Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - The Art Of The Exit with Nick Long | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 8

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Grab your favorite brew and join us for an enlightening episode of Coffeez for Closers, where we sit down with Nick Long, the visionary founder of NXT90 (The Next 90). In this intimate conversation, Nick takes us on a journey through the intricacies of business exits and shares the deeply personal reasons behind his passion for helping others navigate this crucial stage.As a seasoned entrepreneur and mentor, Nick has not only mastered the art of business exits but also discovered profound fulfillment in guiding others through this transformative process. From strategic insights to emotional resonance, Nick's wisdom transcends mere business advice, offering a holistic approach to success and fulfillment.Join us as we explore the nuances of selling a business and uncover the underlying motivations that drive Nick's relentless dedication to this cause. Through candid storytelling and introspective reflection, Nick invites us into his world, where purpose meets profit and legacy takes precedence.In this episode, you'll gain invaluable insights into the mindset, strategies, and emotional aspects of business exits, empowering you to navigate this pivotal phase with clarity and confidence. Whether you're on the brink of selling your business or simply seeking inspiration to align your passion with your profession, Nick's journey will resonate deeply.Don't miss out on this intimate conversation with Nick Long as we explore the intersection of business acumen and personal fulfillment. Tune in now and discover the keys to mastering business exits while staying true to your passion and purpose.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up everybody? Welcome to Coffees for Closers, a show about visionaries, entrepreneurs, and of course, closers. Here we talk about their wins, their failures, and ultimately the story of their success. What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers, your premier source for exclusive insights directly from visionary leaders who have built their companies from scratch. Today's guest is Nick Long, the mastermind, who coined the term exitpreneur. As the founder of NXT90, Nick is revolutionizing the way entrepreneurs scale and prepare their businesses for sale. With his mastering transformation startups into sellable ventures, he brings unique insights through his private equity accelerator known for guiding business owners towards big money exits. Nick is more than just a scale to sell expert. he's a pivotal connector in the entrepreneurial landscape. Without further ado, we want to welcome Mr. Nick Long.

Damn, thank you, buddy. What's up, buddy? How are you? I was saying, like, before we start, I need you to come and introduce me at every cocktail party like that. Just right before I walk in, everybody, and you just do that whole thing. Yeah, man, that was a hard one. I'm just a hard one. I'm just the- credit card ready when I come in. Yeah, they'll be ready. They'll be ready.

I'm real proud of all the success you've had. You know, we've been friends for, I feel like, you know, It's probably 20 years now, dude. Two decades, man, we're getting old. 2006? 2006. And I've seen you come a long way from, you know, a small, you know, call center environment now to scaling businesses, big exits. I mean, it's been crazy to see your success, you know, from working with Pratt years ago.

And now, and work with my sister. Now, you're crushing it. Thank you, man. And likewise, I mean, I told you how refreshing it is to walk into a mortgage company. and see it thriving right now. You know, it's like you hear all the shit on the news, but like you would feel like this place is in a bubble because I walk in here.

It's got energy. It's got your DNA all over it, like a fierce leader, leading people through this, you know, quote-unquote turbulent time and not just like surviving, but you guys are thriving, man. So congrats to you as well. Yeah, you were throwing off. You're like, how are you guys winning right? Man, this is the time for us to dominate.

We're not just winning. We're dominating. People retreat. You move forward. right? Because that's like that's unfortunately how the majority of the world works is that they hear doom and gloom and they duck and cover. And it's like, no, you just, you pick your head up and you find where the opportunities are and you keep moving forward. The only way out of anything is all the way through. We like to say we have a contrarian mindset here. You know, it's, it's we run towards the fire. We don't run away from the fire. And we adapted that actually, that mindset in 2022. And when people were like, exiting the space, I'm like, we're going all in. We're going to go all in. We're going to focus on technology.

We're going to focus on marketing. We're going to focus on compliance. We're going to focus on growth. We're going to focus on, you know, adding more innovation so that our people can thrive. And, you know, that's kind of the gist of why we've been thriving. So, you know, you've coined the concept of an exipreneur. And that's such a cool name. Thank you.

You know, what really inspired the exopreneur name, number one, and what? What inspired the model, the business model that you've created thus far? Yeah, thank you. And I love it. I like we, you know, we have exepaneur.com. You can head over there. You can see a quick training video on a lot of this stuff. But so I, like I saw a massive trend like with everybody, especially with like social and influencers and business coaches.

Everybody's like flexing about being an entrepreneur. Oh, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. And I don't even think they really understand what that even means. There's a big difference between being a business owner and being an entrepreneur, right? And so what I saw was there was this big gap in the market of like people knew how to get into business.

Very few knew how to stay in business. Even fewer knew how to actually scale a business and almost like nobody knew how to exit a business. But anybody that you like, I mean, name a, name a your favorite entrepreneur that you know. I mean. Not that you know that you look up to you like on social or whoever. Well, one of, and it's a personal friend of mine, Matt Ishpia, he's the CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, and he didn't do an exit, but he just sold a small percentage. He did a, he did a SPAC, right? Yeah, he did SPAC.

So that actually is an exit event because it allowed him to have a massive liquidity event. And now with that liquidity event, like he's been able to, you know, amplify and multiply his platform because it takes capital, right? So, like we were talking about the cyber truck that you guys have out in the parking lot, Elon Musk. like Elon Musk would not be Elon Musk without the many multiple exits he had along the way. Little people, little do people know that he had like a data tech company before PayPal. And then he put almost 100% of his proceeds from PayPal over $100 million into three different companies, which is now Tesla, SpaceX, and well, it was Solar City at the time, right? But now he's at the boring company.

And now now he's used all of that net worth to then go acquire X, which is Twitter, right? And so, like, I think being an entrepreneur has gotten like a little bit of a, like a shimmer and a shine that it shouldn't have, right? Being an entrepreneur is difficult. Doing it alone is even more difficult. But nobody is in the marketplace right now teaching people how to exit, right? And at the end of the day, I don't care who you are as an quote unquote entrepreneur, you're going to have an exit some way. And here's how it goes. You exit by you run out of money and you run your business into the ground.

That's an exit, right? You get so fed up that you just like hand it off to somebody else to run. You know, that's an exit. You do the prudent blocking and tackling and build yourself out of a job and you just collect a paycheck. That's an exit. You set it up for handing it down to the next generation. That's an exit. Or you scale it.

You sell it. You create massive wealth. Like that's the actual exit that I want for people. Or you fucking die. Like, you're all, we're all going to exit, but nobody's talking about it. And if you think about it, when we get on an airplane, right, what's the first thing they point out when we get on an airplane? The exits, right?

Before we take off, they're talking about the exits. But no entrepreneur is actually saying, hey, what is the end game? Like, what's my end goal? How much money do I want to make from this? And pointing out the multiple exit points that they could have as that plane starts to take off. right and so i am super passionate about it because i personally i've i've fucked it up you know for myself um and i had opportunities to you know create like a financial abundance that should have lasted me you know a long time and certainly generationally and i didn't have this what i call

exitcation right like the education in and around an exit and so i said you know what time out like after my last exit, I was like, I'm going to spend the rest of my life, like, as an entrepreneur, for entrepreneurs to help them become exipaneers. And that's where like the mind shift happened for me in the word exitpreneurs. Like, they need to go from exiting, like, the day to day and working on entering into becoming an expepreneur and creating like generational wealth. So how does an entrepreneur create the shift from an entrepreneur to an exopreneur? Yeah, so the first thing is they have to shift like their mentality, right? They have to stop looking at their business like an ATM, right?

Why do most entrepreneurs start a business? I mean, they're looking at trying to make as much money as possible. Right. They want two things, right? They want time and they want money. They have this belief that like if I start a business, like I'll have more time and I'll have more money, only to find themselves with no time and probably no money, no money, yeah, at least in the beginning, right?

and then the business starts making some money right and you and i've been there especially like when we're younger you know like we start treating the business like an ATM right how much how much can i suck out of this and substantiate whatever proverbial lifestyle i want here in orange county like it's it's tough right we're keeping up with like the real joneses this is this is the jonses you know uh and the jr's too because they're all juniors of the next generation you know and so you know we treat like an ATM and we just suck out this money as opposed to like taking a like a time out having some delayed gratification taking a step back and not thinking myopically thinking more macroly and being like holy shit every ATM is attached to a bank and the banks are the ones with the real leverage so if you can build a business that is bankable

a.k.a. equitable then it can bank you for the rest of your life like what your guy did with with united wholesale man like that changed that man's family for the foreseeable future, right? What you're doing, what you're building, the equity that you're building in this company is going to be starkly more valuable than the amount of cash flow that you're making, you know? And so the first thing they have to do is start with the end in mind. And they have to get like radically honest with themselves and say, okay, what is it that I want at the end of this? 10 million, 20 million, 100 million? I don't care. you know like i want everybody to be a billionaire you know and or might as well die trying but like

i think if you get to a place where you can just get radically honest and say okay i want 25 million from this and i want it in the next five years six years seven years eight years you can reverse engineer that plan fairly like simply not not easily it's funny that you say you could reverse that in that plan because the first guess we had on our show sharon shrivata said start with the exit in mind and engineer it backwards. Now, with that said, like he was the first person to talk about it, talk about the exit in mind first and then engineer it backwards. Like, why is focusing on the exit from the beginning so imperative? Because you build the business much differently in that regard, then you do a business that you're trying to just cash flow and

get as much bankroll out of, right? Because with the ATM versus the bank, right, think about deposits versus withdrawals. So like when you when you're building a business that you're going to sell someday, you're going to be depositing a lot more into that business. And just like you deposit into a bank account, investment account, it compounds, right? Because you got to invest in the right teams, technology, marketing, all the things that you emphasize that are, have helped you survive while others are dying. If you would have in the time where it was just raining down, you know, mortgages and interest rates were next to nothing, like I'm sure it was fairly lucrative, right? So you had a choice at that point, like go wild and, you know, buy real estate and,

you know, five private jets and all that kind of stuff. And you probably lived a good life, but you also said, shit, we might want to bank some of this for a rainy day. And we might want to invest now for that time so that when the market shifts, we're the only one standing. And guess what? When you're the only one standing, name your price, right? And so when you start with the end in mind, you start to look at it and go, okay, I'm going to live. You know, I'm going to make sure that I'm okay, that I'm not starving and living under the bridge while I'm building my business. But I'm going to invest into teams.

I'm going to invest into media. I'm going to invest into the proper financial literacy and structure. I'm going to invest into technology, which I'm going to have something proprietary, which makes, you know, my company more valuable. And so, and if you know what that end destination is, then you're less likely to just be like so helter-skelter. When you think bigger, your current problems become much smaller. And so that's a huge stark difference.

Yeah, with your expertise in scaling a business for sale, what do you see as the biggest challenge right now for an entrepreneur? There's two. One is, and then the first one's twofold. The first challenge is they don't know that they can sell their business. That's like the first thing. So there has to be like a paradigm shift. You know, like they got this dissonance of like,

nobody's going to buy my business and I say well shit with that attitude you're right you know but that's the first problem and the second problem is if they know they can sell their business they don't even know where to get started so there's this lack of knowledge and when people don't understand something they run from it you know and so when they run from it they're actually running from what they really want as opposed to just digging in and like we said all the way out like just go all the way in the way out is all the way in and understand it and so I try to build that bridge of execution to execution, right, to go from, like, knowing, like, filling that gap of what you don't know to actually making it a reality in, like, actual dough, right?

And so that's the first problem. The second problem is they don't build a company that's transferable. Meaning, like, if you and I, you know, we're, like, reminiscing, we start having a couple shots in your kitchen and we end up going on a bender to Mexico for three months, right? Like, does this place still survive? You know, and likely, yes, because you've built an infrastructure, you've built a team, you've built a system that, like, isn't dependent on you as a singular individual. You've got a thousand people here.

You don't build a thousand person organization without having some infrastructures and redundancies, which means, as me as a potential buyer comes in, I want to know if Joe goes. Like, my investment is still safe because I'm investing what Joe built, not what Joe, like Joe himself, right? And so they don't build out a team that's transferable, and therefore they bought themselves a job. How does the private equity accelerator program really shift that? Oh, my gosh. So, like, we are to establish companies in the private equity world, what Y Combinator is to startups, right? So Y Combinator incubates.

They bring in resources, you know, accounting resources, technology resources. Like, we're the same way. So in our private equity accelerator, and I've looked high and low. There's really not anything like this on the market. Like I created this because there wasn't one available for me when I was in this process and I was like I was messing it up trying to figure it out. So what we do is we start with a process called our Discovery Day where we kind of,

we come in, we rip the business, we rip all the drywall off, we expose all the studs. And we go, okay, we need new pipes. We need a new H-FAC system. The floors are okay. Those can stay, you know, and then, but we're going to furniture this place up and we're going to package it and position it real nicely, right? So what the accelerator does is, like, we look at them. Most of the companies don't have what I call a business operating system.

You know, they don't have a systemic way that they're running meetings. They don't have, they have an org chart, not an accountability chart. There's a big difference between the two of those. Their financial house is not an order, you know, their books are a mess. They don't even know what EBAA is, you know, or even how to make adjustments to EBAA. And so what we do is we come in through this private equity accelerator, and like a general practitioner, like if, if, like something goes wrong in your body, right?

Like, you're not a doctor, dude. Like, you're going to go to your general practitioner. You're going to go to urgent care, right? And at urgent care, that person's going to go, oh, shit, Joe, it's your heart, right? Then they're going to refer you to a cardiologist. Or, you know what, I think you broke a bone. They're going to refer you to a radiologist, right? Or, like, dude, you need to pull a stick out of your ass.

They're going to send you to a proctologist. So, like, what we do is, we say, okay, these are the things that you need in order for your company to be valuable. Right. And then what I do is I say, I draw a line and I say, what do you think your business is worth? And they go, I don't know, five million bucks. Sometimes they're like off by millions of dollars like in either direction, right? And I go, no, your business is worth seven.

They go, seven? Yeah. But here's the thing. If you just worked on these three main drivers, your business would be worth 15 million without growing. And they're like, how is that possible? And I say because when perceived risk goes up, like as a buyer, I want to buy this from you, I'm buying it based upon what I believe I can sell it in the future, right? But if I look at this thing and it has cracks and it's moldy, you know, I'm like, fuck, like,

I'm not going to be able to sell this thing, you know? So when my perceived risk goes up, the value I'm willing to pay goes down. But let's say you bring this thing to me and you tell me it's, you know, laden with gold and it's unbreakable, you drop it on the floor, you show me that it's not going to break. I mean, it's done and it has a scratch on it. And it's a one of one. Like I know in the future that that thing's going to have some value, right? And so what we do is we say, hey, if you work on these things, like you can get $5 million, $10 million, $15 million of value.

And might it be true, Joe, that if we fix X, Y, and Z, your business would run more efficiently? Oh, yeah, man, that's always been our problem. Okay. And if your business ran more efficiently, might it be true that you'd bring in more revenue? Oh, yeah, that, of course we would. And might it be true if you brought it more revenue and we fixed these efficiencies and we had a financial literacy? You might make more profit? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

That would be true too. So then when we amplify one plus one, it's not no longer two. It's 11. And here's your new possible equity value. And they're like, what the fuck? And then they have that aha moment. And now everything that they're going through, all the struggles, all the strides, all the payrolls that come so quickly, they're like, it's fucking worth it. because I know I'm going to get $25, $30, $40 million.

You know what? For every entrepreneur listening to the show right now, and this was advised on episode one, now we're on, I don't know, episode 10 or something, every entrepreneur needs to get an evaluation of their business and identify systemically what are the problems that they have in their business and then engineer it backwards.

Right. Because then it's, whether they choose to exit or they don't choose to exit, and by the way, those of you are watching, we're not exiting. we don't plan an exit we thankfully to your point when we discussed this earlier like we're well capitalized so we don't need an exit yet but who knows in the future if we want to do something else you know skill even more you never know right and you're right you got to know what you're so you and i would never start a trip right like we'd never start a trip without knowing two things where we are and where we want to go right yeah like so we could we can't we just be a wandering generality you know so we have the first understand that we're sitting here and we're sitting here and and we're sitting here and we're in Orange County, California off the 55 freeway right next to John Wayne Airport, right? And then we want to go to the Bahama.

So how do we get there? Well, there's many roads, right? We could drive all the way to Miami, take a fucking ferry, do all that stuff. Or we can just charter a PJ and be there in a second, right? So what we do is we say, hey, this is where you are, Mr. Entrepreneur, Mrs. entrepreneur? Where do you want to go? And they go, I don't know, 20 million?

Okay. Well, that's what looks like this. now do you want to accelerate that process or are you comfortable doing it on your own and they go oh well you know i think i'll just do it on my own well how's that been working out for you and that's the problem with entrepreneurs is they got this weird egotic you know demon inside of them that they don't say i need help and dude when you and i were starting back out in 2006 i mean we were kids we were kids that just had these big dreams i mean we had a beautiful office in fashion an island like one of the most expensive pieces of real estate no fucking clue what we were doing

right and then we were like looking up to people who were just a little bit older than us who had no clue what they were doing you know and so i look back at that i'm like damn i wish i had the the person i am now today like it would be dominating bro it would be it'd be game over right and so like i've met and you you know to like several billionaires and you know, and most of the ones I've met are self-made. And the only difference between them and me or you and some of these other people is the way they think. And the circles that they surround themselves in and the questions that they ask to the right people. Because like it's just as hard to build a business to 10 million as it is to a billion.

And I know there's a lot of nuances in that. But I'm actually, I shouldn't say it's hard to build a business to 10 million. it's just as easy to think about a business that you want to build to 10 million as it is to 10 billion. So why not choose the 10 billion? And maybe you land at 100 million. Great analogy. So what's been the biggest exit you've had? Oh, man.

So I'll tell you two stories. I'll tell you first the story of why I'm so passionate about it, the biggest exit I didn't take. And I think that's more important than the one that, like the biggest one I had. The biggest one that I had was right after, well, it was when we were over on Red Hill and we were fucking crushing it too. We were doing like $60 million a year. And so that exit was good. I exited to the partners and the company. And it was a lot of money and it was multiple, you know, eight figures.

And it should have lasted me, you know, a long time. The challenge with that is I had no financial literacy, you know. I mean, I had a foahawk, a bright red. red Ferrari, a pocket full of cash and a blingy ass watch living here in Orange County. So that was a recipe for disaster. That was like giving a baby a bazooka and saying, don't hurt anybody, you know? And so I just was going crazy with that. And I found myself broke in two years.

Two years' time I was broke. And not only was I broke, I was utterly broken because I felt like I was a complete moron. Like how did I go from that 500 plus employees, 60 million a year, king dingling, guy popping bottles, dating models, private jets, playboy mansion, you know, to like I'm living in basically like a dollhouse because that's all I can afford. And so like that one was meaningful. But the most like meaningful exit from an emotional perspective was the one I didn't take. And it was I had my solar marketing company here in Southern California. And we became one of the largest, if not the largest solar marketing company in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, the country. I mean, we were dealing with like the publicly traded companies, Sun Run, Vivid, Tesla, you know, Home Advisor, Modernize. I mean, we just crushing it. Three hundred employees. Life was good. I was running two concurrent businesses that were doing 30 plus million. My wife and I were the, you know, the singular founders. We started it with two cell phones, $75,000 in debt and a big

ass why. We wanted to get married. We want to travel the world. We want to fucking impact people. And eventually I wanted to stand on the stage and have a podium and a microphone to tell my story. and inspire others. And so we got this, we got this business to a place where we got offered $32 million for the business. And I had $50 million in my head. Don't ask me why, you know, it was some back of the napkin bullshit that I said, okay, if I get $50 million, with $10 more million, I can complete my real estate, you know, quote unquote portfolio. We already had the Newport Beach House. We had the ranch up in Idaho. I wanted either like a ski house and a, beach house or a Mexico house and a ski house. And so I was like, okay, take another,

$10 million, put it there in real estate. And then I'm going to take, you know, $20 million. I'm going to put it away, make 8% a year conservatively on it. That'll pay for my lifestyle. But then I'm going to take this big pile of cash. And I'm going to invest in the next generation. I'm going to invest in the next up-and-coming entrepreneur. I'm going to mentor them with all the lessons and failures I learn.

I'm not only going to invest in my money, I'm going to invest my heartache, my failures, my successes, my Rolodex. And I'm going to go back and find Joe Shalby. When he was 2006, I'm going to grab him and say, follow me, young man. We're going to the promised land, right? That's what I wanted. And just from a holistic perspective, from an opportunistic perspective, and from a capitalistic perspective, I was like, I'm going to do this.

And so I didn't have the right advice. I didn't understand deal structure. I didn't understand cash versus equity. I didn't understand, you know, equity roll forward. And there's probably people listening to this that don't understand it either. And so I didn't understand any of this. And because I didn't understand it, guess what I did? I didn't take the deal.

I didn't take the deal. And today, that would be worth $250 million. $250 million invested, you know, conservatively, like at 5% is $12.5 million a year without ever touching the $250 million. So imagine making a million a month in your underwear and you're going to leave $250 million to whoever, my children, churches, charities, causes, communities, that I care about, right? And so a year later, that was like right at my 39th birthday when, you know, I slid the paper back over the table, thanks, but no thanks. King Kong's going to go his way, you know.

And I got served a very hefty piece of humble pie. And the FTC came in and they didn't like what we were doing. I mean, it probably didn't like my haircut or whatever, because the government can do whatever they want to, whoever they want for whatever they want, whenever they want, whenever they want. COVID actually helped me because what happened is they came in and they took everything. How fucked up is this? They investigated us for a year. I spent a million dollars of my own money fighting them. And after a year, their final conclusion was that the business could exist as is.

But the only difference is my wife and I who are the singular, singular shareholders, could no longer own it. Like, what are you talking about? And so I went from being able to like never have to worry about money again to worrying about money every fucking minute because it was all gone. And at that moment, like once I saw my own proctologist and pulled my head out of my ass, I was like, you know what? I'm going to fix this. I'm going to democratize this process. I'm going to build like knowledge is power. Well, yes, that's part of it.

Knowledge applied is power. I'm going to build an execution platform. I'm going to scream from the rooftops. I'm going to go to every microphone and podcast. that will have me. And I'm going to talk about no longer is it cool to be an entrepreneur. Your mission is to become an exipineur. And then that's like how we ended up here.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So the exspreneur strategy, amazing. Now, you know, you messaged me about the Nxte and that's another initiative. And that's another business that you've really started for really like awakening. Yeah. So the process starts like, you know, so it starts like, NXT 90 is basically the next 90, right? So it's about leveling up your life like 90 days at a time, right?

And it actually is about exits. And so the real exit that I'm super passionate about is the ultimate exit that you and I are going to face, right, which is like we're mortal, unfortunately, even though we probably think we're not. And having people create like what I call eternal value. So there's enterprise value. This is like what your business is worth, right? And that's very formulaic.

And then there's eternal value. It's like, what was Joe worth? Not like necessarily like what we could count in this bank account, but like, God, the thousand people that he served like on a daily basis. Like the guy that Joe is to create an organization that thrives in a down market and keeps people gainfully employed. The amount of Christmases that he's responsible for. Like the presents that are under the tree because one guy, you know, had the vision to just keep. keep going forward. Like the people he impacted through his, his, his format, his YouTube and his podcast so that there's somebody driving right now that's like like desperate and feels alone.

And they hear my story about being broken destitute in 2019 and absolutely fucking thriving today goes, you know what? I'm going to do something about it. Like there's this intangible well of wealth that you can't really quantify. And so what the next 90 does is this is, hey, like, yes, think about your life. Think about the end. end in mind, but like, man, what could happen if you were fiercely committed to the next 90 days of your life, right? What could happen? Like, if you went all in on your physical body, if you went all in on your relationships, if you went all in on whatever your spirituality, you know, is, you know, the universe, God, Buddha, you know, like Allah, whatever it is. And you, and you operated from that

place. What type of producer would you be? You know, if you're 100 pounds overweight, what would happen to your bank account if you lost 100 pounds like if you had the discipline every day to go to the gym to eat right to get up early what would that translate to in real life dollars but more importantly who would you inspire in the process right and then when you're gone and all of this material shit is gone and they have a microphone up there at your funeral like they're not going to talk about the millions of dollars you made they're going to talk about the millions of smiles that you brought They're going to talk about the million of miles that you walked for other fucking people. But to think about walking a million miles is almost overwhelming.

But how many miles can we walk in 90 days? And then we just review it then and we go again. And we review it then and we go it then. So we think big and we do small actions in order to get there. So NXC90. I know there's also like a huge community component. Talk about the community of NXC9 because I see it. all the time all over social. Yeah. So we have, you know, we had the next 90 nation, right?

And, you know, selfishly, but selfish, selflessly, you know, we really only serve the entrepreneur community right now because we feel like the entrepreneurs are the game changers of this world, like make America great again. Why don't you start with your fucking self, right? And the people that can really make impact in this world, not that we all can't, but entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs really can because they can affect a multitude of people, right, by what they do. And so we have this community called the nation. And then we have the 90, which is like a special group kind of like that is in our more of our inner circle. But the nation, like, we're just a group of people committed to creating the ultimate EV, which is eternal value.

And we do that. We fuel that with enterprise value, which is, you know, what our business worth. my wife and I, you know, we donate a lot of money to miracles for kids, which is, helps families who have a child that's suffering from a terminal disease. They pay their bills. They put them up in housing. They allow parents to quit their jobs so they could just spend time with their children. Like, you can't, like, donate money from a place you don't have. And you donate from a place that you produce. And the donations are a dividend of the discipline that you have on the daily, right? And so, Like it all comes back to the root of square one, which is you.

And when we do it in a community setting, it's so much more powerful. I mean, imagine if like 100% of this office was, you know, virtual. I know you got a lot of virtual agents. But like, I walk in here and I'm like, I'm energized because it's an energetic share and a transfer of positivity. So inside of a community, like, we can. go do much more than we can individually. There's that old African proverb that says, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And I say if you want

both, join the next 90. I love it. And actually, I say that African proverb with my own twist. I say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, we go together and you'll get there much faster together. I love it. And you could see it. This whole company is like, culture is not some cute phrase that you put up on the wall. Like culture is like something you feel when you walk inside the four walls. And like walking up here, like it was great. Like a couple people greeting me. They didn't even know who I was.

You're throwing a freaking axe, you know, and giving away 50 bucks to some stranger on Venmo. And then I walked and I poked my head in just the other side just to see because I love looking at offices. Some nice gal says, hi, how are you doing? Can I help you? You know, that's an extension of the culture that you created here, you know? but it's like basic human need is a sense of community right and so i've built this this entrepreneur community on their way to becoming like an exitpreneur like continuum and i want to i want to help people exit from multiple things in their life exit the negative talk track exit the financial like ruin

exit relationships that aren't fucking working you know exit like like the bad habits that are holding them back from living the best like like life that's like life that they can possibly have because at the end of the day, every day we enter into a new day, we are closer to that ultimate exit. And we don't know when that day is. You're right. And that day could be any time. We've had many people here at EMC just, you know, they go quick.

They disappear. I mean, we had two of our top people this year die of cancer, you know, and they're young. And they're, you know, drug-free, alcohol-free, you know, healthy, vegan. I mean, we had one guy was vegan, you know, raw. It's like, how did he go so fast? Wow. You know, we don't know where we're going to go. So we do have to build up that eternal bank.

You know, we do have to build up the eternal bank. Got a couple more questions and we'll wrap it up. You know, given the landscape, what do you think the landscape looks like with AI for exiting? Oh, man, it's getting fun. It's getting crazy. I like it. And at the same token, I see some stuff and I'm just shaking my head because everybody's always looking for like that get rich quick thing. And it just doesn't happen like that.

know, like you and I have been on a journey for two decades, you know, and, and have had multiple ups and downs in that, in that process. People see now, they see a show, they see all the cool studio that you built the office, but they don't fucking see the sleepless nights and the dark, the dark, you know, the corners of your mind and your heart. And the strain that it has on your family, it's a huge strain. Yeah, you get four kids. I mean, Jesus, dude. Like, but so with AI, I see a lot of people like popping up, like, I saw something the other day, and it was like, like, and it was like, like join my AI closing system. And then literally there's like almost a copycat. I'm like,

oh my gosh, dude, people like are running towards us because they think it's a proverbial land grab. So that's the one thing I don't like about it is it's attracting a lot of the wrong people for the wrong reasons. However, I think there's a lot of good in it because I think it's it's going to help with what I said, which is that transferability aspect of businesses and that if people, you know, adopt AI, they can actually like multiply the exit value. We're building an AI platform right now in the background that is going to be basically a private equity marketplace. So, you know, some people can't afford our services, you know, and I wish I could, you know, work for free for everybody. And maybe someday we have a big component of that. But, you know, right now, like I have a fiduciary to take

companies across the finish line to, you know, have the case studies to give other people confidence, right? But what we're going is we're going to build like an AI platform. So we got the done for you, we got the done with you, and then we got the do it yourself, right? And so the do it yourself and the done with you, there's going to be an AI component where they can put in all their information. It'll spit out a valuation. It will tell them who's available for as far as a buyer in the marketplace. It will tell them, you know, what, what they should do to improve the quality of their business and then probably prescribe our strategic partners to help them along the way. And then my goal in that is I think I can like streamline the private equity process because

it's very like heavy and people latent right now. The average private equity firm, they'll see 3,000 projects a year, 3,000 projects. They'll do a deep dive on 300. and they'll invest in five. So from 3,000 to 5, imagine all the waste. But imagine that's 2,995 people that didn't get what they wanted. Like, somebody has to help these people. And I want to be that person. And I want to create like a matchmaking, like a Tinder meets, you know, private equity meets social media.

Where they could go in there and they can see if ever, you know, just hypothetically, I know you're not for sale. But Joe wants to sell the business. They go in there, they see a profile, they see a picture, they see your, things. Then they go, boom, I'm interested. Here comes the valuation. Rain, offer, make it offer. Boom. You accept the offer. You know, and then a lawyer puts together the shit. And they just, they move forward, you know. There will be, have to be. Automating the, the private equity strategy, right there.

Automating and privatizing the, you know, the private equity process, right? That's a brilliant concept. And those you who are listening right now, if you want to invest in that, maybe, uh, maybe it'll happen much faster with Nick. Nick, I like to close out the podcast with every guest with this question. It's like, what's a personal goal of yours, a family goal of yours, and a business goal? That's good. That's good.

Family goal. To step on every continent in this world with my family, like hand in hand, like quite literally. Like my hand and my wife's hand, probably holding one of my children's hands. There's four of us. We go by Team NJL because we all have the same initials.

My young daughter, she just turned nine. she's been in 31 countries. My son just turned eight. He's been in 27 countries. And I want to live a rich full life to experience this entire world. And I want to go. When I go, I'll leave them some dough, but I'm going to leave them the richest memories of us being this solid unit,

traveling the world, having fun. So that's a family goal. Personal goal, this year I have eight physical challenges that I'm not physically. challenged, mentally challenged, I think, but not physically. I have eight physical challenges that I want to complete anywhere from a go-rock to the Spartan trifecta to the Ragnar run. These are all like kind of extreme physical challenges. My father passed away three years ago of multiple sclerosis. He died in a wheelchair and he spent a better part of a decade and a half in a wheelchair. And so as an homage to him and like a blessing to the healthy body that I want to have, I want to

push it to the brink. And then a business goal is what I call 104, right? And that means, like, we're going to help 10,000 businesses over the next 10 years, create $10 billion of enterprise value and give 10% away, which will be $1 billion that will be donated to charity. I would have to say your goals are the best goals I've heard thus far. You just crush the goals and you really got me thinking about how I should really goal set. Yeah. Because we do it in this next 90 continuum. Like every 90 days, we're really. reviewing like what we did where we want to go and what's left on the list right and so it's a proven process that i've seen you know countless businesses quadruple 10x in size like when they go all in

right and so there's the like everybody has a calling in life and if you look at the word calling right c l-l-i-n-g if you if you separate the c and you separate the g right smack dab in the middle is like exactly what you need to do which is all in and the way i look at it is we're all to go all in for what God has created us to do. Love it. And that's your calling in life. And so I'm not going to stop until, like, I have to answer that final call. That's right, right?

When you're in front of the pearly gates, man. I'm just going to say, see you guys later. Nick, it's been so informative. You've been great. We were live. We're going to also air this as well. And this has been an incredible experience for me. Personally, I hope those who got to watch this got a lot out of it.

Nick Long, NXT, ex-repreneur. Let's go, baby. God bless you. Follow me on Instagram at Nick Long, just at my name, at Nick Long, or you can head over to exitpanure.com. Watch the little training video I created. If you want more information, reach out. We're happy to help.

Thank you. Thanks, everybody. God bless everybody. Thanks for watching.