Digital Social Hour - How I Built 12 Companies Without Investor Money | Cameron Johnson DSH #1076

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

How I Built 12 Companies Without Investor Money 🚀 Cameron Johnson shares his incredible journey from 9-year-old entrepreneur to multi-millionaire! 💰   Discover the secrets of building successful businesses without outside funding in this eye-opening conversation. Cameron reveals:   • His first $50k/year business at age 12 📈 • Why he turned down $10 million in VC funding 🤔 • His predictions for the future of car ownership and self-driving tech 🚗 • Insights on investing in AI companies and hedging bets 💡   Plus, hear Cameron's thoughts on risk-taking, the changing landscape of entrepreneurship, and why he's always excited about his next venture!   Don't miss out on this packed episode of Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly. Tune in now for valuable insights from a serial entrepreneur who's done it all without investor money. 🎙️   Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets from the world's top entrepreneurs and innovators. Hit that subscribe button and join the conversation! 🔔   #DigitalSocialHour #SeanKelly #CameronJohnson #Entrepreneurship #StartupAdvice #BusinessTips   #leanstartup #startupplaybook #raisingcapital #startupfunding #startupinsights   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:35 - Cameron Johnson Biography 04:58 - Prolon Overview 06:38 - Waymo Technology Insights 07:54 - AI Trends and Innovations 08:38 - Media Investment Strategies 09:18 - Podcast Recommendations 09:38 - Future Plans for Cameron 09:58 - Maintaining Drive and Ambition 10:28 - How to Connect with Cameron   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Cameron Johnson https://x.com/cameronjohnson https://www.cameronjohnson.com/ https://www.facebook.com/cameronjohnsoninc https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronjohnson/   SPONSORS: Prolon: http://prolonlife.com/DSH   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/

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sportsbook worth a celly, and an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I think what's going to be more interesting is whether or not people actually own cars because right now 95% of cars are not used on a daily. You use your car five percent of the time a day. Yeah. And so you've got all of this expensive, if you call it a car real estate,

you've got these expensive car real estate. They're just sitting in parking garages or sitting in a driveway or a garage at home all day. And so I think ultimately, you know, you can see a lot more shared ownership. All right guys, Cameron Johnson here here our first Amfest together we're just talking about how fun it's been. It's been great. Yeah great turnout, huge event, lots of speakers, everybody's having a good time. Yeah and you're not a beginner to entrepreneurship, your first company at nine years old. Started my first business when I was nine years old. It was a small business, a printing company, printing greeting cards and stationery and it was when I was 12 I started

selling beanie babies over the internet. You remember the craze or you might not have even been born. I caught the tail end. I heard of them. I never had. Okay. Well, it was right in my childhood. And so when I was 12, I started selling Beanie Babies over the internet. I was making 50 grand a year. Crazy. And back then that's decent. It was a lot of money. It's still a lot of money, but I'd probably be almost six figures right now. Right. Exactly. With inflation these days. Yeah. Inflation is nuts. So those kind of fell. Right, exactly, with inflation these days. Yeah, inflation's nuts. So those kind of fell off though, right, Beanie Babies? Yeah, fortunately I migrated into some internet companies

that were a lot larger, but I actually got out of the Beanie Baby business only because I was heading into middle school and I didn't want to be teased or known as the Beanie Baby kid. So that's why I got out of the business. But I started an online advertising company called surfingpzes.com

and we had 200,000 customers in wealthy countries. When I was in middle school, when I was 14 and we were doing a hundred thousand a week in revenue. Holy crap. Yeah. And so why don't you just drop out at that point? Well, I wanted to graduate high school. I did not plan to go to college

because I always told my parents, Michael Dell didn't graduate college, you know, go down the list. Richard Branson didn't graduate high school. I would always cite all of these successful entrepreneurs. My parents Michael Dell didn't graduate college. Uh, you know, go down the list for Trebranson didn't graduate high school. I would always cite all of these successful entrepreneurs. My parents wanted me to go to college. I went to Virginia tech for one semester. I raised 10 million for a company I started and then I dropped out.

Once you got the money, once I, yeah, I didn't drop down. Yeah. Similar to me. I wasn't at those numbers, but once I had some revenue in my business, I think they're more receptive to dropping out. Yeah, exactly. I had a plan at that point. You know, it wasn't like receptive to dropping out. Yeah, exactly. I had a plan at that point. It wasn't like a one-hit wonder. How tough was it raising that money?

So this would have been $19.99. And so the dot-com craze was still going on. They would say $2,000 was really the bust. So I actually went out to raise $5 million and my partner and I ended up being offered $10 million. We ended up turning down the venture capital though, because what we're good at is being entrepreneurs and sort of being CEOs. And if we had taken on the money, we would have been minority shareholders. And we saw that as, oh, well now we're just an employee. So sure, it sounds like a lot of money, but it's not going to us. It's to fuel growth. And we thought that we wouldn't be calling the shots anymore that the investors would. So we actually turned it down. That makes sense. I'm too young to remember the internet bust. I was four years old in 2000. Talk to us about what happened then. Did you

see that coming at all? So I didn't necessarily see the internet bust coming. But the bust was mainly companies that had no revenue. And so it was, you know, a pets.com back in the day and all of these different dot com one hit wonders that were raising a ton of money, but they had no revenue. And so, um, that was really what the bust was primarily. Um, my businesses were always profitable. I had 12 before I was 21 millionaire before out of high school. Um, they were all profitable, but that's because our expenses were always low. I didn't go out and you see all these companies at the time that were getting these really expensive huge office buildings. We didn't do any of

that. You know, we were teenagers starting a company virtually. My partners, my two partners in serving prizes, we had never even met in person when we started the company. So we built a multimillion dollar company when we were 14 and we never even met in person. That's nice. I think operating lean is good. I was never a fan of companies raising pre-revenue unless they absolutely needed the money. Right, right. But most of them need to be in some specialized industry, healthcare or something else that's unique to be able to raise money pre-revenue. Just to make sense.

But just the psychology of using someone else's money is different than how you're going to use your own. Totally. And I always, you know, you respect your own money because you worked hard to earn it. So that's why I've never, still to this day, never taken outside investor money. You never raised money even to this day, which is impressive because you're running

some huge companies. Exactly. How many companies do you have right now, Ron? So I'm an investor in probably 75 plus startup companies and they're not all startup now. Hopefully they've all grown to some level. And then I own a chain of car dealerships in Virginia called the Magic City Auto Group. And so, yeah. Yeah, you're a chain of car dealerships in Virginia called the Magic City Auto Group.

And so yeah, yeah, your fourth generation car dealer, right? Fourth generation car dealer. So I took the proceeds that I had made from my internet companies. And I said, you know, I preached everything starting up as go lean, right? Start from, you know, at the time, it was my childhood bedroom when I started my business. But keep your overhead low, and then it's so much easier to reach profitability. Now I do the complete opposite of that. We have really, really expensive assets, 50 plus acres of land across our dealerships, hundreds of employees, the exact opposite of everything I did growing up. Get ready for Las Vegas style action at Bet MGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for. When you play classics like MGM Grand Millions

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and I bought out all of our family members, got it all 15 years ago. Nice. You probably meet some cool people in that space, at least I've met a lot of cool people that are other successful entrepreneurs growing up my entire life. Yeah. And then also in the car business, there's a lot of successful, there's a lot of change happening in the car business now too, which is good. Yeah. So what are your predictions with that with electric, like every year it gets more and more? Yeah. So EVs are only growing at a really rapid pace. Um, they've slowed a little bit in the past year, but that, I'm sure that'll pick back up.

Um, what's, what's really interesting is I think what's next with self-driving, you know, when we're here in Phoenix, where they have Waymo. I took a Waymo back from dinner last night and I've done it many times. I've been in Phoenix and, uh, I think it's going to be interesting. What happens ultimately with car ownership. So forget whether it's an electric or it's an ICE engine, internal combustion engine. I think what's going to be more interesting is whether or not people actually own cars. Because right now, 95% of cars are not used on a daily.

You use your car 5% of the time a day. And so you've got all of this expensive, if you call it a car real estate, you've got these expensive car real estate. They're just sitting in parking garages or sitting in a driveway or a garage at home all day. And so I think ultimately, you could see a lot more shared ownership. Yeah, I love that you're being proactive about that as a car dealer.

That must worry a lot of car dealers, but some might not even be aware of that trend. Well, and I like to look at it from the other angle too. So if ultimately, if I'm not selling to the end user, well, maybe I'm the one that owns the cars that is leasing them in the fleet to when people need them or where maybe Maybe I'm the guy that owns the way most that are out on there on the you know, friends I think it in a San Fran is that Waymo and San Francisco ran is yep And they're also here in Phoenix. I couldn't believe it did I took it to dinner took it back to the bridge

It was not it's a third of the price. Yeah, it felt unreal. Yeah. Like I literally got in. No one was there. Right. I know. We're like talking to yourself. It's like, uh, like AI is really a dancing man. Totally. Totally. Yeah. You investing in AI companies right now? I've invested in a number of AI companies and then you've seen obviously the boom. You know, I look at AI is almost similar to the 1999 2000.com boom and.com bust only because it's hard to know what to invest in. It's hard to know what's actually going to stick. And as much as we talk

about Chad GBT and all the names that Jim and I and all the ones that we can name, who knows what's ultimately going to be, you know, the one that everybody ultimately uses. Yeah. Is that why you invest in so many different companies? You're kind of hedging your bet. You're trying to hedge the bet and spread it around. Yeah. Cause if you invest in five and none of them hit. Yeah. And what I try to do too, is I'm usually trying to bet on the entrepreneur themselves, right? Bet on the jockey, not the horse. Yeah. And so over time, I feel like I've gotten better and better at that. Have you looked into the alternative media podcast space at all?

As an investment, I haven't, but I'm obviously aware and seen some of these deals that have gotten done. deals. Right. Last week, hot ones, the show where they eat the spicy wings, 82 million. Yeah, it's insane. It's not just for eating wings and they weren't even profitable. That's the crazy part to me. Right. They were moving on. I don't want to call that's a bust, but a potential bust. But I mean, that's an expensive investment for something that is not profitable. Yeah. I mean they got the views though. So if they tie the right product or service to,

I don't know how many views are getting a month, but it's a lot. Right. I could see it maybe in ROI, but it's a tough one. Yeah, that's your space. Yeah, I mean it's good for me. It's definitely good for you. All these deals are good for you. Yeah, these Spotify deals, Caller Dating, Rogan.

Exactly. You listen to any shows? I do. Which was Rogan for sure. And soon I'll be listening to yours on a regular basis. Let's go. Yeah. I've gotten familiar with your background and Amazing. Yeah. It's hard to be Rogan though. I still listen to Rogan. I'm a stubby guy.

Yeah. He's great. I mean, a lot of his guests come on and I'm like, I'm constantly studying him. He's the goat in my, he is. Yeah. He's awesome. 3,500 episodes. Well, what's next for you, Matt? What's next for me? You know, I always, I've been asked this question since I started my first business I had 30 years ago. And, you know, I always say, people used to ask, what's your favorite company that you've ever had? And I always say the one I haven't started yet.

Love it. Because I'm always looking for something new and whatever the next challenge is. Do you still have that same hunger you did when you were in your 20s starting out? I have the same hunger, but I don't know that I have the same risk appetite. So I like to take risks, but calculated risks.

Whereas when you're younger and you're living in your parents, your room at your parents' house or in your college dorm room, that's why I always encourage young people to start a business is because you can take all the risk in the world and your house isn't gonna get foreclosed on,

your car's not gonna get repossessed. And you've got that sort of that safety net. Of course I've got a nice safety net these days, but my risk appetite's probably changed. I love it, man. Where can people find you? CameronJohnson.com and a quick Google search. Awesome. Check them out, guys. Thanks for coming on. Cool. Thank you. See ya. Vegas style action at BedMGM, the king of online casinos.

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