Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Burn the Ships: Bankruptcy, Comebacks & Building LeadHackers ft. Alex Machuca

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

In this episode of Coffeez for Closers, we sit down with Alex Machuca—founder of LeadHackers, branding advisor, and proof that true builders never stop building.From scaling a startup to $500K/month… to bankruptcy… to calling every single customer and rebuilding trust from scratch—Alex’s story is a masterclass in grit, integrity, and relentlessness.We talk about:• Losing it all—and why he owned it anyway• Rebuilding from $2,000 and a $2K course• Working 18-hour days and loving every second• Imposter syndrome in the big leagues• Why delegation saved his business• Lead gen, brand building, and being a first-time fatherOne of the rawest, realest convos yet—with a builder who refuses to quit.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Please welcome the one, the only. Alex Machuca. Thanks Alex for flying down today. That was an amazing introduction. I really appreciate that, man. You know, you're a buddy and a colleague and someone I look up to and someone, you know, we're continuing to build a deeper bond with. Yeah, I was just like, remember when I said this to you after the first one?

I go, Joe, I didn't expect to like you this much. You know, I get that a lot. Welcome to another episode of coffees. I got to bring it for you, bro. It's likewise. You're one of my favorite people in the industry. easily, man. That time we had in New York was fun. Great times. I got to know you.

Alex, I like to start the show off. What's your morning routine every day? I saw you ask this question to Jason Perkins on Bonzo and I was like, dude, you know what my morning routine is? I wake up, I brush my teeth and I get right on my computer and get to work. I don't have a morning routine. That is my morning routine. I don't have a morning routine. I don't have a night routine. And it's because I work from when I wake up, like within minutes of waking up, I'm on the computer. Sometimes someone's morning routine. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, everybody's like, yeah, you know, I drink tea or like I meditate. It's like, no, do I get right to work? I do it. And you know what? It's exactly what I want to do. I want to be working all the time. You know, I work till midnight, one in the morning every single night. I wake up at six, probably get like five hours of sleep.

I wake up. I do it all over again. But I don't look at it as work. I look at it as building. I love to build things. You're a builder. Yeah. That's where we connect.

Now, you pulled off a viral cultural moment with Takatopia. But what didn't go viral behind the scenes that nearly broke you? Oh, my God. Well, the company itself, man. You know, it's a blessing in disguise. And I could go into that for a while because it really, that company broke up some important friendships that I had. And, you know, I ended up getting the crap end of the stick in in that deal. But it actually, at the time, I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But it ended up

being the best thing that ever happened to me because I had, I'll never forget. And shout out to my wife for this, who was my girlfriend at the time. I had about $2,000 left in my bank account. And I came across this video of this guy named Jeremy Haynes. And I was like, this guy is so cool. He's doing this marketing company. Like, I want to do a marketing company. And so his course was $2,000. And so I went to my wife and I said, hey, I really want to buy this course. It's $2,000. She goes, do it.

I'll cover rent. And in the next 90 days, I scaled my marketing company to $50K a month. Eight months in, we had $100K a month. And two months after that, 11 months in, we had half a million dollars recurring in revenue a month and under 11 months. And so that was my first. That was right after Tocotopia. So Tacotopia was kind of my first, wow, I can go out there and make quite a bit of money. I could raise sponsorship money.

I'm really good at this. It turned out, I mean, COVID really kind of put the stop. It was a brick and mortar, right? And so people can go outside. And so that went out of business. And when it was going out of business, I stumbled in a marketing. And it became just a career. I mean, it completely changed the entire way that I looked at the amount of money possible.

that I could make. You know, you spend your whole life like, oh, I want to get a job and make 100K a year. It's like I was making 5x that a month. And it was in a very, very fast amount of time. Now you're a chairman of a holding company, CEO of a media firm, advisor to several brands. What's the cost of carrying that many tiles and what do you keep private and keep private to stay sane? What do I keep private to stay saying? You know, I'm pretty open about everything and I'm always looking for opportunities. I don't look at like these. Like my wife says this to me all the time.

She's like, I don't know how you have this many friends. Like I couldn't possibly keep in touch. Like that sounds exhausting. It's like, dude, when I'm bored, I'll send you a text. Yeah. It's fun for me. Like, I enjoy talking to people. Like, I'll text you about stuff all the time.

And I do that with other people who just are. It's not even about like, okay, I'm trying to connect with this guy because he has something that I can benefit from. It's just we're into the same shit. Yeah. We're into the same stuff, right? And so entrepreneurs, I feel like gravitate towards each other. And for me, I'm just really, really good at keeping in touch with people. And I'm always trying to help any way I can, providing value in some way.

Like, you know, I was just telling your buddy, I was over at Rocket Mortgage two weeks ago. And their recruiting department, they were recruiting like cavemen. And they were manually sending out these LinkedIn messages. I completely automated it for them in like 20 minutes. You know, like I love doing things like that because there's a lot of information out there that people don't know about. That if they did know, they would be able to, you know, 10x, 20x their output. Yeah, I mean, you're a servant at heart, you know, and I love that about you. It's like you just want to give and help.

Yeah. Now, you've mentored some giants and you've been mentored by giants. what's one lesson you resisted at first, then realized it was everything you needed to hear? That's a great question. I know exactly what a good answer is. Delegation. You'll find this a lot when people are first starting their company. You want to hold on to everything tight because you don't trust anybody else to do it correctly, right? And that took a long time. That was the difference for me being as soon as I, it was at 100K a month. couldn't get past that. It was because I wouldn't delegate soon.

Then I started delegating. I opened up an office, hired 12 of my friends, and that's when we made the push to half a million dollars a month. So if you could find somebody to do something, 70% as good as you. That's a win. You could teach them the other 30%. And that was a lesson that I wish I had listened to earlier. Delegation and actually letting the reins go, which is a difficult thing to do when you've

built something special, right? when that's your baby. And so I'm sure you probably experience some of that when you're first starting out. Delegating was hard when I first started. And now if you ask anybody, like, I'm a master. Yeah, same. Right. I'm a master.

Like, I don't know anything else to do but delegate. Right. You know, if I could delegate my brushing my teeth. Yeah. Because when you control all the variables, it's so hard to lose that control. Right. it's so hard to lose that control. How did you like just accept losing the control?

Well, just speaking to mentors, like speaking to people who were further along than me with their agencies. And, you know, it was just like, hey, you've got to trust me on this. It was just kind of like taking a leap of faith, right? It's like, this guy could royally mess things up. And at the time, you know, it seems so monumental to where like if he makes this mistake, the whole company could go under. It's like, dude, companies are not that. you know, um, delicate, right? Like, they survive mistakes and customers forgive and, you know,

um, that, that's a really important part of it. And so being able to understand that from experience, like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to mess up a lot. I think that's what a lot of people kind of discourages them. They're like, well, I don't want to deal with like an upset client. It's like, dude, then don't start a business because you're going to have some people that are unhappy. You can't make everybody happy. The question is, are you going to make more people happy? You're going to make more people happy than you are that are disappointed to you and how far away can we get from the people that are unhappy? How big of a difference can we make, right?

But you're always going to have unhappy people. And if you accept that, it's unavoidable, right? You do right by them. Like with lead hackers, it's a completely different landscape than when I had my lead gen company. When I had my lead gen company, there's a lot of unhappy customers. Lead hackers, it's a self-service software platform. That's so easy. Like we have people

This is, I'll give you a version of When somebody cancels with us It's not your fault It's my fault I didn't try hard enough I didn't put in the hours I didn't pay attention Like they blame themselves

Because it's true it is a self-service platform Right, you're kind of taking the onus off of you But it's night and day We rarely have on happy customers with lead hackers Which is amazing So I know I'm doing something right Which is great because for my company I can refer people to you

And I know it's on them if they screw up Yeah And you could check their call reporting. You can see exactly. And that's the other part, right? Like we have, there's a lack of, and you know this in the mortgage industry, there really is a lack of accountability from mortgage brokers in a sense that they will blame, they'll do anything except look in the mirror.

We know that, right? So especially as a service-based business, somebody who's serviced over 3,000 mortgage brokers, it's never their fault, right? But what I love about lead hackers is we just pull up the call reports. It's like, hey, here's how many calls you made. Here's how many calls Scott Seltz has made, who's closed 40 plus loans through lead hackers. Scott Seltz makes the same amount of calls that you do, five months worth in a week. That's the difference.

That's why you're not closing anything, right? Simple, yeah, it's super easy. It's like there's no rocket signs here. It's all transparent so you can actually see it. And now these people have to actually look at themselves in the mirror. Now, lead gen and ad strategy are about precision. but how much of your own journey was built on chaos, gut instinct, and just grind? All of it. All of it. Every part. You know, I'll never forget my dad one day said,

hey, I'm done paying your bills. I can't anymore. You know, he cut me off. And at that point, that was the day I grew up. I'll never forget that day. I, you know, growing up, I, you know, growing up when I was 16 years old my parents lost their house we ended up living in a family friend's basement and from about 16 to the age of like 21 I was a victim which is like the most toxic thing you could be in your life

you blame everybody else for your problems I was like oh my credit's bad it's my dad's fault it's my mom's fault they don't have any money I can't go on spring break with my friends they don't have any money like a spoiled little brat and you start blaming everybody else for your problems And the problem is when you victimize yourself and you blame someone else, you are robbing yourself of the power to do something about it.

Yeah. And that's what I realized at that age. I was like, where I got cut off, I can do what I normally do and just spiral or I can actually just wipe this dirt off and go go out there and do something about it. And then, you know, I went on the journey and it was a long journey and the journey always takes longer than you expect it to take. It's never an overnight success. You have, I've had multiple. failures, multiple failures, multiple failed companies. And that's normal. You know, you have to get comfortable with failing in order to be successful. For me, I know that the reason I know that I'm going to be ultimately fulfilled in life is because I tried. And the most important thing is that one of the most important lessons was you can't lose if you don't stop playing the game. And I know I'm never going to stop. And so,

it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when you know i have my exit i sell my company right like it's an inevitability if i just keep at it and don't stop i could probably do it in the next two years but even if it's 10 as long as i i know that if it's going to take 10 years i know that i'll do it because i'm just not going to stop you're relentless yeah there's no there's no other i burn the ships right there's no other option now you've raised capital you've launched brands, you've advised leaders, what's the most humbling L that you've taken, that recalibrated your direction? Going bankrupt.

Go on bankrupt. Filed bankruptcy? I filed bankruptcy. How old were you when you filed bankruptcy? This was a few years ago, Joe. This was after Linkrest Media. And you know, this is, all right, you remember when we first met. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you're like, I remember that. That was part of your failures. That was, yeah. So that was one of the hardest conversations that I had ever had. I was really, yeah, because I was really looking forward to this call with you, right? And you brought Dave Jimenez on the call. Who, by the way, shout out to Dave Jimenez. That's my absolute boy. I just spoke to him on the phone yesterday. I love Dave Jimenez. And we're talking about how much we love you. And yet, Dave Jimenez called me out. But what was funny is at the time, I thought that he was a customer who, like, got like completely screwed over. That wasn't the case. He was just unhappy with. the service. But there was customers who really, really got it bad, and I'll never forget this. And this is the first time I'm talking about it. So this is Joe Shallow be exclusive. I've never talked about this. When I went bankrupt, I had 135 clients at Linkrest Media, okay? And part of our deal was we're booking appointments for LOs. We didn't have the money to pay the appointment setters to book the appointments for LOs. And so I was like, all right, my attorney goes,

listen, just send everybody an email, tell them you're going bankrupt and give them my number. You don't have to deal with anybody. I was like, no way. The only thing that you take with you your entire life is your name. And so I want to stay in the mortgage industry. Hardest two months of my life. I said, okay, I'm going to make 10 calls a day. I'm going to call every single client. I'm going to apologize to them. I'm going to take. Take accountability. I'm going to tell them that I can't deliver on the appointments that they've paid thousands of dollars for. But what I can do is give them leads.

So I would call these people and say, hey, look, here's a situation. You know, I let you down. I'm sorry. I owe you 20 appointments. I don't have money to pay the appointment setters. But house 50 leads. Because an appointment is essentially a lead, right? Yeah.

Dude, I called 135 people. I sold every single one of them on the leads. A lot of them became customers for lead hackers. Only two people told me to kill myself. People were generally, like, they were generally like, it shows me the type of character that you have. You didn't have to call me. And you chose to call me and get in front of it.

And I can only imagine how difficult this conversation is for you. And I just appreciate your honesty. appreciate that you called me. And you would be so surprised, man. Most of the people were super, super nice to me, super sympathetic, and a lot of them became my customers for lead hackers. And during that hard time that I was going through, right, shortly after that, that's when you and I had that call. And I don't remember, man, it was devastating because I was like, oh, here it go, here it comes. You know, like, I know I have some unhappy people there that don't like me. I'm going to run into them one day.

But I want to be able to hold my head high and know that I did the right thing. Yeah. And so when you and I got on that call, it was like such a gut punch to me. And then after that call, I had a webinar with NXA Mortgage. And at the same time, right, my father had gotten sick. He had an aneurysm. He had like a blood clot in his head. He was in ICU for like 40 days.

And so you didn't know this at the time, but I was going back and forth. No, I remember talking to you at the hospital. Yeah, that's right. Okay, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, I'm like, shit, well, that deal fell through. And at the time, my dad's out of work. We had to figure out how to pay their mortgage, right? I go to L.O. Summit, and I get on stage, and I give my presentation for lead hackers.

It was the first ever presentation I did. That one presentation made me enough money to pay for my parents' mortgage for the whole year. And it was just like, I'll never forget this, Joe, because I know you're a religious guy. After I got off that presentation, I walked outside. And this is like really emotional for me. You know, my dad's in the hospital. My mom is also in the hospital. She had like a blood clot in her, not a blood clot, but a clot in her arteries.

And so it was a really rough time for me. I'm going through a bankruptcy. Both my parents are almost dying, right? And that happens. Dude, I walk outside. and I walk into the street and I just look up and I go, thank you God. All of a sudden, lightning,

like a small lightning bolt happens and it just starts pouring rain on me. It was the most euphoric thing I've ever experienced. I mean, I couldn't believe it. I was like, no way. You just got to talk to God, experience God on both fronts. Like, I can't believe this. You know what I mean?

Like, it was awesome, man. It was a crazy, it was a crazy, crazy experience. Crazy experience. Man. And I was going to ask this, like, what's a moment you nearly quit? I'm sure that bankruptcy moment was. You know what?

I never wanted to quit. Here's why. Have you read Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson? I don't know if I've told you this story. So he talks about this guy. He talks about the four-minute mile and how nobody thought you could run a mile in four minutes. The guy broke it and then everybody started breaking it the next week

because they realized it was possible. And it relates that story to this guy named John Reese. Right. John Reese is the first guy ever to make a million dollars on the internet in 24 hours. Okay. In one night, his first guy to ever do it. He made a million dollars. He did a bunch of stuff with Tony Robbins after that and got famous after that. So I'm reading expert secrets. I'm reading about this guy named John Reese. This is when Lindquest is going down. I mean, we're sinking. You're sinking. And so I'm reading this book. All of a sudden, I get a knock on the window. It's this older man. And I'm like, oh, God, is that a pissed off customer? He comes. comes around, walks in the door and goes, hey, what's up, man? I'm John Reese. I go, what? He goes, yeah, I saw your click funnels award.

I'm friends with Russell. I was like, no way. So I bring it to my office. I pull out the book out of my backpack. I'm like, dude, I'm reading about you. I start trauma dumping on him, telling him about all of my problems with my business. I'll tell you. So trauma dump on him.

He goes, you got a whiteboard? this guy proceeds to spend the next four hours with me dissecting my business on a whiteboard, right? He was the guy who told me to call everybody. He goes, I guarantee you they're not going to be upset. I know you're afraid to do it, call everybody. So I go, this is after hours at work. So I go, my team's never going to believe me that you were here. He goes, no sweat, dude.

I live upstairs. I'll come back tomorrow. And he comes back the next day, stays with me from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. He's one of my greatest friends, like mentors, like, we go to lunch. He's the coolest guy you will ever meet. And if you look up stuff, he used to be one of those famous gurus like Frank Kern. He used to be with those guys. Didn't like the attention.

He has, I hope he doesn't get pissed at me for saying this. He's got a little bit of social anxiety. And so when you look up, like if you type his name in, John Reese online, you're going to see rumors about him. Like, yeah, he fled to Ukraine or like he, just these crazy rumors about where he's, you're he went because he fell off the face of the earth. It's like, no, man, he's just hanging out with his dog in his apartment in Scottsdale. He's just hanging out like he just doesn't like the attention. He's one of the smartest guys that I've ever met. That guy, and I've met, listen, I've had dinner with Hermosie, Josh Schno, Adiart, like really, really, really successful entrepreneurs.

John Reese is the smartest guy that I know, period. It's not even close. And he has an innate ability to make the most complex things sound so simple. He's unbelievable. And if you come to Scottsdale, I'll see if I can introduce you to him. But I'm telling you, you put that guy in any business, any business. Any business.

He'll dissect the entire. He was like Rain Man on that whiteboard. I couldn't believe it. Wow. Now, you're building infrastructure for brands, but what part of your own mindset had, did you have to rebuild before you can really help others effectively?

Imposter syndrome You know what I realized is everybody else is just figuring shit out on the way too Right? Like I as soon as I started getting in those rooms I was like, these guys don't know what they're doing. Nobody really does. You know what I mean?

Like you're just, everybody's just figuring it out on the way. Yeah. And when I realized that, it was very easy for me to say, okay, I can do this because I know that this guy's figuring it out on the way, everybody is like, I can do it.

That was the... That was the breakthrough moment. Yeah, the realization. Now, if you were to ask the younger version of yourself, and if the younger version of yourself walked in today, what would you be proud of? And what would you, what would he call you out on? Wow.

Jeez. What would he call me out on? Working too much, probably. Yeah. And he would say he's pretty. proud of me for taking care of my parents and for who I married. I'd say that's what he's, that's what he would say he's proud of me of.

But being not, yeah, I know, listen, I, I, I know, you know I'm having a kid soon in a week. My biggest fear is that I am not going to spend a lot of time with him. That's my biggest fear, because I work so much. and it's like an unhealthy addiction how much I work. I work because I love it. And some people are like, hey, that's weird. You need work life balance. It's like that kind of is my balance.

Like work is my hobby. I happen to be very lucky in that sense, right? I actually enjoy it, right? A lot of people don't. And so my biggest fear is not spending enough time with my kid because the job's not finished. But I never will, but you've got to put in the time with the kids. Right now from here, I'm going straight to my kids. And straight to their activities.

Like, that's what I live for. Yeah. Well, I don't work in an office. And so I work from home currently. Yeah. But even so, you still got to be present. Yeah. And again, that's my fear is, you know, I'm not going.

Obviously, I'm going to be present. But, you know, I want to, I worry because I know that, like, if I'm not in my office or in front of my computer, I feel it. I feel like a little anxiety. Like, I got to get back in there. I don't want to feel that when I, you know, I don't want to feel that. when I'm, because I know it'll bother me. I'm going to spend time with my kid.

I just don't want to feel like I'm being pulled into the office because right now I'm always being pulled in that direction. And it's easy to go. It's not going to be easy to go anymore. A couple last questions. What's a personal goal you have for yourself, a family goal that you have for the family and a business goal? Great question. Well, family goal I had for the family retire my family. We've already done that.

Between me and my brother, we've retired our parents. They don't have to work, which is the whole reason you get into business, right? For me, it's like I want to retire my parents. I've already done that. Personal entrepreneur goal is an exit. I need to get an exit under my belt. I feel like that is a badge of honor. It's kind of like a right of passage for an entrepreneur.

And so that would be my other one is I need to have an exit. As far as the family goes, I've been able to, you know, I've been very fortunate. it to my parents don't they don't need anything they can they're just in ireland you're going to go enjoy the rest of their the rest of their lives and have fun love that last question when you're in when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think god's going to tell you it's probably going to tell me that i could have done better right i don't think uh i think the one thing about god is you're never going to like you're never going to feel like you're worthy enough right um god is is perfect right and we're human we sin um but i hope that you know my goal has always been

take care of yourself and your family first and then you could take care of other people like i have a passion for helping people i have a you know if you look at my venmo account man i'm i'm constantly donating like dog sanctuaries and like i'm a big dog guy and um but yeah that That would be it. You know, I want to, the reason I want to have an exit is because I would be interested in philanthropy and nonprofits, and I think that would make your heart feel good. A lot of people don't do it because it's difficult. It's taxing on your heart because you're helping people who are in sad situations, you know.

It takes a strong person to be able to do that. And I hope that I'm strong enough to do that one day to where I'm really, really heavily involved in helping other people. And then I can look at myself and say, okay, I know that I'm at least, like, I'm not terrible. I'm not going to say that I'm worthy of being in front of those pearly gates. But at least I know that I did what I could, right? I think that's a... Now, people want to get in touch with you, Alex.

How do they find you? Reach out to me, LinkedIn, Facebook. Weird spelling last name. Kind of not really. Some people spell it with a K. It's Emma's and Mary, A-C-H-U-C-A. If you want to follow me on Instagram, it's Alex Machucah-H-Q. And, yeah, that's it.

Just Alex Machuca on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram. Perfect. Thanks, Alex. Make sure, guys, if you're wanting to expand your business, you start getting some leads under your belt, and he is the man, the myth, legend behind, getting you the most effective leads at the cheapest price possible. Let's go.

Thank you. Thanks, bro. Appreciate you.