Founder's Story - I Bootstrapped OddsJam to $160M—Everything I Learned Along the Way | Ep 221 with Alexander Monahan founder of OddsJam
Episode Date: May 16, 2025Alex Monahan, Stanford engineer turned sports betting entrepreneur, joins Founder's Story to reveal how he bootstrapped OddsJam—dubbed the Bloomberg Terminal for Sports Betting—to a $160 milli...on exit. From obsessing over data to outworking every competitor, Alex shares the gritty journey from side hustle to acquisition, the power of YouTube for growth, and why he’s still not done building. If you’ve ever wondered what it really takes to win in a high-stakes, high-growth niche—this is the playbook.Key Discussion PointsThe Obsession That Sparked a Startup: Why Alex's love for data, poker, and probability planted the seed for OddsJam.From Reddit to Revenue: How early Reddit posts and $6 subscriptions helped them land their first customers.The $20K MRR YouTube Days: Why DIY content outperformed influencers—and how one video changed the game.The Math Behind the Millions: How understanding sports betting odds led to a product users couldn’t find anywhere else.Exit Without Burnout: Why selling didn’t change his life—and how growing slowly kept him grounded.Building a Data Moat: How they acquired their data provider and outpaced competitors with speed and accuracy.Founder Lessons in Focus: Why juggling multiple startups never works—and why you need to outwork everyone.Key TakeawaysDon’t build for hype—build what you wish existed.Your edge is what you obsess over when no one’s watching.Distribution is a weapon—master YouTube, Twitter, and content that teaches.Staying focused beats being flashy—especially when billion-dollar markets are on the line.Closing ThoughtsOddsJam wasn’t built on luck. It was built on obsession, precision, and the relentless grind of a founder who knew where his edge was—and ran with it. Whether you’re launching your first business or gunning for your own exit, Alex’s journey is a reminder: master your niche, own your platform, and never stop betting on yourself.Our Sponsors:* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com* Check out Square: https://square.com/go/founderAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting your business should be simple. That's why I love what Northwest's registered agent
is doing. You can build your entire business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes.
Seriously, whether you're launching your first company or your fifth, you get more when you
start with Northwest. More privacy, more guidance, and more freedom to run your business from
anywhere. They've helped businesses grow for nearly 30 years and they've got your back.
For just $39 plus state fees,
Northwest will form your business,
create a custom website and set up a local presence
anywhere you need it.
One more, they'll protect your identity
by using their address on your formation documents
and their premium mail forwarding
gives you a real business address that keeps your home info private which I have used this service
for many years. Don't wait, protect your privacy, build your brand and set up your
business in just 10 clicks in 10 minutes. Visit NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com
slash founders and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent
at NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com slash founders. Hey everyone welcome back to
Founders Story. We got an incredible episode. Everyone has been asking, they
want to find out what it's like to sell your business for over a hundred million.
So that's why we have Alex Monahan,
the engineer turned entrepreneur,
graduated from Stanford and founded Odds Jam,
which has been titled
the Bloomberg Terminal of Sports Betting
and sold for $160 million back in December,
which is insane.
Alex, that's like everyone's dream.
If I could sell my company for $160 million, I'll be pretty happy. So let's go back though.
Let's go back in time. What was the spot for entrepreneurship for you?
I mean, honestly, I had a ton of, I feel like in college, you know, or just when I was younger,
everyone has ideas for businesses, but they never took
off. I'd experiment in college with, oh, I should try this. I should try this. I never
really liked any of the things I was working on. I also feel like I never really had an
edge, but the way odds jam came to be is I took my first job out of college. I've always loved gambling.
I love poker.
You know, with the $14 in my Robinhood account,
I liked like trading stocks,
just honestly anything that was gambling,
making bets with my friends.
So I took a job in trading in Pennsylvania
at this company called Susquehanna
and sports betting legalized,
like right when I took the job.
So, I mean, there was probably a period of six months before really sports betting really took
off. We're in the office, you know, at a trading firm, people talked about their wives, what they
were doing in the weekend. But then like, I mean, everybody, these guys, you know, traders, right, like they're trading calls, puts, natural gas, these complex
financial products, a ton of people got interested in sports
betting. So it kind of became the talk of the office. And
honestly, I started sports betting, and I had a lot of
resources like my bosses at the time, you know, these guys were
really successful in trading these complex financial
products and they kind of taught me a lot about sports betting. So I started to bet
a ton myself, like, I mean, tons, like hours and hours and hours a day. I would get home
from work. I was in a new city. I didn't really know anybody. I would gamble, gamble, gamble, talk to my work colleagues, go watch games with them, gamble, gamble, gamble.
And to be clear, this wasn't just like, oh, let's bet on the Lakers. We like LeBron. Like data-driven sports betting, like, you know, when there was literally nothing to do, I spent a ton of time sports betting researching it. And ultimately, it was just like, I think, you know, as more states start to legalize, there's a huge opportunity to bring actually good products to sports betting.
Because a lot of the stuff I would look for because I'm a huge sports better myself, I used to bet tons. I mean, I was gambling very seriously for two years
before we even started the business. So I was like, this is
what I would want. There's nothing like it. All the content
is horrible. It's just guys flexing Rolexes and Ferraris and
claiming, you know, they can see the future and know if the
Lakers are going to win the the, the championship.
Like, so I kind of thought like, wow, there's really a data driven, there's a
need for like data, right?
There's hundreds of sports books launching in the U S basically a Bloomberg
terminal for gambling for sports betters.
Cause nobody has access to data right now.
And also all the content sucks.
So there needs to be somebody in some company that's actually putting out good content on the math behind sports betting, what is plus 200? What is minus 200? What's the difference? What's the difference in win probability? How does a sportsbook calculate parlay odds like all this basic stuff, right? The math behind sports betting, nobody did content on it. There was no data in sports betting
So we kind of started odds jam to try to be the Bloomberg terminal for sports betting real-time odds from every buck
Consolidated packaged into different pools at affordable pricing for consumers
To ideally try to help them, you know become better sports betters
We hear this a lot with other successful entrepreneurs you You find a problem that you want to be solved
and then you solve that problem knowing
that other people probably want the same thing
that you want yourself and then you build it based on that.
So you build this, you know the concept, the idea,
you've been in the space, you start to implement it.
Some of the hardest things is getting those first customers or first clients
How was that process for you in the beginning?
Scary, I mean, you know, I quit my job which I mean I was young right I was
24 25 at the time. So like we kind of thought about it my co-founder and I if we could make
30k MRR a month 30 K a month, like, and
we can travel, you know, I can go to Arizona, like, I mean,
it's so cold in Pennsylvania, it's always snowing. It's like,
if I can get out of here, get out of this corporate rut,
getting up at seven to like go into the office, like, and I
liked my job, to be clear, I love gambling. So I really
enjoyed trading. But like, I was I definitely, be clear, I love gambling, so I really enjoyed trading. But I definitely, I'm not the biggest fan of Pennsylvania.
I don't know anybody there.
I don't have family there, whatever.
So I would say it was really scary.
We just kind of grinded.
We made some posts on Reddit.
We made some posts in sports betting groups.
And the product initially was priced at like six bucks.
And very quickly, we started getting subscribers.
So then we increased the price for new subscribers.
And really nothing changed.
We kept getting, if we'd make a post for $6 or $50,
same amount of people kept coming in.
So we started reinvesting a little bit of that money
into influencers.
We paid a guy to make a YouTube video, got like
70 customers in a day, which at the time, you know, 50 bucks a
month, like, I mean, it doesn't obviously seem massive, but 3.5
K MRR, it's like, oh my gosh, like, we just need four more of
this. And that's kind of how we started it and got our first
customers. And then from there, I would say the hardest part, we stagnated for a while,
like 20, 30 K MRR revenue per month for like four, four months maybe.
Um, and we had this guy who basically signed up for a product and then he
churned and was like, Hey, I have a bunch of experience running subscription
businesses, whatever reach out to me.
I'm happy to give you tips.
Your product doesn't work for me in Florida because we don't really have Fandual, any
of these sports books, but I'm happy to give you some tips.
And he basically told us like, why are you only paying influencers?
Like both of you guys are such babies, essentially.
Like if you're not willing to put your face your own face behind the product
You know go back to your old jobs and it was harsh advice in some ways, but it was also very true
Right where it's like oh like so then we started doing our own content. I was always scared. I never use social media
I'd never done a YouTube video. I'd never made you know a
done a YouTube video. I'd never made, you know, a tech talk. I'd never gone on an interview, never used Instagram. So then it was like, okay, like, I'll start making some tutorials about the
product. I don't have to wait months for some of these influencers to get it done. I mean,
some of these guys, it's like, you pay him $3,000. It's like, oh, like, you know, whatever,
I decided to go on vacation, I'll get it done a month later And that's really when we really started to take off. I mean there were days we were gaining
$20,000 MRR a day just off a YouTube video when we had a very small channel
so when you when you were looking at this and
Deciding where that you should put this content or the emphasis if you were putting it into many places
When you when you figure
that out, where did you hone in on?
Did you say, okay, we need to double down on this specific social platform or we need
to spread and do more social platforms?
What was working for you?
Yeah, I'd say we started on YouTube because honestly, because that's where our initial
influencers were. We started working with YouTubers who would make
tutorials. So when we saw saw them when they actually did the
work and did the video and didn't do a horrible job, we were
getting a ton of customers, which is why I started with
making YouTube videos. And then it was kind of, you know, all in
on YouTube. I mean, there were days I was printing four or five.
All I was doing was YouTube.
I would start different channels, some about fantasy,
and I would just print YouTube, YouTube, YouTube.
At some point, I don't want to say got tapped,
but we stopped growing as quickly.
So then I got on Twitter, and we saw kind of another huge spike off the bat.
Really the journey from like zero to maybe a hundred and fifty thousand Twitter followers,
just talking about the product, giving out bets with the product, providing a lot of free value,
which I'm a big believer in, is if you do a lot of free content about the way you're finding bets
and why people should think like this. You know, you gain a lot
of credibility and you're providing a lot of free value to people. So we started with YouTube,
then went to Twitter, then went to Twitch, TikTok, whatever. Now we kind of do all them.
YouTube and Twitter, I would say are most important to us or our main platforms. But like,
really anywhere we think sports betters
live we want to be.
Yeah, it's very interesting that you've seen the transitions of sports betting being from
something that I didn't hear much about it.
A lot of states started legalizing it and then I'm seeing like ESPN and there's networks
now that have sports betting integrated with a lot of the
shows.
How has the transition be as sports betting has become bigger and bigger and mainstream
media traditional outlets have started to pick it up?
How did that impact odds jam?
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of we definitely got I don't want to say we didn't do a good
job, but it definitely helped to be early,
right?
By that, I mean, we had money to reinvest in kind of the more states that legalized
sports betting, the second estate legalizes gambling, you have all of these multi-billion
dollar companies shoving, I mean shoving, it's every billboard, every TV ad TV ad every sports broadcast every commercial break, right?
Like shoving sports betting down people's throats
So as more and more people start to gamble more people naturally search out of bed on sports on YouTube
Which drives more people to us which ultimately increases our revenue?
So in many ways we piggybackbacked by providing free content.
We piggybacked off of the, I mean, just gross advertising budgets of sportsbooks, who they
do the hard work of spending billions of combined dollars a quarter to try to gain market share
and get people to gamble.
And then we just step in and provide the actually valuable content,
tutorials, all that stuff. So it's been huge. It's everywhere. And I mean, sports betting,
especially obviously, obviously, it depends, you know, what state you're in. Some states
still don't have online regulated sports betting. But I mean, you know, I mean,
when I was in Pennsylvania even,
when I still had my full-time job and started to gamble,
I feel like it was everywhere.
I mean, just billboards, TV commercials, it was everywhere.
It's like every billboard is sports betting or an attorney.
Exactly.
For injury or sports betting.
Exactly.
Get in the car accident, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, when you looked at yourself and what you had to change personally as the company continued to grow
What changes did you have to make? Yeah, I mean at first it's a lot of it was just being scrappy doing things
I honestly still wouldn't say I'm comfortable with like I really liked in many ways before odds jam
You know living a very private
life I gamble when I want to gamble.
So now just kind of like having to do content consistently like that was in some ways a
learned skill but also just a learned barrier or like a barrier I had to overcome a fear
in some ways like a lot of people have fears of public speaking, putting themselves
out there. I definitely did too. So something like that, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna have
some people who don't like you who think your advice sucks and you're an idiot and you lose
them a bet and they're mad. So some stuff like that at first and then kind of just transitioning to,
you know, actually being a founder, right, Hiring, right? Um, I think that
that was challenging at first hiring and managing, you know, I
just left college, I've never managed somebody I've never had
to hire and make hard decisions hiring and firing, you know,
capital allocation, do we want to get another engineer? Do we
want to get a growth person? Do we want to build this feature or
this feature? So you know, in some ways to, you know, at odds
jam, like we we acquired a few smaller businesses, one of them
was our main competitor, initially, and just like how to
think about those things, how to how to try to, you know, we
acquired our initial data provider, which kind of really is what allowed
the business to have a data advantage, to have the fastest data, the most comprehensive data,
and really, in some ways, help us have the best product on the market by far. So I would say all
those things I never expected, but just kind of like figured it out. And again, I think like if you're trying to
do the right thing, and you roughly know what you want to do,
hiring isn't that bad, right? Like I've created content now
for odds jam. We've hired some some people who who do content,
whether they're contractors or whatever. And like, I kind of
know, I'm no expert, but I kind of know
what works, what works for us, what platforms work for us, what messaging. So you can kind of
tell when someone resonates. At the same time, I used to write some of our marketing emails.
I kind of know what works, what gets clicks, what subject lines, you know, all that sort of stuff. So when we're when we went out tire an email marketer, who we now have like a
full time employee just writes emails, sales and marketing, like I kind of know the type
of person who I think will be a good fit. So a little bit of a learned skill, but I feel
like a lot of it happens naturally. I had a mentor once tell me, be an inch deep and a mile wide.
Know a little bit about a lot of things so you can tell.
If you hire a vendor and you don't want to get screwed over, know at least enough.
I think in the digital marketing space, that's always something I have a big proponent on
is I want to know a little bit about how to do ads, SEO, because
you just don't know.
I mean, it's really easy, I think, to get screwed over as a founder many times.
Let's go to the date when you heard or whatever, however it went down in terms of the acquisition.
So when you were on a call in a meeting, whatever that was like, and you found out that you
got this offer, whatever that was like, and you found out that you got this offer.
What was that like?
Yeah, I'd say we knew, like we'd known the founders of like gambling.com for a while,
kind of their executive team, like I had dinner with them.
So it's not like it was a complete shock or like, who are these guys?
I've never heard of this company, you know, they're definitely one of the leading
companies, there aren't that many public companies, right in
the sports betting industry, who are in sports books, like we all
know DraftKings, but what other companies kind of exist in the
ecosystem. I'd also say like people, maybe the first time
someone reached out and was like, Oh, you have a cool
business, like would love to buy it was like kind of exciting
and you got a rush. But most of the time, it's like, complete bs
and also, if anything, we turn we just kind of like got out the
noise for most of the business. Because I think like, it's hard
to be really heads down and focused focused on growth,
building long term value really focused on driving customer's value.
If you're also like running around,
constantly thinking about this type of stuff.
But I think we realized at Oddjam,
like, you know, there's probably more we can do
and we can grow faster and get our data more places.
If we have the right partner who's really well connected
all throughout the world,
because we're mainly at odds jam, right a US business, but like, how can we expand to
Canada, Europe, get our data in the hands of other companies as well. And we kind of
saw it as a fit. So I would say it was exciting, but also like, you know, we had good bankers, we had good lawyers during the sale process.
So really what I tried to do is stay heads down as much as possible, right?
And just focus on the day to day, continuing to grow the business, have a solid foundation.
So if the deal did fall through, like we still have a business, and we still have a lot of opportunity. And we're executing on the
right ideas to continue to grow into next into, you know, 2025,
2026, whatever. So I would say it was exciting, but it just
kind of like happened because I tried to keep it out of my mind
until literally the day the deal is done is like, this is
happening, maybe but like, I'm operating, so I don't go through these huge emotional swings or
whatever, I want to be happy in either situation and feel like
we're going to crush it and like continue to dominate this
industry whether it happens or not. So I tried to largely keep
it out of my mind. Like it's really hard, I feel like to stay
focused on the day today grinding to grow the business
if you're imagining yourself on a yacht.
And then if the deal doesn't go through, you're going to be miserable.
So I just try to isolate it and be like, this is cool.
Lawyers, bankers are working on it.
I'm helping.
I'm joining some meetings.
But my number one priority is making sure we're driving customer's value, continuing
to grow the business, executing on the right ideas,
have the right product roadmap, have the right team, designers,
product people, engineers, whatever.
I think most business owners, at least in the U S an exit is
really a pinnacle or peak moment. It's, it's what a lot of them are going for.
So when you look back at,
I know you were at the 30 million ARR mark for revenue.
When you look back at what attracted them to it,
beyond the revenue that you were making,
was there anything else that companies look at
when they want to acquire a company?
Yeah, I mean, I think profit margin, right?
Like revenue is obviously great,
but there are some companies, right, who are who are unprofitable. So at Audsium, we were,
you know, profitable. And also, I just think there's a lot of expansion opportunities. Like,
again, we are and it's hard to put a finger on some of those things like how to quantify. But
I do think the company has a lot of room to run.
We have probably the best data in the industry.
In my opinion, we've really only penetrated the U S which is a tiny sports
betting market relative to the rest of the world.
If you think about, you know, the U S just legalized sports betting.
It's not in Texas, right?
It's not even in some of the biggest States in the US. So I think we have a lot
of room to run, there's still more states to legalize. So
there's still a lot of growth in the industry ahead. And I think
also we have a good team, right? Like this is, we have a tech
advantage, we have a data advantage. And we also have a
great team, where we're not reliant on one person, I could
die tomorrow, and odds jam would be could still be super successful
We have a great head of growth. We have a great head of product. We have a great CTO
You know, we have people executing on the right ideas. We're all aligned on what we're trying to build
so I mean obviously the financial metrics are important, but at the same time, I think it's just like growth potential of the industry.
And like, you know, again, like we didn't try every marketing channel, right?
Like we are largely a US company.
We never really even tried to expand into other countries with much more developed sports betting markets. Horse racing, you think about like, we never even tried to expand into other countries with much more developed sports betting markets, horse racing, you think
about like, we never even tried. And like, there's definitely
opportunity and room to run, you know, kind of for the business,
which I think is obviously important to gambling.com or
acquire. And there's a lot of places you can use the data. I
mean, we constantly have startups, media companies who
want to include betting widgets now in their articles and stuff like that
Because again like sports betting really has taken over so much
So if you're a media site nowadays like you know
You kind of want these types of things
Because there's money to make in sports betting and most importantly more of your consumers
Want to see this type of information because most of them are gambling at this point. Yeah, I know a lot of people in 20s and 30s. Before I would have thought
it was maybe 40, 50, and a 50, 60 up. I know many people, 20s and 30s that are into this and they're
like, they're diehard sports betting or sports fans that are really getting into it. So we've had a recent entrepreneur on who had a
significant exit like yours. They didn't remain much afterwards. They got very depressed and they
had to walk through, you know, what do they do next in their life? And I thought that was an
interesting take on it. How was the post acquisition for you? And where do you spend most of your time now?
Yeah, I would say I mean, I would say odds jam like.
We kind of I mean, I love my job, right?
I like sports and I like gambling.
I'm a sports nut.
I, you know, grew up playing sports, obviously was not good enough
to to play at any actually competitive level. but like I enjoy sports. I love gambling. So those aren't things that are faded. It's not like I'm miserable. You know, I'm staying on at the acquiring company, we have financial incentives to stay on. And like, you know, I'm happy and I want to continue to see my baby succeed. I do think there's a lot of opportunity to run
So in some ways it's like the company sold and like oh your life massively changed in other ways
It hasn't really changed. I'm still working in sports on betting at the same, you know in the same thing
Overall now I'm a part of a bigger company and really just trying to build the best tools
overall, now I'm a part of a bigger company, and really just trying to build the best tools, provide the best data, the best
content to sports betters, educate sports betters, bring in
new users. So like, in some ways, life hasn't changed that
much. Also at odds jam, like, you know, we didn't have
investors. So we never had pressure to sell, we never had
pressure in any way. And also, you know, in some ways, what
that means is like, we gradually grew into wealth, right? Like we went from
a company where my co founder and I right, I said, I think at
the start, we wanted to make like 30k a month, right have 15k
each to travel. So like going from 30 to 50 to 100 to $1
million a month, like, when you kind of gradually move up in wealth,
I feel like there's no like massive change
or like life shift maybe that necessarily happens.
Like we're already making good money
and could have continued to run the business
and be very happy.
So in many ways it's like where I'm living,
all that sort of stuff hasn't really changed
I think I heard yeah
I heard like a previous interview with another founder who said something similar is just like I mean if you run like a
Company where you're paying yourself
$30,000 salary and doing that for 10 years and then you have an exit like how it can like completely
Warp your brain and you start blowing money and then you get depressed
and you're partying and you're traveling and doing these crazy
things. But kind of at odds jam like, you know, it on my
everything happened so slowly. In some ways. I mean, it
obviously happened somewhat quickly. But at the same time,
things progress slowly, we're like, my life hasn't really
changed. Since the company's been been bought.
I mean, maybe a little less pressure in some ways, more pressure in other ways.
But overall, I'm still working on the same things, which I like.
So overall, I mean, pretty uneventful answer.
But I do think it's truth. Yeah that's amazing I mean the fact that you
bootstrapped this company and you slowly built it and you slowly built into it
you didn't have all that pressure it seems like a lot of people they just
really quick to want to take money but don't realize there's gonna be pressure
they can kick get kicked out of their own company there's a lot of people
making decisions above them now.
They're basically almost working for somebody else
in that sense.
So the fact that you were able to slowly build this
and build into the wealth,
I think that's a really fascinating perspective.
I have a question around hours worked, burnout balance.
There's a huge debate now around, can I be a founder
and see success and work? I don't want to work 15 hours a day. I don't want to get burnt
out. I want to have balance. I want to do all these things and still be able. But other
people, many successful people we've had on said, no, they had to work 20 hours a day.
Their business was all that they could do. Many got divorced, many you had ruined
relationships because they were they had to focus so much on the
company balance was all that they could do. So what is your
perspective on this?
I think most of the burnout has been internal, like frustration
with myself, my own performance. Again, I like gambling.
I like sports.
I watch sports.
I gambled as a hobby.
So obviously working in sports and gambling
is a bit different than, you know,
sitting there and just turning on the TV
and opening DraftKings all day.
So obviously it's a little different,
but in many ways it's like,
I never felt burnt out because it's a little different. But in many ways, it's like, I never felt burnt out
because it's things I kind of like, like I truly enjoyed to do. I think I would be burnt out if I
had to work 40 hours a week in a healthcare job, because I don't care. Like, it's just like, it's
not not that I don't care. That sounds horrible. But like, I'm never going to be the guy who's like,
not not that I don't care that sounds horrible, but like, I'm never going to be the guy who's like, I just want to grind and
start a medical company. And like, it's just not something
I'm super passionate about. I wake up thinking about I think
in the shower about and obviously, I think it's super
important to society and have a lot of respect for people who
work on that type of thing. But like, or like, you know, I'm not
some super nerdy
electrical engineer, I want to build a better airplane, like I could never do that type of business. I don't know anything
about it. But also, like, I'm not interested in it. So like, I
probably will never know anything about it. So I mean, I
definitely feel like you have to work a lot. But I do think a lot
boils down to to working smart to right? I don't think I mean, I
definitely worked more hours at first than I do now, because we didn't have money. So
like, you had to do everything right? Sales, email marketing design product, like it was
me and my co founder. But I remember the first day we hired our first employee who ended
up doing customer support.
Cause when our YouTube videos started taking off, we would have, I mean,
there were days we'd get.
One of the best things I've ever done for my personal growth was picking up a
new language, whether you're traveling, leveling up your career,
or just love learning.
Speaking another language opens up many doors and Rosetta Stone makes it easier,
more immersive, more fun.
It's the leading language learning program available right on your desktop or mobile.
Rosetta Stone helps you learn naturally, just like you picked up your first language
through real world context and conversation.
Just practical skills you can use right away.
What I love most is the true accent speech recognition.
It gives you real time feedback so your pronunciation actually sounds like a native speaker.
With 30 years experience, millions of learners in 25 languages choose from like Spanish, also Tagalog, which I'm learning.
Rosetta Stone is the go-to for anyone serious about learning fast and retaining it long term.
Don't wait.
Unlock your language learning potential now.
Founders story listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's
lifetime membership for 50% off.
That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life.
Visit rosettastone.com slash today to get started
and claim your 50% off today.
Don't miss out, go to rosettast Stone dot com slash today and start learning today.
You ever get stuck at checkout and suddenly feel like you're back at 2003?
I was in this coffee shop the other day.
Their system froze when I went to pay staff panic.
I ended up walking out empty handed. I was so annoyed.
That's why I love businesses that use Square.
There's a dessert shop that I go to right in Irvine.
And with Square, the checkout is always instant.
Tap, swipe, done.
Even if the Wi-Fi goes down, Square keeps running.
Sleek, easy to use and built to grow with your business.
Whether you're selling online at a pop up or managing multiple locations,
which I have done in the past, you need something like Square.
And the best thing is it makes it simple
from payments to inventory reporting to customer loyalty,
which is everything Square keeps up
so you don't have to slow down.
Get everything you need to run and grow your business
without any long-term commitments.
And why wait?
Right now you can get up to $200 off Square Hardware
at square.com slash go slash founder. That's squre.com slash go slash founder. Run your
business smarter with Square. Get started today.
When you realize you need to hire, it's usually already too late. I've been there wasting weeks waiting for decent candidates.
If I had used Indeed, I could have hired way faster.
So when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need.
Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites.
Indeed sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast.
With sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates
so you can reach the people you want faster.
And it makes a huge difference.
According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs
posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications
than non-sponsored jobs.
One thing I love about Indeed, it makes hiring fast
because it puts you right in front of the right people
without wasting time.
Plus there are no monthly subscriptions,
no long-term contracts.
You only pay for results.
And while I've been talking, 23 hires
were made on Indeed worldwide.
There's no need to wait any longer.
Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed.
And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit
to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com
slash founders story.
Just go to indeed.com slash founders story right now and
support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this
podcast.
Indeed.com slash founders story.
Terms and conditions apply.
Hiring indeed is all you need.
500 messages and emails.
And that's when it was like, I'm just overwhelmed.
Like in some ways you're super excited.
It's like, dude, like I remember looking at my co-founder,
went to Florida to visit our, one of our advisors.
And I was like, dude, there are like 500 people
who want to put their credit card into our site,
but they just have questions.
Like that's crazy. So I think in some ways, that was
really exciting. But I think like the second we hired our
first customer service guy, it's like, in many ways, I started
working less right off the bat, but then started working on
other things. But I don't know. But at the same time, I do
think like if you're not paranoid and grinding, like,
there's always someone who when you're out partying, drinking on
9 p.m. on a Friday, your competitor who sees your success and that you're
making money, they're coming after you.
And some of them may be stupid and slow or horrible engineers.
But like the bigger you get, eventually you're going to have someone
really good biting at your, you know, who's coming
after you. So I do think like, it is important to outwork the
competition, for sure. But I also think it's like, what are
you trying to build? Right? If you're just trying to like make
enough money to be happy. But if you're trying to like build a
business and outcompete other businesses and take their market share,'re going to have to outwork them. I feel like have
So I definitely think like it's hard to start a company if you're not working at least 70 80 hours a week. But also I think the main thing, my perspective is not being distracted. Like, we have competitors who do like four other businesses.
It's like, oh yeah, I'm like starting
this sports betting company to try to compete with you guys.
I also have this radiology thing and it's like,
they all may make money and stuff,
but you're never gonna outcompete us
as a new player spending 10 hours a week on this, right?
Like when I'm working 80 and we have more money and a team working 80 hours a week,
each person, like it's going to be pretty hard to beat us.
So I do think like picking one thing, if you're really trying to launch a tech company and
like take market share from other people, like, I don't know, like, obviously, there's the crazy geniuses, like, Elon Musk, and,
you know, whatever, but like that people are always like,
well, he can run like six companies. And it's like, yeah,
but like, he's a super genius. And like, you're not I'm not
like, we're regular dudes. So like, you got to pick one thing
if you want to be good at it, and you want to win at it. I
feel like can't play professional basketball,
baseball and football, man, people have tried and they weren't very
successful. So yeah, I like this saying then after you're you're you mentioned this, only
the paranoid will survive. And you have to outwork your competition. I took that away
from this. And then another thing that I found that I liked what you just said was you're
really passionate about it but you're also very good at it.
Yeah I think there's a thing I could be passionate about something maybe I'm not great at it
but if I'm passionate about it and I know I'm great at it and I know what the market
wants like you I can work sometimes 15 16 hours a day somebody so you know said to
me recently like wow you're working like sometimes 6 a.m. and sometimes 11 p.m.
I'm like yeah but I really enjoy it so it's not like burning me out in the
sense I really really enjoy what I'm doing so I took that away from you and
I hope to one day Alex I'm gonna come back to you when I exit for a hundred
million dollars I'm gonna come back and say look I took to one day Alex, I'm going to come back to you when I exit for $100 million, I'm going to come back and say, look, I took the advice of Alex Monahan and here I'm at.
But if he went again, touch with you and then when I find out more information, how can
they do so?
Yeah, I mean, we can include my email in the description.
I can say it now if it's helpful emails best Twitter, I'm on Twitter.
It's Alex Monahan 100. So anybody who has questions about whatever sports betting business
You know really anything like you can you can DM me on Twitter. My DMs are open email Twitter, whatever
This has been great Alex. I learned a lot today
I've been very inspired since the first conversation that we had
I can't wait to learn more about Odds Jam,
about what you're doing, about what you do after.
I'm sure that in a few years from now,
you're gonna be doing something else.
So we gotta make sure that you come back,
tell us what happens then.
The life of an entrepreneur that doesn't exit,
that goes through the acquisition
and then does something else after.
This is like the life cycle
of entrepreneurship. And I'm very happy for everything. I can tell you're like a genuine
good person. And it really comes out. You have you have great energy. So thank you so
much though, for joining us.
Yeah, I appreciate it. You have great energy too. So it's been great. Thank you.
The Heart and Stroke Lottery $50,000 VIP deadline is May 23. Play for your best chance to win $1 million in Ontario. Buy tickets at heartandstrokelottery.ca. Lottery license RAF 14444518
must be 18 plus. Please play responsibly. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it.
What's it?
It's the best deal, the highest cashback,
the most savings on your shopping.
So join Rakuten and start getting cashback
at Sephora, Uniqlo, Expedia, and other stores you love.
You can even stack sales on top of cashback.
Just start your shopping with Rakuten
to save money at over 750 stores.
Join for free at rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N rakuten.ca