Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - From Myspace to AdTech Empire ft. Ted Dhanik | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Before TikTok, before Instagram—there was Myspace. And Ted Dhanik was behind the rocket fuel that made it go viral.In this episode of Coffeez for Closers, Joseph Shalaby sits down with Ted to unpack his journey from launching Myspace to building Engage:BDR, a publicly traded adtech company that helps brands dominate digital distribution.They dive into:• The real growth tactics behind Myspace• How digital ads evolved—and where it’s all going• What it takes to build (and keep) a winning team• Why founders shouldn’t chase validation• How to think differently about influence, leadership, and legacyIf you're in tech, media, or marketing—this is a must-watch.Top producers at E Mortgage Capital are earning more per deal—with faster closings, better tech, and no junk fees.👉 Learn more: https://join.emortgagecapital.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

I've been doing for seven years. We go at Craigs. I rotate 12 different guys every week on Thursdays. And Albert will come. And, you know, like, I would have to sit next to him and sound like, bro, what the fuck did you say in this podcast? You know, you got to stop sometimes, you know? I've been driving to Rolls Royce since, you know, like something like that.

I'm like, bro, come on, too. So crazy. It's so funny. I know. Welcome to another episode of coffee. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. I haven't had coffee in 10 years, but since I'm a closer, I guess I have to, right?

Today is a big day, man. You know, 10 years deep and you broke the fast. I'll see what happens to me. Hopefully it doesn't mess you up, man. You're a health nut, so hopefully it doesn't throw you off. You want to give the audience, like, just a quick overview of who is Ted Danick? Sure. So I started my career in the mid-90s in Silicon Valley.

I grew up in the Bay Area, and I worked for a lot of dot-com companies. He's back in the dot-com boom, and some of them did well. Some of them did not. That brought me to LA. A company called Lower My Bills is one of the original guys there. We sold that company to Experian. So I know the mortgage business pretty well and credit repair as well. And shortly after that, joined MySpace at its beginning.

And we sold that in 2005, and I stayed until 2008. And the earnouts ended. I was tasked with solving a process. problem for MySpace, which was MySpace had seven billion ads per day. They were going under-monetized and I needed to build the technology to help them monetize better. So I left and in 2009 it started a digital ad company called EngageBDR, which is essentially tasked with solving a yield problem. So lots of ad companies or websites back then had lots of traffic, but they weren't monetizing it well, they had these rev share deals.

They couldn't understand the value of those refs share deals in real time. So they were basically cannibalizing their own revenue. So I built a management system, supply-side platform to help digitize all the yield. And I did pretty well. MySpace was our first client, and we were profitable since the first month. We raised no money, no debt, no equity, did hundreds of millions in revenue. And in 2017, took a public on an IPO. raised about 80 million bucks while we were public and then merged it into another company,

sold it and left about three years ago. During that process, we came up with an idea to, it's pretty interesting, to figure out how to digitize lottery tickets in California. Like, you couldn't buy a lottery ticket online. It was really weird, right? So came up with this concept called Lotto Gopher, where we had relationships with liquor stores everywhere. Because gaming laws in California, gaming was sold to the Native Americans, online gaming. You couldn't do online gaming in any capacity in California because Native Americans owned that.

So it was illegal. So you literally had to do a gopher model. It's kind of like Postmates for lottery tickets. You put your information, you know, as far as like what kind of lottery ticket you want or you could be a part of a pool or something. And then the bet slips would be printed at the liquor store and popped into the machine. That was the workaround for digitizing. lottery tickets online. Anyways, we took that company public and then sold it within a couple years. So, and then now it's like, I don't know what happened. Somebody bought it and somebody's still

around, but yeah, it's a really interesting space. So we did that and then now currently, over the past three years, I've been focused on, I have a short-term rental business. We have about 50 properties in LA. And additionally, we have, I have a credit repair agency for 20 years. So that credit repair agency is thriving currently under, you know, unfortunately under the current economy and all the stuff going on with everyone. There's a lot of pain out there. We're helping people turn their lives around. So it's still an exciting space 20 to 20 years later. Wow.

So how many companies active right now? Two. Two companies active. What's your favorite one? You know, after doing all the stuff, you know, it's like work is kind of like, you know, there's, passion, you know, and I think that do we have the burning desire at this moment right now? I think there are some problems that need to be solved out there. But, you know, I think that credit repair business is pretty exciting because we get to really have a pulse on, you know,

personal finance and the finance, everything that's happening in the world, conversation you and I had about, hey, how's mortgage business impacted with all the stuff happening right now, the high rates and fire insurance issues and all that stuff, you know, so we can't understand that pretty well. We have the pulse on it. So I think that that's an interesting space. California is very tough for short-term rental business, specifically Los Angeles because of regulation. And the politics and there's a lot of lobby money from the hotel. You know, hotel lobby is very strong.

So they've been successful at, you know, at kind of breaking the Airbnb business out there. So where your properties are all out of state? No, they're all in L.A. It's been tough. But, yeah, we figured out how to maneuver for now. but there's always something coming up. You know, there's always going to be, you know, some change that's happening that's not in our favor. And it's been really rough.

So possibly going to sell all those properties soon? You know, we try not to sell any real estate, you know, try to buy it. But it's been, you know, an experience, even if we wanted to sell right now, we couldn't sell because all the equity that we thought we had is kind of gone because all the fire sales and all the neighborhoods, all the comps, right? So that's another discussion as well because, you know, we have so many properties and we thought we have really great LTVs like 50% and most of them, you know, and then you start seeing the comps next door neighbors are selling for 50% of the value, you know, stuff like that that's happened. Coms are like that now later on. Really bad. Really bad. So, yeah, so all this equity we thought we had is gone, you know, completely gone.

So. I mean, you're not in the palisades like for crying out of life. No, we're in the palisades. We'd be better there. We're in Hollywood Hills, West Hollywood Hills, you know, mostly. So you've seen massive declines in values? Massive declines, yeah, because people can't afford to hang on. The fire insurance is gone, so you're on state fair plan, you know, for only a portion of it.

And then, you know, your banks are going to, you know, push insurance, you know, which is pretty expensive. Some of our clients are paying like $4,000 or $5,000 a month on hazard insurance. That's, you know, the forced coverage from the mortgage banks. It's pretty insane, you know. Dude, that's insane. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty wild. then a lot of these people had to, they were forced to refy because the economy's so bad, they had a pull-out castor

sitting at like 7.5, 8.5% these non-QM loans and these DSCRs are so bad, you know, so it's like very hard, you know, it's tough. And you can't refi anytime soon because we don't see rates coming down that much, you know? And the fire insurance, you can't get insurance for the loan. Can't get insurance, especially all those like four or five million dollars, six million dollar homes.

They're not selling because you can't get coverage for them, you know? And it's like, what do you do? So homes aren't selling. They're not selling because of fire insurance and because of the rates, both of them. It's not just one. So if we had like one of them changed, then stuff will start selling again. The only sales are fire sales, you know, and people can't afford them. And you can't remove them from the appraisals as outliers because they're actually good homes, you know.

So we have no equity anymore. It's gone, you know. That's crazy. It's crazy. Equity gone overnight. I didn't even realize that L.A. is toast with their value. bad yeah and it was just like all these celebrities who own homes there just were all fucked so i had a home i have a home um up in west hollywood hills two and a half years ago last appraisal was 7.95 million

um next door neighbor right now is selling and that's a 5500 square foot home crazy views great home all glass next door neighbor same home same kind of home 6700 square feet bigger much bigger than my property selling his home for four million bucks right now four million bucks he's been on market for six months he's getting an offer he's going to sell he's going to break at three and a half dude you can't even build half that house for three and a half million he's going to break at three and a half and by the way it costs more than a thousand bucks a square foot to build that it does but three if he sells a three and a half sixty seven hundred square feet what are we like five hundred bucks a foot basically 500 bucks a foot my last appraisal was eight million bucks what do you

you think if I can't, first of all, I can't tap any equity because technically equity's gone, right? Can't tap any equity. Equity's gone. You know, it's like your whole net worth cuts is cut in half because all the properties are looking like that basically too, right? So it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a troubling, you know? Time to move to Newport Beach, bro. Yeah, I don't know about the valuations here though. We're overvalued here because everybody from L.A. came here. Yeah, that's great, you know, everyone's leaving going to Miami over there so yeah here in Newport Beach uh I could I mean I can't tell you how many Palisades families are just on my kids baseball team sure you know yeah like like like 20% of the team is from Palisades so the Palisades is an interesting challenge so I have

quite a few friends that were in the Palisades and some of them did really well you know with recovering their losses the insurance covered 100% for most people for not for most people. Let me tell you what happened. And there's a lot, there's a vast majority of my friends who were affected by the fires that here's what happened to all of them. It's pretty crazy. So they bought their homes 20 years ago. Let's say they paid, you know, three million bucks for their home. They never updated the policies to increase coverage. Now, this is the vast majority of the people, okay? So what happened was out of a $3 million purchase price, how much of it was dwelling like two million bucks or something right never updated the policies you can't build

that house for two million bucks it's going to cost you like four or five now to build it maybe even more because you know all the crazy demand over there so what happens is they they get a check for two million bucks doesn't go to them goes to the mortgage mortgage company gets you know the the two million bucks is they have a balance on the home still and then they end up with hopefully their mortgage is paid off and they end up with a lot and that's it they end up with a lot and that's it they end up with a lot And they don't have the means to go and build another home. So they're selling, you hear about them selling the lots, right? Now, even Gavin Newsom's out there buying lots for, you know, for pennies.

For pennies. He's buying lots to build, you know, housing for, you know, the, you know, how do we call that, you know, PC? But, you know, you know what I mean, right? So he's building. Underprivilege. They're going to put, like, yeah, they're putting like canned homes on them. Exactly, you know, homes for like, you know, like. Manufactured homes.

Low-income homes. Low-income homes. Yeah. So they're buying the lots for pennies because nobody can do anything with the lot. So I have several friends. The same thing happened to them. The insurance didn't cover most of the property in the home either. They got a limit on that as well from like back, you know, like whenever they bought the home.

Nobody updated their policies. So they paid out whatever they're supposed to pay out. Yeah, obviously it's the fault of the homeowner to not update the policy. But this happened to the majority of the people. And that's why you're finding all these lots. that are available right now because they can't afford to build on them. So it's a big problem. People are out there buying lots right now, and, you know, there's a pretty big opportunity

from that perspective, but it's pretty fucked up, you know. There's a really big opportunity for those to come in. But, man, I would not buy in palisades. I mean, the probability of another fire, if they build it again, who knows? I mean, I love palisades, though. It's great. But, yeah, it is, you know, that was, I feel there was a manufactured fire. It was not a real fire.

Yeah, it was a manufactured fire. Yeah, for sure. So that could happen again, too. But, you know, all of this starting to make sense where people are, you know, there's just a lot of like things happening right now that are, you know, that there's a lot of opportunity from demise, right? So fires happen. A lot of people lost their homes. Guess what? Now people can, now you now you can go in and buy, you know, these lots at the, on the, they're sitting on the floor, basically, you know, like the, you could never buy lots in that neighborhood. Now you can, you know. So I also feel like, you know, COVID came and, you know, there was a lot of destruction from COVID, economy, economic destruction. We have not recovered since

then, you know, there's so much pain from that. And that created, you know, the bottom, right? Again, so there's a lot of moments where we see the bottom happening a lot, you know, again. And so I, you know, we have a different perspective because when we talk to clients, we're talking clients every day on the credit repair side. And all we hear is getting. imagine is demise right yeah and we're seeing more right now we're seeing more volume right now than we did in 2008 and 2009 which is crazy because you know I do economic updates every day and it's like oh you know job reports came in or we're seeing it bounce back and in in rates or you know inflation's cooling and all this high level economic upbeat stuff really like if you get granular

A lot of that is just like there's so much chaos in the economy right now. It's a lot of fluff. Like I don't know. You got, I don't know what you're seeing here, but over there, you know, you drive around West Hollywood and all this iconic places are all gone. They're all gone. Like Chin Chin'in, gone. Petit Four, gone. Pink Taco, Tessa, Catchsteak, MXO, a brand new restaurant.

There's open six months ago. What do you mean? Like, catch steak is gone in Hollywood? Gone. Yeah, they're gone. What do you mean? Like they just shut down? They're all out of business, yeah. Pink tacos out of business? Gone. And I'm telling you, there's countless more.

All these iconic places gone. And this all happened this year. So it's pretty concerning, you know. So there's a lot happening that's, you know, that's a bit, I don't know. It's consistent with what I see, you know, on these credit reports, consistent with what I see. Now, your perspective is different because you're here. in Newport, and I feel like you guys are like a little bit shielded from, you know, from some of that stuff too. But, you know, you see the loan origination volume, you know, that is a pretty good indicator, you know. Yeah, I mean, right now, for my business model, I told you kind of like, we thrive on bad economies,

are my specific model, but there's only a handful of us. We're considered a mega broker. And there's only five of us. You know, so we thrive on other mortgage companies going out of business because, you know, then it's an opportunity for them to come cling to a big company who has all the resources and the money and can withstand economic turmoil. Yeah. So as we grow, that's also kind of an indicator that other companies are going out of business. So we're continuing, we acquire companies for zero dollars. Sure.

You know, and the larger the company that comes to us is an indicator, like, the more demise that's happening. Sure. And so if a company with a hundred guys comes over, it's like, dude, this is tough times. Yeah. Because this company was making tens of millions. You know, Albert, Presciato? Of course. Yeah, I was talking to him the other days.

I think they're kind of feeling. Would love Albert to join us. I've mentioned it many times, you know, but big ego. I'll get him here. Big ego. I'm like, Albert, you'd make ten times more money. And he makes a lot of money. If he's listening, Albert, yo, I'm still going to tell you.

He's got like, you know, he's got this whole Hispanic community. He does. I'll help him dominate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're, you know, from that perspective, he's got that world and he's got their trust. And I don't know, I've keynoteed his driven events too. They were fun. Yeah, yeah, he's a good guy.

I've been on his podcast and stuff. I like Albert. I saw funny TikTok made that made fun of him, one of his podcasts before it was hilarious. I want to send it to him. There's a lot of that out there. Because he's a controversial guy. Super controversial. And I'd have to tell him, he comes to my dinners on Thursday.

I have a boys dinner on Thursday. I have 80 guys in a dinner club in L.A. I've been doing for seven years. We go at Craigs. I rotate 12 different guys every week on Thursdays. And Albert will come. And, you know, like, I would have to sit next to him and tell him like, bro, what the fuck did you say in this podcast, you know?

You got to stop sometimes, you know? He's like, bitch, I've been driving to Rolls Royce. and, you know, like something like that. I'm like, bro, come on, too. It's so crazy. It's so funny. I know. I'm like, bro, I don't publish anything.

Like, nobody knows anything about me, you know? Like, other than the shit they see, I wear beads, you know. We're third world immigrants, bro. Right, right, right. But at the same time, it's like, I'm very spiritual, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah. That's staying brooded and your spirituality and your faith is like what keeps you, like, grounded.

Sure, absolutely. It's all endogenous, you know. It's a big part of my show here even. It's like, you know, everything I am is because I come from a persecuted Christian community in Egypt. Like, we came because of that. So that's why I keep that mentality. I keep my, I say sixth world roots because I'm from a third world of a third world. Yeah.

No, that's great. Yeah. You know, I believe it. You're not white. I got it. No, no, no. But it's, you know, I say it on podcast, saying it in my book. I say it's like.

He's Egyptian guys, everyone. Yeah. Yeah. This is part of my identity. I come from like a really poor part of Cairo, the poorest part. You know, there's like a handful of really, really poor parts. And you just meet me. And then here I am in the richest part of America.

You know, like so the dichotomy is like insane. Yeah. You know, like here I am from the absolute poorest. Now I'm in the absolute richest and just like trying to instill a mindset like that in my kids is like the biggest struggle. Yeah. My kids, like, their classmates are, their parents are won Super Bowls. You know, like, yeah, it's crazy. I would have, you know, they come to, they, they know people that own sports teams.

Yeah, that's crazy. Like, I would have never even imagined going to a sports game, let alone, like, sitting in the owner's box ever in my life. You know, my kids just do that, like, if they're not going to a sports in a box, like, like, what are we doing? That's wild. Yeah, so, you know, I don't have kids, but, you know, eventually when I do, I'll just show them. my film, the film I started, it was like Slumdog Millionaire, you know, that was me. I was kidding. It's basically the same story.

Totally, yeah. I came from India, you know. That's what it looked like. That's real. That's real. That was me for all, you know, intents and purposes. Yeah, it's cool to, you know, to have that route and then just kind of maintain that mentality, especially in this journey of success that you've had.

Let's dive into it, man, you know, like all these exits, you know, all these brands, like, What was MySpace like in the being, for me, I was intrigued by MySpace. You know, like, I loved MySpace when it was around. It started, it was the catalyst of Facebook. It was the catalyst to this world we're in right now. Yeah. The social media dominant world we're in. Yeah, I mean, we pretty much, you know, for, I would say, like, you know, like the wide version, we invented social media, you know, I think that we were like the, we weren't the first social media platform.

There was a bunch of them before us, you know, I was like friends. and a couple others. But, you know, for the, we're the one that, you know, took off pretty fast. We actually went after Friendster to copy, you know, Friendster and ended up doing it way better, but that was the idea. Is Friendsster still around? No, I don't know. Friendsster's not around. But, you know, the idea really was we wanted to build a non-taboo dating site. That was what MySpace was supposed to be, you know? So Tom, he was on Match, you know, like way back in the days. And, you know, being on a dating site back then was super taboo, you know, it was weird, you know?

So, you know, he wanted to do something that's a little bit more, you know, less taboo, you know. And so that's, that was the idea. We took off like, you know, like super, super viral really fast within the first week. We're starting to get offers, you know, like it was that crazy. And we had no idea that it was going to be that, you know, that big or that great. And, you know, we just kept growing and growing. And then I felt like, you know, we touched so much pop culture, which was really exciting. We were always around all these, like, Nikki Six and Tommy Lee and, you know, 50 Cent and even Diddy, yes.

You know, we were around. I didn't go to those parties. I went to a bunch of other parties. You know, we discovered, sorry, we toured Dan E. Kane, one of his making the band artists, I think, like, one or two of them testified against them in the trial. It's so funny. But I know those girls. I've known them for, we did, like, 50 city tour with them, so I knew them really well. It was a really great time.

It was so much fun. Like it was really, really was truly so much fun. My title was VP of Fun. And so I was head of all strategic marketing. And it was great. It was just, it was a different time, you know. And I came off of the thing for me, which was like so much contrast was I came off of a corporate job, lower my bills, you know, right before that. I was at lower my bills.

And lower my bills was, you know, I was like 15 hour days selling to like countrywide. You know what I mean? And these big, huge banks, you know? and it was just all big business development deals and just selling leads. And at a certain point, you start wondering, you know, where's the value? You know, like really like what change, what behavioral change are we making in people? You know, like what are we doing that is really, that's really helping people, you know, I mean, besides helping them get a cheaper mortgage, you know, obviously, that's a commodity, right?

So you get to a point where it's like, I'm selling something for money and it's really just didn't sit right with me for a while. And then so then I said, I'm not doing sales or business development ever again. You know, so after that exit, I just said, I'm done. And then MySpace was purely marketing. That's what my degree is in. And it was completely different, you know. I didn't use anything I learned in college, by the way. So besides the discipline.

And, you know, it was great. It was just Tom and I running around the country. You know, was this you and Tom just running the show? No, I mean, there was a bunch of people. But, I mean, as far as like the people, MySpace people would see us. We're the only real people that the MySpace people that they would see. We were the tangible MySpace face, you know. It was me and it was Tom, you know.

And Tom would be, you know, everyone saw Tom as their first friend, you know, and then he would make appearances. You know, we'd have parties all around the country everywhere. That's kind of how we promoted MySpace in the beginning. It was MySpace parties. And we evolved pretty quickly to other stuff like content acquisition deals and stuff. But that was kind of it, you know. It was so much fun.

and MySpace music blew up. It was really huge. And we had a record label with Jimmy Iveen, Interscope Records, called MySpace Records. Which MySpace is now just music anyways, right? I don't know what it is now. The guys in Orange County own it. So basically what happened was MySpace was sold after us to,

from News Corp, sold it to specific media. There's two brothers. It was like Vanderhook brothers. Specific media was a media company that was based in Orange County. here. They bought it. And then part of their launch, they gave Justin Timber like seven million bucks to do an endorsement deal, right? So it was just part of it, you know, like it was an endorsement deal. It didn't really work out. They tried to relaunch it. It didn't work. And then

that company got rebranded and went public and all this stuff to Viant. And Viant is still based in Orange County, their public company. And they still own it. And I've been trying to buy it. There's a lot of controversy around this publicly because I've called them out publicly several times. You know, I've been reaching out to the brothers, Chris, and I'm like, hey, look, we're the only ones that can reactivate MySpace. So why don't you give it to us? What would you do different? Or I just want the domain. I don't want the brand.

I don't want anything. I just want the domain. So what would we do? Build a, like, Instagram or, you know, TikTok killer. We know exactly what we need to do. It's super easy. But, you know, to reactivate Tom, you know, in that world, because Tom's happy. He doesn't want to work, you know, he doesn't need to do anything.

He just likes doing what he does, which is golf. He plays golf. Where does he at? He plays golf here in Irvine. He has a house here in Irvine. He plays golf here. There's some sort of golf course. I don't know anything about golf, but he's been trying to get me to play with him for years, you know.

So probably plays a big canyon here in Newport. You know, I'm just kidding. Sorry, Tiger. But, you know, I feel that, so he lives here, he lives in Vegas most of the time, and then he comes, you know, comes here, comes to West Hollywood, comes to Hawaii. So that's his thing. But yeah, so, you know, I think that, you know, I don't know. I mean, it was, it was great. It was so much fun. There was a lot of value that we delivered to people. We're able to, I mean, I still get DMs from people. I met my

wife on MySpace. I'm like, fuck, I'm sorry. No, no, it worked out. Okay, good. You know, that's great. Stuff like that, you know, you know, so many. artists we discovered. Dane Cook was discovered there. Even Sean Kingston, who's in jail now, so many, so many huge artists were discovered on... Kingston? Remember Sean Kingston? Yeah, yeah, the reggae music. Dude, he's in jail. I didn't even know. Him and his mom. The chubby guy, right? The chubby guy. Yeah, we did a lot of work with him. I've known him forever. I didn't even know that he went to jail. He just went to jail recently. He

him and his mom did some sort of fraud, I don't know, some kind of fraud. I don't know, man, some crazy shit in Florida. You know, Florida, there's a lot of weird shit happening in Florida all the time. Florida used to be the armpit of the universe now. Everyone moved there, so I don't know. You know why, right? Homestead. Yeah, yeah. So, you know Dan Belzerian's dad story?

No. Dan Lazarian's dad embezzled $100 million from the company who was working for a long time ago, right? He embezzled that money, had to go to prison, went to prison. The government's been trying to recover that money for a long time. government ended up spending more than $100 million to recover the money and then they finally quit. What he did, that was really smart, he kept the money here, but they couldn't get it because he bought really crazy homes for all his kids in Florida. And each one of the homes were their primary residence for each one of the kids.

And they had like columns made out of gold and weird shit like that. So it's part of the home, you know? So in Florida, they can't take your home. So they couldn't take any of the homes. One of the kids expatriated, gave up a citizenship, moved to the Cook Islands. And they started selling homes and transferring the money over there. Couldn't touch him. That's how he got his money, yeah.

That's how Dan got his money initially. I didn't know that that, yeah, Dan's inherited wealth. See, our minions are always just ahead. Homestead act, yeah. That was genius. Yeah, for him to embezzal money, go to Florida. Dad took one for the team. Then all the kids are made.

They're all made. And he's still in jail of the dad. No, no, no. I don't think so. I mean, I don't know how much time he did, but I'm sure he's out. This is like something happened in like the 80s or 90s. Wow. Yeah.

What kind of company was that? I have no idea. You know all the celebrity. Oh, if you look it up, you'll find it. It's all over the internet. It's crazy. So why did you start in the mortgage industry? Like, how did you get involved with lower my bills?

Okay, so interesting story. I worked for a lot of dot-com companies in the 90s, and I ended up at a comparison shopping engine. Do you remember price grabber? Yeah. Price grabber and then there was like a bunch of them. The next tag was another one. So I ended up at next tag. Next tag was basically comparison shopping engine. So it is for like software and like shoes and like electronic products and stuff like that. So you basically, this was the buyer's behavior before. Before you bought like a TV or, you know, like something like that online, you'd go to comparison shopping engine like price grabber. You put in the model number and you'll see all the all these vendors or sorry all these retailers selling them right

and they'd see their prices and basically you'd buy it from you'd find the you know the lowest price from that comparison shopping engine and you click on it and it would take you to that site and you would buy it there and we would get paid for the click right so we were next tag and we were a comparison shopping engine one of the biggest ones we get paid for the click so we had all these guys imagine all these electronic retailers on the site paying us for those clicks. It's basically like another search engine, right? But very specifically for these types of products. So when I got there, I said, okay, this is great, but how about we're selling leads, right? Because that's a lead, right? So how about lending tree? Lending tree's on fire right now.

Lending tree's killing it, but they're only doing TV. You know, they're only doing TV at the time. Why don't we have a mortgage product, you know, or a personal finance product, like credit cards or something, you know? Okay, great. Let's try it. So we started, we got to, We had partnered with a mortgage broker and we're live in a few states. And we started running ads on our own site to market, refite, and home purchase. And so we did that. And the stick rate was really strong. It was converting pretty well.

So we started selling the leads. We started doing biz-deb deals with banks to buy the leads. And there you go. And we got to a half a million bucks a day pretty quick. So that's how we got to that. And then so I was one of the five people in the country who knew the purpose. personal finance, lead space really well, digitally, online, you know? So when I went to lower my bills, lower my bills was doing credit card and debt at the time.

They weren't doing refire, on purchase, any mortgage products at all. So they hired me basically to kind of grow that business. So were you one of the executives there as well? And then you had, you were part of the exit. So you got to earn out there too? Absolutely. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, it was good.

So I was talking about this, I just came from another podcast, by the way, but this other podcast, I was talking about this recipe, right? So I've always been at the right place at the right time and I've done it like at least four times, right? Like a bunch of times. But how? You know, like, how are you at the right place or right time? Is it a fluke? Is it random? Is it like, I'm fucking lucky?

No, I'm not lucky. I'm fortunate. But I have figured out the recipe for a right place at the right time. And the recipe is basically you just have to be around the right people. all the time, right? And so what does the right people actually mean? It's quite different from eliminating the wrong people. It's not that. It's not only eliminating the wrong people, but it's strategically placing the exact people that do things really well or perfectly that you want to achieve and you want to do, right? So if you want to be really great in the printing business,

you should be around people that are in the printing business, right, that understand that business. You want to be, you want to take your company public. You got to be around people, like Robbie Lee who taught me how to take my companies public and buy companies with no cash were just selling a dream, right, using private paper, you know, stuff like that. So it's always about, it's always for me, it's always been about being around those people. And I've never had a plan for the future. I don't know what I'm going to do next. I never did.

Just being around the right people, I could pick up opportunities pretty quickly and figure out how to add value in that sector and run. And one other thing that I do that I'm focused on is I don't care about monetization. I only care about adding value. Figuring out how to add tremendous value, eventually figuring out how to monetize it, you know, once you build some critical mass. So that's my mantra is a little bit different than a lot of other people wanting to build businesses and how to try to figure out how to monetize before delivering the value.

So it's a little bit different. Yeah, I can see that cadence in your career path because you're like, lower my bills, came, add a value, add a mortgage. MySpace came. added value. But these companies, like the credit repair and the Airbnb, I mean, not right time. Yeah, the credit repair business is like, Airbnb. Credit repair business is huge, huge, huge value, right?

For people, because it changes their lives, right? And we feel really good about what we do because we give people another start. Like, we get countless people coming to us saying, I'm about, you know, about to file bankruptcy. But my cousin is your client. And he told us that, you know, you can. be the alternative and we're like looking at their debt and you've got like you know like 50,000 dollars in debt you want to fight bankruptcy? Are you out of your fucking mind? You're crazy. No, here's what we're going to do, you know? And so we save them from that, you know, so we feel.

I mean, how can you like if they don't have 50 grand to pay the debt, they can't afford the $1,500 payments. Like what can they do? Oh, there's so much we can do. First of all, they get sucked into debt settlement companies, which destroy, it is like a bankers. So let me, let me tell you what that company, those companies do. Debt settlement companies will collect all their fees. By the way, their fees are like 75% of the amount that you agree to pay them in total, right? Which I told it. I had someone come here in my office today, like, he had 40 grand in debt and he wants to like buy again.

I'm like, dude, I'm just going to tell you exactly the debt settlement company does. Don't make your payments for four months. Call them in four or five months and settle them 20 cents on the dollar yourself. I don't even do that. I'll tell you what I do. So basically, so that settlement company is going to say you have $40,000 in debt. You're going to pay us, you know, $20,000. and out of that $20,000, we're going to save $5,000 to settle with them and then $15,000 of it is going to be our fee.

But by the way, we're not going to start paying, we're not going to negotiate a deal or start paying your creditors until we collect 100% of our fees. So it could be like two years down the road. We've collected all of our fees and then now we're going to go, we're going to negotiate a deal, right? They've already rode off the debt. They've already wrote off the debt. But in this case, in the 24 months, if you stop paying them, guess what happens? Let's say you paid them $14,000 out of $15,000 that you committed to pay them. They keep the $14,000.

You don't get a penny of it back. So that settlement business is a scam. What we do is I will tell you, because we have so much experience with these creditors, I will look at your credit report. You've defaulted on all these lines, all these credit cards, all these loans, all this. I'll tell you exactly who's going to sue you and who's not going to sue you. And I'll tell you how to deal with service if they try to sue you as well. we have lawyers for that, we have attorneys for that,

it will settle for like pennies on the dollar, but 95% of these creditors will not sue you. So what do we do? We remove the stuff from the credit report. You can go get new credit. If they come at you, you don't have to worry about it unless you get served or you get sued. If that point happens,

we give you our attorney, and they will negotiate a settlement with them. It'll take two, three years to, you know, to pay it off and you'll get a crazy, you know, rate, and it'll be pennies on the dollar. pennies on dollar. So it's a lot cheaper because 100% of them will not sue you, maybe 5% of them will, you know. And we already know, I know American Express will, Bank of America will, Cal Bank and Trust will, there's a handful of them that will. Majority of them do not sue.

So it's like most people are scared. You know, I'm going to get sued. I'm going to get sued. We're removed from the credit report. What incentive do you have to pay them? There's no incentive. It's gone. You start all over again. So most of these people that wanted to file bankruptcy, they don't have to. That's crazy. Yeah. What I say is deal with it now. But I mean, you know, just like basically just remove it from the credit report.

Ask for forgiveness later on. When they come at you, when they come looking for an apology, then you give them an apology and then say, here's my attorney. My attorney is specialized in insoling contingency. You will pay them a fraction, you know, and you'll get, you know, 25% or 10% of the balance negotiate over three-year term. why would you why would you file bankruptcy there's no reason to i have clients that we've had to remove hundreds of accounts like from their credit report like one client with a hundred accounts you know when shit goes bad and these bigger people you know that they fall hard right they're brand new they didn't even not to file bankruptcy remove them they get sued by american express you know sued by bank

of america by the way american express sues you guess what happens they dangle a carrot in front of you you can have another american express as soon as we we deal with this so you could pay you negotiate a term with them Typically 40 to 50% of the balance, pay them over like two, three years. As soon as you're done, guess what? They give you a new card. So why would you pay them 100% right now? I tell them, conserve your cash, you know? People just don't know.

They don't know. They don't have resources like us. Yeah. That's the difference. They don't know people. Some people get suicidal. It's really sad and tragic. Some people get really, really depressed.

My credit's ruined. I mean, it destroys families. It destroys, you know. one of the leading causes of divorce, always financial hardship. Yeah, it's pretty bad. So I have these other clients. Some of them, they're trying to, like, you know, Rob Peter to pay Paul, that kind of thing,

basically balance transfer, hopping around and stuff, you know, and they're running out of cash, you know, because their income's gone. You know, it's a very common conversation right now. A lot of people are faced with they just lost their income, you know, completely. And for some reason, a lot of my clients lost in March, for some weird reason, you know. and you know and I tell them that you cash you need to conserve your cash if you have no income

but yeah I got to pay these I got to pay no it's fine to default on this stuff right now I would I would always recommend the default versus you know the continue use your cash you have no income use the use the default and we can remove it it's not a big deal you know and I'll tell you who's going to sue you so so yeah it's it's kind of it's really sad and scary what's going on out there. Unbelievable. And people have been screwed so many times by credit repair companies, you know, so it's kind of scary.

There's a, this is a great question. There's a version of success where you burn out quietly behind the scenes. What did that look like for you? How did you reset? Yeah, that happened to me a lot during the credit repair. I'm sorry, during the last public company that I ran for about seven years, we went public and you know within you know within a year so I started having to deal with you know the whole being public CEO chairman uh thing which is like really painful it was like I was you know paparazzi

get me coming out of my Bugatti and then they'd you know they'd write a fucking article about me saying that I'm overpaid you know like really crazy stuff and then they short my stock the next day like really wild shit and I'm just thinking like yo this is not you know this is not what I signed up for it was really scary and that's why I stopped drinking coffee by the way because the coffee was amplifying my anxiety, you know, my stress. Like something would appear to be like really bigger than it was. And the coffee for me made it just worse, you know, or it was espresso specifically, not coffee. But anyways, so I had to, you know, I had to get my principle, my fundamental,

um, fundamental values in line. And for me, the five pillars are health, wellness, fitness, spirituality, and sleep. Those are the things that are most important to me. You know, and I have to maintain that because once that is in line, everything else is just, you know, another episode or another era of my life, you know. And so when I went into the, I went into fighter flight for a year and a half or two years because of all the stuff that was going on in the stock market stuff. And you hear about people jumping off of buildings and shit of stock market. Well, here was this? There's like 2017, 2018, you know, it was like really, really crazy.

And so I started to transform, you know, like I started to look different. My body changed, you know, I wasn't working out regularly because I was just engulfed by, you know, all the stress. It was really wild. So I had to snap out of it. I did a lot of, I had to get my hormones balance. My hormones were endocrine was fully disrupted by all the stress, you know. So I hired a hormone doctor, you know, to look at my hormones. Endocrinologist, yeah.

and basically look at my labs and it was pretty bad, you know, so I had to get my hormones back in line. My hormones have been balanced for, you know, since my 2017 by doctors, and everything's perfect at all times. And we make adjustments because I'm 49, you know, so we don't produce, you know, everything anymore. But back then, my testosterone was like down to like under 100, you know, from all the stress. It's really crazy because cortisol is a testosterone. testosterone killer, you know. And then estrogen, right? Estridol was up super high, up to like 200. It was really bad. Your estrogen should not max, should not be more than 20, you know, it was insane. So all of that was messed up. So I had to do a lot with hormones first and then get really focused on

fitness again and get my health back in line. So fitness, wellness, together, equal health, right? So those are the three most important things to me. And then I say that because you can't, time is really critical. Time is the only currency you can't replenish, right? That's the one thing that you get someone your time. It's worth more than any money you can give anyone. And then the health, right? You can't buy your health back later on.

You can't say, I'm just going to do this, whatever this project is, however long it's going to take. And I'll just, you know, spend a bunch of money to buy my health back later on. And it's a lot of times that can't happen. You know, it's just like you need to maintain that. So the health, part of your gratitude, your practice includes your health and wellness, right? That's a really important thing. And then I really got, and I had to really become more spiritual because I was too externally focused with all the shit going on, this uncontrollable. So I started, you know, like really focusing on my TM practice.

I've been practicing Transcendental meditation for a long time. And that really, I really changed. lot of things for me and they got me really back to where got my peace back so the hormones so you know the fitness and the change of like the stuff I was eating and then the spirituality of you know of meditation and and then in addition to that like my sleep you know my sleep was not great because of all the stuff happening I'd wake up super anxious and just you know just have so much cortisol and adrenaline doing all this stuff changed everything everything and my sleep patterns change.

I started measuring my sleep with the aura ring. Yeah. You still measure it? I still do. I haven't had it. I haven't worn it outside of, you know, I just kind of use it at home. You know, I don't wear it out anymore. But it's really great because you can see what changes your intake, like food and, you know,

whatever you consume will have on your. If you eat a certain time, it messes up your sleep. Yeah, it does. You shouldn't eat past a certain time. You shouldn't go sleep. past a certain time, you know, caffeine should be, you know, limited to, you know, I don't think you should have caffeine past noon, I think, you know. Yeah. You could see all the changes, you know. For me, my deep sleep was always fine, but my REM was terrible, you know, and I think the REM was

compromised because of maybe things I was, you know, consuming or, you know, maybe eating too late or, you know, maybe whatever it was, you know. And I think that measuring that gave me, you know, it was kind of like gamifying it a little bit, you know, so I could like make changes and see it, you know, materialize and it was really good. So then that's how I arrived at the five pillars, you know, health, wellness, fitness, spirituality, and sleep because I went through that stage and I was like, fuck, man, I was like 40 years old and I was just really, I was feeling like I was 60, you know, and I had no energy and I had no, you know, all, I was just, imagine your test being under 100, you know, as a man, you know, and you're, you're, you're like,

40, not like 60, you know, like 50. I had no ambition, you know, like everything was just gone. I was just consumed. Everything for me was based on the numbers of that day, right? And that's not how to live, you know, that that's what was happening. And so how I got out of it was getting my, getting my core values back, you know, which were those five and really just sticking to that. And he, no matter what happens to me in life, a building burns down or, you know, I lose

my, I lose everything, you know, whatever. Those five things will keep me, ground in, keep me and identify me, you know, those are my, those are part of my identity and they're a little bit different than a few other people. So that's kind of how it was. That's what's important. That's why I've never been materialistic or never really cared about, you know, any of that stuff, you know, because I felt like those are the things that really

differentiate. Those are the things that matter. Those are literally the only things that. matter to me so you know like the big house in holly boom gone who cares i moved to bolly i don't give a you know it's fine i love bolly the buggottie you know and like you're probably not driving that well i don't know you know you know it's just all it breaks all the time right so you know something happens breaks you know who cares yeah but i was a car guy so i was never like oh my god these are like cool things like i'm not like albert out there posting pictures of my cars and shit you know um but

it was always like you know i'm a car guy since i was a kid so That's basically what it was. But yeah, I don't, nobody really knows about that stuff, you know. I keep it pretty private. I'm not trying to alienate people. That's the other thing, too. I walk in a room. I'm wearing beads just like you.

I'm not wearing a million-dollar watch or, you know, whatever. I'm not doing that. I don't have any jewelry on. I am. Nobody knows who I am. I'm dressed maybe a little bit interesting, whatever. I walk into a room. There are no preconceived notions about me.

This is an interesting guy. He might be black. You know what I'm saying? Which is cool, you know? And then, you know, people are just like, yo, there's no like, oh, I see a watch, demand some sort of respect. Like, what did, you know, like, none of that. They will respect me if I say the right things.

So that's my, that's my thing. You know, that's the thing is like, I need a chance. I want a chance to prove myself, let me talk, you know, and that's kind of it. That's how it's been. And, you know, I think that I don't need symbolism. I don't want symbolism to, you know, to represent me, you know. So when you keynote, like, what do you talk about? Like anything and everything.

Do you hit? Because you're so well versed. Thank you. Exactly for, you know, exactly what you says. Like, come in, might be a black dude. Don't even know. Like, and then you just start speaking. Yeah.

No. Damn. Yeah. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. So, you know, the thing is, like, I don't prepare for any podcast. I don't prepare for any keynote.

I'll speak for an hour and a half or more, whatever. But, you know, I'll just wing it. So I'll give you an example. Albert had driven seven. It was like a year and a half ago, whatever. I keynoted that. And that basically, I was up there for an hour and a half. I was talking about private versus public equities and showing people how to raise money.

And like how you get to the point where you could do public, you know, you could tap public equity. And it's not as hard as you think it is. You could do it in three months, you know. You could take a company public in three months. You go to NASDAQQM, list it. And then you could uplist to the big board, you know, within a couple months. and people are like, what? Yeah, yeah, it's not that hard.

I'll show you. It's easier to do it in the first or second year of your business because you don't need three years of audits. You just need one or two years, you know? And they're like, what? You know, it's just like, oh, I've done it several times. You don't know how to do it. So I talk about that.

I talk about, I have done keynotes about spirituality, about health and wellness, you know, about talking about programmatic advertising. It's just like so much stuff. You know, like I've been, you know, I've been blessed with how, having all kinds of experiences, you know, and like one thing that I've been really fortunate for is that I'm not shy, you know. I'll talk about, you know, whatever I'm confident about, you know,

and I think that my, you know, my basis is to deliver value to people and really to, you know, to help them or inspire them and to get them to the next level. If they're thinking about this already, reach out to me, you know, I'll help you get to the next stage. I don't want anything in return, you know, so it's been fun. It's just serving, doing God's work, being of service to people and you're always taking care of. Yeah, I think we're here for other people. We're not here for ourselves, you know. So I've never found any fulfillment in doing anything for myself, which is, you know,

I learned that at a pretty early age. So I've always been inclined to like, you know, let me, let me add some value here so I could like, you know, justify my existence, you know what I'm saying? So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you've identified at a young age a life of purpose, you know. Yeah, I don't have a why. And I never did, you know, like I've been trying to figure it out. But I felt like during the interim, while I figure out, I'm 49, I haven't found my why yet.

But during the interim, while I'm on this mission to find my why, let me do some things that could, you know, potentially help other people, you know, and that's like whatever it is. You know, it's just like, I think stuff that's along the way, I mean, you don't even need to go out of your way for people as long as you're, you know, it's stuff that you're already good at and people need help figuring it out. just, you know, I think it's good to, you know, to really just, you know, pay one forward, you know. I mean, the why, like, I think that comes once you, like, for me, it's like fatherhood. Sure. You know, like, I leave work every day, three o'clock just to drive my kids to jih Tzu and just sit there, like, watch them train. You know, it's like, I don't care about work. I don't care about, like, I'm here.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll play basketball with them. I'll go play baseball with them. It's like my wife for that. But that kind of just happens. Like until then being of service, being like helping people like and then boom, your kids and it becomes your wife.

Yeah. Damn Fleischman. Yeah. His whole world like around one girl. One little baby girl. Yeah. You know, it's just or it happens naturally. You got plenty of time.

Don't worry. No, I think you're reversing an age. No, I mean, yeah. I feel like I am reversing in age. It's crazy. It's good, you know. No drinking, no alcohol. No caffeine.

really other than this coffee here macho once in a while and I was carnivore for several years and you know one meal a day that kind of thing working out a lot yeah I have reversed my age effectively for sure because I feel a lot better than I did when I was in my four early 40s yeah I look younger people don't believe that I'm 49 and you know and the energy I'm around like really good people and I feel you know ambitious you know I feel ambitious which is really a good thing and the last pot I was talking about ambition and the fire, you know, the burning desire. It's something that's really hard to train in people or to help people discover. I think that it's a thing that people have or they don't have, you know, and I'm fortunate to have it. You know, I think it was exposed to some really good

information at an early age. I was reading, you know, Zig Zigler, Tony Robbins, and, you know, Brian Tracy and all this stuff as a kid, you know, and I think that really helped me understand what the possibilities were, so I became super, super ambitious. And, you know, I think that that helped me a bit. Unlock potential. You didn't even know what's possible. I feel like yeah, anything is possible. We've seen some weird, really crazy shit happen, you know, in a good way and a bad way too. Anything's possible. You know, right when we met, we were like immediately talking about like biohacking therapies. Like what's your, what's your biohacking protocol? Like morning routine. Sure. Supplement stack. Yeah. So I think in the, okay, so first thing I do, I don't eat

anything until, you know, later in the day. I used to eat one meal a day. Now I'm down to like two. I'll eat something like around, you know, maybe three o'clock or something. And then again at like, you know, seven or eight, you know, I don't eat much. And then in the morning, first thing I have is I have about six ounces of water in a mason jar. And 10 grams of creatine, three grams of HMB. I take the nitrous oxide mix. It's really great for vasculilation. And also symbiotica's adaptogenic mushroom.

pack, you know, and they have L-thene... That could replace coffee, right? Yeah, for sure. And then the L-thianine pack that they have as well. That's magnesium for your brain, and it really is awesome because it's mood-enhancing, and it breaks the blood-brain barrier, so it's really, it's fantastic. And then eight ounces of water, and I just,

six ounces of water, and I just mix it, and it's super small, and I just down it. It doesn't taste bad either. And I think that, you know the HMB is really incredible because the studies around it is so good you'll grow muscle mass without even working out so it's really great if you're not working out for a moment in time to help you sustain your gains and then the creatine I use the 10 grams of creatine in the morning as a brain supplement you know it's the best cognitive supplement you can have it's so good it creates ATP which is fuel for your brain you know which is fantastic and then I take five grams of creatine

post workout as well because the post workout is you know it'll be great for your muscles as well aren't you starving post workout like you know i'm not i i have fasted workout and i'm not starving after my workout either it's really i'm just used to this you know um but post workout be probably around like two or three anyways um and so i'll have you know like a 40 to 50 gram protein shake and then maybe i'll have some food with that as well but generally i'm pretty carnivore i mean not fully anymore because I'm you know I just I don't I don't I just want to live a little bit you know and I think that when I was full carnivore was a little tough you know but um I eat mostly meat you know and I think some vegetables are fine there are quite a few vegetables that cause you know

lots of inflammation in your body which are um packed with um oxalates and and lectins you know and so those are a lot of people that are vegetarian I don't know it's it's tricky so kale and spinach and, you know, are very high in oxalates, you know, they cause all the kidney stones in your, and that's a pretty big problem. So, and then all the lagoon family is super high in lectins and that causes all the autoimmune diseases known to man, the lectins, you know. But they've been able to. You don't have any legumes? I try not to, you know, because of the lectins, you know.

So, yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot. lot of data around that. I think that, what's his name, wrote a book. Do you remember it was called Gunnjury, Stephen Gundry? Yeah. So the book he wrote was, it was about plant, it was called the Plant Paradox. It's a pretty good book. I mean, it's a good book to look at. I mean, he has so many products online now. He does. My friend Craig is his partner. You know Craig? Which Craig? Craig. Craig. I can't remember his last name, but he's at Craig on Instagram. We've been friends for 20 years. Yeah, they've created a billion-dollar empire, you know, over the gondry stuff. They're doing pretty well.

But, yeah, so, you know, from that perspective, and, you know, as far as like the gear, you know, the gear is BPC 157, some other peptides like CJC and, you know, there's a few others as well. Do you do any hyperbaric or red light bed or? I have, you know, I used to do some more red light stuff and I have a panel at home. I haven't done it in a while. But I have a sauna. I have cold plunge, hot tub, pool, all that stuff in my home. So, you know, I'm doing all that stuff. And then, you know, I used to do cryo every day.

I did that for like nine years, man. Yeah. I haven't done it in a while. Cryo was really great. And I was super lean while I was doing cryo, you know. Dude, I got a guy coming on next week, the podcast. And all he does, he's retired multiple exits. He's like, you know, I'm retired, but, you know, biohecking takes a long time.

And he's like, I'll go from this, there. to that therapy. It's like six, seven hours is gone from my day. Yeah, it's a lot. It is. It's truly a lot, you know. You know, like, if I'm going to do the hyperbaric for an hour, and then I'm going to go in the red light bed for now,

and then I'm going to go to the gym for now. It's like, you can spend your whole day if you're retired biohacking. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. And Brian Johnson, too, you know. He's, uh...

I mean, the king of it all. I think he was doing something that was actually accelerating his aging. I can't remember what it was. Well, he's taking the kitchen sink approach. Yeah. You know, it's like, which I kind of was doing for a while. I'm like, well, that's great. You know, I'm like, didn't like, didn't work as much.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. The kitchen seek approach works for like a few months. Yeah. Then it's like, okay, I really got to like dial this in here. I don't know about the blood transfusions with his son, you know? Freaky stuff, man. Yeah, I don't know, man.

But like, as an athlete, hyperbaric chamber, I felt like really leveled my basketball game. I'm telling you that hyperbaric chamber is really, really great. It's really incredible. So if you have access to that, you should try it. And there's so much benefit to it, you know. Yeah, it's just an hour of your day. Yeah, it's so great. And the chambers are not too expensive either, right?

They're like 40 grand. Yeah, I guess that it's relative. But we have like, you know, places in the, I got like membership. You just go there, you go to red light, you go to hyperic, you go to day to bed. You guys have like next health here or something. Yeah, it's called Delmar Wellness Centers. Sure. You have the whole thing, you know.

Yeah, it's a thing. This is a lot of. It's like meds. bus. Yeah, exactly. There's one on every corner. So what's next for you? Like, what's, what products you got next?

So I think that, you know, we're trying to scale credit repair to a point where, you know, I think, you know, it's a, to like an exit? No, I don't know. We'll keep running. I mean, it's a big bit. It's a good business. The cash flow is really well. There's no reason to exit it, you know?

Yeah. I think it's fun. I build businesses that cash flow. I'm not, you know, looking for, I'm not trying to raise money or any of that stuff. You know, most of the stuff that we've done is just, it just cash flow. lows, you know. Not looking for that, but just to grow it. And then I think that I think I'm looking at from a tech perspective, we're looking at some, some opportunities to enter in certain spaces. I haven't gotten the itch yet, but there is a event app called Partyful. Have you heard of it?

Yeah. So there's a lot that can be done better. And they're kind of the, you know, marquee in that space right now. So I think that could be something to kind of come after, Eventually, you know, they could be an opportunity there. Nice. A couple last questions for you. Sure. This is a three-prong question. What's a personal goal you have for yourself?

A family goal, a business goal? Personal goal, I think, is, you know, I think if I'm like 49, so I got to get married soon. So I think that's going to happen potentially. Anybody on the radar right now? Yeah, depending on, you know, how we're getting along, you know, part of the week. Yeah. And then the family goal, yeah, I think, I think to try, like, have kids on a trial basis to have like one. One is a trial, but you have four, you know. I want like four more. Try it out, you know, have one. You can't return them, but like just try it out. One is cool, you know, like maybe. That's the family goal. And then what was the other goal? The professional goal? Yeah, business goal. Business goal, I think, you know, to have essentially, as I was saying, like the next, you know, the next tech itch, you know,

potentially for me. I think that, you know, have AI really integrated into an event platform potentially, you know, like partyful. But that's not, I'm not sure if we're going after that yet. I haven't had the itch yet, though. So I think a broader professional goal is figure out the itch, you know, figure out what area I want to come up here. I mean, can AI be implemented in the credit repair space and scale it that way so you could just like add more clients? Actually, you know, from that perspective, our back end operation is super scalable. We don't need AI for that. We need the front end to scale.

So customer acquisition side is the side where there's a huge opportunity, you know. In the back end, we handle with scale, you know, that's easy and super fast the way we do it. Or the way we do it is very different than what everyone else does. Last question. when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think god's going to tell you uh well i think uh i think it would be nice to try you know um i don't know so like my cost you know like you know i would say my culture says we you know we reincarnate right so but we believe in reincarnation like every life is a life and so like we take another life potentially

another form of life. It could be coming back as an animal or an insect. I don't fucking know, you know, like whatever that is. That's what our culture says. So I don't think that there's any difference in value in life. I think one life is as valuable as the next. You know, there's no like, oh, this life is better than this other life. So there's just different experiences, right?

So I don't really, I really don't know. But we got to do what we got to do, you know, to be, you know, to maximize this time, you know, this time here. So I don't know. I've seven animals. I've been really great to animals. So hopefully it'll work out well for me. Come back as a solid, like, you know, a doodle or something.

Yeah, like a fucking Yorkie out. I mean, that'd be cool, you know. And some baller's house in West Hollywood. You know, I've always, sometimes I look at them and I'm like, man, I wish my life is like this, you know? Maybe I, you know, be careful what you wish for, right? Come back as a multi-pooh, you know? Yeah.

people want to connect with you, how do they find you? You can hit me on Instagram. It's at Ted Skilla. At Ted Skilla. Perfect. Thanks guys for tuning in. The man, the myth, the legend. Ted Danick, make sure you connect with him. God bless you guys.

Thank you.