Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Built Different ft. Brian Goldstein | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

In this episode of Coffeez for Closers, we sit down with Brian Goldstein—serial entrepreneur, scaling expert, and founder behind multiple 8- and 9-figure ventures. From building his first detailing business in high school to helping companies 4x their revenue today, Brian’s journey is one of grit, honesty, and zero fluff.We talk about growing up in chaos, overcoming adversity, and how those early battles shaped his calm, no-nonsense approach to business and life. Brian shares how he helps businesses scale, why most founders stall out, and how he’s raising his daughter to have the same grit he was forced to learn.Raw, real, and unapologetically sharp—this one’s for the builders who don’t make excuses.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

He scaled multiple companies, had multiple exits, and built businesses across everything from e-commerce and health care to third-party logistics. And oh yeah, he started his first company in high school. Brian Goldstein is a serial entrepreneur, brand builder, and scaling expert who doesn't just talk business. He tears it down and rebuilds it better. He's grown brands to over $100 million in revenue and helps founders scale past plateaus with no, no-nonsense strategy and zero sugar total. He's also a passionate advocate for firearm safety, a podcast host, and a dad who's raising his daughter with grit, creativity, and real-world experience. From surviving a traumatic childhood and a brain tumor to building empires,

Brian's story is as real as it gets. Today on coffees, we talk about scaling smarter, cutting the emotion out of decisions, and why peace sometimes comes from surviving chaos. Welcome to coffees. Thanks for having me, bud. Hey, thanks, Brian. Thank you for allowing us to use your studio. I appreciate it. It's been great to kind of get to know you pick your brain and, you know, get the opportunity to hang out with you here in the studio. So Brian, I like to ask everybody when that comes on the show the same question every single time. And Brian, what is your morning routine? Oh, that's pretty routine. Once I get out of bed, I'm ready for the day, meaning brush my teeth, do my hair, put on my clothes, load my popcorn. Load my popcorn.

pockets, and even if I'm sitting at my desk, I'm ready to leave the house. It's not, oh, let me go grab this, oh, let me go grab that. But usually it's load my pockets, do everything. If I have my kid, get her to school or bring her with me, and I go straight to breakfast. That's like... There's no crazy biohacking protocol? At breakfast, they get pounded, and then later there might be some injections. Right on. Well, you have... You're a... You're a lot of... You're a in like multiple verticals you had multiple exits so we'll kind of dive into some of your exits but you know what what inspired you to start your own podcast a friend introduced me to someone a couple years ago and he's like hey I know you're in the gun space you need to bring more awareness to

certain topics I was like look I don't really like talking in front of the camera it was only a couple years ago I started talking in front of the camera before that it was just visuals and that person passed away suddenly and a couple months after I'm like okay it's time to pick up where he left off and kind of just do my own thing and never really talked about the gun space or the firearms or any of that stuff so I kind of just stayed out of that but just went down the business rabbit hole and interviewing cool people or topics that I thought were interesting to me and somehow it relates to business one way or another because if your personal life's not in check then your business life's not in check. And so having relationship coaches on, therapists on, lawyers,

just different things that have interested me over the time and just kind of how it all meshes with business in a weird way. It does. It all comes back full circle. So you say you're in the gun space, you want to tell the audience exactly like what you do in the gun space. I know you have a big show that discusses these various topics. I work with several brands on testing and developing and just, you know, trying out their new products and going to different training events and fun stuff like that. Like I said, it's more of a passion project.

Like, it's fun for me. Make a couple bucks from it, nothing crazy, but something I've always enjoyed. And that's kind of my, in a weird way, meditation. I'm turning off my thoughts and only focused on what I'm doing at that moment. You know, when you're training, it's, hey, if you're not 100% in that zone,

things can go south. You don't want to hurt someone. you don't want to hurt yourself. And it just allows me to disconnect from everything else and just focus on that. You're an advocate, obviously, for gun awareness. 100%. Firearm safety. And look, everybody's like, oh, you have all this stuff.

There's not a loose gun in my house. Everybody's like, oh, don't you have a spare gun? I got little kids. I don't want that liability. I got a big dog. So you've been an entrepreneur for a long time, obviously coming from... 20, yeah, 20 years now. What was the first business you started?

How old were you? I was in high school, and it was a detail shop. You started a detail company in high school? Yeah. I was just passionate about cars, and I was like, oh, all these car washes suck. Like, I saw an opportunity to kind of take over a failing business and get it going and got it going really well. I was not a great student in school, so. Hey, at least I know I can make a dollar.

And my grades dipped because I, they were already shitty, but they went lower because I was more focused on the business than school. And it was a pretty successful first business as a kid. For a kid, yeah. Yeah. Now it's pocket change. Of course, of course. Now anything's pocket change. Even if you were making a ton of money back then, it's pocket change now.

Yeah, 20 years ago. Yeah. Man, inflation is really something else. I think when I graduated high school gas was like $1.50. Yeah. I mean, it's not just the cost of guess. I mean, eggs were probably a dollar for a dozen. On the high side.

Yeah. So first business in high school, what's the best piece of entrepreneurial advice you've gotten? Hang around like-minded individuals. Don't hang around the naysayers saying, oh, dude, you shouldn't do that. Unless it's somebody that you look up to and you want to live in their shoes and you like all the aspects of their life, don't take advice. don't take advice from those people. And same thing with personal relationships. Don't take advice from single friends and other stuff of

if you're not living the life that I want to live, I'm not going to take advice from you. And I wish I learned that earlier on. Yeah. When did you actually learn that and adopt that into your own life? Probably 25-ish. I feel like that's something we always strive for is just trying to find like-minded individuals

to just fill the room. And that's the great thing about podcasting. right? It's just you meet like-minded people. This is almost like the only platform to meet people where you want to meet them at the time you want to meet them. Correct. And it's the only time now where people aren't on their cell phone. That's absolutely correct. The only reason you're keeping your phone in your lap is for notes. Outside of that, you don't need your phone. Yeah. And a lot of people don't know how to have a conversation for an hour now without staring at their phone. that's that's one of the things I've said multiple times it's like it's the only it's like

the most unobstructed date you can have with someone 100% it's like unobstructed eyes gazing at the other person 100% divide undivided attention yeah like you're not getting out of it yeah and the only reason you said that you I do have my phone is like so I'm on course with my conversation like I do the same thing yeah like unless I like really really know the guest then it kind of doesn't make it as fun for me. Yeah. So it's just those notes of, oh, I forgot to ask this. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and that's what's cool kind of just getting to know you, and your story, your heritage. You know, we have kind of a similar upbringing, similar heritage, you know, you grew up, you're half Indian, very similar culture to me. I'm Egyptian. So what was it like for you when you told your parents like, yo, I'm going to go be an entrepreneur?

My parents were entrepreneurs. It was no issue. They were good with it. They were good with it. No pushback. That was awesome. Well, because they were already assimilated to American culture, American heritage. My mom is first generation, though.

But she started her own businesses at a very young age and said you got to earn your keep. And so she's not opposed to it and just, I don't know, I feel like our school system kind of directs you to live a different mold than anyone that breaks out of it. It's like, oh, that's not normal. Yeah. Yeah, you experience academia. You know, you walk down the academia, and it's definitely not a profitable venture. It's like you're going to be broke in that world.

Or just, you know, you want a simple life? Get a job. You know, and everybody's like, oh, you're so lucky. How many times have you failed personally and in business? Failed hundreds. And it's learning from every time and improving. and if I wanted to just get a job and have a guaranteed paycheck, I feel like life would be a little too simple.

You know, you just said something that every entrepreneur just needs to hear and embed in their mind, get used to failure. Like, just get used to it because failure is just the process where we just improve. And people are so scared of it. It's not even failure. It's education. What are you going to do with that knowledge? Yeah.

Okay, that didn't. work. How can you modify it so it does? You know, even on the drive up here, as I'm coming to the studio, I'm like refining and adapting and learning from my failures. And I failed on the way up here at something, you know, it's like, we got to refine this, we've got to change that, we've got to implement this, like we're failing here. And my team and I even realize on the drive up here

that we need like a third party to come in and just like, we can't do it. We just got to get a third party. So we call it a third party, booked it on the spot. Like, just because we realized like we hit like we've plateaued in terms of our ability based on the team size we have so it's you know and it was a failure on the way up here we realized it you're also a scaling expert what would you tell an entrepreneur right now to like what's some practical advice that an entrepreneur can take right now to scale a current friend that I'm helping in business I predicted where he'd be at currently and he let him

his emotions get the best of him. And we could have pulled the Band-Aid four or five months ago, maybe even longer. And now he's pulling the Band-Aid now of making the hard choice and making the changes I implemented. Remove emotions out of your decisions. You've got to do what's best for the company. Not for what feels right. You've got to do what's best for you and the company.

A lot of us get stuck in that rut of being personally attached to the people, being personally attached to, you know, the product, being personally attached to whatever it is, and it's really disruptive for business. Well, people still think they can operate like Mom and Pop when they've passed a certain level of sales. You can't. Mom and Pop worked at the beginning. Now you're a million dollars in sales, $2 million in sales.

Okay, so what have you changed? Nothing? Well, that's why you're hitting the wall. What have you delegated? You're still doing the day-to-day operations? What are you focused on instead of that? Now, I want to kind of turn things around and talk about some of the biggest struggles. I want to first off to talk about what I feel would have been the biggest struggle you faced,

which was when you were faced with a brain tumor. Like, how did that impact you as a youth when we were diagnosed with such a scary reality? And how did that kind of shape your character today? Honestly, that didn't really scare me. It was being in special ed. It was coming from a household filled with violence and substance abuse. You grow up that way and you survive. Everything else is a cakewalk.

Special ed. And like your parents were violent? We won't get into those specifics, but there was some violence and some fun stuff involved. Yeah. Yeah, you know, when you grow up in a disrupt, and people have this stigma with like divorce. Okay, would you rather grow up in a divorce household where your parents were, parents are happy. Or would you rather grow up in a violent household or your parents are like... I'm going with divorced house all day long. You know, because...

Safe space. Yeah. It's funny because there's a lot of similarity, you know, even in the household, like in many, many households, even in my household, we felt we dealt with a lot of, you know, fighting, extreme fighting. And I felt like, you know, it was like, I meant, like, I meant, like, we gotta go we got to pick it we got to pick a lane here you know we got to pick a lane because this is just this disruptive right so it it's traumatizing to children to to live like that so you know we're dealing with same things and it's just like that's just the way it is you know it's just the the ideology of like this perfect household is like is a dissipating reality um for many right I'd love to see.

I think it could exist. It just takes a lot of work. It does. A lot of sacrifice. But on that note, it's hard for entrepreneurs. I see many entrepreneurs, unfortunately, have so much to do to keep a relationship together and build an empire. And it's harder on entrepreneurs than, you know, a manager at a restaurant or a doctor or whatever it is, just because you know you have finite time work, finite entrepreneurs were like just always

working. Yeah, you just got to learn to balance. I know easier said than done. Yeah. Give me some balance advice. Give the audience some balance advice. You balance, well. You're, you're split households now. Right. Do you feel your kids get more attention now? Oh yeah. Absolutely. I call that balance in my book. Yeah. And you know those days that it's your days. It's dedicated to them. Yeah. And the days you don't have them, your balls to the wall with work. Yeah. That's my version of balance. Why can't one do that during marriage? You know, it's like when you're not doing it can be with the right partner. Yeah. One who's understanding. Correct. And I think a lot of things need to be talked about prior. And that's faults on both end. I'm not going to point fingers at anyone. Um, hard conversations

need to be had, things need to get stopped, stop getting swept under the rug, and, you know, talking about how you want certain things done in the future need to be discussed before that time. Yeah. You know, it's funny that you identified balance based on, because right now, my time with my kids is so intentional. It's like DND mode, all in, eyes gazed at you, like, you ain't getting out of this. Like, what do you guys want to do? And before, I don't know why I didn't do that. I think it's one of those things of you don't know what you got till it's gone in certain situations. And not having that constant touch and it now being broken, I think is better for everyone.

Because now the time is quality. Yeah. You've been through so much hardship in your life. What do you think some of the bigger adversity is that you faced? Growing up, how I grew up, everything else is just a cakewalk. Do I get angry? Sure. Do I get upset?

All the time. You just got to take everything as a learning experience and just go with it. I'm sure there's been adversity. I'm sure I could say, hey, this wasn't fair, that wasn't fair. Pretty sure on a Tuesday, I'm wearing basketball shorts and gym shoes, singing in a comfy chair, having a conversation about business with you. I built the life I've wanted to build. And sacrifices come with it.

Like we said earlier, if I wanted a simple life, could have gotten a job at Walmart. You have this very still demeanor, this still acumen about you that's just like, you know, it's, it's cool, it's collected. It's not like, it's like you don't have a worry, you know. It's, it's an incredible demeanor. It's also scary at times.

And most people don't know how much violence it took to be this calm. I don't talk about that with anyone. and things can always be worse. You got to stop, you know, nobody cares about your problems. Your problems. I learned that from my mentor. He just, it's like, my last meeting with him, he's like, nobody cares. Like, no, you think that, like, you're over here worried about what your community says about you or, like, nobody cares.

I do not care what people think on social media. What I care about is how my kids look at me. That's the only thing that matters. They're like the life and joy that we do this for. Yep. And, you know, some of my friends are like, why do you take your kid to school? Why don't you take your kid to school? It's my favorite part.

It's not my favorite part. I like taking all their activities. It's kind of pain in the ass and traffic and I'm not a morning person. I think last night I slept three hours and it was from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. then 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. Oh, man, I don't know if you're tracking your sleep, but that's a horrible score. Oh, I'm 30s.

Or a ring, 30. No way. Between 30 and 55. You're kidding me. That's how I've been since I've been an entrepreneur. 30 to 55, but I wouldn't even track it at that point. It's depressing.

Some days I wish it would, like, increase. I don't know. You know, I've been tracking it, and I'm like, I love it when I score an 80. I feel like a champion. I haven't gotten to an idiot. Yeah, I don't know how people get up, like Brian Johnson Towsy gets hundreds every night. You know what, that's not normal.

How is that even possible? I wake up and I'm like, I'm still tired, but I can't go back to sleep. Yeah. My kid sleeps fucking 12 hours. I'm like, wake up. They're sleeping. They're getting 12. They're getting hundreds.

Yeah, my daughter gets 100. Every night. My son's still feeding, so he's nowhere close to 100. But yeah, my daughter's like a log. When she's out, she's out. So you're dealing with, do you have a nanny that helps with, are you doing like the feedings? No, I don't do the feedings.

And yeah, that's, that's a whole other thing to manage. Yeah, that's a whole other. But, you know, it's the way the cookie crumbles. Yeah. So, you know, right now you have a, what's your favorite venture, your favorite entrepreneurial venture that you have going on right now? Scaling. Helping companies grow and walking in and just...

Demolishing their business protocols currently? Yeah, and it's kind of this sickness of, dude, I'm going to break it down. And you can follow the map. You cannot follow the map. You want to refund. Here you go. I don't really care.

When you call me in six months, first words out of my mouth are going to be, I told you so. What, like, what's a good use case? It's like you help companies build their brand, scale, rip them apart internally. What are some of the things you're doing for one of your clients right now? Increase sales by 400%. And how are you doing that?

Changing the policies. They're trying to do the day-to-day stuff. Why aren't they outsourcing certain things? Weren't they having employees doing certain things? Why don't you have a 3PL managing your inventory instead of having a warehouse staff that you have to manage? sit with a 3PL company for a month, train them, let that be their problem. What's the 3PL? Third party logistics.

So what's some practical advice that you would give an entrepreneur right now? What level? Entering entrepreneurship. And then someone at like seven figure sales. Entering, don't quit your daydrum until your entrepreneur has passed substantially your patron. your paycheck. That's good advice. Some people just dive full in and look, it works most of the time, but it couldn't.

Yeah, and then you're SOL. Yeah. And I don't like working with clients that haven't gotten to high, six, low sevens. I'm not going to go through the infancy phase and I want to see where you're truly stuck. That's just my, I don't have the patience for lower. What's the biggest sales client that you've helped get to their largest amount of sales? Myself, I passed 100 in a year. 100 am?

Wow, that's amazing. And then second to you? 30. What were you selling to get to 100 million? Some stuff. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's incredible. That's incredible.

And 30 million, what did they do? E-commerce. So you're known for your candid, unfiltered approach, which is like, it's amazing. How do you think entrepreneurs can leverage authenticity to build trust and loyalty? I think in life you've got to be authentic. But people are very quick to let their guard down. You've got to feel it out. And not everybody needs to know what the fuck you're doing.

Everybody needs to know what your kids are up to today, issues with your wife. ex-wife, whatever it might be. Keep her personal shit personal. Nice. I'd like to conclude the show with a couple last questions. This is a three-prong question. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself? A family goal that you have for the family and a business goal. Personal goal would be health-wise, cutting out seed oils and processed sugar.

Processed sugar. I'm a fat kid. That's hard. We are all fat kids at heart. Well, I used to be 270, 260. Oh, you actually were fat. I was a fat kid. But I still love sugar.

So that's definitely... When were you 270? 2020. This was recent. Yeah. When we get off, I'll show you a photo. Yeah, just more honed in on my health and just eliminating certain things. Instead of drinking out of plastic bottles.

Glass bottles, reusable. I have the filtration at home. I have no excuse. But I'll be out in about 7-Eleven market, wherever. So yeah, just cutting that out so my kids see that habit. As far as my kids are concerned, being more involved with my daughter's homeschooling and really building on that curriculum of how I want it to be, getting more like-minded individuals into her school.

And, you know, like I said earlier, I'm not a fan of waking up early. I want my kid's school starting at 10 a.m. Gives me time to wake up when we wake up, eat breakfast, and then get her to class. And know what the weekly curriculum is, know what she's doing every day, dropping her off, picking her up on the days I have her, and enjoying that time. And she goes to meetings daily. in business

probably having 10 monthly scaling clients just to keep the mind active I just enjoy the different projects and each business comes with different hurdles so what kind of businesses are you working with you got e-commerce

full gamut health care e-commerce longevity brick and border it's full gamut full gamut now you've been fortunate enough to grow up in a household that kind of forced you to to be a high achiever to have grit you started your first business in your early early stages of life how are you going to instill the same level of grit that you have in your kids I've already started with my daughter she gets dragged to work whether she likes it or not If we got to go build something, Daddy, I'm bored.

Cool. Hang out. Find something to play with. We're not leaving. That's awesome. And her favorite saying lately is Daddy on board. That's nice. There was no iPhones when I was a child.

There was no iPads. You're not getting YouTube. You might get Netflix later. Once you behave. You want to draw, want to run around like a crazy person. Go for it. forcing them to be creative. My daughter is not afraid to get dirty.

She will, yeah, I'll have to baby wipe her and strip her of her clothes and then put on new clothes in the car. Love it. One last question. Yep. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? It's okay to accept. You don't always have to give.

Brian Goldstein. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. God bless you, man.