that wish. But I kind of came up with this term because you and your brother are the same in that normally you guys are all— the info flows one way. And this podcast is like the rare exception where I get to ask you questions. Normally, whenever I've seen your brother or you in any social setting, it's a technique I call Ollie boarding, and it's like waterboarding, but just with questions where you just dump someone's head into a vat of your nonstop flow of questions. And by the end they're like, wait, so what's your name and what do you do? And you're like, by then you're like, ha, I have your P&L and like I have your whole family's backstory. And it's not like in an evil way. It's like genuine curiosity, I think, is what I've come to see. But it's also very effective. A, is that true? Do you, do you believe that? Am I characterizing it right? And then B, is that like conscious or did you ever like develop that as a skill? Or was that a choice you made or is just natural?

Yeah, I think, um, A is it's partially right. It's more true with Solomon, with my brother, than it is with me. And he does that to me as well where like I'll tell him about, you know, a meeting I had or a deal that I'm looking at and he'll be, he'll ask me ridiculous questions. He'll be like, what, uh, what did the lunch, what did the founder have for lunch on Saturday 3 months ago? And I'm like, I didn't get into that level of detail. You gotta stop asking those types of questions. But I do think we have genuine curiosity of like, what's making other businesses work and what isn't? I remember we went to the Super Bowl, you know, 4 years ago or something like that in Atlanta. And we were at the Super Bowl party like the night before the game. And there were these 2 old daisy uncles that were there as well. And they were there because they owned Marriott Hotels and Marriott had invited them to the game in like their private suite. And, you know, they were probably in their 50s. And we asked them so many questions. I was like, you know, how much do you have to pay Marriott? And they also own like Hilton Hotels. I was like, how much do you have to pay Hilton per year? Marriott per year? Do you have debt on the building? You do? What's your debt like? You know, how often do you have to renovate? How much does renovations cost? How much, like, you know, what does your average occupancy look like? And they answered all these questions and they were like, didn't seem excited to answer them, but they didn't seem cautious. Like they didn't seem like they were hesitant either. And at the end of all of these questions where we literally did have their P&L, you know, we're like, okay, well, you know, they didn't ask a single question. They were just like, okay, well, great meeting you guys. And we're like, all right, I now understand the hotel business from two operators that have 8 businesses around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And they didn't want to know anything about us. Like, why were we at the Super Bowl party? How did we get here? How did we make our money? They didn't ask a single question. So I think there is a genuine curiosity that we have. That sometimes is lost on other people.

That's, that's exactly how it goes. I've seen it. And then also you had like a brunch. I saw you tweet out like, oh, inviting some D2C friends over, like, who wants to have a brunch of D2C people? And I was like, oh, what a nice guy. Just being social or whatever. I had a friend who went to your brunch and he's like, yeah, the brunch is basically Mois sits at the head of the table and he's like, all right, what's your cac?

What's your role?

And you were like asking a bunch of questions. And I was like, that sounds about right. And I learned this from your brother. I was like, because I watched him one time and I was like, first, when I talk to your brother now, I'm like, it's like a duel. Like, he doesn't know this, but in my head I'm like, I'm going to ask whatever n number of questions you ask, n plus 1 will be asked back to you. I love it. Like, you know, because I will not be out-questioned because I know the technique. But I started, I started watching him when he talked to other people and I was like, how does he get them to divulge so much information? And again, not in a bad way, but just like what gets people in the flow of talking? I'm like, okay, so first you he's genuinely curious. Like he's super engaged. He's not looking around. He's not looking at his phone. He's actually looking them in the eye and he's asking them a bunch of questions. I've noticed he does two things. When they're saying something he likes or is like a smart thing, he gives them tons of like, you know, nodding. Yup. That makes total sense.

Got it.

Love it. And then when they say something really stupid or weird or something that makes no sense, I noticed that when somebody does that to me, I'm like, but that makes— I like kind of start judging them a little bit and they can tell that I'm judging them and that makes them clam up. Whereas he'll just go, he'll just laugh and be like, amazing. And then he says the word amazing and then moves on. And amazing really means like, wow, it's amazing you're so stupid, or it's amazing you think that, or it's amazing that you don't even know that. But like, he never makes them feel bad. He'll just be like, like, amazing. And then he'll just go on to the next question. And I realize that that is how he keeps the constant flow going. So I'm studying this Ollie boarding technique and I think I'm going to be pretty good. I'm going to be like, you know, a franchisee of your, of your question.

I love that.

Yeah.

First we have to charge you per question then. But really, he's like, I think the other thing that he does really good or really well is that he's like, how do you think about something? He never asked like, you know, what's your CAC? He'll be like, how do you think about growth when it comes to social ads? And like, you know, can you spend more there? And the question is really open-ended, but he's like aiming for something. He really wants a response and people like, you know, subconsciously get to it. And I've started asking, how do you think about that all the time now? Because it really gets people to open up and tell me about how they view their business and not just like a standard number. And I really like that question. And I've also franchised that from him.

When I started my business, the e-com one, he— I told him about it and he had like, you know, some good questions. And then like, you know, the way y'all's brains work, it's just like, you know, nonstop. So I think at like 2 in the morning that same night, he just sent— or like, actually it was like 5 nights later. It was like completely unrelated. It was like 5 nights later, 2 in the morning, I get this email. It's one line from him and he just says, he says like, with our business, I knew we just, it was this, we just needed to do this one thing and it would work. Like, and he explained like the competitive, like the, the positioning, like what we were gonna do different that was gonna cause it to work. It was gonna be X, but with Y difference. What's that gonna be for your business? And then I was like, that sent me into like a 3-week spiral of being like, oh my God, I need to know this answer. That is the important question as I'm starting this business. I really do need to have like a very strong point of view on what's gonna be the one thing that we're gonna do that's gonna make this business work better than all the others that are out there, or better than, you know, how can we compete given that we're years late to the party and whatever else. But it was such an important question and I was like, man, um, and like I ended up bringing him on as kind of like an advisor, but I was like, man, this is the value of an advisor is not the answer, but the question, the question that's gonna make you like think about your business in a way, or like reveal a shortcoming in your own thinking. That you then get to go fill in that gap for yourself.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that. The one thing I would say is that like, you know, I've started an e-commerce business and if someone asked me that about Native when I launched the business, I'd say I've got no idea. We're aluminum-free. There are a bunch of aluminum-free deodorants right now. We're selling online. Is that better? Is that better than selling in-store? I've got no clue. And so I think those questions are really helpful. But I think the fear that some of those questions can cause in terms of people being like, I need to figure out this answer before I can do X or Y before I can launch my product, before I can start spending marketing dollars? Like, you can figure out that answer well after your business is launched. And I think for Native, that really changed. Like, you know, we were an aluminum-free deodorant selling it on the internet, and I was like, that's going to be our competitive advantage. And then it became a little bit of like scents, you know, like fragrances. We have a strategy of launching new fragrances frequently, and those fragrances are different, and people are going to pantry load and buy a bunch of deodorants. So it's not just buying one until you run out, but I've got 7 because this is going to be your fragrance rather than your perfume, perfume, or cologne. And then it was like different marketing ideas and bundling products and launching new categories. Like there are very few brands that can expand from deodorant to body wash to toothpaste. Like, you know, Old Spice could never make a toothpaste. We're like, we're going to create a brand that can do all of those. And it stands for better for you ingredients rather than one single thing. And I think that question the answer to that question evolved and changed. And I think that question is great and people should think about that in the back of their minds, but it shouldn't prevent them from actually taking the first step to launching their business.

Especially if you talk about like partnerships or collaborations where people are like, I'm betting my future on the ability to get other people to do X, Y, and Z. Like, that's never going to work. I couldn't agree more. It could be, look, we're going to create a digital-first brand that looks better. We're going to have a better user interface and we're going to have more better colors and it's going to look better on your countertop like Native deodorant or your bathroom shelf like Native deodorant. And that was it. Like, that was the— that's an entire plan. And that's perfectly fine.

And the one thing I realized here—

Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead.

Okay. So, so the idea is, um, an example of doing that. So, you know, the, the, so most people who listen to this are probably not, not, not brown or desi, so they don't know this brand, but like, if you've ever been to like an Indian grocer, which there's, you know, all around the country, there's a bunch of these, like, you know, you go buy, go buy, you know, the sort of like the ethnic foods. There's this brand called Haldi Ram. Which is basically they make like just like this, like super addictive, salty little snack. It's like fried. It's like our equivalent of chips. It's like fried, salty, kind of spicy. And you just buy this thing. It's like a, it's like a trail mix basically. That's, that's salty. And, um, and so it's been around forever. They do like $500 million a year in sales. They're like a, like a juggernaut of a, of a consumer packaged good brand. They're like super profitable. Don't do any like advertising and like, they're just like, They're massive. And so like, I think one idea is like Holy Ramen, but with like packaging that's just different, like different packaging, slightly better for you. Like maybe it's baked and not fried. And like, that's the whole business plan. Like I don't need to know more to start than just that. And I think that that's a plan somebody could take today and go start like, okay, so then what are you going to do for this? Like, I don't know. Or the same as everybody else. Like you can do, I don't know, or the same as everybody else for all other questions. As long as you just had that one thing, which is like, these guys do like $500 million in sales and they sell mostly through these like Indian grocers. I'm gonna do that, but with better packaging. 'Cause their packaging looks like my mom's packaging. I'm just gonna make it look like my packaging. Like, you know, look, stuff I'm used to buying.

Yeah. And I can cater to Caucasians as a result of that. Like, you know, yeah. It's packaging that the entire world is gonna understand. It's not available only at ethnic grocers. There it is. That's our business model. We're wrapping their product in a better bag.—

or like two-thirds of Indians have diabetes. And I'm just going to make mine like better for people with diabetes. And I'm just going to be like, it's baked, not fried. And like, it's better for you because of that.

And you invested in Manscaped pretty early on, I think, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I invested in Manscaped probably 3 or 4 years ago now.

And so you invest in Manscaped and it's been one of your— I think you tweeted out one of your best performing investments. What did they do? Like, what's their version of this? Like the stupid, simple plan that, like, just makes sense and it doesn't have to be rocket science, but like a simple plan executed well. What was their version of that?

And you see a ton of brands, a ton of DDC brands. You're probably like, you know, one of— when somebody has a DDC company, you're probably one of the most, I don't know, desired, like investor advisor type dudes. Like that's your authority, right? People want to do what you've done. And then you've also invested in so many that now you have portfolio and experience as well. But you also see a bunch of DTC brands do stupid shit. So what are some of the, like, kind of like, give me your rant on the things you see DTC brands doing wrong. What are some of the common mistakes you see that drive you nuts? Because I know that like both you and your brother, it's like operational, like, um, you know, operational excellence is what turns you on and operational, like, you know, uh, ignorance or whatever, you know, is what like, you know, drives you nuts. And so give me some of the things you see DTC brands doing wrong or stupidly?

And you used to do a bunch of like kind of like hands-on, unscalable stuff like this. So I think, you know, I don't know to this day, but like I showed you what we do as far as this morning we were talking and I showed you what we do as far as like every day in Excel we handwrite.

Here's how much we spent. Yeah, I love it.

Here's the new customers we got. Here's the blended ROAS. Here's the CAC. Here's how much from email. And we write that every single day into this like spreadsheet. And I'm sure there's like more automated ways to do it, but it's not perfect. And like, The practice of doing it by hand makes you think about each of these numbers because you're like, why is this number always 52? And like, I need to get this number to not be 52. I'm tired of writing effing 52 on this spreadsheet. Like, I just think if this business, if this number was 42, we would be making so much more money. Okay. That becomes my daily focus. Um, what are some, and I've seen you tweet out about like people going and like, like they go to Target, they like watch the aisles themselves to see how people are buying their brand or what they're not, you know, what they're doing when they choose the brands. What are some of those unscalable things you've done yourself or what are your favorite kind of like give me some scrappy stories of like stuff that, that like you did as an operator or your favorite operators have done.

Yeah. And how much of that is you being a maniac versus like good strategy, right? So like if somebody in my company was doing that, I'd be like, why are you doing this? You need to hire somebody so you could do something higher leverage. But clearly it kind of worked for you to be like a maniac and doing all the things yourself. So like, you know, what's the line? What's the right way to think about that?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think if you're completely divorced from customer feedback, you're setting yourself up for disaster unless you've created a, you know, a flywheel that you know exactly how it works. Like, you know, when Native was doing $100 million of sales a year, I probably wasn't in customer service any longer. But when it was doing $50 million in sales a year, I was in, you know, I was probably the number one, if not the number two customer service agent. And so like, you know, you need that feedback to understand what's working and what's not, where there are problems in my business and where they're not. And so, uh, like, I don't know what the right line is, but divorcing yourself from customer feedback at under $25 million a year is bananas to me. You're not going to know what people love about your product and what they don't love. And you're not going to know, like, you know, we'd have operational issues that I wasn't aware of. We'd be like, shipping is taking an extra 3 days when it goes, when it's going to California. What's going on here? Like, is there a problem in California? Is there a problem with our shipping company? Sometimes we'd run out of things and no one would know until a customer emailed us being like, hey, I'm waiting 4 days. And we're like, we're out of this. We're out of coconut and vanilla. I don't believe it. And then we check our inventory and we're like, how did we run out? Like, we did such a poor— not only did we do a poor job at inventory forecasting, We weren't even aware that we ran out when we ran out. And so those were a couple of the ridiculous things that would happen. But like, you know, because you're intimately involved, you're able to like, you know, understand the business at a deeper level. And I think like really being engaged at, you know, what does my shipping look like? You know, how can I make shipping faster so I can reduce costs? Is the weight of the box or the weight of the filler or the size different? There was a company that I knew that I was friends with the CEO in San Francisco. His box, he was shipping through Amazon and his box that he was shipping in was about a half inch too large. And it went from being extra, like it went from being like a large box to a custom large box. And so his shipping rate went up like $70 a box because of this half inch he had. And like, you know, when people discovered it or when he discovered it, he's like, I can't believe we've been shipping like this for so long. You know, if you're intimately involved, you're probably going to catch those things a little bit earlier.

Right. And so you, let's zoom out. So you, um, you've seen D2C change. You, uh, you also have seen, you know, you also invest in the stock market. And so you've seen Shopify, Amazon, Facebook. Give me on each of those 3 stocks, give me your lay of the land on like what you think has happened and where you think that those are going. Are they trending? Are they rightly priced? Are they underpriced? Are they overpriced? You know, give me, give me a shot. Let's do Shopify first and then we'll do Facebook and then Amazon.

And you, when you put out tweets like this and you, you basically say, hey, here's what I think you should do with your strategy, or if I was CEO, here's what I'd be doing, or like, as somebody who's lost millions of dollars on your stock, here's some things that I think could help. Do you ever hear back? Is it crickets? Do you get other interesting inbound? What happens after you put that out there? Because I've done that a few times and I've gotten very interesting situations occur from my, my, my tweets like that. What's happened for you?

Definitely interesting situations. Toby, who's the CEO of Shopify, responded and he's like, these are great points. So did Harvey, who's the president, and definitely had some more interesting calls. And I'm not sure if that's that Twitter thread, which was a couple months ago now, you know, informed them and helped them create this lookalike audience system that they're creating in Shopify. That's wonderful. I don't want any credit. Just go do it so that we can go get cheaper, you know, cost customers so that we can acquire customers at a cheaper rate and build better businesses. Like, you know, go build out these products and make the platform fantastic. You know, a bunch of people pay Klaviyo more than they pay Shopify. A bunch of people pay Recharge more than they pay Shopify. Like, these are Shopify apps that provide you with a small segment of, like, or a small thing compared to what Shopify enables you to do. You know, provide some of these services at cheaper costs or build in some of these services to make the platform better. Like, you know, Triple Whale is doing a fantastic job at analytics. Why doesn't Shopify build their own subscription platform instead of outsourcing it to Recharge, which everybody hates and which charges a fortune? Like what's going on there? It's been, you've been publicly traded for years. This, this is arming us. Uh, this is arming the rebels.

And so let's, let's shift away from D2C. Let's do other types of investing. Cause you do real estate. Um, you've tried to buy pieces of sports teams. You've tried a bunch of different things. So let's just start with the big picture. So give me a pie chart percentage-wise of what do you do with your money? So you, you, yeah, you came to a bunch of money. You, What's in cash? What's in real estate? What's in stocks? What are you doing percentage-wise roughly for those?

Great question. Great question. And I think the answer is I should know the answer.

I know my CAC from yesterday. You should know your CAC.

Yeah. This is me not knowing my CAC, which is embarrassing. The, like, probably around $10 million in private equity, probably around $40 million or $50 million in cash., which is a lot. And not like cash cash where I'm like literally holding it in cash, but like really short-term bonds waiting for bond prices to go up. And so now I'm starting to leg into positions where I feel like interest rates are getting more, more exciting. And so I'll put my money there. Um, so, you know, I've been investing in really short-term bonds that, you know, aren't really subject to much interest rate risk because they've got 6-month maturities and not 5-year, you know, uh, bonds that are more subject to interest rate risk. And since interest rates have gone up over the last 4 months, I've started to deploy more capital in that respect. But a lot of cash, probably $25 million in real estate, $30 million in real estate that I'm like, you know, that I, or, you know, my family owns and we're operating ourselves. And then probably another $10 million in real estate as LP somewhere here or there. I don't know how much money that is, but then there's like, you know, I don't know. Then there's like random and probably another, $10 million in startup investments. So maybe more than $10 million in startup investments. Good question. Probably around $10 million in the stock market. Maybe a little bit less now that Shopify and Facebook have gotten cremated. So maybe less than that now, but I'm not exactly sure what the amount is there.

And why such a big cash position? Is that to be conservative? Is that just, I'm so busy, I haven't figured out how I'm going to deploy all this? Yeah. Or is it like intentional? Like, no, I want to have, let's say, 50% 40% cash and kind of bonds.

It's more reactive than it is proactive. Like, I'd love to be more invested. And part of it was actually like, you know, proactive in terms of waiting for interest rates to go up again. Because, you know, if you invested 2 years ago or 3 years ago, you've barely gotten any return on your dollar. So I was like, we can sit on cash and not be subject to so much interest rate risk. Now I'm getting more excited about that. But a lot of it is, um, you know, when you get to a certain scale of wealth, you hire professionals who are like private wealth managers to help you deploy your capital. In a way that's really intelligent, in a way that's unique, and supposedly gives you a competitive edge because you have more capital to deploy. So you're able to hire smarter people to deploy that and earn a greater return. That's the shtick that they sell you. I'm not sure that shtick is real at all. Private wealth managers have been really disappointing. No one is doing anything unique in this industry. If you ask two private wealth managers, what's the difference between you and this other person? They'll just shit on the other person and you'll be like, what are you going to get me? Like, what are you going to invest me in that this person isn't? Like, what's your competitive advantage? Do you have access to deals that this person doesn't have access to? They're like, no, we're both managing the same amount of money. We've been around the same amount of time. And they're like, have you heard of Elliott? I'm like, yeah, I've heard of Elliott. It's in the Wall Street Journal every fucking day. I'm pretty sure everyone could get me in there. Like, their fund is $20 billion. I'm sure anyone could get me in there. And they're like, yeah, anyone could get you in there. 'But we know them really well.' And I'm like, 'Okay, I don't know what that means.' And so I guess where I've been disappointed and where I've lost in this world is how do I deploy my capital in a really effective way? And if I tweet something about this, I tweeted like, 'Hey, if you're earning $300,000 a year, it's really hard to know what to do with your money. You're not rich enough for the private wealth manager and you're too rich for the Bank of America person who sits at the retail branch.' And I got a bunch of people who were like, I do this for 300,000— people who earn about $300,000 a year. I didn't vet any of them, but they were aggressive. And these private wealth managers, if you sell a business, they just reach out to you and they're like, help us, let us manage your money. And you're like, what are you going to put me in? And literally none of them say anything unique. None of them have their own things. They're just like, we're going to invest you in this other guy's fund. And every private wealth manager can get you in there. For instance, with public equities, they all tell you, go invest with Parametric. They do tax loss harvesting, so you'll get an extra 0.25% to 0.5% return over the S&P 500 if you invest with Parametric, as opposed to doing this, as opposed to just investing in a Vanguard ETF. But they all tell you to do that. Why would, like, you know, why use Goldman Sachs instead of First Republic instead of a smaller boutique fund if you're all just going to invest with this dollars with Parametric? You're all the same at that point. It's like, you know, it's like buying an airline ticket from Kayak or Expedia, but riding on American Airlines and getting the exact same seat. Ultimately, you're getting the same product. And so I haven't been smart enough and spent enough time figuring this stuff out.

Gotcha. And then what about crypto? You don't do anything crypto. And is there like a strong opinion, like, oh, it's all, you know, fugazi, or you just haven't had time?

Very little with crypto. I'm like an investor in a couple of fund of funds that have made a fortune in crypto. So these funds have returned a significant amount and it wasn't in their sort of like fund charter to go invest in crypto, but they did it anyway. And they're like, look, we're up, you know, 10,000%. So you can't complain. You know, they're like, look, we turned your dollar into $10,000. You can't be a— you can't be an asshole LP and be like, what the fuck? You can't do this. They're like, here's $10,000. Shut the fuck up. So, you know, they can do it. Generally, I just don't understand the value yet. And so I've been hesitant to get in there. I'm not opposed to it. You know, everyone says invest 5% of your net wealth in it. I wouldn't invest 5% of my net wealth in it. You know, it's hard because the Sam Parrs of the world are like, boys, you're not investing in crypto. What the fuck are you doing? And the Warren Buffetts of the world are like, if you offered me all the crypto in the world for $20, I would not buy it. And so I guess I've just been sitting on the sidelines. I don't know if that's good or bad, but if someone has a strong opinion and can convince me, please do so.

Okay. I'm going to resist the urge to do that now because people have heard me rant too many times on it. Um, all right. So I guess let's, let's do a little bit like, uh, uh, let's do a little touch on real, little real estate, then we'll do the personal stuff. So real estate. Yeah. You've been deploying, but now it feels like the landscape has changed. I think you kind of have an opinion on what's changed. Give me your current take on like, what do you see and what are you doing?

And do you think— where do you think this goes? Are you going to— you're slowing down, but are you slowing down because you sort of are like, okay, I'm allocated how much I want to be allocated, or you're slowing down because you're like, wait, this no longer— these prices no longer make sense?

It's not even the prices don't make any sense any longer because this is the one asset class where I'm like, I have a really long-term view. Stocks, I've been in Shopify, never sold a share. Facebook, I've been in, I've never sold a share. I've had them both for 5 years, if not longer. Microsoft, I've been in for more than a decade. I remember buying it while I was in my admin law class in law school, and I've still held every one of those shares. Generally, I'm a pretty good long-term investor. Real estate, I think of myself as— I will never sell any unit in real estate. My children will inherit this, or natural disasters will take these things into the ocean. I'm okay with either of those, but I will not sell one under any circumstance. So I'm not really worried about prices in terms of cap rates long-term, but I do think there'll be a small market correction. So I guess I've slowed down my purchasing. I'm still under contract to buy 2 or 3 units in the next couple of months, but I'm not like before. I was trying to buy, you know, a unit a week or, you know, 2 units a month. And now I'm sort of like, let me buy a unit a month or less just to see what happens to the market as interest rates go up. I think these prices will come down a little bit, but I like, you know, a lot of my cash is in real estate, you know, $25, $30 million. I'm not scared. Like, you know, if the market crashes, no, nobody will be more excited than me. I will deploy all the cash I'm sitting on for this. I have no problem if that $30 million goes down to $5 million. I will not get— like, this is the one asset class where I will not get scared. I will double, triple, or quadruple down as opposed to being like, oh my God, I got to sell what I've got.

And that's just because you're like, this is a concrete asset. There's limited supply. There's always going to be demand.

It's such a Jason mentality. You know, it's like my parents' mentality of like big cash flows. It's immune to Facebook ad prices, it's immune to the stock market. It's like generally, uh, like it's real diversification for my e-commerce and startup investments. Like these things will exist. Um, they're generally, they're primarily in the South with the exception of a few in California and a few in Colorado. They're places where people are moving to and not moving from. Um, and so I'm excited about them. And, uh, yeah, so I would never, I have no desire to sell them. Get emails and calls all the time. No excitement whatsoever to sell. Love holding this stuff and generates a ton of cash. And the other way I think about it is, and this is also pretty Jaycee mentality, is like, okay, I've got all these expenses per year and no job. I need something to make up for that. Like, these expenses, like, I don't want to dip into capital. I don't believe in—

like, the balance never goes down.

The balance always goes up. That's right. I'm terrified of the balance going down. And so I'm like, I need something to afford my lifestyle. And this real estate helps me afford my lifestyle.

How do you think about that? That's, uh, I'm— I don't know if I'm just too dumb or too lazy, but it's one of the two where I'm like, um, I basically picked two lanes to think about, and I was like, I don't really have the, like, mindshare to be able to think about— like, if I go into real estate today, I'm the dumbest guy in the room. Okay, well, it doesn't take a genius to do real estate, so that's okay. I think If I put my mind to it, I could do that. But that's now my mental cycles that are not going towards my business or the stuff I'm more interested in where I think I can have a bigger edge, where I think I can be more like the top 1% rather than like the 60, you know, 60 percentile or whatever.

Sure.

And so that's the first part is like, do I want to try to learn this game from scratch? If I'm going to do anything direct or even if I'm going to invest in funds, I got to have some ability to vet these funds to pick. Yeah, but okay, they're all pretty safe. You can get your 5, 6%, it seems like, you know, without It's not totally variable like that. Um, the other thing is like, in direct, I'm just like, who's gonna have the time to manage all this? Like, I did one transaction buying my house that I was gonna buy, I was gonna live in, in San Francisco, and just the process of the dealing with the bank to get the loan and then the closing, the escrow, and then the inspections, and it was like, um, I couldn't do anything else. I was like paralyzed from like actually doing stuff I liked because I was constantly having to nurse this project. And I was like, I can't imagine buying 50 units in a year, um, or, you know, 20 units in a year, and like the amount of just transactional, like, logistics that I would have to go through. It's such a turnoff from like, for what is the return? Basically the same average as the stock market in the long term. Okay, like, I don't have to— diversification is not that important to me to like do both of those things. Like, the mental cycles plus the physical energy it would take to do the transactions and then manage them, and then like You know, my, my tenant calls, you know, my property manager calls me about the tenant that's calling me about whatever. I don't actually even know what goes into it, but I know it's not nothing. And right now my tolerance is nothing for like, for like headache.

Yeah. And this isn't like, you know, someone calls you on a Monday being like, my AC is broken and it's in San Antonio, Texas. You can't be like, okay, I'm gonna get back to you Thursday. Like, you know, it's 110 degrees outside. You need to get that fixed in the next 12 hours. So you're right, there is a lot of pain there.

When I was purchasing— I called my manager, I rent the current place that I live in, and I called him, was like, hey, there's like a weird smell. He's like, okay, so like, where's it come from? I don't know. It's a smell. I can't see it. He's like, okay, like what kind of smells like? I don't know. It's just like bad. It's like, it smells really bad. He's just like, okay, you got to give me something. And I was like, and it's Sunday and you need to send someone here because I can't have a house with a bad smell. Like, and I'm just like, I got kids, you know, that that's the card. And I'm like, you got to send somebody now to figure out this mystery thing. And then the guy comes over, he's like, where's the crawl space? I'm like, I don't know, it's not my house. I don't know. Go ask this guy in Arizona who owns this house who's 90 years old. Go ask him where the crawl space is of this property because it's his problem to like fix this for me and I'm just going to be a baby about it. And then I think about what it's like to be on the other side of that. And I'm like, is that worth the like $500 like net that he's making per month on my rent? It's like, probably not for me.

Definitely not. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right about that. And what was in the crawl space? It was like a—

I don't know, we never found it yet. The guy didn't get back to me and now I'm pissed. Like, we have no idea where it is. The guy like sealed up one hole, so he's like, maybe this will help the smell go away. That was it. I was like, okay, well, we still don't know what's causing the smell. You just bottled it up. Like, whatever's in the wall that's dead or whatever's going on here is like, you know, he's like, he— the guy came over and on Google Translate he typed out, he's like, if the smell's still here tomorrow, I'll come undo the whole wall thing I just did. And I'll go find what's in there. I was like, bro, can't you just do that now? Can we not go into the wall now?

Yeah, you need to just get some YouTuber who does— he's trying to make content about renovating home, be like, hey, you can use my home and like you get, you know, X percent and you get to use all the content. This is your home, sir.

Go ahead and make it.

I would love it. Go ahead and flip this thing. Definitely.

You know, that'd be great.

You and your brother both do this, which is I think you treat business like a, like a, like business is your fun, like your adventure. I feel the same way. And I asked him, cause he gave me money and he was like, I'm going to advise your company. And I was like, cool. But like, just so you know, like, why are you doing this? Like, I want you to do this, but like, as your friend, I'm like, why are you doing this? It's a waste of your time. Like, this is never going to make enough money to move the needle. Like, your share of this is never going to make enough money to justify the time and energy. And like, it's not going to move the needle for you. So like, really, this makes no sense. Why are you doing this? And he goes, he said something, he goes, um, he goes like, I am not happy unless I am like, um, entrapped in, you know, in a business. And he's like, but he's like, as long as I get to create the— I want to live in a prison of my own making. And like, as long as I get to choose, I'm good. But like, I'm also not like— I can't be content and fulfilled unless I'm like, unless I'm locked into like a raging battle with like, you know, some like business thing. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. But it also makes sense to me. And you're the same way when you're like, how do I do real estate on hard mode? Like, you could just LP a bunch of funds and you're like, no, I'm going to go buy stuff. I'm not just going to buy good stuff. I'm going to buy stuff at auctions that I'm going to go have to take like a, you know, 2x4 and break off a lock and then like walk in and see what I got. And then like figure out how to turn this into like $1,400 a month of rent. And you're like, yes, sign me up. Whereas I'm like, that's like, that's what you do to get to your, your spot. You got there and then went back to the beginning and like, I'm now going to call you. I don't even know this analogy, but like, I always heard my engineers talk about servers that run on bare metal. I don't know enough about servers to know what the fuck that means, but it was always like, what's the most like hardcore way this server can run? It's like optimized for performance and like just the, just the term bare metal, like just told me everything I needed to know about what the hell they were talking about. It's like this kind of waste of time, hard mode way of doing something that does yield like the best return and like satisfaction of like optimizing the space. Yeah, I was like squeezing the juice out of the fruit. And like, to me it's like, Moise, you're like, you like to operate on bare metal. It's like you're choosing to play this game on like, you're like, how do I handwrite my UTM parameters on my ads? And then like, how do I, you know, stock my deodorant sticks myself and answer every customer service question? And then how do I like buy real estate at a foreclosed auction with no financing and no diligence? And then like figure out how to make that work. You're bare metal.

You know, there is like, first I learned how to break into houses. Like I learned how to pick locks because of real estate. Like I can walk into a house now and like open it up pretty much because, and like I carry tools with me when I'm traveling to these houses to be able to like open up homes so that I can go inside, which is a little bit crazy. In fact, I saw my parents, my parents are, you know, two like an older Indian couple obviously. That are like infirm and walk, you know, my mom will be like, my knee hurts, and she walks with a limp. And then when she's trying to break into a house with me, she'll turn into like Yoda where she can do spins. She's like, what if I climb up to the top of the ceiling and like go, you know, jimmy down the chimney? I think I can get us in there. And I'm like, I thought your knee hurt, but now, now you're perfectly fine. You can like climb this wall and like, you know, go up the, uh, go up into the chimney. And she's like, yeah, I got it for this. Really, I think there's a lot of— in my family, there's just a lot of interest in business. And so being an LP is a ton of fun. And I'm an LP in a bunch of these real estate funds. And I'm looking at the numbers, and some are making good money and some aren't. But there's no sexiness to it. It's paper money. Bring me the sexy problems. Oh, your toilet is broken? What the fuck are you doing here? Why is there a toilet break every day? Oh, the government is going to write me a check for 18 months? This is crazy. The government is going to pay me late fees. The government is going to call me and be like, hey, Moise, you've got a house here. This guy can't pay his rent. We're going to pay you 18 months of future rent and the last 2 months and late fee for the last 2 months. Tell me why you're doing this. How did you get to this? Who thought this was a good idea? Does Greg Abbott think this is a good idea? Because that's a lot of money you're going to give me. And so business is great and making money is great, but it's a lot more fun to be an active participant rather than a sidelines participant. Participant, like, I don't want to read what's in the Wall Street Journal and be like, okay, that's great. I want to be like a part of that system that's going on. There's a great analogy where this guy who's a partner at a big law firm, his name was Joe Flom. He worked at Skadden Arps. This was back in like the '80s and '90s where there were all these mergers happening. He was like 80 years old and he slipped and fell in his bathroom and his head was bleeding. And he walked into this board meeting because he was part of this board that needed to fend off a hostile acquirer. And he had paper towels on his head because he was bleeding and he was 80 years old. And people were like, what the fuck is going on? You're bleeding profusely and you're 80. He's like, I slipped and fell. And they're like, go to the hospital. And he's like, no, I want to be here. And they're like, what's going on? He's like, I don't care if I'm acquiring a company or fighting off an acquirer. I just want to be in the game and nothing is going to stop me. And this guy was 80 and bleeding and had paper towels on his head, but he wanted to be in the game. And I really respect that. I want to be in the game. That's where there's a lot of fun in life.

You, you watch basketball, right?

Yeah.

Do you, which like athlete or in any sport, it doesn't matter which athlete are you like, I admire their, like the way they do their thing is how I do my thing or how I want to do my thing.

Yeah. Tom Brady. Tom Brady for two. Like I remember he won a Super Bowl and there was a 60 Minutes like interview with him at 27. He was, this was not his 7th Super Bowl. This is like his 2nd. And they're like, so what do you, you're a Super Bowl champion, NFL MVP, what do you think? And he's like, is this all there is to life? That's what he said at the end. He's like, is this all there is? And then he retired after 2 weeks. He's like, I got to get back in the game. I had 2 weeks off. This is boring. I need to be back in the game. And he's just like an ultimate competitor. And I really admire that about him. But I'm sorry, that was the answer to the question.

That's, that's great. Uh, I don't know. Do you have 5, 5 more minutes? I wanna do, yeah, yeah, go ahead. I wanna pull on the personal stuff. All right.

So, so what were you gonna ask about the athlete stuff though? I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, that's what I was asking. I just wanna know who you admire. I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?

HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application.

Every team can stay aligned.

No outta sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot.

Grow better. You, uh, we had a little doc. I said, put down some bullet points. I said, you don't have to explain what they mean, but, uh, gimme some nuggets that we could go off of on it. You had a section of personal stuff and you go, you have two that are really interesting to me. You go, I don't know how to spend money. What does that mean?

Yeah. Um, you know, I'm living in Airbnbs that are like 5 grand a month. Uh, I don't have a car, I don't have a house. Uh, I live out of a suitcase. And when expensive things are nice, I'm like, can I afford— I still do the math of being like, this seems too expensive for the value I'm getting. Even though at this point, $1,000 probably has no value to me. Not like no value, but it's not going to materially change my life. And I'm still so cautious when I'm spending $20. I don't know how to get this out of my system. Do you know how to get it out of your system?

I don't know how to get it out of my system. I have no problem spending money.

Okay, gotcha.

I spend too much money. But like, I've seen this and I think, you know, one of the main things is I see my dad and my dad has done really well, right? Like, for— he's got the same immigrant story that like everybody has, which is you come to the country. He had, I think, $91. That was starting point, right? So that's the before. And then like, you know, he's made good money in his lifetime. Nothing like, you know, crazy to write home about. But like, especially from a $91 starting point, like, They're— they have— my parents have enough money to do whatever they want. They really don't need to penny pinch. But like, you know, if we go to Starbucks and it's like, you know, would you like the— he's like, can I have the small? They're like, okay, it's called tall. He's like, no, but what's a smaller than tall? Because I feel like the tall is going to be overpriced. He's like, you know, this is $3. Like, I, I can make this. It's mostly water. Like, he'll be talking to the people about it, right? I'm just like, oh my God. Like, not only is this embarrassing, but like It's embarrassing in the moment because he'll just be like, let me clarify, you're saying the thing that's mostly water is $3.80? Like, hold on, hold on, stop the line. What's going on here? Or like, you know, you know, he'll pack 7 people into a hotel room because like, you know, we can make it work. It's like, yeah, but do we have to? Like, we're on vacation here. Why does it have to be a struggle? And like, and so, you know, I just saw he could never get it out of his system. Like those, those The scarcity mindset was just so like ingrained in him because— and that's like, all right, I get it. Like he had no safety net. He had $91. Like every dollar counted. And like it wasn't about spending. It was about like saving to get to build a safety net because you're in this new— you're in a foreign country. Your parents can't help you. Nobody can help you. Like, and so I get that. But I saw that like, oh wow, you know, actually the money coming, it wasn't logical. Like once the money was there, that didn't change. The mindset didn't change. So it's like I had to separate out. There's a mindset around money and then there's like the logical, like, situation about the money. And like, there's actually like, they're unrelated. You would think once the logical situation changed, the mindset will change and it's like, no, it doesn't. So it's like an active thing. And so then I just started to like, one of the reasons I asked you who you admire and you're like, I admire this guy who's got like a bloody head going into the board meeting. Cause he wants to do business that bad. I would view that as a failure and you view that as a success. And like, because I have this belief, which is you become what you admire, right? Like fundamentally, Yeah, you admire something, you're going to strive to it. So it makes a lot of sense to really pick and choose what you admire. Like, I'll give you an example. A lot of people admire Elon Musk, and I think Elon Musk is obviously super incredible in a couple of ways. Like, he is one of the greatest inventor and businessmen of our time and like, you know, the greatest since Steve Jobs, I would say. But like, you know, I think he's like an Edison of our time. Great. Sure. But he's also had, I think, like, you know, I don't know, 4 failed marriages and like, that's not something I want for myself. So like, I got to be careful. To admire the, like, the all-encompassing person because I don't want the all the full result of that. Like the, you know, and so you kind of got to like, so I got really specific about what I admired. And once I admired certain things and I started to live life like those people, it's like, well, this guy's really, really happy. And like, wow, he's like pretty generous and he's not generous based off of having this like huge amount of wealth. He's generous because like he doesn't feel super scarce about money. He doesn't feel this lack of money. Um, and so he's like willing to give and like he's willing to give freely and he doesn't think twice about it. And then he doesn't pat himself on the back about it either. Like, oh wow, I really admire that about him. Like I want to be more like that. And so to me, the only thing that got me to change my mindset was knowing that it's not going to change based on how much money is in the bank. And B, like I have to change who I admire if I'm going to like change who I become, right? Because like I will naturally start to follow those blueprints and observe people doing those things and be like, oh, downloaded that. Like I will, I will make that hap— I will make that happen. Like I'll give you a little small win for me on this front. Like I was just on vacation. I was in Hawaii last week and like my parent, my dad is, like I said, like a horrible tipper. And like, so my whole life I basically saw my mom being like, tip him, and my dad being like, You don't have to. And like, you don't have to. Or like, I did. And I'm like, he handed him like a 1, like 1, 1 was his tip. And like the absolute minimum. And I just saw the look in the valet guy's face or whatever. Like it wasn't even valet. Like he wouldn't do valet. It's like the face of the guy who you're mandatory. He's standing there. You got to give him something. The bellhop. Right. And it's like, so this time we get to the place, the bellhop takes up our bags, you know, to the hotel room or whatever.. And, um, I felt all those same urges of like my upbringing, which was like, we can just take the bags ourself. It's like, yeah, but like, that's this guy's job. And like, it's not about being lazy. It's like, that's how this economy works. That's how this ecosystem works. If I don't, like, you got to feed the whole food chain. Otherwise somebody's not going to eat. Right. So it's like, yeah, okay. I'm gonna let him do that. Then we got to the room. It's like, we have no cash. I don't carry any cash, dollar bills. Like I only have cards. And so I've been in this situation like 5 times before and I'm not, I'm not proud of it, but like, I would just be like, dude, sorry, I don't have— I don't have anything. I don't have any cash. We just got here. I didn't bring cash. Or I would like, you know, let the guy leave it at the door and then I'd be like, you know, not there to like tip the guy. And this time I was like, I was like, hey, man, like, I'm so sorry. I don't have any cash on me. What's your name? And I like, I made sure I went and got him later and it was like, again, whatever, $10. But those $10 meant a lot to me. And like, yeah, okay, that's a step in the direction of the guy who's not like has this lack mindset or scarce mindset about money and is looking to like hold on tightly to everything or like avoid paying things. It's like, no, no, no. Like, you know, make it happen. I actually had like a pretty comical series of events where on the— even on this trip where I like— my kid is 2 and a half, but it— but I don't know if you know, kids fly free under 2.

Yeah.

And so I bought first class tickets because I'm trying to be a baller shot caller. But then I do the laptop. I lie about her age. To make sure she's under 2. And like, I knew in the moment, I was like, this feels wrong. But I was also like, the logic was like, well, it's like a couple thousand bucks to buy this 2-year-old kid a seat. Like, am I really going to do that? And then everybody told me they don't check. So I'm like, I'm going to get away with it. And I got penalized so bad for this cheapness that like, it was just karma teaching me this wonderful lesson because we get to the plane and they're like, oh, you guys can't sit. Like, sorry, you can't board the plane. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, Not only can I not board the plane, I'm first class, but I get to board first. And they were like, no, actually you have like 2 lap infants. You got 2 little babies. There's only like X number of masks in the top thing. So like there's 3 masks and there's 4 of you. We can't let you board this plane. We're going to have to ask to see if somebody wants to switch seats with you for you to get on this plane. And I was like, what? And I was like, nobody's going to want to switch seats with the people with the baby, like have us sit next to them. Like, yeah, it's not going to. So sure enough, They go on. Nobody wants to switch. I'm like, all right, we'll, we'll take like, we'll buy another seat. Like, it's too late, sir. The flight's full. I'm like, all right, well, we'll go to coach. We'll move back. Like, coach is full. And I was like, all right, what's the next flight? Like, it's tomorrow. I'm like, oh, fuck. I knew this little cheap move on my part of lying about the 4 months of my kid's age would come back to bite me. And it did. And so then, like, we, my wife and we had this horrible flight over where, like, One, my wife was on the last row of the plane with a baby in the middle row between two people. And like, cause some guy was like, I'll give up my middle seat in the back. Like to— and now I'm sitting next to this dude. And so instead of having this awesome family experience, we're having this terrible one because I cheaped out. And so I just started to pay attention to all the ways that saving money was costing me money and costing me like joy, uh, rather than like how much it's saving me and like what I, what I keep.

And so then who do you admire then? Is it somebody who's made that mind? Like, who is that?

Yeah, like my trainer. So I can talk about him a lot. It's probably like eye roll at this point, but like the happiest person I know and not happy in like a cheesy way, like, but in a damn, I've never seen this dude not in a good mood. And like, I've seen him stuck in traffic for 3 hours. I've been late, super fucking late and inconsiderate. And like, you know, like, but he greets me like he's, he's just been having a party. He's like, dude, where you been? Because his life is a traveling party. And so I saw that and I was like, man, on every conventional metric that like I was raised, like you came from a brown family. It's like he's— I think he's like 41, 42 years old. He's not married. That's, that's a like household disaster. If you're like a brown person, it's like, you know, we're having interventions, you know, if that happens, you know, he does well for himself as a personal trainer, but he's not like the most successful guy I know. Like, I'm surrounded by people with more quote-unquote success than him, um, in terms of financial success. Um, you know, so like, you know, just in terms of like the kind of conventional metrics, the things I thought were most important, you know, his scoreboard, it wasn't like, wow, this guy, I admire him because he's successful. It's like he's successful at the game of life because this dude's never in a bad mood. And like, because of that, everybody wants to be around him. He's the most loved guy I know because of that. He has these like magical experiences where it's like you go to a coffee shop with this guy and like you're going to have like something. If you just hang out with him for 3 hours, like something awesome is going to happen because his mood, he's going to make a joke and then that person is going to say this thing and then they're going to take us to the back room and hook us up because they just liked our vibe. And like I tell the story, like he goes to the DMV and like, you know, he goes to the DMV and it's like DMV is like the classic, like worst place on earth to be. And like he went in being like, nah, dude, he looked up the DMV on Yelp. It had 2 stars. And he's like, I'm going to have a 5-star experience because I'm going to be a 5-star DMV participant, you know, and just watch what happens. So he like walked in with a little pep in his step. He's smiling and he makes a joke to somebody and he realized— and somebody's like, oh, you could— I'll just help you out over here. And everybody else is grumbling in line like, why is this guy getting to go up front? She's like, don't mind them. And then she flirts with him and like she hooks— and he's supposed to take the test. And she's like, you know what? Like, it's fine. You've been driving for a long time. And she just gives him the thing and he's like, walks out. He's like, damn, if I could do it at the DMV, I could do it anywhere, right? Like, that's awesome. He's like, he's like, I wasn't always this way. He's like, dude, I was depressed for a while. My dad died and I used to be bitter about him for XYZ. And he's like, he's like, you know, I used to be the guy, like, I didn't want to come out from the covers because I just wasn't looking forward to my day. Like, you know, you do— if you looked at me, you just see like a blanket and two eyeballs because I just didn't want to get out of bed. And he's not saying this as a motivational talk because he doesn't— he's not a motivational speaker. It's just like He's my personal trainer. I just happen to hear these stories. So when I heard this, I was like, okay, this dude is winning. The reason I want this money, this fam, this, all these things, because I want to feel good. This dude just feels good on auto. Like, he feels good no matter what situation you put him in. So that's like an invincibility, right? Like, he is unconditionally feeling good. So that's the guy I started to admire. And then I started to pattern myself after things that he was— anytime I noticed he did something different than me or my friends or the people around me, I like took special note of that and like would lean into trying that out as a new experience to see, you know, is that part of what makes him him?

That's really interesting and a great story. And, you know, for a long— I feel like everyone I've admired, I've just been— it's almost like sex where I'm just automatically attracted to that person and it's not even conscious. Like I just get an erection when, you know, I hear about Tom Brady because I'm like, wow, that guy is awesome and really good at what he does. And he's this ultimate competitor and wants to win. And I never really— I never even thought that you could choose who you admire. I just assumed it was like, you know, your sexuality where you're like, are you attracted to this person? It's like comes from here and not here.

Yeah, actually, maybe that is true. I think there's some truth to what you said, but like in the same way that like we don't all go try to marry porn stars. Like there's a certain point where you're like, yeah, What really matters to— what do I actually want? And it's like, well, there's this initial thing, this physical attraction, which is important. Uh, but then like, actually, I now know it feels really good to have somebody who's caring and thoughtful and like, whatever, like I can trust. And the things that are like slightly below the surface that like, you're like, oh, I actually, now that I know about it, now that I felt it, I'm like, those are super important. I just, you know, it's just less primal than like the physical attraction, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. I've not done a good job of admiring people that I know really well. I've only known, like, you know, I admire people that I just hear about their competitiveness and their instinct to win. And I'm going to think about that and try to do a better job of that.

Your brother's like this. Your brother's another person I chose to like admire because I was like, he's also— your brother's also like in a good mood pretty much all the time. I've, I've never seen him like I've never seen him either, like, in low energy. Like, I've never seen him just kind of like on autopilot, the switch is off. And I've also like, even when he's like, like, I've never seen him defeated either. So, so, you know, those are so, so, you know, what I've seen him, I'm like, he walks into like, when your brother walks into the room, like, he subconsciously goes, all right. And it's like, he's expecting like the parade to start. And I'm like, bro, this is just a bakery, but he's like, all right, what are you doing?

What are you eating?

Oh, is that good? All right. And like, it's not that he's— he's not like Mr. Smooth socially, but his like will to have a good time or like to have the experience like in its fullest actually like imposes its will on everybody else. Everybody has to participate at that point because they're like, uh, yeah, it's a croissant. You want to try it? Oh, you know what, you should actually do this. And it's like he forces the good time out of the, the average because He just literally walks in. He's like, all right, what are we doing? Or he'll be like, let's win. And I'm like, let's win what? We're not even like playing anything. Like, okay, I have to like rise to your level or I have to stop being friends with you because that's just the way you're approaching things. And like, either that's just— I'm out or I got to figure out how to be in. And being in kind of means like being on and not just being like ho-hum about that life, you know?

Yeah, yeah. I've chosen to stop being friends with him as a result of that. No, in reality, I actually admire him as well. And I know we're, you know, we were at, we were in Texas for like Mother's Day. It was my father's birthday 2 weeks ago and someone had gone to Costco. I think my sister had gone to Costco and bought like, you know, some cases of water and like watermelons. And I got home and she's like, hey, Moise, can you get this stuff out of the car? It's like heavy and like, you know, I don't want to do it. And I was like, why do you have Solomon? He's been at home all day. And she's like, he never does anything. Like, he will not lift a finger for this kind of stuff. And I was like, this is why this guy's always in a good mood. No one asks him anything that, like, you know, is not enjoyable because they know he's already said no to it so often that it's not like, you know, it's not something that's asked or expected of him any longer. That's why he's always in a good mood. But it is a lot of fun to hang out with him. Like, I, and, you know, I've hung out with him often enough to see both sides of that when he's like excited and like the energy comes And it certainly lifts me up. And times where he's more analytical and he's like, "Let's look into this and does this make sense?" Or more like, I remember one time when TinyCo was struggling, I was in San Francisco and he's like, "We have a new strategy, the whole business, where instead of creating our own iPhone games, we're going to license the intellectual property of others. What do you think of this? This is like a bet the company move." And I had no idea. I was a lawyer and 22 and didn't know anything. But I was like, I could, I could get the real sense of like, it's not just pure optimism. There is a sense of reality there. And that also like helped me understand him a lot more too.

Yeah. He said something about you that I thought was a baller line that I've, I've reused many times, which was, I don't even know if this is the real thing, but this is now the legend of it, which was when you went to the deodorant business, somebody was like, hey, Mo, he's like, do you even know anything about the deodorant business or like about deodorant? And you were like, no, I know nothing about deodorant, but in 6 months I'm going to know everything there is to know about deodorant. And like, that's, that's enough for me to go. Like, I can start this. I don't need to like think of myself as some expert. I've used that so many times.

And like, what an amazing attitude to have about anything. It's like, yeah, of course I don't know anything. And like, give me 6 months. I can be, pretty— like, I can be pretty much an expert at anything if you give me 6 months of obsession.

And I think that's true with everyone. Sorry, go ahead.

Your brother had some that were like this because I started writing down these traits. I was like, there's a, um, what I call is like, you know, sometimes you have a speaker system, you turn it up to level 10, and you're like, oh, that's pretty loud, it's bumping. And then you like get in someone's car and it's almost like they got— theirs goes to 14. You're like, God, I can't hear anything, I'm deaf out of two— I got in my right ear because Like, why is your shit so loud? But you're like, okay, at least I know what loud is now. I have experienced loud. Even if I don't ever want my speaker to be this intense, like, I now know the level of intensity that exists because I just thought 10 was the max before. And like, that's what your brother did. Like, we invested in a company together and they were kind of fucking up. And I was like, dude, can you— I've been trying to help these guys. Can you help me help them? Like, he's like, yeah, great. Let's like, all right, let's win. And he gets on the call, he does his clap, and he's like, and they're, you know, they're kind of defeated. And he's like, okay, so let's raise all this money. You're trying to raise money. Let's raise the money. Like, let's look at the deck. And they like put out the deck and it was like awful. And he's like, okay, so this is bad, but let's fix it. Like, okay. So he rattled off, he's like, slide 3. And he was like super detailed, right? It's not just like general rah rah. He's like, slide 3, that chart, it makes me think this. You need to flip the numbers to be like, visualize it this way. Like this example here on Google Images. And he did that for like this super detailed thing right away. And I was like, whoa. And then he was like, all right. Um, they're like, wow, thank you so much. This feedback's been so helpful. He's like, great. Um, how long do you think it'll take you to, to do this? Like to make these changes? And they were like, uh, I don't know. Hope I'm gonna work on it today. Like, you know, I know it's super important, so I'm gonna work on it today. He's like, great. It's noon now. Let's talk at 5. And then he's like, send me a standing calendar invite for 5:00 PM every day for the next 7 days until this deck is amazing. And he is like, let's just keep doing this, right? Like you said it was super helpful, right? So let's just keep doing this. And I was like, dude, I wouldn't have had the balls to tell any company I invest in, like, let's meet again in 3 hours. I mean, it wasn't like forced it. Like I can't even now when I'm saying it, it's not coming out the same way where it was like, great, let's do this. And like, let's just shorten the time span, right? Like let's just cut all the fluff. Okay, so you'll make these changes, it'll take you a couple hours, let's meet again. And I was like, I've never done 2 meetings with the same person in one day. So then I was like, oh shit, I just found out my knob wasn't even at 10, it was at 7. And like, this is what 12 feels like. And we did it every day for 5 days straight until the deck was amazing. We would meet twice a day with these people. By the end of it, they hated us. But like, the deck was so much— like, the whole pitch was like, the whole business was different basically by the end. It was like, usually when a pitch is bad, it's like, actually the business is kind of bad. And, um, and so once I saw that, I was like, whoa, the Ollie brothers, they function at like a different like they have a different level 12 that like, uh, I like to see. And I'm sharing this on the pod because there's people out there who, all the people around them, they've never seen like what 12 looks like. And I think you guys do this and that's like my favorite thing about you guys.

That's awesome. Uh, I'm glad that that worked out. And yeah, he like, he has this insane ability to get the most out of people and like, uh, without them feeling like it's an ex— like without him forcing it upon you. Like he would do this when I was running Native, he'd be like, how can you make this deodorant better than Dove and Secret? And I'm like, this guy has an $8 billion R&D budget. I've got $80. I can't do this. And he's like, here are 5 things that you can do that, like, you know, and he'll just, even though the, like 3 of those things will be outrageous, he'll be like, go and find a new ingredient that'll work. And I'm like, what am I supposed to, you know, dig and find a new element in the periodic table of elements? But like two of those things will open up my mind in a way to be like, you know what, I'm not trying, I'm not focusing on the right problem here. And I got to stop thinking about retention and customer service and all this other stuff that matters, but will matter later on more. Right now, this is my problem and forget everything else. And it's really humbling to be around that. Like whenever I'm around him, I'm always more jazzed about business and my business. And like, you know, I think we've seen enough where we understand what the problems are right away. Like I'm in some of these board meetings and I'm like, Why are we talking about, like, you know, I was in a board meeting a couple of weeks ago. All we did was talk about fundraising. And I'm like, this is a waste of my time and your time. Either you're going to get this check or you're not going to get this check from this one guy. Stop begging him, like, move on. Why don't we talk about the business and see, hey, what's working and what's not? Make a better business and the dollars will follow. Stop wasting time here. And that's what, like, so much of this is experience. And I had no idea that it would be experience. And I think about this all the time. I remember when I was at P&G, my boss who ran Deodorants quit and I was like, oh, he's quitting. I hope he does better. And I didn't realize all of the things that would happen to me that, you know, now we're super clear. Like he had made all these promises about keeping Native independent and amazing and, you know, not, not like forcing his will upon the company. And he had protected me from P&G. The next guy never made any of those promises. And so he didn't really feel like he had to do any of those things. And I completely respect that.. But I didn't even understand what was going to happen when the guy told me he was quitting. And now I'm like, okay, when headcount changes, this is what's going to happen. A new sheriff is going to come into town. He's going to bring in his own minions to work in the places that he likes and either fall into line or fall out, like, you know, leave the group. And I didn't understand that. And so much of this is experience. And once you go through those, go through these things, it's super helpful. And, you know, he's had, he's had so much more experience than I have and he's a little bit older than me. And so he's had it earlier than I have. And he's been this great sounding board for this kind of stuff.

You, you tweeted something out that was great. You were like, here's my, my project status. Like, here's like my Excel sheet I use for all my real estate deals. And it was just like status of it. It's like, you know, I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was like sent, reply received, waiting for paperwork, follow-up needed. And then there was one that was just like, I'm unsure. I don't know what the hell's going on. Like, I don't know what the fuck. I don't know what's going on. I don't know where it's at. Like, I don't know why it's not moving. And I was like, that's the status that I've needed in every project I've ever done. Because my— I always have, you know, a tracker for anything I'm doing. I'm like, all right, it's either like, I sent it, I'm waiting for reply, I got the reply, now I need to like reply to them, I need to analyze it, I need to sign, I need to wire the money, I need to do whatever. But like, so often after like 24 hours, every— whatever status it was in, it's now slipping towards the black hole of I don't know what's holding it back from just finishing now.

Yeah.

And I think that's what you guys do really well, which is actually any initiative in any project, it's like, all right, we're trying to, you know, like get more profitable. It's like, well, we have this big plan and we're doing it. And then like, surely, but slowly but surely, like a month in, it's like, what happened to that whole profitability thing? Are we doing it or are we not? Like, and it's like, yeah, everything has slipped into, I'm unsure what the fuck's going on and I need this like piercing clarity back. And so, A, I think that was an amazing little tidbit in there of like, I need that. I need that status because most things are actually in that that bucket.

Yeah.

And I need to get them the hell out of that bucket, but I had to name it that to like acknowledge what the heck was going on.

Yeah.

The second is, uh, another example of the relentlessness thing, uh, level 12, level 14 on the volume scale. Like, I showed your brother this deal that I was in that I wanted to invest in, and he was like, oh, this is like, looks great, let's like, let's do it. And I was like, okay, cool. And he's like, then every day he would text me like, what's going on with that deal? And I was like, oh yeah, like, uh, no change. Like, I emailed the guy, he said he's just He said he's finalizing stuff. He'll get back to me by Friday. It's like Tuesday. So Wednesday, he's like, yo, what's up with the deal? And I'm like, I think it's still the Friday thing. I haven't emailed him again. You think I should? He's like, yeah, let's email him again and tell him we love this and we want to be involved. I was like, oh, is that like a thing people do? Like, that's just— let's kind of fluff them up. He's like, yeah, let's just keep it hot. And I was like, okay, cool. Then Wednesday, Thursday, he's like, I just feel like we need to do something. He's like, eventually got to the point where he's like, what's the guy's bank? Let's just wire him $1 million. And I was like, we haven't signed anything. He's like, well, once we wire him the money, he's not going to wire it back. So like, we're going to secure our allocation in this deal. Just like, let's just send him $1 million and then he'll kind of be forced to like finalize things with us rather than keep us in this like limbo stage. And maybe in the end he'll say, hey, I can't do the full amount. You can only do a quarter of the amount because I got all this other investor interest. Cause we know that's what's going on here. And again, I was like, whoa, didn't know that's an option of like, You can just wire the guy the money. I guess that kind of makes sense. And like, uh, these are very, very valuable, uh, little tidbits of like, yeah, to add like another example somebody gave us. They were like, it was like, what's your open rate on your push notifications for your app? I was like, oh, it's like 30%. I think it's pretty good. I was like 20%. It's like, I think that's really good. Industry average is like 8. We're at 20. I was patting myself on the back. I was feeling happy. And he's like, what do you think the theoretical max is? I was like, what? He's like, what do you think? Like, theoretically?

Okay.

He's like, it's not literally 100. You're not gonna get 100% people. Sure. Because some people have uninstalled your app and they have notifications off. Like, what do you think is like, and I was like, I don't know what you mean. He's like, I think I could get 50% of people to open a push notification. Let me just like see. So he sent a push for his app and his app was like, had, it was like a social app. Like you post photos and he just sent a push notification that said, um, your Uber is arriving outside. Um, like, please, like, open this to meet it at the door, like, whatever. He, like, sent a thing that was like, your Uber is arriving with your package, swipe to, like, open it up. And he saw, like, 55% of people open that thing. He's like, okay, that's, like, the juiciest. I have to know what's in this push notification. He's like, that's now the max. He's like, anything you want to— he's like, now we know. So actually, our 20% is not on 100, it's on, like, 55%. And so everything we do is from here. And I remember thinking, Wow. Some people in Silicon Valley are like maniacs. Like they will push the boundaries in ways that I just really haven't thought of. And every time I saw someone break like an invisible wall that I had just had up, I'm like, oh fuck, the game is so much more interesting than I realized. And like these people play without these walls. Oh, this is awesome. Like what else can I do?

It's so refreshing to see that kind of stuff when you're like, I don't know why I thought this wall existed. And now that it doesn't, it makes so much sense that it doesn't exist. Like just breakthrough. It required some genius to break through it. And now that he's done it, it seems so obvious. Whenever Salman and I look at deals, if our investments are raising a new round, we're always like, we want to either buy the business. I want to buy the whole business, run the business, or sell my shares, all of my shares. I want some action. So I can't— look, these are the 3 options. I'll buy the whole thing. I'll run the business. You quit or take all my shares and get out of here., but I don't want nothing. I can't do nothing here. And, uh, it's a lot of fun to like, it's a lot of fun to be involved and have that action. Um, uh, but you know, it makes it so that you admire a certain group of people, certainly.

Yeah, exactly. For better or worse. Um, and by the way, this is a good example. I admire that Uber push notification. Some people are like, how unethical and weird. And like, um, you know, why would you do that? And like, you know, if I told that, and I have done this many times, like I've told my, designer, hey, let's try this. And he looks at me like I'm Bernie Madoff saying, let's take all their money and run away. Like, you know, they think I'm evil when I'm actually just running an experiment. To me, this is like an awesome experiment. And it's because I admire people who did some of these different growth hacking things that are like just unusual thought experiments that I'm like, oh, you— the way you think is how I want to think. Uh, but not everybody, not everybody wants that or even thinks it's good. Like, they think it's bad, which is like, but knowing that is also where you figure out your lane. You're like, oh, that's my lane. These things I think are easy and fun and good. Other people think are hard, boring, or like, are like evil. And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I now know what differentiates me versus anybody else.

There was this one great story at, um, when I was a native, we had bought, we had these, uh, end caps for Target, like basically like shelving that was going to sit at the end of an aisle.. And they come in filled with all the deodorant. Like, you know, we ship them and all they have to do is take the box off and it's filled. And so we sent them to Target and nobody could find them. Like, you know, there were a bunch of Targets that were like, we don't have this. And so we're like, okay, what should we do? And so some P&G person was like, okay, what we have to do is we need to call up the P&G Target team in Minneapolis. They're going to call up Target. Target's going to call their distribution facility. And then we're going to go all the way back around. And we'll find out where they are because we've already shipped them. And so someone on our team was like, this doesn't make any sense. This is 15 phone calls. This is what you guys ordinarily do. And they're like, this is the only way to do it. So we Googled Target distribution facility in like New England, found their phone number, randomly cold called them and were like, hey, we work in Native. I think you've got a bunch of these end caps. A bunch of stores don't have it. We ship them to you. Do you know where they are? And they're like, give us 20 minutes to look in the facility. They called us back and they're like, yeah, we got them. We're going to ship them out in the next truck. And that's how we solved the problem. And like, you know, to the PNGers, it had never occurred to directly call the facility and to Google for that number. They're like, we have to make 15 phone calls and play secretary on the way back. And like, you know, their mind was blown. And for us, we're like, this is the most obvious thing to do. Call the person where the problem lies. And it's crazy to see where those walls are. And it's so amazing to break through them and be like, This is the way things should be done moving forward.

That's a pretty amazing story. And like really amazing that this guy who's in Brazil is like, I know how to get downloads from this street, like give away iPhones and get people to download it. That's brilliant of him and brilliant that you found it and like harnessed it and were like, fuck all this red tape, I'm going to figure it out. That's awesome.

What an incredible story. Finally, I'm getting— finally I'm getting the love I needed. Yeah, I've been waiting 2 years to just get the daddy I'm proud of you, uh, son I'm proud of you moment, but I got it now. All right, man, sorry I took you so far over the time limit. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me. Like a champ.

Yeah, where should people find you? Your Twitter is probably the best spot, right?

Yeah, Twitter. I'm @Moizali.

@Moizali. All right, perfect. Thanks, man.

Perfect. Thanks, John.

Talk to you soon.