Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - How to Go Public ft. Dan Fleyshman | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 30

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company at 23, launched the "Who’s Your Daddy" energy drink, now in 55,000 stores.He has sold $15 million worth of clothing and co-founded one of the top five global online poker sites.As an angel investor, he has invested in over 36 companies and founded Elevator Studio, managing influencer campaigns with over 600 influencers.A dynamic speaker, Dan has shared his expertise at more than 250 events worldwide. He also founded the Model Citizen Fund, a charity providing essential supplies to those in need.For More Check Out our Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgPwyhl8CkXiM0cBtuY8A_6JS60FueLz3&si=0_2dnoPkYV6jcSGw Check Us Out on all Platforms!Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffeez-for-closers-with-joe-shalaby/id1726674707Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KkQWRqHSHcCK3TVfsRKUK?si=hjTnUOjFS5eTDxBjgf4RwQ&preview=noneAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/Coffeez-Closers-Joe-Shalaby/dp/B0CRYLQRW6 Coffeez and Closers Socials & WebsiteWebsite: https://coffeezforclosers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeezpod/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnU0T3RrLXdPbC1BR2NLc2lWcExqWklQaHlQUXxBQ3Jtc0tudi1GV2Zod3hRYzRhTkhONFBuMlptblNGSlJ1QzhpV0tzbHh5YThNR0R3Y2RnNnU5NV9ER3E5ZUhxMjdUUWp1UWo4MVl6Q2szeXo1cFh1OHNkYkxDR1F0MXZtMTZ6QnZoakdzSnJpVl9PcWZBOU9zZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40coffeezforclosers&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pLZ2pMaUxmSTh4dy1qazMtdlBjX2pVN1AxQXxBQ3Jtc0tua2RUTUNsRmJob0RKWlVqeDhNaUN4US1rdlRvUG9Fdm5SNk1jU1pQNzNLQnVmUmtGMGtMYUViZ2pLMXJkOVJUci1kMk9DN2poTThVV2NFd0tISWdDMzNwOEZ2c3pVb09lbEhjemJHblRsS1RKdHZqbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FCoffeez-for-Closers-with-Joe-Shalaby%2F61556355642488%2F&v=uXvk6LY9lS8 Joe Shalaby SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephshalaby/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3p6VlRzR1BWMkJQM1ZIaUdVZHhYVTYyak43QXxBQ3Jtc0tuUXVBOE1oZUJYTmZIZnNENUgxQkhjamk4RXJHb09MWU9OczJhLWpnX0JwN2pENzRhaV9NajJROW5nek1tQ1VvVE40ZFJuUUI2cnI0ajNKLXE4d1VMUUpkTGFHR0tGY0o5NUhnWnZnaXJoZXdEM0piaw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40josephshalaby&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephshalaby E Mortgage Capital Socials & WebsiteInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/emortgagecapital/Website: https://www.emortgagecapital.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Emortgagecap #1 Mortgage Company on Social on 🌎#1 Non Delegated Lender in the Country🌟#1 Broker in CANMLS #1416824"Mortgages Are What We Do Not Who We Are"™https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-why-e-mortgage-capital-192000740.htmlAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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Start your free trial today. What's up, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Coffee's, for closers. Today, I'm sitting down with one of the most influential figures of this modern day. Mr. Dan Fleischman, he is known as the youngest founder and CEO ever to take a company public at just 23 years of age. He's also currently an angel investor in 60, very, very well-known companies as well as the Guinness World Book, Guinness Records holder of the largest toy drive in history. We are sitting down right now with Dan Fleischman himself in his studio on his ranch. What an awesome opportunity. I got my kids to run around, meet hundreds of different animals.

It's just been an absolute blessing. This guy is a true servant at heart. please welcome Dan Fleischman thank you thanks for being here I'm glad you could bring the kids out it's really fun day yeah it's been awesome Dan and I was just saying on your show it's like you really live a true life of servitude you just got such an incredible heart just such an amazing soul great inspiration you continue to you know I knew about you for years have been following you've been tracking what you're doing and you know you've been just such an inspiration to me and I'm sure you're inspiring hundreds of thousands of people all over the world God bless you God bless your service and I'm really glad you got a baby coming soon and probably

By the time the show airs, you know the baby's going to be here. So boom, welcome to fatherhood. Thank you, thank you. I got to catch up to you. You got four of them already. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you'll catch up soon. You got hundreds of animals.

So, Dan, I like to start off every single show with the same question with all my guests, because this guest focuses on the top entrepreneurs and how they started their journey. But every entrepreneur starts their day the same way. It starts their day some way. And they all have a great way how they start the day. start their day. So what is your morning routine? Okay, I'm going to get ripped shreds for this because everyone says to not do what I do. Jim Quick, Ed Milet, all the Gary Breck, all the best in the world say to don't look at your phone for the first half an hour. What do I do in the first three seconds?

I look at my phone. And I know when I flip that phone over, I'm maybe putting out fires. But it's the first thing I want to do and I want to get it out of the way. And so immediately, I do the initial ones. I don't do all the text back. There might be 10. 20, 30, 40, 100, whatever it's going on in the world and all my different companies' investments. But the important ones are urgent ones that I can tell that, like, it's a fire, I respond to those. And then I put my phone down. And then I do the shower, go get some, you know, yogurt, fruit, food, like light food, you know, whatever. And then it's time for war.

When I say war, I'm talking about a thumb war. I'm getting ready for text message and emails. Nice. Okay. So just bang out all the drama first. It's that old adage, um, swallow. the toad first. Right. Just deal with the hard stuff first. I'm not scared of the hard stuff. I know when I flip my phone number, there's going to be hard stuff. I'm not scared of it. I'm unemotional to it. I expect it, you know. Well, you know, and there's a lot of successful people that do it that way. They like to bang out the drama first. I myself, I'm actually, I do that first. I bang out the drama. Then I do the piece. The morning routine, make the kids their breakfast, put away the dishes, get to the gym, you know, so I have like a two hour start. You know, I get up really, really early, 4 a.m. Oh, really? Four a. Yeah, 430, 4.

You know, I have no choice. The kids get me up. Yeah, I get up at 6.7 in the morning. I go to bed late, though. I'm in bed at midnight, 1 in the morning. Yeah, yeah, I go to bed early. Yeah, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock. No choice.

You got to keep up with the bicycles. I understand. I'm about to find out, right? Yeah. You'll be sleeping much earlier, by the way. So we chatted about this. So at what age did you start your entrepreneurial journey? So four years old, I started selling baseball cards at the swap meet.

My mom and dad had a Levi. Gene like out of the back of a van like literally like I don't know what kind of van you call it but like they would take a table put Levi's jeans on it and I set up a little table with baseball cards from four years old to eight years old every single weekend at the swap meet parents got divorced I moved to San Diego and then I started selling candy at school and so that's when the real entrepreneurial journey started because I was my mom was my investor she put up $14 for me to buy candy I flipped that 14 into 25 to 30 depending on the type of candy give her a 14 back

and then, you know, do it again. And so that taught me how to, you know, profit margins, marketing, you know, getting everyone to buy my candy. I started. And so that's where the journey started. And then as soon as I was allowed to at 15 years old, I got three jobs at the same time. Qualcomm Stadium, peanuts, cracker jacks here. I'm walking up, you know, selling food and cotton candy.

And then working at Ruby's Diner with a sailor's cap on and then working for a stockbroker under the table. Wow. So it's four years old and then it started from there. Yeah. Now, being the youngest founder to take a company public, like, that's like on your Wikipedia. That is a crazy attribute. That's just an incredible resume.

What age did you find, did you found who's your daddy? So I started when I was 17 and a half in high school. And we had basically, I had saved up $43,000 working those three jobs for those three years. So let's call it 12, 15 grand a year. I was saving up for SDSU to go to college. But instead, 17 and a half, right before it was time to apply to college, I actually started the clothing brand. We started selling T-shirts at school in the lunch period, and we sold 100 T-shirts for 15 bucks each. I'm like, oh my God, I got $1,500.

I'm a millionaire. Like, I was it. And so that 43,000 that I had saved up, I now thought I had two years of runway. Instead, two months later, we had zero, right? I got samples, a convention booth, and I got a 20-foot booth instead of a 10-foot booth. Like, I was spending money to build the brand right out the gate at 17.5. And when did you incorporate it? So, May 18th, 1999.

I know for sure, because all my hats had 51899 on them. And then when did you strike your first deal with, like, Macy's and Sears and all these other companies? So, 18 years old, we did $1 million because we went to that convention called Magic, and we wrote a million dollars in orders. And it was Nordstrom's. It was called, what the heck's it called? outpost. Oh, that's right. Mr. Rags and Dr. J's. So two streetware stores in New York, Miller's Outpost, which became Anchor Blue, and Nordstrom's. Norstrom offered us a $1 million exclusive. We said, at first we were saying yes, but my older brother and my partner's dad were like,

no, no, no, if they want to get an exclusive, that means people, you're on to something, people actually want you. We didn't actually know how we were going to make a million dollars in clothes. We wrote the orders, but we didn't actually have a manufacturer that could handle it. The shirts I made were at the T-shirt mart in San Diego at the local by the arena. Like, they make freaking $510 t-shirts. And so I went and found a manufacturer and the rest was history. Wow, that was well before the days of Shark Tank where you can just get, you know. There was no smartphones.

Before distribution days, before any of that. Oh, wait, wait, before you go, the booth next to me was Fubu. So Damon John's booth was right next to mine. My very first booth was next door to Damon John. And on my left was a brand new company launched the same day I did called Sean John. Oh my gosh. Puff Daddy launched the same day I did. So I got a 20-foot booth, which I thought was huge.

On my right was a $1.9 million booth, Fubu. On my left was a castle of Sean John, and we were the little engine that could right in between. You know what? That's inspiring, though. You were just like fighting the big guys. Yeah, literally. So what do you think really inspired you to start your entrepreneur journey?

Like, where did that come from? So we just didn't have any money, and I just didn't want to be a, burden to my mom and I wanted to try to be able to pay for my own stuff and once the clothing brand started it's just kind of like if you throw someone in the pool they got to swim or die and so I just started swimming I just started figuring out how to make clothing and I would like drive around downtown LA and talk to manufacturers and finally find the route the right one named Christopher wicks who changed my life and then figure out okay we're going to do a licensing deal what does that mean what is like

started trademarking and patenting all over the country and all over the world and like I just started learning the things and immersing myself in it, but it came from necessity. It came from like, there is another option. There is no plan B. What the hell is a plan B? I have one plan. I already am not going to college. I'm deep into this clothing brand. I got to go. I got to figure it out. My spiritual mentor, my priest says, and he said this about marriage, but he's like, you know, I took, I got one coin. It's like, and it's just a one-way ticket. Like there is no coin coming back on the bus. Like I got one coin to get to my destination and that's it. You didn't have a choice.

It was like, this is it. You got to make it happen. There's a lot of roller coaster all in the way, but at no point was ever going to give up. Now, who would you say was your greatest mentor long in this journey? So during that point in my career, that 10 years was the guy named Christopher Wicks. And I'm still very close with his son, Christian Wicks, who was only doing clothing since he was in high school and we're the same age. And so 25 years later, we're still good. friends. But that guy had built a brand called English Laundry, which was like fancy button-up shirt.

Sold it for $117 million. He also did the licenses for Hang 10, Ocean Pacific, Body Glove, and LA Gear. And so when I met him, he was doing the Defender guitar license and had all that apparel. And so he taught me everything, how to do merchandising, how to do end cap displays, how to do every little detail of clothing I learned because of him inside of his warehouse. And so for that 10 years was him. The next 10 years, which has now been 14 years, was a gentleman named David Mizell. David Mizel was the founder of Marvel Studios. He created Marvel and basically forced Marvel to make Marvel Studios and created Iron Man, the Avengers and everything. Ended up selling it for over $4 billion to Disney. And during that, around that exact time, during those couple years, when we

became friends, and we're still to this day my best friend, and he was the true mentor that I actually have these hard to hard discussions with about different chapters of life. Because when you're an entrepreneur, there's craziness, there's situations, and there's junctures where you got it to choose. You want to start a new company, do an investment, go public, go private, take around, close down, go banker. Like, there's so many things that could arise. But David Mazzel was the guy for me. Awesome. Now, you're incredibly strong, resilient. You've been through a lot. Where do you think you establish that strong sense of work ethic? Like, what, What inspired you be this way?

I think it comes from family. You know, just we migrated here with nothing, you know, from Riga, Latvia. And just hearing the stories and how we grew up, I mean, we started with zero. Like not like... Where'd you immigrate in front? Riga, Latvia, like the outskirts of Russia. And back then, this is 1982, there was, you know, like the Iron Curtain. Like there was no way to get out and you have to like win a lottery, like a bingo.

You know, okay, a Fleischman family, you can go. And so it was a lot for us to get. here and there was no money to get here and so watching them you know build a life and struggle through and you know fight for for me um it forced me to like that's why i work morning noon and night like i i want to provide careers businesses investments like i look at investing in businesses as charity if i can go invest in that company and they go hire hundreds of people that's my version of charity and so i work morning noon tonight because i want to make the world a better place And ultimately, if I want to save the world and I want to help cure hunger, I need to become a

multi-billioner. Not for stuff. I don't wear stuff. I don't care about stuff. I need to become a multi-billioner. And I need to make people trust me to be a good steward of capital to go execute. That's why I do the toy drives. That's why I do backpacks for the homeless.

That's why I do food drives. Thanks for food drives. I do so much charity publicly because all my work is leading to the end goal of saving the world. In order to save the world, I need to make a lot of people rich. I need people that make a lot of people trust me, and I want to have a capital to do it privately so I don't have to depend on the government. I'm not anti-government. I'm anti-slow, and they're just too slow.

I love your mindset, and I love that you are instilling a servant mindset, a servitude mindset in all of the companies that you invest in. It's very noble, very honorable, and I know that charity is a big, big deal to not just your business, but. to those that you collaborate with, to the other masterminds that you basically instilled this mindset into them. And we're going to talk about your masterminds now. You have several masterminds.

One of them is known as the $100 million mastermind. So that's like the elite of the masterminds. That's where you get the Grant Cardones and the Kevin Hartz and the Mark Wahlbergs together and Shaquille O'Neill and Hulk Hogan and all the biggest masterminds in the world. Yeah. So let's talk about the small level masterminds. For those listeners, they can't obviously get into the $100 million mastermind. Sure.

What's the lowest level entry mastermind that someone can get into? So I always say I have free, cheap, affordable, and holy smokes. So free is called elevator nights. Elevator nights have thrown 54 times all over the country for free. It'll always be free. It's 300 to 1,000 entrepreneurs. You don't pay anything. There's no sponsors, no tickets, nothing.

That's called elevator nights. Affordable is Aspire Tour. Spire Tour is 50 bucks, 100 bucks, 500 bucks, 200 bucks type tickets, 3,000 people, big fun, nice events with a lot of those same celebrities I bring into that event. And that just happened. The aspire tour just happened. That was a really big event. Very big. Yeah, Madison Square Garden, like massive event. It was in New York? On July 20th is Madison Square Garden, yeah. So next Saturday, but when they're listening, it'll be probably a week or two or three behind.

But yeah, Madison Square Garden is July 20th, which would be the craziest, you know, that's the nicest venue in the country in my mind. And so every three to four weeks, we throw a large format, Aspire, Tour, but a very affordable price point. Then we have what's called the Money is Mastermind. So the guys from Aspire Tour, they started Money Is Mastermind before me and I stepped in and helped the company a year and a half ago. Money is Masterminds $15,000. They have 1100 members and growing around 100 to 150 people per month. That mastermind teaches about money, accounting, finances, taxes, things like that. Then there's Operation BlackSight, which you're seeing happen here at the Rams.

that's like a $6,000 boot camp or $20,000 for the year where you learn how to fight, how to shoot from Navy SEALs, UFC champions, Mui Thai champions, et cetera. So you learn from the best of the best in different niches. Then you jump up to $50,000. That's called the Chairman's Club. That's for people that want to learn about investing. I think we have 160 members in that one. And that's really like people doing millions of dollars in revenue.

They want to learn about investing and they want to be around other people that are CEOs and executives. And then the one that I started personally five years ago in 2019 is called the 100 million mastermind. That one's $100,000 per person. That's very expensive, very high investment into someone's self. However, it's for executives or company owners that are doing at least $10 million revenue. So my pitch always is, well, if you're doing $10 million revenue, do you think that me and 100 other members can help you make or save 1%? if we can help you save or make 1% on a $10 million business, that's $100,000. We're free.

But keep in mind, you're going to learn that skill forever. So next year when you're doing $16 million, you're saving or making $160,000. Next year you're doing $22 million. You're saving or making $2,000. So you have to just believe that me and all these people can help you with that 1%. And that's why I like masterminds. And that's why I'm so obsessed with it. And I'll always do mastermind.

I'll be 84 years old in a freaking wheelchair if I have to and I'll be doing masterminds. Now, we were talking about some of the strategies that entrepreneur will basically, utilize or save or implement because of those masterminds now we all know that we don't learn from triumph we learn from struggle and that's really probably the focal point of your mastermind so what will one learn in the hundred million dollar masterminds so we do hot seats as part of it these are three-day weekends but during the hot seats we grill them we put you up on stage or you know in a chair and say okay what's your gross sales like oh yeah 14 million what's your net what's your eboda like 1.2 million. Why? Let's look through it. Let's go through what's going on in your business.

Why do you have two people doing the same position? Are they both necessary? Why did you spend $190,000 in that convention? Could you have done it for 120? Did you have to fly private to go there? Why did you get like, and we literally go through with them? Not every. It's optional, obviously, to get grilled, but it's the best thing that can happen to them. Because during that intense moment, we're going through, walking through and we want to hear the truth. How come you owe 200 grand of vendors over here what's this pending lawsuit and how come you don't do this this and this with it why are you spending like that is the real thing that no one will talk to them about because normally an entrepreneur feels like they're on a little island by themselves they don't feel like they can say

hey joseph actually want to talk to you like i've got 80 employees now and i really need to go to a hundred but i can't afford it how should i do this this and this no we just say yeah everything's great joseph that's how most entrepreneurs do it they don't talk to the other entrepreneur about the actual struggles going on in their business of how to scale or if things are going bad how do they retract how they fire people how they deal with partnerships etc so at our match minds we have things like that we have a breakout session which is the number one most requested thing those are 90 minutes to two hours long depending on the day of the three day weekends and that's where it's eight to 12 of us sitting a circle and joseph talks for 14 minutes and says here's two minutes of my problem and then 12 minutes

we all in a circle say hey i can help you with this hey i'm I know someone that can do this. Hey, I know a manufacturer for that. Oh, you can use my person for this. Yeah. And we all contribute to you for 14 minutes each. And then we do that three days in a row. So you get to meet three different groups.

So there's a lot of, when I say a mastermind, I'm talking about actual mastermind. I'm not talking about like, oh, yeah, we're in the Marriott ballroom and you're going to listen to speakers all day. No, no. We're getting into it. We're going to talk about the good, bad, and the ugly. Yeah, and that's a true mastermind. It's collaboration. It's like a podcast with every single person.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. So some of these guests that have sat at these $100 million masterminds do like these celebrities come and sit in these hot seats too? Because they want to. It's fascinating. I book them because they're there to perform or to speak and then they don't want to leave. Because like, whoa, there's 50 people, 100 people here.

They're doing 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 million in revenue. Like, what are you guys? What is this? Like, what's happening in here? And I'll have household name rappers just stick around. I'll have household name NBA players be there. Like I paid them 100 grand, 150 grand to be there. And then they end up showing them back the next day just to hang out and experience it.

Yeah. Well, also, they probably end up becoming entrepreneurs as a result of it. For sure. You know, I know you're helping Selena Gomez with her ice cream company. You help all these celebrities with, you know, catapulting their business. Yeah, Shaquil O'Neal, we help build. It's called, we have a company called We Build. We're building Shaquille Neal's big chicken restaurants.

We Build is also helping with Mark Wahlberg's large format gym in Las Vegas. We build all the capriotti sandwiches. Like we build a lot of brands for celebrities and business owners. We did a deal with Drew Brees. We did Jason Tatum. Like, they're investors into our restaurants. We help build for their restaurants. Like, I want to help people, whether they're a celebrity and athlete,

because that'll create a lot more jobs or someone that's a young entrepreneur that's just getting started. I just want to help as many people as I can. That's my legacy. The more people I can help create jobs and businesses, the better. It's much bigger than me. No one will even know. the butterfly effect will happen and no one that will know the world's largest toy drive i'm not i'm not on the website the the the the guinness brook world record stuff i don't my name's not there i make these things as bigger than me

i want people to go do toy drives i want people to go give backpacks to the homeless i don't need you do it with my name on it i want to become bigger than me that's incredible um now let's dive into kind of some of the challenges what do you think some of the bigger challenges have been for you in establishing some of your companies especially the first one your first exit What was the biggest challenge that you faced and how did you overcome it? The biggest challenge in almost every category is always people. Because we work in our own fashion, whether we're really hard, really slow, really smart, really fast, whatever our style is. And we expect similar things from other people in our organizations.

We expect that from our vendors. We expect that from our attorneys. We expect that from our accountants. We expect that from all the people in our world. And oftentimes we don't realize that they don't own equity in our company. And so they're never going to care as much as we do. They work off of hourly or vendor rates or commissions or whatever that thing is. So they will only work up to the amount that they are being paid to help you with your thing.

And we, when we're inside of the business, you can't see the picture when you're inside of the frame. And so when you're in it, you just think everyone's thinking the same way you are. Like morning, noon and night to work on this thing, they have lives. They've got families. They've got other businesses. They have other investments. They have other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other things. but we this is our baby right this is our thing and so i've over the years my biggest issue is always

in the people's side either i think that they're too slow or they don't respond or they don't care or they won't do this or i do this thing for them and they should do this for me and i always find it's it all boils back down to people and so every single month really every single week i try to become better and better and better at people and being more and more efficient and helping them do what I need for me and my company, in my charity, in my event, whatever my thing is, but I have to make it about them to do that. And so every step of my life, I've been learning about how do I make it more easy, more efficient for that person to do what I need because ultimately it's the greater good for

everyone involved. Actually, that ties into my next question. How do you think you're fostering talent within your organizations? You've got 60 companies you've invested in, and we talked about this. You're like, Joe, I could count on less than one hand. how many of those companies failed? Everybody says that, you know, you invest in an angel company, and you invest as an angel investor,

nine out of ten of them flop, one out of ten hits. You said, admittedly, it's the opposite for you. Yeah. Now, how in the world is that possible? How are you fostering talent within those organizations? So, similar answer, it is the people there because I only bet on founders that I believe in are what I call ride or die.

Are they going to go up to the booth at 1130 at night? are they going to go take care of the thing at 5 in the morning to go fly to another city for that big meeting? Are they going to do X, Y, like I bet on the people that I think are right or die because they care about their business. If it's a hobby, I'm not investing. If it's a side project, I'm not investing. If they have X, Y, Z, I, Dada, D distractions, I'm not investing. So my investments, 60 companies sounds like a lot, but that's really thinking about it. That's over the last 7, 8, 9, 9 years.

So that's only like 4, 8, 9, 75 a year that I'm investing in. out of hundreds of companies that I see or get pitched on. So I'm very, very picky. That helps. The founders, that helps. I also only invest in companies doing at least $2 million in sales. And so my loss ratio is much lower because I'm not investing in pure startups. Even if I know the founder, I know they're great, they could be a household name influencer or celebrity,

doesn't mean that there's going to be successful execution of shipping, manufacturing, hiring, scaling, retail stores, whatever the thing is. they may not be that good at all those things, and I don't know that as a startup. If you're already doing $7 million, I know a lot. And I know if you're doing $7 million, it's easy for me to get you to $20 like that. I just pour gasoline on the fire. But if you don't have any sales yet,

and I pour gasoline, the floor is wet. There's no fire because it's not even a spark yet. So I only invest in companies doing at least $2 million, so that helps reduce my loss rate. You say it like that, but what does that mean? Well, if you look at a business doing $7 million in that example, I can look really quickly, what's going on their social media, what's going on with their sales, who are they selling to, how do we get more? Okay, you're selling in 600 grocery stores?

Let's go to 2000. Call a bunch more grocery stores. Who's going to do that? Well, let's hire three full-time sales reps. That's their job. Oh yeah, there's a bunch of grocery conventions around the country. Guess what? We're getting a booth at every single convention. Hey, there's a grocery magazine. Guess what? We're buying the front page and back page of every grocery magazine in the country just for this month. And we're going to take that magazine and every single, a retail meeting we have, we're going to show them that we advertise in the grocery store magazine. We only did it for one month. We didn't do it all year. So it's not that expensive. Guess what? There's grocery store related podcasts. There's food and beverage podcasts. Great.

You're going on every single one of them, CEO, all of them. I'm going to make sure we're going to sponsor them, get you on everything. Like, I'm just taking, it's not rocket science, the things that we're working. Hey, you went on a podcast and sales happened? Go on 50 podcasts. Oh, you were in these retail stores? Let's get in more stores. Oh, the conventions worked. You got to orders, go to every convention. I'm not doing anything rocket science. I'm just doing a lot more. To a lot of people that don't understand marketing, that are scared of marketing,

actually, you're absolutely doing rocket science. Because if you talk to analytical people that don't believe in marketing or, because there is no direct correlation between everything you just said and sales. There's just, there just isn't. It is vision, it is theory, it is hope. Yep. It is understanding of the power of marketing. But to tell somebody that you go on this podcast or you pump out all this content, you're going to make X, make X dollars.

It's just that doesn't click for 90% of people. Correct. It's if you don't believe in your product, then it's never going to ever happen. If I believe that pink sweaters will work and I have pink sweaters.com, then my job is to tell everybody I can about pink sweaters.com. Do you actually have pink sweaters dot com? wish. I'm wearing a lot of pink sweaters because I have a girl being born shortly. So I'm going full girl dad.

So there's 13 brand new pink sweaters that just showed up. And I might start pink sweaters.com if anybody wants to sell it to me. But the point is, if I believe in pink sweaters, I would literally, if I bought pink sweaters.com, you would not see me anywhere without pink sweater. I will be out in the sun at 100 degrees with a pink sweater like I am right now. I would be out there at my freaking

weddings and funerals with pink sweaters if I had to market and promote that thing if that was my passion. And so, The problem for most people is they're not all in on their business or brand. When I had Victory Poker, my online poker site, I had it embedded, and Trevor was traveling around with me in 2009, 10, 11, around the planet, I would wear a suit and put a victory poker patch on. I wear a T-shirt, I had a Victory Poker patch on.

I had a hat. I had Victory Poker everywhere, morning, noon, and night. When I had my energy drink, you couldn't find me anywhere without that T-shirt, sweater, hoodie, energy drink, anywhere. If you look back at poker tournaments, I would carry a can and close the can for four days. I didn't drink it. I just had the can on the table next to my poker chips for four days straight. I become obsessed with my brands and most of these founders don't do that. And so if I've invested in to you, I'm going to do everything I can to make you want to do that.

Now, is there a specific skill or a mindset that a founder or another entrepreneur must have in order to be successful? Yeah, it's the word relentless. You have to be relentless to go on 50 podcast. You have to be relentless to go call 50 retail stores. You have to be relentless to go to every single convention, trade show, everything. You have to be relentless to do it morning, noon, and night because there's a lot of noes, rejections. They didn't answer. They didn't call me back. I don't care if they didn't call you back. Call 40 more of them. I know they're not going to call you back. They're busy. They're Whole Foods and Routes and grocery stores. It's 7-Eleven. I get it. Call them every day for the next six months. But we're not all in on them because guess what? 7-11?

there's Circle K, there's Texaco, ExxonMobil, Shell, there's plenty of other gas station chains you can call on, calling all of them. And so the word relentless is what I say. Now, you've seen a lot of success, and really you could have retired after your first exit when you were 23 years old. But after all your success, after all your success, after decades and decades of success, making hundreds of millions of dollars, how do you continue to find motivation? The game. I like the game. I look at companies and I look at investments.

I look at deals. That's the game. And I want to win the game. I want to be the number one sports car store chain. And we are. We did $32 million at the gate. I want to be the number one assaye bowl chain, Ever Bowl.

And we are, 96 locations. I want to be the number one social media agency. 60 million. I want to win the game because of the game. The same way you want to take over the mortgage game. And you are and you're in the top five already. Like, I want to win the game in each category. If I'm doing charity, world's largest toy drive.

I'm doing a poker site. I want to be as big as possible. I want to win the game in any category, and that makes it fun for me. That's what keeps me going. Oh, yeah, I forgot you. You own the best sports cards game out there. I'm a sports card collector.

It's a similar name to this podcast. It's called Cards and Coffee. That's awesome. You have a podcast for Cards and Coffee? No. I'm saying the name of the chain is Cards and Coffee. And then our online is called The Coffee Breakers. So the Coffee Breakers is how we break open sports cards.

Are you the company where I could buy the cards from you and then you guys open them up? Absolutely. That's you guys? Yeah, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, holidays for the last three years. That's so funny because my neighbor was just telling me about you guys have an app where I could buy the cards from you guys and you guys deliver them to my house and then you get after you open them and you put them in a case or anything? We ship it to you within 24 hours. 24 hours a day you can go online on Instagram, social media, TikTok anywhere. And we are, it's called the Coffee Breakers and we're just open up sports cards.

And then you put them in a case and ship them to us. Yep. That's you guys. And you have an app and everything. You can watch it 24-7 on the app, right? Not within the app, but within any of the Fanatics Live, TikTok shop, Instagram, etc. That is so cool. Yeah.

That is so cool. We're going to be doing that, me and my son here, buying some cards from here. Just go to the Coffee Breakers. It's me, Gary V. Gary V named it. So that's how I started it. And then Steve Ayoki. post Malone's an investor,

Marshawn Lynch, it's just like a bunch of us that are in this thing because we like sports cards and Pokemon. We also have the Pokeybreakers. So we have Pokemon, Magic the Gathering. Yeah. Pokemon cards? Oh, yeah.

It's called the Pokey Breakers. That is awesome. Well, we're avid Pokemon card collectors in our household and sports card collectors. So we own, me and a friend of mine, Travis, we own 20% of the most expensive Pokemon card in the world. So you know the one, Logan Paul? Yeah.

When he wears. Yeah, we bought 20% of that card. Back when he paid $5.2 million for it, Travis and I bought a piece. You own 20% of that card? How much that card worth now? I have no idea. When we invested, it was $5.2 million. And that was what?

A couple years ago. Yeah. I remember that card. But Logan made it very famous because he wears it. Boxing Floyd Mayweather. It wears it. W.E. wears it everywhere.

So that helps a lot, you know. Yeah. Now it's like the most recognized card ever. For sure. Yeah. Now, I'm going to tap into some of your quotes. What's your favorite quote that you live by? Don't talk about it, be about it.

Love that. And what's the best piece of advice that you've ever received? This two shall pass. There's going to be so many problems in situations. And we always think this is the end. And then you wake up the next morning, it's not the end. Yeah. As entrepreneurs, that's just what we have to live about.

live by it you know like we have to live by the fact that this is only temporary and we deal with so much turmoil and turbulence all day long especially you got 60 companies yeah yeah so like you must be and and all the the animals like what happens if your zorsties or something god forbid seriously like i was thinking i'm like there's 17 zorses in the world like this this source is so precious but it's his his time is finite yeah it's still finite like How do you deal with these precious animals here? There's hundreds of them. And I'm sure you've had casualties.

Just try to give them the best life that we can. You know, they feed them three times a day and spend $140,000 a month keeping them alive, you know, and like giving them the best treatment possible. And there's 12 full-time employees just taking care of them. But it's, I think about all the time. Like, if I wake up in one of those messages on my phone is something happened to the animal, that makes me sad. Yeah, I know.

But we're doing our part. Like, you know, we don't fight with nature. So animals fight with each other. or coyotes come we do our things to protect them as much as possible but ultimately we think about the circle of life you know yeah and you have like indigenous animals here it's so precious these animals like i'm looking at these animals going these are like some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet and you own them like it's my job to protect them yeah absolutely now you're weeks out from being a dad yeah and we briefly touched on this how are you going to instill grit

in your daughter well i already got our instagram baby girl boss and I'm going to try to make her how you have that handle baby girl boss yeah that's the actual handle yeah you see a picture of her right now I'm not her but of the baby reveal that's the picture on there and then once she's born obviously that'll be picture number two but that's like to me I'm going to take her on tour I'm gonna the way you take the kids out to meetings and events and things like that I'm going to take her and she'll be here on a podcast she'll be with me an event she's going to be on stage like I want to my goal is to bring more women into investing and into business and I'm going to use her as the catalyst

to do that, to have fun with it, you know, and make it a fun journey. She didn't have to be an entrepreneur. She doesn't want to. I just want to bring her along for the ride and then let her choose her own path and destiny. But I believe I can bring it a lot more women into business in general. That's awesome. Actually, it's funny that you said Baby Girl Boss. When my son Theodore, when he was three, Theodore is here now watching the show.

A movie came out called Boss Baby. For sure. And I took my whole company, and my company was small at the time. I took my whole company to the premiere of that movie. That's fun. And I dressed up my son and we took pictures. And ironically, at the end of the movie, you know what the boss baby's name was? Theodore.

I'm like, that's wild. What was crazy was the people that I took my employees, I took them to the movie. They thought that I paid the theater to change it up. Like, did you just pay the theater to say Theodore? And like, no, that's really his name. Like, if that's not Destiny for the kid, then like, I don't know what it is. Like, the kid is born. He's a born boss.

And he's been kind of embracing that. Still his favorite show, you know, it's like he knows that that's like what he was born to do. So, you know, and we just want that for our kids. We want them to be leaders. We want them. Now she's a born leader. She has no choice but to be a born leader. And you're going to love them, the new boss baby movies, which are, they have girls now.

Good. And those. And, you know, they're like really symbolic of our kids. And that's all we want to do. We just, we're doing all this for our kids and for the whole, you know, but we, we, Also, more importantly, so our kids know and lead, and we lead them and show them how to serve and do God's work at a large scale. Now, if you were 20 years old, what advice would you give to your 20-year-old self to build wealth? Network, network, network, network.

Just be outside. Go to events. Go to trade shows. Go to mixers. Go to conventions. Just be networking. If you're in college, go run around, meet the people. like the people in your phone book, the people in your cell phone give you the power if you want to get a restaurant reservation or buy a restaurant.

The people that you meet throughout the course of your life are going to have access to that. And so networking is the most important thing and my superpower is the people in my phone. And so you're 20 years old, start being social. And if you're not social person and you want to hide in the corner, take someone who is. Go with someone that is out there that is talkative and people that. that are quiet are actually really good at speaking when spoken to or put in the situation to talk. They have a lot to say. And so if you're an introvert, go with someone that's an extrovert. That's great advice. That's great advice. For the listeners here who are introverted, realize

your potential is in collaboration with others. Now, do you think still, because you mentioned college, do you think college is important still in this day and age? For certain categories, yes. If you're going to be a doctor, I sure as heck hope you went to college, right? If you're going to be in a certain categories you need to go to college because you need X amount of years of skill and learning and things like that. But to get like a bachelor's degree in, you know, political science, I don't know what you're doing. Like if you're getting an arts degree, like God bless you, but like most of the time they're not doing the categories that they went to. So college is a lot more for like a very expensive learning experience and to find yourself and to meet people. But unless you're

going for a niche, I don't really see it the same way. Because for the, for a tenth of that amount or 20th of the amount of paying 30 grand, 40 grand, 50 grand, etc. for college tuition per year. Imagine being in masterminds. Imagine learning online. Imagine learning from these amazing business people that have training schools and training courses on social media online that you can learn. And if you spend the same amount of time that it takes at college and you actually watched hundreds of YouTube videos and watched hundreds of courses and watch hundreds of things the way you did at college, you would pass them all up leaps and balance because you're learning from business people in your category that you like.

And it also allows you to test out what you like and don't like. You might love makeup, fashion, hair. And you're like, actually, I don't like that. I want to be this. You might love real estate. You're like, actually, I'd like to do insurance. Like, you might like a category and not realize it. And to me, college, it is much more for figuring out who you are unless you're in a specific

niche. And that's also great advice. Now, I'd like to close out the show with a couple last questions. the last this one is a three-prong question what's a personal goal that you have for yourself what's a family goal that you have for the family and then what's a business goal that you have for all your businesses so personal goal is to save the world I want to cure hunger it's very solvable in our society with the amount of grocery stores and food brands and products and restaurants that throw away so

much food it's very solvable and fixable in our society family goal I you know I want them to want to be great. I want to put them in a position as a family, like a family office, to help the planet, to help companies, to help entrepreneurs. And collectively, you know, I have a very small, tight-knit family, and I want to instill it into them. And I want to still into my future generation now with the baby girl coming. And then business goal, I would like to, you know, ultimately some of these companies to exit. I don't know that I would go public again, but I would like to.

some of these companies exit. And other ones, I just want them to keep growing the way that they are. I just want them to keep scaling, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40% growth each year. It would be fantastic. I don't need them to, like, become, all become unicorns.

I just want the ones that are in their trajectory, I want to make sure that they keep hiring people, keep growing, and keep doing it profitably. My last question, ask everyone this question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? Come on in!

you absolutely deserve that for everything that you're doing of all guests i've had you're a true servant like you live a life of service and by every definition you get that ticket in and that's all right god willing right god willing hey god bless you god bless your journey and everything that you're doing and i and i wish the absolute best and in a smooth and healthy delivery for your your new boss boss baby girl that's coming um and uh thank you for everything that you you're doing. Thank you for having me, my family on your ranch. If anyone wants to learn more about your masterminds, learn more about you, how can they find you? It's just at Dan Fleischman across all social media and also a big trick for everyone listening. Try to have the same

screen name on every platform, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. Have the same screen name. Have the same bio photo and the same bio. Make it easier for people to remember you and find you. Great feedback. I'm going to implement. We have already implemented a lot of that, but there's so much that we learn from your team, from your media team here while being on your show. Hey guys, Dan Fleischman. If you're not falling on him now, most of you probably are, you better start now. Make sure you also check out his podcast, The Money Mondays. Thanks, Dan. Thanks for being on.

Thanks, thank you. Thank you.