Life Wide Open with CboysTV - From Broke to Owning 30 Million In Cars - Steve Hamilton

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Today's podcast with Steve Hamilton, Owner of Custom Offsets, Fitment industries and MUCH more has everything. A legendary origin story, business advice, that's what she said jokes, and what it feels like to have someone crash your 1.6 Million dollar car. Thanks to our sponsors! Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://www.shopify.com/wideopen Get up to 55% off your subscription at https://www.babbel.com/wideopen Follow us on Instagram @cboystv and @lifewideopenpodcast To watch the podcast on YouTube: https://bit.ly/LifeWideOpenYT Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/LifeWideOpenWithCboysTV If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://bit.ly/LifeWideOpenWithCboysTV You can also check out our main YouTube channel CboysTV: https://www.youtube.com/c/CboysTV Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Okay, we got a little bit of a different setup today. I got an intro for you. Keep an official. Today's guest is a business owner turned YouTube creator.

If you've ever bought wheels and tires for your car, you've probably helped him afford the $30 million in cars sitting behind. us right now that he gladly hands the keys over to pretty much anyone to experience and drive welcome on the podcast steve hamilton thank you gentlemen it's awesome to be here at at my headquarters thanks for having us thanks for letting us tear apart your shop and your couch set up and all that my pleasure young man yeah this is sweet dude it's quite quite the setup here what do you call this a car condo uh yeah we call it the car condo we call it the hcq the hamilton collection headquarters that's that's usually what we call on the text yeah dude this is sick and this is new you guys just moved from your house?

Yeah, everything was stored in my house. Prior to that, we had a much smaller unit here. So small unit only fit seven cars. And then I built my house to accommodate like 15 cars. And then the collection got to like 25, 28 cars. So we needed this pretty quickly. Steve, I don't know if you even know this, but we've been working with custom offsets.

I know. I know. For like, I'd say four years now. I think it was like 2018. Yeah. When we first had, we brought our truck to banker and he built it for us down there. so I mean our viewers are super familiar with custom offsets fitment industries so we thought it'd be really cool

to show the man behind the business sure you're becoming a little bit more public with your YouTube channel the Hamilton collection but before that it was nothing like you were you were just like you were just the businessman and you left all the content creation to the custom offset guys and you were kind of just behind the curtains right yeah exactly totally behind the scenes and then technically I kind of stepped away from day-to-day activity and then I got bored immediately. So part of that's why we started the Hamilton collection a little over a year and a half ago.

And so the channel's done really well in just a year and a half and took a lot of what I learned from Custom Offset's Fitment and all the other companies. Added my own clever spin, my personality. We have a great awesome team behind us with Natalia, Tommy, Aiden, and then Lawrence, who does some editing. So just a combination of us all makes for a really fun time. Well, it's kind of cool because a lot of people

become YouTubers to buy cars and to kind of do stuff. But you've almost done it in reverse where you had the business, you had seen success, and then you started YouTubeing. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of strange.

And the awesome thing about that is because I still have the businesses and they're still generating income, I can, I don't have to worry about this being an income stream, to be honest with you. And that's a huge part of the reason why we give everything back.

And so every profit and then some, we give back. There's no money that gets paid out. I mean, technically all the money gets paid to me. and then my wife and I go donate it. So, but yeah, that's what it's all about sharing the cars with the community and then giving back everything that we earn to make sure that people are taking care of, I guess. So it didn't start this way, though.

You didn't have all these cars growing up. You come from very humble beginnings. I think to tell your story, we got to just start at the very beginning. Yeah. So the audience really just knows the come-up story. So how did you get into the wheel and tire industry? I guess backing up, given a little more back, crown like I had to work for everything that I had. I was just joking with my brother yesterday.

We were at this little popcorn shop downtown Wheaton that that sells like penny candy. It still actually does have penny candy even with inflation and everything. They have penny tutsie rolls. And I remember being 12 years old and lying on the application that I was 14 to be able to get a job there. It just showed that like I look at the age of my middle son and he's 12 and I'm like, God, I was I was that young understanding that you needed to have money to be able to get things because there was no money at home like there was there was nothing like I had to go there would be field trips and I would have to show up without five dollars with the permission slip but no money and the teacher would be like oh well we'll make it happen somehow and I don't know

if they still charge for field trips at school but I didn't get to do like there's a big spring field trip there's a big Washington DC trip like forget about all that stuff you really learn the value of a dollar early and so I was extremely driven tried to get that job at 12 they must have run a ran a social security check and that didn't happen. Started working at age 13. There's some weird law in Illinois that allows you to be like a caddy at a golf club. And you don't even have to have, you're not on payroll. Like you can receive cash and there's some just odd caveat where that was okay.

14, 15 worked at McDonald's, 16 and on for the most part. Worked at Jewel, which is a local grocery store. And so like always had that drive, always had that entrepreneurial spirit. There were some other things that I started kind of in between with radio installation, with bike repair, and just kind of. have used that drive to realize that there was a need for wheels and tires. So this was like 2003. I was in my second year of community college and I just was looking for wheels online and realized that, A, people were being successful at it and be like I could probably go do this myself.

So I found a way to get direct with the manufacturer. It took a little bit of finesse and I was able to discover what the actual buying price of these wheels that I was looking at. I was looking at what they were selling on eBay. And this was like almost before drop shipping was a thing. So everything is about timing, right? So right now it's freaking impossible to get into drop shipping, even though YouTube will confuse people into thinking that everybody can be a drop shipper. It's like harder, so much harder now to be successful because you're going up against guys

like me that have been doing this for 20 years. They get the best price that stock that can ship faster. But yeah, I mean, I just started on eBay, drop shipping, selling wheels out of my mom's apartment. And the first, I didn't have to have any money to start it. In the first week, I was receiving money from customers going and buying the product, shipping it, and then keeping the leftover money. It was pretty sweet. How did you finesse them into believing that you were like a wholesaler or a dealer?

I called up and I said I was just around. I'm just like, what's my price on these Eagle 07s? They're like, well, are you a shop? Actually, the guy I talked to, his name was Paul. And he talks, he said, hey, man, we like a you a shit. That's just how we call. I don't know. Paul, we've been doing this for two years, bro.

Stop doing that for your daddy joke. Anyway, that's story for another day. But the second time I called, because they wouldn't give me the pricing first, I'm like, hey, this is Steve from Wheaton Firestone. Could you give me a price on that Eagle 07? And then without hesitation, they're like, yeah, it's $89 a wheel. I'm like, hmm, well, that was pretty easy to go get that price. And while there's money to be made, I need to go over there and get set up as soon as possible.

And I just had this little business card for radio installation that I was doing. totally not a registered LLC or anything. I mean, I was 19 years old at the time. I'm just doing it on the side. And they've signed me up on just a business card. Like, nobody else would do that. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. But after like a week or so, they immediately needed proof that I was a business

because I'd already bought like five or six sets. They're like, this guy's not going to float under the radar. So, yeah. And then I, but I had the money and I had that like, at that point, I'm like, this works. Like, I'm going to figure out how to go get myself legal. And I was able to do that. So were you, like, passionate about wheels or you just saw money to be made and you were like, I'm going to just go all in on that because I can make the most money?

I think it's both. I liked wheels. I had these wheels already actually on my car and I was, what I was looking for was them an 18 inch. That's where the idea of birth. So it didn't come to me when I first bought wheels from them, which I happened to have bought from that Firestone, by the way. It was when I wanted to upgrade.

So I was very into customizing my vehicle. And like, there's a joke about CD players where, every like birthday or or and I've been with my wife since I was she was 15 I was 16 so she'd buy me a CD player for my car and I'd always have every three months I'd have a different piece of crap and uh the joke was I'd put the CD player and install it and then sell the car and like she'd have to get me a new CD player um and so always customizing with that I I've done engine swaps myself um even the stupid stuff where you're just throwing stickers and making your car look special but like always into wheels and automotive customization what kind of cars were you do you

with back then. My first car ever was an 84 Z-28 that I had when I was 14. I bought it from a fellow McDonald's employee, drove at the school at age 14 one time, uh, drag raced in the cemetery and I could never get the title. See, I didn't know what I was doing at the time. Didn't have great mentors as parents. Uh, so yeah, had to, had to part that vehicle out. Um, my first vehicle after that was the day I got my license. I went and bought, or like right around the day I got my license. I bought a 79 F250 for like 500 bucks. And, uh, it was, a really special car to me. I tried finding it again, just because it was my first, but it was an absolute piece of crap. And I've probably had, I don't know,

maybe 15 cars from that until I started my business that were all, you know, sub-2,000 hunks of crap. Just flipping them and... It wasn't intentional. I just got bored of them. Like, I don't think I even made money on most of them. I think I lost money on the vast majority of them. It was more just like... Like Ryan, yeah, too off. Ryan, money on everything he touches. It's funny because my brother, Joel, who's also an owner at all the companies like I never understood it like he he wasn't trying either but he would always make money like no matter what he bought I'd be like how did you go make a thousand bucks and I think it was patience I think that was the difference where I'd be like no I'm sick of that car like I'm just

gonna throw it out offer it at a cheap deal hope I get some cash go buy another car but like that's when the addiction truly started to cars I didn't have 15 cars at the time but I had 15 cars over like a three year period so you've always been a car guy always absolutely yeah some people just have it when making money like flipping and wheeling and dealing like that and some people just don't yeah i'm one of the people who don't i think you're right i think it's patience like i've impulse bought my last two vehicles nice i mean which is fun but it's it definitely is not good for the the trade in value on that yeah they it's hard on the wallet i mean half of what you see behind you were impulse buys but they were like three day well thought well shopped using my like

network of people that find off market cars so like at this point when you buy this many cars you buy this many cars. You connect with a lot of people. A lot of people know off market cars. And that kind of becomes the thing when it's super hyper. And then you can eventually, like that Pagani Roadster that I just bought, I bought at a really good deal where I know that I could sell that within a month and probably make, you know, $3,500,000. And so that's same with the La Farrari that I got. I will be, I will be patient if I need to be. But I'll be impulsive if a deal comes around right away. I had waited, I don't know, nine months, and I kept saying I need to get a a lot of Ferrari at $3 million. Like, I have to get it at $3 million. They were all going for

$3.57. And then I got a phone call from someone, and he's like, it has an oil leak, but it's going to get fixed. But I can do it at $3 million. And I'm like, what color? He's like black. I'm like, well, that's a rare color. I have no problem waiting a month for something to get fixed on someone else's dime. Hell yeah, I'll take that. Like, I've got a half million dollars of instant equity. And it's funny about like the car flipping thing, because as you become a business owner, you just realize that there are so many opportunities. out there that people can take advantage of. Like, I look at Tommy was just talking about buying a, what's it called Tommy?

No, the one online, the Vanderhall, right? Oh, all three. All right. So he's looking at buying a Vanderhall and I'm like, I'm like, and he does some motorcycle flipping. And he looks locally and he does a good job actually flipping. It takes some time. But I'm like, you know, you can run like scrapes to do nationwide searches and then have it like hit you. If it's below a certain price, go look at it, buy it, or establish a network of people around.

that go look and help you and like you could you could really flip anything and and make money if you're good enough at it and it's just fascinating especially in the super and hypercar market where there's a lot of allocations that I get offered to me that even just a commitment for a spot in a car that's coming out in two years I could get and then flip for a mill I've been offered a million bucks plus my deposit that I already put down on a future allocation that I have it's just nuts wow obviously in order to get these cars you need to have your network like you talked about what's like the buying process look like for that you have to have straight cash or like you can you can finance uh for sure but um it it depends so let's call it kind of three different categories there's

the supercar uh typically you're going to want to put down you know call it 25 plus percent and you can finance i buy the vast if not all of my now the vast majority of my supercars i just pay cash um especially now because the interest rates are a little bit higher right so it's less attractive to go take a two hundred thousand dollar loan um hypercars are a little hard to do for it obviously we're two plus million dollars. And so I own a few of them. I finance a few of them. I got a lot of them on notes that were, you know, sub 4% back in the day when it was a lot cheaper. And so like I'll put down a half million dollars or I think I put down, you know, over a million on my P1 on my Senate. I put down, I think a half a million. And you do need to put down a higher amount when you're

going to finance. That was one of my questions. Yeah. Like you can't you really like if it's a million plus you can't you can't put down like 200 let's say 30 to 40% and you're probably okay um so really someone can't go fake that they're right you can you can fake to an extent but uh not at that level yeah i mean yeah that's what she said so uh i counted in my safe i think i had about 20 titles and we've got just shy of 30 vehicles so i'm financing what eight or nine vehicles but if i can finance it you know, 4% average and I can go invest that money at eight or nine percent. Like I almost should finance the entire fleet at that point if I can go reinvest that money. But I'm at a point in my life where I just really want to simplify things and not have to go work. I mean, two years ago,

I owned like, I don't know, 70 different units, apartment buildings, many, many, many businesses, LLCs. And it's, I've, I've scaled it down to 30% of what it was and I'm trying to get it down to just my core wheel entire businesses. Why? Just because simplifying things, just because it's easier? I mean, I think I look at how many things I was juggling and it's like, gosh, like that's, it's just crazy to think that that someone can mentally handle that much. And I've gotten to a point where I think the net worth is just high enough. Like I've, and I've worked extremely hard my entire life for it. So part of it's just burnout. And part of it's just like, you know, my kids are my oldest is a teenager now and like I just really want to simplify life now I've given them

a lot of time I think I've done a great job like making sure that all we have plenty of family time probably more than your average nine to five job even because I find time I can do a lot of what I do remotely I can go vacation but sneak work in all throughout the day but I still just don't want to have that stress you know if even with the wheel businesses alone there's enough equity there where I don't need all of this other stuff I don't need those other legs to stand on I guess it's just doing a bunch of things instead of just doing a couple things really well did you find that like you were spraying yourself just too thin yeah i mean you weren't focusing on like it's not even it's not even that i was spreading myself too thin like i managed it all it's just when you think that if if something goes like goes whack with one of the businesses which

2022 is a very big struggle for the wheel the wheel industry in general um i think it's it's when you you realize that something requires your significant focus that it's very dangerous to have yourself stretched like that. Now I wouldn't say I was stretched too thin because I had people like a smart person that that owns businesses and runs them is not in the trenches of every single business because then you'll never get anything done. So I have great people running my pet supply supply stores. I have great people running the property. I had a property manager and someone taking care of it. But like, but if crap hits the fans or if that person leaves and while I'm managing the wheel business, like that's that's a dangerous thing. If I have to jump into managing 60 tenants while working 70, 80 hours.

So it's just thinking about what could happen. In three to five years, I want to have, I want to be tied to nothing. Like, it's more about like what has leverage on you, right? So I want to be completely able to detach myself from everything, do whatever I want during the day, and it just doesn't, like, it doesn't matter. What all do you own? The wheel entities and automotive entities are custom offsets, fitment industries, MA performance out by you guys, and we acquired them. SD wheel, Mr. Wheel Deal, Trailbuilt, Arcon, Anthem, Anovia. God help me if I'm forgetting another business.

I know I am one or two under that umbrella. And then I own the seven pet supplies plus stores working to sell those two. And I'm selling them at a discount. So I've had a really long line of people interested. And I anticipate those to be gone within about 45 days. They're under contract as well. Again, those are managed actually flawlessly. I've had to work, spend a half hour of my time every month on those stores

and they're still being managed well. you know you you talked when you're younger you were like yes I just need to work how do you take working to make money on yourself and then apply that to a business to have the business making money like how did you go from all right if I work 50 hours this week I can afford the thing I want to creating a system behind like that's just something that we all would love to do but it's hard without mentors and stuff like that yeah it uh and I didn't like everybody that that reaches out to us now. They're seeking mentorship. I never did that because I didn't know. You don't know what you don't know at the end of the day. And so back then it would just be figuring stuff out on my own.

Like a lot of it was just figuring it out. And I was just really driven. And I was doing a lot of, you know, $12 an hour labor when I started. I was wearing every possible hat when I started the wheel, what was called Steve's discount wheels. That was the first of all of the companies. I hope I didn't forget SD wheel and that whole mix because I think you said it. That's what SD stands for? Steve's distout? Yes. No way. Yeah, so I figured it was your middle name, yeah. Yeah, 19-year-old Steve thought it'd be a great corporate name. A real catchy one, Steve's discount wheels.

And when I walked into the... Always running sales. Yeah, right? And when I walked into the company, the card for the radio installation was Steve's discount radio installation, like the worst possible, I don't know. It's not a great, like, business name. Cheaper than the rest. Yeah, yeah, just a weird, like, I don't know.

It's weird to include your name and then discount and then. I mean, a lot of people use the name and it works successfully, like Jimmy Johns, but it's more fun to just make up words. Like Archon, Arcon Alford. Funny story about Arcon, that's one of our wheel brands. And then whenever I see the city, Akron, I always fucking call it Argon. It used to be the opposite, where everyone got confused and would say Akron when they read it. Now, like, in my brain, everything is Archon.

But, like, answering your question, it's just, I just met people along the way. Like, you meet good people along the way. You ask them questions. I don't even realize that what I was doing was seeking mentorship, but like David was a great example in 08 where he was, he worked in the corporate world and he's the one that had started Mr. Willough with us. He worked in the corporate world and he knew spreadsheets. And so I leaned on him for some advice on how to how to do spreadsheets. And then, you know, at some point pretty quickly after he showed me, he's like, you need to go like look this up. Like just, just Google it.

Like, and he was a good nudge to help me just go figured out on my own versus asking him to do formulas for me. And that was huge because I learned very rapidly how to use. a spreadsheet effectively. And that's one of the most important things I think that a skill that you need to have when you're going into any corporate position is the ability to work really well in Google spreadsheets or Microsoft Excel that a lot of people don't realize. So I'm even teaching my 13 year old son how to like catalog as hot wheels in there, conditional formatting, running formulas. But just, yeah, that's just kind of it. Just taking a piece from everybody. That's what she said.

Damn. I got a couple of those in already today. That's also what she said. There will be an endless stream of that. Can we switch over to cars a little bit? So we got, we came to Chicago and we thought it was snowy here. Because when we kind of forget that it's not winter until like May. You know, we're hoping to bust our cars out in like April. And most people around us would think we are insane for that. So what's car culture like down here?

I take my cars out all year long, definitely less than the winter. I would say this last winter less than usual. but usually I have like a super hypercar in my garage and I'm rocking it three, four times a week. But yeah, it's definitely dead until about May. April there'll be some nice days and we'll try to piece something together. Did you grow up in Chicago then?

Yeah. Okay. So what makes you stay just? You could live anywhere, obviously. That's a really good question. I don't even, I think it's fall. Like I love fall so much that end of August to early September is like I can sit out on my patio.

I can watch football and just relax like it's the only I don't know that that's the most beautiful best time of year and I think that's literally why I'm here seasons change is always the best especially even for us but then it's like after December you're like all right get the snow out of here like I would say November 3rd or 4th I'm like all right it's too cold yeah I should disappear and come back in April or May they salt the roads here then or yeah so you're ripping your cars yeah I mean you just wash them I mean most of are like carbon bodies right so like they're not going to rust uh i mean like almost all of these are carbon and if they're not we have a car wash like i can see it from here bright and auto detail is

yeah 300 feet so as soon as they get here we'll just drop them off there and they get washed right away do people ever give you a little bit of like like the purest purest like give you any oh yeah oh yeah um we get plenty of we i mean about ripping them or just driving them in the winter yeah so there's a there's a page a facebook page that is over 100,000 followers out here. And, like, at one point, I was the only guy getting spotted. I'm like, I'm not even trying to get spotted. I just want to go have fun in a car.

And, like, you almost feel bad because you're like, gosh, I'm going to get spotted and people are going to hate just because it's the only, it's the only like super hypercar being driven out in this weather. But I try not to let that affect me. We get plenty of hate. I mean, I hate the GTR. So I give that lots of hate.

Why do you hate the Gator? I got a GTR. You should take that one back with you. I'll take it I don't know I don't know I just really don't like it I think there's a lot of pent up anger for

for the length of time that it took to build which I've never actually That's 2,000 horsepower isn't it? Yes It smoked my Bugatti Like in the there's a drag race It's a full on race car

I mean It looked like it was going to just like Launch into the sky I mean Most of it's just like People just saying like Yeah like what is he Why would you drive?

And I'm like it's not meant to be To me, when I see you doing that, I'm like, wow, that is so cool. Sure. That is, like, you know, that's the coolest thing. That's like the ultimate flex. Yeah, exactly. It's one thing to have the cars, but when you actually rip them and drive them, and then especially, like, you, I don't know how you try.

I don't, like, it's amazing that you're able to just give the keys out to, what seemingly seems like anyone. I'm sure it's not anyone, but. That's changing a little bit. Oh, is it? Well, it has to because my son, I got wrecked by nobody here, and no part of the crew that's here. The Senate got wrecked.

So that one little thing is making my life very challenging because I want to continue to share my cars. But my insurance company, whom I praise so much, country financial, decided to not renew my insurance. Oh, they did? They're not going to renew my insurance. For the whole fleet.

The whole entire fleet. So I have to figure that out. Now, the problem was I was already trying to figure it out because I was told that it's probably going to happen. But I felt like I got strung along for a few months because, like, it didn't happen. Like the accident happened in November and it's like early February and I'm like okay well they haven't probably good and did they give you the money yeah and then as soon as they get the money I got a letter

and I got a call two days later so it's like that was full for the people back home how much was the center the center was about a million now by the time that by the time that it was wrecked it was worth like one one two one three and then the insurance company I guess legally or they just decide to also pay you tax because if you go buy a new vehicle there's a tax registration so I got to check for about $1.4 million. If I could go back and do it all again, I just wouldn't have had that person drive at the Sennah. And I would just rather have my car, have insurance.

Apparently, when it's that big of a claim, it goes to a national underwriter level. Like there's one guy, I guess, with country. And this is just what I heard from them. There's a national guy. He lives in Texas. His son, like, I guess he brought up the name. His son was an avid follower of the channel. And like so he immediately, somehow there was a connection made and immediately like,

The adjuster went on YouTube, and he's like, oh, my God. He saw this. The 16-year-olds driving them to prom or to ice school. So I kind of don't blame them. We deal with the same thing, too. They go and watch the videos. It's like, you can't get by with anything. So I need to figure that out.

Now, if you have 25 or more cars in Illinois, you can self-insure. So that's going to be an option. I've also went and quoted with Haggadding, a lot of other people, and they just rejected. Like, they saw that Senate claim finally hit. I may not be able to insure these vehicles. I probably can insure them all liability, which means that they're not covered in an accident, but the person that gets hit.

But then they might have excluded drivers even then. So I'm insured until mid-April. They also mailed me a letter that no one else other than myself and my wife can drive them. That hasn't stopped. Like ultimately the cars are insured and someone can go drive them. I'm just responsible. We've still been driving them, but not quite as heavily. So I need to figure that out so that I can continue to share cars with friends' family and get people out there driving them.

Well, I think it's really cool what you do because there, There's a lot. I would say maybe an older generation of car collectors have these giant garages full of cars and they never get driven. They sell these cars like two miles pushed around, you know, all that stuff. So I think it's really cool that you've made a mission to share these cars, which are truly extraordinary with people who appreciate them. Yeah, I do my best. I mean, it's like I couldn't touch these or drive these when I was young. So it brings, we become, we all become numb to them. It's like, oh, we got to take the GT3RS today, man. I wanted to take like the. you know the p1 or so like it's weird how numb you become to owning them and how normalized it is but like someone will come in here for the first time and see a 765 l2 or the portion 918 and like they get to sit in it and like they'll remember that three years later um they'll remember that motivating too very motivating like i've gotten letters mailed to my house um which is a little weird but it's also fine uh and just how much like that changed their life and how they went and bought this car so it's it just knowing that just continues to make me want to do it so speaking about uh i guess

like you you drive them you obviously don't drive them nearly as hard as uh whistling diesel now but uh i'm sure obviously you saw his new video with uh ferrari do you think he's going to get sued by ferrari i texted him when it when it got pulled down i'm like did like Ferrari give you prompt because i've never had problems and like mine's mat-wrapped um if i didn't exhaust on it i would never tell you guys um and we heavily modified my 488 gtb that is now gone i sold it um i've never had problems with those but i've heard that they're notorious for going after people uh i don't think i know anybody personally that they've gone after but like i thought that that was why it got pulled down he's like no no he's like i think that he's like they demonetized it yeah and uh i think

that there was something that was in the video that he went and changed and then he put it back up but i'm like well you should still send it even if it's not demonetize he's like he's like he's like I'm not putting that out if I'm not getting paid. I'm like, he's got a lot of money in that video. I'm like, I appreciate the guy. Yeah, for real. And I appreciate him all the better.

And he is like, have you guys met him? Yeah. He's in my, I think he's such a good dude. Like he was so much more respectful than, then like he asked about everything. He's like, can I throw this bean bag at your Bugatti?

I'm like, all right. What an odd question? What about the egg? When he threw the egg? Yeah, yeah, we did that like a block from here.

And he asked about it. And I'm like, all right like we we we did some testing ahead of time to make sure it wasn't going to scuff and scratch and it had it had a ppf and then stradman wrapped it for us so it had two years of wrap so i'm like that's actually pretty convenient timing for him yeah um so we were we were all right with it and like um but when he did donuts he asked about doing donuts in it like that was the scariest right next to that curb yeah he was so close so you were nervous i was wondering that you don't seem like you ever get nervous the most like i didn't and then like that happened that was like the first and then when Alex Choi drove me in that Porsche right there that was the scariest time he's a crazy driver he's a good driver obviously but like dude was going like 80 miles an hour down like curvy roads like this I'm like if there's one patch of walk like I'm like I could die in a moment here I had a good life I don't need this so Ferrari will send you a cease and

assist if you put a who knows exhaust on I know about the wraps I've heard about that or modifying the emblems. It's all potential hearsay. I don't know, but... I probably can't. I definitely can't speak for whistling, but this is maybe just what it seems like to me. I feel like he maybe wants them to send them a cease and desist

because that would be like he would go off and... Well, it would like end the storyline it would be like the perfect exactly what he wanted to happen. And then he'd have three more videos about him going to go to court. Exactly. Exactly. I don't know if I'd want to go to court against Ferrari though. That's true.

It's the worst case scenario. Maybe you give back your Ferrari. It's going to be worth this by the time. And there's even some crazy content. Like there's a video and I'm not going to go into it too detail. But there's like a video that we have that can be an amazing performing video right now that we've already filmed. And there's risk there. Like we were in the right.

And to some extent, we were threatened with false information. Like if we continued posting or if we said something. So like this video will be a million. I can't say who it is. Oh my gosh. Like there is some really suspicious things said. Like I actually filmed this video to protect myself. Like if this stuff was,

if this fake stuff was to go public. Really? Like I have a video ready to launch immediately. Or, yeah, who knows? But it's just crazy. I don't know. That one's, that one's interesting.

Dude, isn't it wild that you start this like billion dollar company and now you're dealing with like YouTube videos and shit? like the things that we deal with day to day. It's, and I think I enjoy, I enjoy both of them actually. Like, getting back in the trenches of custom assets,

fitment and all the companies, like, it's really fun. Like, I started out doing really high level stuff, like looking at wages as a percentage and working with the team to fix that. And now it's like I'm negotiating with suppliers.

I'm working on a slow moving inventory problem. I'm working in the warehouse for a day. Like, I love that stuff. I love working closely with, with every team. member not just my leaders. I'm finding it a lot more fulfilling what I'm doing. But the YouTube videos, some of it's work. Like, some of it I don't look forward to. Like, some of it's like,

I got to go. Like, we just shot a vlog on a new car that I have coming in. And like, I, I love getting the new car, but knowing that I have to commit two hours to, like creating a vlog run. You're like, you got to think what you're going to say. And, you know, you want to. It's not even that. Like, I can come up out. It's just knowing that I have to, like, I don't want to, like, I don't want to go shoot a two hours. I'm sure there's funny. So why, yeah, why, I obviously, you because you want to give back, I guess. Well, you need to create content. Like, we need to keep creating content and growing the channel.

Why? Why do you want to? Yeah, like, to me, I look at you. I'm like, you've won it life. You got your family. You got an awesome job. You got, I mean, everything you could possibly want, I would imagine. I think it's because it affords me so other opportunities.

Like, for every one video that's work and that I'm not looking forward to where I'm like, I've got to go drive this for two hours, talk. Like, in actuality, I just want to go drive. drive it, have fun, go do donuts. But I got to film it. It's got to be added. For every one that's work, there's two that are fun. And then one of the two that are fun are opportunities to meet people like you guys or to meet Whistle and Diesel. Like, like Whistle and Diesel gave my, my son the little R.C. Bugatti that he, that he raced in our or his video, like, um, unspeakable flew out to our house and did attract it. He's killing it. Oh, he's been killing it for a long time.

Yeah. And he's definitely younger generation, but like, um, it's amazing. David Dobrick came to my house. like and it's it's not even that I'm meeting these people it's that it's that they get to meet like my kids like these like it means a lot to them I think to meet these people just just knowing that I'm giving people access to these guys that they could have never met like it's that means a lot to me um and that is very fulfilling so and we also got to go to it like it's some really fun stuff that we get to do I'm sure you guys feel the same way maybe you want a minute but there's probably some vlogs we're like God I'm not looking forward to this I'm doing it because I know it'll probably it'll probably do okay and but we have to some days you

don't feel like filming but you gotta the hard far as when it's so fucking cold. I'm like, dude, I do not want to go outside right now. It's 20 below out, but we're like, eh, it's not that bad, let's go. And then there's some cringy shit where like I had, I went in my resvani and we made a bathtub in the resavani. And you're like,

I'm like, God, I got to go to drive-thrues sitting in just swim trunks. But it's so funny when you watch it. And it's such a different video for us that like, it's done. It's over with. I didn't want to do it, but it was funny. So I'm glad. Yeah, that's the best feeling too. When you're like, you're like, I really don't

want to do this and then you're just like whatever we're going to do it and you do it and then you're just so happy like you did it after it's over yes yep how good does it feel though when you get like a one out of 10 video and you know that like you put all this work into the video and it actually worked and people love it though yeah very very good um that is one of the best feelings ever and then it does the little like for those of you that have YouTube channels the little sprinkles or the fireworks are like I don't think it works on mobile it doesn't do the fire does it for me on mobile I think. Maybe it does.

Maybe I just don't. No, it does. My mind. And for us, like, I think our videos have done really well in general. I'd say now we're in a little bit more of a slump where, and I said this on the podcast I did with Graham, Stefan, but like, I still, even though it's very, like, loosely run here, like, we still have metrics that I want them to stick by. And it's, you know, it's, and I don't know what you guys look at, but the more subs you have,

the more views that you should get on a video. But if you have three million subs and you're only getting 300,000, or 200,000 views on a video, then you're not doing so well. So I try to make it a third of our sub count is a pretty good video. And then two thirds or more is a solid video. So we're at 400,000 subs anytime that we're doing 250K plus, like we've made a solid video. We're averaging around 200k to two. If you took the average of our last 20 videos, it's probably that 225 to 250K, which is really solid, right?

And that's like what Whistle and Diesel performs that. Like he's got four and a half plus million subs and every video is getting three plus million like and the bigger you get the harder it is that's what she said you can't set yourself up to that stuff so like so he is really but he's also like bold and like I will never be that bold and dangerous it's weird how the older you get the more conservative you get even though you have less years to live it's it's just weird and when you're young you go to that's an interesting perspective it's true though like he's in his early 20s by the way he inspired me to get a tattoo It was my first ever tattoo.

He had a tattoo in his hand of his girlfriend's birthday. And I'm like, it was really small, really subtle. I'm like, if I forget when it's going to be small and subtle. And then it was like old-timey typewriter font. So when I was in Vegas, I got my wife's birthday tattooed. I noticed that. It looked fresh. That's cool.

And so clean. So that was pretty. I didn't want to pose off the guy, but I thought it was so cool that I wanted to replicate it. Everyone's stealing his ideas and shit. I know. Now he's stealing his tattoos. I should go take my La Farrari off road and go beat it.

Just send it. Right, yeah. So you, like, how's, how's things been with, obviously, you're extremely busy working on the business, and now you're working on YouTube. You got your family, you got your wife that you brought up. Like, there must be a balancing act that comes with that. Definitely, yeah.

Like, there's like, you know, weekends and evenings are for the family. And then there's a lot of time I can schedule between, like, I pick up the kids a lot from school at 3, 3, 3, 3, 30 take them like there's it's kind of like weaving my schedule around that so it's that that's kind of the core schedule is making sure they're they're taking to school taking care of when caroline can't and there's a lot of days where it's just me because she'll exercise workout so like that's kind of the the solidified thing and then the work is scheduled like all around that stuff and we try to travel a lot too because I read that one of the or the biggest thing that people do

once they start making good income is travel like that's that's the biggest differentiator it's not going and buying super and hypercars it's like the travel increase so significantly and like there's a reason for that like it's so fun uh to just get out go to the bahamas go to hawaii go to florida um if you guys have seen some of the videos which i'm sure you have like disney world i'm huge um on disney world i caught on to that yeah yeah and so like you go to disney world like 10 times a year or something yeah i mean we spend about one out of every four or five days in that area um if you yeah yeah it's kind of not you're kind of a big kid i know like i eat a lot of sugar like i drink i want

want to be like you. I mean, when I'm, as I get older, I want to even more like I'm not close to it, but I'm more of a, I'm more of a child, I think, than a lot of people and then probably them. But yes, that's, that's the way you have to be. So do you pick up the kids from school in these things? I do, yeah. We've, we've taken, like, that must draw a crowd. Yes, there were, there was a period for like three-celled weeks. I'd show up in a different car every day. And, and then once we had all the cars out doing a vlog and, like, my son needed to be picked up, I'm like, we're going take them all there like that's the only option so we show up with like 10 super and hyper cars to pick him up one of which was the blues mobile that was just with us shooting a

block yeah that's awesome you got limos though too don't you yeah those are like some of my favorite cars i drove them extensively this weekend we're big limo guys too oh yeah yeah we've had two what kind uh shitty ones like what year and what i think the first one was like a 2001 lincoln town car and uh it was the best it was the best it It's not like rat, rat pee. But we had so much fun in it. I think we bought it for like $3,000. Wow.

And that's where it all started. We ended up chopping the roof off and doing a convertible limo. And then after that, we made a hot tub out of it and drove around. It was so fun. Yeah. So mine's less about going and doing crazy stuff. I just like that it brings you into a different, like, era. I feel like I'm driving this car and it's 1983.

like that's why I love it and so they're very untouched other than rewiring them and making everything work um so I have the 83 fleetwood broham and then I have an 89 Lincoln town car those were like the two pinnacle limos of the 80s and so I wanted to get both of them and like the kids actually enjoy them until my 83 broke down on the road the other day and like my daughter was wigging out a little bit because we're in the middle of this busy as highway the battery's dead so like the hazards are barely on like it's dark I'm like I had to get the kids out we're pushing the car like as quickly You're like, I got two-eight cars. For real, she's freaking out in the car, like not making matters better.

I'm like, she's never going to go in this limo again. But I still freaking love them. Are you kids driving? No, not yet. So, like, what are you going to do for, like, a first car? Have you thought about that yet? Like, it's not going to be, it won't be modest, but it'll be far more modest than this. Like, I really like the Tesla Model 3.

That's a great car. Yeah, like, I'm not going to, like, there's not going to put them in a turd wagon. No, there's a lot of that culture where the, kids get like super hyper cars they're wearing like thousand dollar club i'm like that will never be my kids like they go to public schools like i i just won't put them in a private school i think there's a lot to be learned and that's there's nothing wrong with private schools i just i think that a public school there's something wrong with private schools he went to a private can tell yeah there's lots there's lots of good people that come from them but i want them to live a normal uh life as possible

and that's not possible to some extent but like a model three is not humble but it's also like a safe car that's quick and like it's neat and fun reliable yeah yeah safe pretty base level yeah um or like a g like a like a like a like a wrangler like it'd be cool for them to have the rubicon three my wife has the 392 so that that is an expensive jeep but like it'd be neat for them to go whip a jeep ring the rubicon 392 that's supercharged to school and it's not like a it's not a it's not too eye eye catching and yes i mean at the end of the day you still own a wheels entire company, and the car industry has made you, you know, who you are today. So you almost got to have your sons or your daughter rolling around in something cool.

They have to have enthusiasm. Even the Model 3 isn't, like we would slide. I would probably put wheels on it and we'd probably put a body kit in it. The Rubicon 3992 is an enthusiast vehicle. It would have to be some kind of enthusiast vehicle. They're not going to get a Camry. They're not going to get something that's boring. What do you think of the 392? It seems to me that jeeps maybe don't drive the best and putting a giant motor in it would make it a death trap. It's incredibly fun. One of the other owners of the company, Ryan Witton, bought one too. And it's just a really fun car.

However, it's governed at 99 miles an hour, which... Probably for good reason. I hit it every time I drive and I'm like, oh gosh, dude. I just want to, like, even my Rizvani, which is a Jeep, I'll hit like 120 in that thing. And I'm like, cool, man. This thing's like, yeah. I'm like, I could die or flip at any moment. cool man I'm going 120 but that frustrates me however it is like you're next to someone

and and they're in like a Mustang and I'm in this Jeep and like I just zoom off and they're probably like what the fuck that thing sounded and it's the first V8 in a Jeep in 40 years and it's incredibly fun however we put the supercharger on and it added like 30 horsepower and we're like how did it only had 30 horsepower the tune shops like well we couldn't really tune it any higher than that because these engines are notoriously underbuilt he's like I could but your injured would fall apart i'm like well that's great to know yeah i don't want to do that after i've invested 14 i would have never put the supercharger in if i knew that they could only limit it to 30 they didn't tell you that nobody said anything yeah you know what i love about you steve is is everyone always dreams

of getting to where you're at right where you get the money and you can buy all these cars sure but you drive them and you treat them exactly how everyone would always dream that sure and that's like my favorite part is that you're like you're actually mobbing these things down the street like a 18-year-old kid would. As I've gotten old, I've gotten a lot smart. Like, I'm not speeding. I'm speeding in the right areas. Like, what my buddy, CJ says.

As what CJ said, he only gets one ticket every three weeks. Oh, well, I was going to say, I used to get a ticket, two to three tickets a year. I have, I've had well over 35, 40 tickets. I've had none in the last three years. And it's because you just kind of like, you're like, there's a right place and a wrong place to speed. Like, I don't want to speed where there's a lot of intersections, crossroads, homes. but like there's plenty of stretches that that don't have any of that and and they're they're very unlikely to probably be patrolled so like those are the ones that I'm going 100 120 150 plus on

allegedly yeah allegedly in Mexico and then there's certain highways that that have like long stretches like you know that it's not possible to patrol yeah and so that's where I really try to get my aggression out I saw the video of you doing 200 in your Pukai yeah yeah yeah Yeah, 211 miles an hour. I can't disclose where, but yes. What does that feel like? Well, and that's scary. Like, the problem was, I hit it, and then there was a curve way up ahead, right?

And then, so I start breaking, but you're like, you can't hard break at that speed. So, like, the curve got taken at, like, 130, 100, 4. So it's kind of, it's kind of, it's kind of, it just don't realize how quickly it comes up. That's what she said. And it's like, it's so far ahead where I break the cost. But like, I'm like, oh my gosh, like I needed to break even earlier. And then, and that was one that I texted the crew. That was when I went to 11 and I'm going around the curve.

And I, and there was, the Senate was right behind me. And that's when I'm like, all right, guys, like, we need to chill a little bit more than that in the highway. Like, and I was leading. Everyone's like, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Aren't you leading? We need to chill a little bit more than that. Like, it's just not worth it.

Maybe we'll just go at 130, 140, but I don't know about this 211 shit. But it is tough because you've got a Bugatti. It's almost like you have to. Well, the Bugatti is actually shipped off to be auctioned. Really? So I want to get a Veyrand on EB-110 this year. So I, and then I have the Charon SS coming later this year. So as goofy as it sounds, I wanted to, like, not have a charon for a good 10 months so that it's all the more fun when I do get it.

That actually makes sense. It does. Indeed. What's your favorite car in the fleet? 918 all day. So fun. And then we put an exhaust in it, which made it better and also made it work. like it's it's it gives me a headache when I drive it but like when the when this the top is off like

it's something about a gas motor when I was in a Tesla I drive a lot safer they're faster like the acceleration on that's faster than anything I have here my plaid that I had but like you don't hear the engine rumbling behind you it's fun so it's like you just you just drive more conservative and then it has autopilot I'm like well I'm lazy like I'm just going to throw autopilot on and let this thing drive me at the speed limit the entire way to exercise or whatever but these are like I mean, there's no autopilot. They're loud. You can feel the engine rumbling.

I'm like, yeah, I'm going to need to go 137 an hour on this little block here. So with like the car market, you know, obviously there was a stint where you could buy a Lamborghini and make money on it. Yeah. And now it's obviously coming back down. Do you think, let's say if I was going to buy an Audi R8 or a Hurricon, would it be a bad time to buy it right now? I think the market still has some correcting to do. it would have been a really bad time to buy it six months ago. I bought a Huracan six months ago.

Oh, shit. You were more like eight, so maybe even worse yet. Yeah. I don't know. I bought it at the peak of the market. Oh, my gosh. I've lost so much money on it. I don't actually want to think about it.

That will happen. Yeah. And that was about, yeah, six, six, eight months ago was pretty much peak market value. And then it's come down pretty hard. Yeah, I know. The Hurricanes, so like, looking back at Hurricanes, they got as cheap as about 175, 180. and I don't know what they're at. What's like the cheapest?

I've been seeing them for like, oh, the two wheels. I don't even look. I just look at the 610 4s and those are like, you can get them for like 180 right now. Okay, so they're getting back down to where they were at, but that was where they were at three years ago. So they have to come down lower than that. Yeah. So that's the thing is like they can't hold that value,

especially with interest rates rising. Like even the eventadores are getting where they were at three years ago. But there's more correcting that has to be done because they're three years older. Now, that doesn't go for all cars. There are cars that you can buy. You can make money on the 4GT has held strong. Like, those are $400,000. I paid $2.85, two something for that.

I've made money on my GTR if I was to sell it today. Well, they're not building him anymore. Yeah, I suppose that helps. I'm going to lose a shit ton of money on that one. It costs so much to get it like that. Yes, yes. And you guys should buy it. Dude.

The GT3, like, Porsche is notorious for building a car that holds, like, their special GT3RS has always held value. You can go get a 15-year-old one for like one, 70 180 and that's what they were new like it's it's crazy how well those hold their value but then there's some cars that will rapidly deteriorate um so yeah unfortunately you're gonna yeah yeah i figured i've probably lost 50 grand on it you just got to do something something really entertaining with it and then you can make up for it yeah yeah by by making it worth even less yeah the company's got buy it from me first so boy you guys all be partners with me oh shoot we actually

bought uh your guys is f350 the arc on truck oh really and uh that's that's thing's been good to us i love driving it it's really bumpy just because it's a huge lifted on 26 inch wheels that you'll have that but uh that thing honestly is the most eye-grabbing vehicle in our fleet but uh speaking of doing crazy stuff with it we've done some some good stuff with it and good yeah we bought the sister so we ordered one up there and then i ordered one down here and i had the the other f-250 diesel um for about a year and then we sold that one as well but those are a lot of fun those are really nice. We would drive it a lot more, but the Minnesota is really hard-o on truck laws. And we have some people that are really hard-o around us. And it makes it really tough to drive

because it's like a $5, $600 ticket if you get pulled over. Yeah, I heard Pennsylvania is like the worst in the nation for those kind of laws too. Yes, it's unfortunate. I mean, they're there for a reason, but it sucks. You guys have real crime down here. So hopefully you know what driving your cars. You go 45 minutes east of here. And yeah, you better, you better be packing. Where I was going with that I think was we've done some like kind of outlandish stuff with it and we've been hard on it but honestly it I think it looks just as good still as it pulled off the floor yeah it's really held up and you made me think of something like it's weird like we'll do some really phenomenal content I'm shifting back to content my my brain will go like nine directions but

like that made me think about like you'll do some content that's different for your channel but it's like really really good and genuine and it won't do well and like it's unfortunate where where I'm like taking my Rizvani offroading it like the Rizvani doesn't typically do well unless there's drama behind it and like even when we're filming the pickup which we haven't aired yet but like and it breaks down on the way home we're like gosh damn it like now and now the video is going to do well because it because it exploded but i also uh my response is also exploded it's like negative yeah so the thing about youtube is like people just love the uh the negative side of things i know when the center wrecked we're like we have to get

the set it in up quickly because everybody's going to tell their own narrative and then that was a million view video right we're hanging out with stradman and some karen walks up i'm like oh my god like this is going to do really well um it's it's it's usually the ones that do the best are are some of the ones that take the least amount of work that karen video took like 15 minutes to film and it's like our third or fourth best cold um and then our collection tours always do phenomenal when we do the full tour those always do three plus million so that'll be a recurring thing and my collection changes so much like when we film it again maybe later this year it'll be a completely different collection so we do the same thing yeah yeah you almost you almost have to right but but it's weird broader

market i think it was james stradman that said like don't give up on those videos like if if they're good the more of those you do like people uh you will acclimate other types of viewers and and they will start to perform well like i started doing ones on business and like very different like those those did like they did the one third of followers so they did like the b minus job but the sub ad was like 3x of so that 100,000 viewers, I added a thousand subs, which is high, a thousand subs per every 100,000 views is high. Awesome. So, so you have to treat that almost like a 250 or 300,000 view because that's the amount of subs that it got if you equate it all out. You hang out with like all these really successful YouTubers. You've met way more than us. Obviously, David

Dobricks, Stradman, Whistling, D. So do they give you any advice that you can share with us? I think some of them like get asked so much where like it's where it's almost like David Dorberg's like consistency like that was his answer he probably knows a lot but like as big as he is there maybe even be a liability to what advice he gives out who knows yeah and so like you also don't want to give away your secret sauce but like honestly I don't really mind at the end of the day I don't like I think that there's a ton of little I guess that's the easiest way to put it is there's a ton of little things there's 20 little things and maybe a few big things,

some of which are swapping out your titles. And I don't know if you guys will swap out your title. We do. And thumbnails, yeah. I heard, that's one of the most effective things. And we've seen it where you wait an hour, you see how the video performs.

And then if it doesn't do well, you swap out that. And then you'll see a small spike. And like, okay. And usually it only does a small lift. There's a few videos where we're like, wow, that made a substantial impact. But by and large,

that only seems to help out a little bit for us. I don't even know how important consistency is, like David Dobrook would say. Yeah, because then you got, whistling, posting one video a month sometimes or even two months, and he's killing it. Yeah, I mean, but it's also the quality of content. Like, there are other people that have collections like this, and they don't get as much engagement because it could be their personalities.

They might not be catering to, like, there's certain things that I want to do that won't perform well, so I'm not going to do them. Like, I want to make sure that we know that the video is going to perform well. Like, I'll still go do fun stuff. We're just not going to vlog it. Like, we'll go take a cruise to, you know, a three-hour cruise somewhere in these, and and go hit up a bunch of restaurants and, like, plan a really fun thing about it. And, like, people would love to be a part of that, but I don't think they want to watch some crews.

It takes away from it, too. Yeah, absolutely. If it's not worth the time, then it's like, well, we should just try to be present and enjoy it. Yeah, and it's weird how when you first start filming, how awkward it is to have, like a camera rolling. And you guys have been doing it so long where I don't know if you remember that moment, but like, and then you become numb to it. You're like, well, pop up, pop out the camera. Like, we're in a Walmart. We're shopping.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like the best example. We're in public. Yes. And it's so weird at first. We're like, are people watching?

But now it's just, all right, whip it out, man. I'm miced up. I'm ready to go. It was a lot harder though when you were like small. And also,

I mean, so we've been doing this for, we're coming up on seven years. Yeah. And especially where we're from. I mean, there's no YouTubers. So why are you guys in Minnesota?

It's where we grew up, man. But I think that's the best, that's really the best reason why I'm out here. But we love it though. I mean, especially with the content,

we do a little bit of everything. Yeah. And we really try to make the center is just kind of the group's camaraderie. And, you know, it just started out with us hanging out and just started filming and then started learning more and basically kind of teaching ourselves as the time went on. In Minnesota, like we love to snowmobile. We love to do dirt bikes. We love cars.

And being that we're in such a secluded area, it actually works to our benefit. And then on top of that, there's a lot of, you know, I mean, most of America is probably, you know, kind of small town or so i think a lot of kids can resonate with it exactly yeah i think a lot like there's a lot of people doing the same type of content that we're doing but i think a lot of it does have to do with camaraderie personality exactly and uh and so that that that is important and like we all get along really well with with to tell you aid like it's and that's important like that that was one of the biggest hiring things when we hired aiden who's our most recent hire right our video like he has to be able to hang with the group and and get along and like he just has to

have that personality, also one that I'm not going to get sued at. I'm not going to get sued when it's very, very, I don't know how to say it, but we are a little insane. Like as crazy as we are on camera, we're three times that off camera. Yeah. That's probably like us too. I think that's most people. And you have to be careful. You have to trust your editor too because there's probably a lot of stuff that would get like this point. And anybody that says there's that they are a cancel free. Like that's bullshit. Like every single influencer has plenty of that will get them canceled. And there's plenty that we've all said and done

that would get us canceled. And you have to be careful who you, like, they have to sign NDAs and other stuff. Like, and you guys should do that. So, yeah,

we say that all the time, though, is like at the end of the day, it shouldn't really matter what we're filming as long as the vibes are high. Yeah. It's a most important thing. So like if,

if somebody's like pissed off or like something just happened, we're like, all right, well, let's film in like an hour. Yeah. So,

like, we don't go into it like somebody mad. If one person's pissed off, though, it's almost kind of funny. Well, yeah, it will be certain situations, definitely. That person for us is usually Natalia. Oh, really? She'll be like, and like, Tommy and I are the worst.

You're poking at the bear. Yeah. Oh, no. I'd say we're poking at a cat. Okay. We call her a cat because you never know how many times you can pet her until like the cat just fucking puts you. And then, and then one day the cat's like, oh, fine, Danny.

Pat me one day like the same thing, same input, but like the cat wants nothing to do with you. Natalia. Kind of sounds like Ken. Yeah, you got to have that, though. That's part of every good group dynamic, I feel like. It's essential. So we'll notice her in a bad moon. We usually won't back off at all.

That's exactly what we do. She's a good sport, though. So do you think that it's been harder to create a YouTube channel in this day and age or create a wheel company back when you first started? Because it's like completely different, but I mean, you're still building something. I guess the glory days of YouTube sounded like it was 15, 16, 17 when like that's one thing when I've talked to everybody like it was so much easier to build a channel back then and it's there's so much competition now actually is what I usually hear versus metrics like you're just going up against so many more people I think we've been pretty lucky like a half nearly half million followers and really we only have had content going since like we did a few videos that did a thousand views and then like our first tour video which was maybe our fifth or sixth video like that's the one that did well at the end of October in 2021 so it's been like 14, 15 months of having actual, like, scheduled content.

And a half million subs is pretty good for that time period. So, like, I'm jaded, I think, a little bit by that. And that it's been going really well. Like, it doesn't feel like it's been a huge challenge. But the business has been a 20-year grind. And I think, like, to start this today would be significantly harder. Okay. Now, granted, I have a huge car collection.

So, like, I think any Joe Schmo could go and build a channel out of these. I don't, I think we've seen that there are actually a lot of channels you may never heard about with super hypercars that, that just they don't grow or they don't do well. They may have sub, 100,000 subs. Like, there's definitely an element to creating good, engaging content, having good personalities. Like, but at the end of the day, someone could probably grow a channel to 100,000 viewers within a year, even if it's pretty mediocre. Maybe not.

But starting a business, especially in our industry would be, like, When I launch a new website, it takes two to three years for it to be profitable. And that's with our huge data, our team, our marketing. So that makes me feel great, though. Like to know how difficult it is lets us know how special the wheel entire companies we have are and how difficult it would be to compete against us. So if you were, let's say in your 21 tomorrow, you're going back to you're broke again. You don't have any, you don't know where you're going in life.

Yeah. Because I'm sure there's a lot of people honestly listening right now that are trying to, and they want to be successful like you, like what would be your first step? That is a great question because it is so hard to start something without money. Like they always say the rich get richer, the poor get poor,

and like it's an unfortunate saying, but you realize as you make more money, there's so much more opportunities to make money. I'm like, there's so many. But it sucks and it's unfortunate. Like there's several ideas I have in the pipeline that I know would be successful that I can leverage my social media channel

they just require a little bit of money and subjective at the end of the day but to start a business a little bit of money a couple hundred thousand dollars is a little bit of money to start and build especially like a manufacturing business but that's a lot of money to someone else and that that's what it requires to probably foster most ideas it depends like if my skill set like with my current skill set I can't develop I can't I might go partner myself like I'll think of an idea I might partner myself with someone that has strong web dev capabilities and someone that's young right out of school that doesn't need money right away and work together with that person to build an idea that I have on the app side like I genuinely do have an idea and if I believe

in it strongly enough it's a lot of it's about giving up some equity and partnering with someone that can build it I'm assuming yeah there's a service or a product that that we thought of that actually won't take too much upfront capital that could do well and so that's that's one that I would go and it's like a bakery item so I would go to local mass bakery producers pitch my idea see if I can you know with minimal amount of money get them to manufacture I can design like an idea for the label like I can do that all pretty cheap but like developing and building a product there's another one that that will require a couple hundred thousand dollars and that's building like an actual like product and so I think I'd probably go surround myself and do like an app

or something to be honest with you that's the hardest but it's the one that can scale and make you the money the fastest. I was actually going to ask you about, like, the rich just continuing to make more money and the poor, and it just seems like everyone keeps talking about, like, this recession and, like, you know, we're in hard times right now, and do you think that that's true? Like, the people that have money are going to just make more, and it's just, like, more dividing? Well, it's weird right now because I feel like the average person, the recession hasn't hit them as hard yet like it's uh and and i'm not the average person but like i try to talk a lot with the average person

like wage inflation has happened right but wages have increased really strongly over the last few years it's really easy to go and find a job like to me i don't think the general population has has felt the recession is hard they've definitely felt inflation but but like when you talk to business owners they're like it's weird that employment's like this but like my like my construction businesses like every business owner i talk to is struggling um and and it's and they're facing challenges but the employment market is kind of jading how it is because there's still such a need in the service sector and so it's this weird thing that has to catch up at some point i i think that recession is is hurting the top level actually right now and spending is decreasing there and then

ultimately i think it's going to affect everybody it's it's hard to kind of quantify that or explain it but it feels like something's coming. Oh, you think it's continuing to get worse? I mean, yeah, like it doesn't feel like it's getting better. Like, inflation's still a little crazy. Yeah. It doesn't feel like it's getting better anytime soon. We just did a vlog, actually, where we went to my old,

all my old apartments that I grew up, and I grew up in like eight different apartment buildings. We visited four of them. And first of all, I was shocked at how, like, the living conditions. One of them was nicer, like one of them gentrified. And the other three were like, wow, like this is, it was probably worse, actually, when I lived in there because those cities have come up a little bit better. But then I asked them for their rent. And we paid their rent for that month. And I was like, wait, you're paying $1,500 bucks a month for a dumpy two bedroom. That's how much it is. I don't know what it is in Minnesota. In this county, even for a dumpy apartment, it's $1,500 for a 900 square foot two bedroom. I'm like, I can't imagine my parents affording something like that. I mean, my dad was making $13 an hour. when we lived in those apartment buildings.

That's when he got that job and we were all so pleased because I think he was making nine bucks an hour prior to that supporting of four kids. It shocks me how much rents have gone up. I'm glad we do those logs because I learn more about the struggles that people face. And I think that it's scary how much rents gone up, how much mortgages have gone up because of rising interest rates. And maybe people are feeling it.

Although recession usually means you're losing job, your wage deflation. It's harder to find a job. but wages are down like i don't think we've seen that part yet i think we've just seen cost of living go up but if cost of living stays where it is and people are starting to lose jobs and god help everybody who knows hard to tell yeah i guess for us it's like it's not really worth uh thinking about it or worrying about it so we might as well just keep on keeping on yeah people are always going to watch watch content it doesn't cost them any money to to watch a

youtube video at the end of the day so if you're if you're keeping them busy and entertain then that's a win we have been trying to kind of diversify though and invest like I know so these two have rental properties and I've been looking but that's kind of why I was also asking I was like is it a bad time should I wait till it goes lower um you know right now I wouldn't buy um I think that there's going to be a little bit it's it's kind of the same thing you you peg where they were like and properties are different than cars because cars always go down and then they get to a point where they go back up but it's like when they're 25 years old they're they become a collectible and then they go back up properties should always go up like

two and a half to three percent here. I think the average rate of increase is right around three. If they've popped 20 percent in the last two years, you're like something has to, especially with rising interest rates, something has to correct. They may be at their best correction level because if you look in like 08, there was a huge crash. And so there was a lot of making up to do because the crash took them way below what they actually should have been. And I bought a lot of my properties way cheaper than they really were worth at the time. So I don't, I think some of that was corrected. The market may not correct much more. than it has. I think I read something that property veils are down 5 to 10 percent or Americans have

lost 5 to 10 percent of total property value that might include commercial and residential in the last six or eight months. So they've gone down. Some areas, maybe not. And that might be where it stops. It's just hard to know. But like, I look for bubbles both ways. Like, that's kind of like, did they drop 10, 15 percent? Like, was there some big recession that finally really hit? They've identified it. Now people are foreclosing properties that like that's that's when I buy because I know and then properties increase 20, 30 percent in the course of two years like I know they're pretty strong right now and something's going to correct like that's that's when I focus most of my buying efforts but you should still continue to buy in between because you could still make as long as you target

to make 7, 8% like income or whatever some people want 20% then you really can buy it anytime if that's your goal. Yeah, just make a little bit of cash flow on it and then you can always refinance. Yes. Yeah, and that's important to know now. Like a lot of people are scared about buying homes, but like interest rates will come down. It might be five years. It might be two years, but you can always refinance. Yeah, that's a funny thing about like where we're at now. We're finally making money and the business is doing good. Yeah. A little bit of money relative to you. Well, you know, like, yeah, no, definitely a little bit of money compared to you. But now I'm trying to find a house to buy a house and I'm like, of course. Now that I'm trying to buy a house,

It's like 9% interest rates and like prices are around us. They're still ridiculous, but the mortgage for a half million dollar home back then is the same as like a $300,000 home. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy that like now you have to get that. You have to settle for that $300,000 homes. And I say that around here because $300,000 is about the one of the lowest values you can get for a home out here. Really? Like if you bought a home mid-2020, Q2, Q3 of 2020, you.

You did real well. You had two and a half percent interest rates. You had like low, low value right before they popped. And even a little later than that, everyone would tell you, oh, you're such an idiot. Worst time to buy a house ever. And then now look, it would have been a great time to buy.

So it's kind of how it's how it goes. Yeah. And we moved into our current home in April of 21 and I sold my house that I was in right around then. And I'm like, right then I'm like, it already went up 10%. I'm like, I got to sell this like as soon as possible. and then a year later I'm like that house went up another hundred again I'm like gosh man like if I would have just hung on to that but at the end of the day I still made more than I paid for it so I can't think about it that way that was like the first property I sold that kind of triggered the rest of them but still made money and that's what's important what about the Florida home you have a you built a house in Florida that you were just sold right away right no it's still it's still it's still it's still it's still it's still being built I just got a picture of it actually last night and it looks like 98% of the way there.

So it's supposed to have a COI in a week or two, and then I expect it to sell right away. My wife just didn't like the layout. Like, I rushed her through it and I shouldn't have. I don't know why I did. Everything with me is like, let's like, when I get fixated on something, it needs to get done and it needs to get done quick.

My wife has done a great job, like, especially when it comes to sex, slowing me down. We got to know, that's what she said in. I know, I know, yeah, I set myself over that way. But like, everything has,

to be done quickly, but like she does a great job being like, all right, just stop and like think about this. And I should have listened to her on this house because we probably would have ended up keeping it, selling our other one down there. And it would have been a really cool house. Like, it is still a great house. She just, it just doesn't flow the way that she likes it. So I'm not going to go and make that our vacation home if she's not happy with it. But there's plenty of people that love the home the way that it is. So we'll keep our smaller one down there. And we will sell off. That one's 16,000 square feet. It's like, I see. sorted, I just went and looked online in Florida for all the homes. And I sorted price down. And that was like the 30th most expensive, which you'd think it'd be even higher than that. But it was a 30th most expensive home in all of Florida. I'm like, holy God. That's for sale. That's for sale. Not, yeah. How much? It's like right around 9 million bucks. We're going to sell that. And then we'll figure out what's going to happen from there. But we'll probably just stay in the other home that we love. And that's right around the corner from that. You ship cars down there? Sometimes we ship my friary down there for a little bit. My center was down there to get repaired. The shop that repaired.

it fucking made it much worse. They had it for months. At the end, the guy's like, I just went and threw your tune version one back on it. I threw it back on from the USB. And it's been running pretty good. I'm like, you took the earliest version of the tune. Like, we were on tune four or five that had been getting better,

but it was still thrown. I'm like, you reverted it back to the worst tune. And then I got it. And immediately it goes in a limp mode. I'm like, this guy, like, dicked around with my time. And he's like changed all the spark plugs, did a bunch of other stuff that did not. thing and then reverts the tune. And that was in Boca Raton. I almost want to call them. I just

forgot the name. But it was in Boca Raton. And like, I think it was Excel. Performant. Not pleased with them at all. And then they have the audacity to post dino videos on their page. I'm like, I remember seeing an Instagram story. I'm like, yeah, you should take that down so I don't have to explain like the grief that I went through from your hack job on my car. So that's why that was down there. And then we have a few cars down there. We have a minivan and a Tesla Model X down there for days. Yeah, I feel like that'd be the dream. You got a place down in Florida and you can just bounce back and forth. It's wonderful having, like, annual passes for Disney World.

Have you guys been to Disney World? No. Actually, I did when I was a little kid, but... When you get to experience it as an adult, like, it's... And I didn't get to experience it until I was 18 or 19. My wife took me down there, so I was basically an adult, a very young adult at that point. And, like, I have to go somewhere twice before I really like somewhere. It's weird.

I think that there's, like, a certain level of discomfort whenever I go somewhere for a first time. But, like, the second time I go down that, that's the make or break. And so the first time I kind of enjoyed it, but the second time I'm like, okay, this is like my home. What are we doing? Like what's there to do it at Disney World? Okay, so most people don't realize it's 40 square miles.

It's gigantic. Isn't it, yeah, isn't it its own city? Yeah, yeah. They have their own like, yeah, they have their own like utility and everything and zip code. And so it's, it's four huge theme parks. It is two big water parks.

It's the biggest outdoor shopping area that probably exists in the U.S. Four golf courses, like 20, 25 plus hotels. mini golf like I'm missing a lot of what else it has to offer so there's something for everybody and even Epcot is like they have the rides then they have the world you can go like walk through like Germany and and go dine in in their restaurant beer garden and have German servers and you feel like like they're what they do is they spend a bunch of money on the experience because they want to it's kind of like the

1983 Cadillac so I'm a big guy with with vibe like vibe a place can have shitty food but a 10 out of 10 vibe and I will eat there every time I go. Now, when they have 10 out of 10 food and a 10 out of 10 vibe, that's top notch, right? Fuck it. We're getting resident. And I try to talk like every influencer I've met is usually like, no, I haven't gone or I haven't gone. I'm like, I need to make like a big trip where I just invite a bunch of events, like not even for filming. Like I don't want to vlog it. I just want all of you to experience it. Like I've taken a lot of people down there and and I know how to experience it. I know how to walk all the parks without a map. I don't need a map at all. I know all the secrets like

don't flex like that I'm in you yeah I'm in sweet so like and those that experience like Jeff with the G's been in some of our videos and he went down and experienced it my way and like I ruined him now he goes down there once or twice a year like they you just realize how much it has to offer how awesome it is

and there's like 250 plus restaurants there a hundred of them are sit down like the average the average person doesn't know where like I know I've been to all of them and I've been to a lot of them like many times my son Logan has been to Disney he's 13 he's been at least a hundred times yes yes so but it's great because oftentimes I have rewards for my flights just from spending money on pets spice plus and other things like you get rewards right so

flights are paid for a good portion of the time I have the home down there that yes I'm paying monthly for it but like it's not like I'm going down there and I have to go rent a hotel like I have this house that's that's already bought and then I have annual passes so you you just pay for them once so makes sense yeah I'm kind of already paying for this stuff and every time I down it's it's very minimal cost to me are you getting some cutback from disney here i should man yeah i wish and i don't like so many people advocate for it that they get nothing and i certainly don't like i just love it they they do such a good job making you feel like you're you're like i don't know making you feel like a kid again and back to the big kid thing right i just feel like

a kid down there and it's wonderful that's awesome amazing i don't know we've been gone yeah we're probably we won't hold you up anymore but i just wanted to say one more thing yeah when uh when we first went to custom offsets. Yeah. They picked us up from the hotel that we were staying at, but I got picked up specifically in this car right here. Oh, yeah, I shipped it up to the crew to borrow it for a week. Yeah, and we were there for that week.

And so they picked me up in that one and drove over to the headquarters. And from that moment on, I was like, this is my dream car. It was like my screensaver for like a year and a half. And I was like, one day I'll buy one of these. So I still want to get one, but I think it's pretty cool. He went and got a Hurricon. You went and got a Hurricanes. I should have gotten that.

I would have lost a lot less money. Hurricanes a bigger flex car, but like if I have $250K and I'm going to buy a supercar, that is the one I will buy every single time. Yeah, that's what everyone seems to say. Like everyone that owns one or has owned one says like the best car. It is. It is wonderful. I love it.

Wow. Well, one day. Yeah, well, thank you, Steve. Yeah, thank you for the time. I want to be like you. Thanks for having me. How old are you guys? I'm 26.

You got 13 years to catch up. All right, we better go get to work then. If you guys haven't already, go check out the Hamilton Collection on YouTube. Go check them out on Instagram and hit the subscribe button. We post a new podcast every week. So thank you guys so much. Thank you. And thank you, Steve.

Thanks for having me, gentlemen. Appreciate you guys.