Next Level Pros - #18: Dan Caldwell -Tapout Founder, Achiever Of A9-Figure Exit, Foundational Member of MMA

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Welcome to The Founder Podcast, where we delve into the extraordinary journeys of some of the world's most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Chris Lee, a serial entrepreneur with a passion for building and growing businesses. Over my career, I've founded multiple nine-figure ventures, and now, I'm eager to share the invaluable lessons I've learned with you. This podcast isn't just for entrepreneurs; it's for anyone seeking inspiration from the incredible stories of individuals who have triumphed over immense challenges to create something truly remarkable. In this episode, I have the pleasure of welcoming Mr. Dan Caldwell, a true rockstar entrepreneur and co-founder of Tapout. Before becoming a renowned entrepreneur, Dan's path led him to a career in law enforcement. However, his passion for entrepreneurship always lingered in the background. He and his partner stumbled upon the exciting world of mixed martial arts (MMA) and saw the potential for creating a brand that caters to the rising demand for MMA merchandise. The journey to success was no smooth ride. Dan and his partner hustled tirelessly, maxing out credit cards, and living on the edge to keep their business afloat. They saw potential in The Ultimate Fighter, a reality show centered around UFC fighters, and took bold actions to get their brand in front of the right people. Their ingenious tactics paid off, and Tapout skyrocketed to prominence when their logo was prominently featured on the broadcast, reaching millions of viewers. Join us as we dive into the fascinating world of entrepreneurship and meet the remarkable founders who have shaped it today. Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and equipped with invaluable insights from one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs of our time. Let's dive in and uncover the true essence of what it takes to build an empire from scratch. HIGHLIGHTS "We saw the potential in mixed martial arts. It was more than just a sport; it was a culture waiting to be embraced." "Entrepreneurship is about taking calculated risks and being willing to bet on yourself when no one else will." "Every obstacle we faced was an opportunity in disguise. It's about having the vision to see beyond the challenges." TIMESTAMPS 00:00: Introduction 03:21: Best Friends 08:35: Failure Is Not An Option 11:35: Early Risks 15:21: The Turning Point 21:26: Sleeping On Floors 25:01: Adding Value  27:55: The Biggest Fight  35:38: Dana White’s Guidance  42:41: Howard Carter’s Story 48:49: Selling The Company 1:07:22: The Importance Of Social Media 🚀 Join my community - Founder Acceleration https://www.founderacceleration.com 🤯 Apply for our next Mastermind https://www.thefoundermastermind.com ⛳️ Golf with Chris https://www.golfwithchris.com 🎤 Watch my latest Podcast Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2?si=dc252f8540ee4b05 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thefounderspodcast

Welcome to the Founder Podcast, where we explore the journeys of some of the most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs from around the world. I'm your host, Chris Lee, a serial entrepreneur with a passion for building and growing businesses. Throughout my career, I founded multiple nine-figure businesses and learned a thing or two about what it takes to succeed in the world of business. I want to share those lessons with you by searching out the coolest guests on planet earth and have them share their own incredible stories. But this podcast, it's not just for entrepreneurs. It's for anyone that's looking to be inspired by these stories of people who have overcome incredible odds and create something truly remarkable. So join me on this journey as we explore the

fascinating world of entrepreneurship and meet the founders that are shaping it today. Let's dive in. Hey, everybody. We want to welcome Mr. Dan Caldwell to the podcast. Super excited to have him on here. Dan is a freaking rock star entrepreneur. Was it was the founder of a I don't know if I would call it a childhood brand. It was more of like when I was like early 20s teenager, which was super, super rock. And the founder, founder of Tap Out, really excited to get to know Dan a little bit better today, have him share his story. Welcome to the show, Dan. Hey, thanks a lot, Chris. Thanks for having me on, buddy. I want to hear your story. I hope at some point you're going to interview yourself on your podcast so I can hear the whole story

about how you're taking over the world. Oh, dude, we'll get to that sometime. I guess with this, I just want to keep it a good discussion. It can be about you. We can, we can have, you know, talk about pretty much anything. I like to, you know, talk about founders and what, what made them tick, what makes them tick, what made them who they are, but you know, anything that's on your mind, what's driving you today, you know, we're going to jump on into all of so um dude dan so for those those that don't know your story tell us about mr dan caldwell yeah so i mean i grew up in san bernardino um i i i think i always felt like i was an entrepreneur but eventually um i took a class in high school on law enforcement and decided I wanted to become a police officer. And so I kind of veered off.

I went from thinking I'm going to be an entrepreneur, starting a business. I was skipping high school. I was skipping classes so I could go interview different entrepreneurs. I would drive out to the beach and walk into some guy's store that I realized he was the owner. And I'd kind of talk to him about, you know, how did you start your business? And so I always thought I was going to be an entrepreneur until I heard this law enforcement thing. And I thought, you know, chasing bad guys and car chases and, you know, getting in fights. And I thought this could be the best job in the world. So I thought I would try that out. So I put myself through the academy and became,

while I was in the academy, I took on this job as a security officer at a high school. And I, my partner, who was also a security officer at the high school, we just kept talking and became best friends. And that was my friend Charles, who one day came to me and said, hey, there's this show called The Ultimate Fighter, Ultimate Fighting Championship, where these guys are going to fight to like the death or something, you know, no rules. And we knew as police officers, that was important to what we were doing. So we set up, you know, hey, we got to watch this thing. So we watched it and we were blown away. We could not believe what was going on on the show. But it was like

police work, you know, cops is on at the time and I'm watching this stuff. And I'm like, this is just like police work. You know, you get you grab a guy, you take him down to the ground, you try to get him, you know, subdued. And this is exactly what this guy, Hoyce Gracie, was doing. So we saw this guy, Hoyce Gracie, beat, I don't know, three or four guys in the first Ultimate Fighting Championship. And so we decided to look him up and found out that he had this school in Torrance, California. So the next week, literally the next week, while we were still in the academy, we drove to torrance on a saturday because we had classes during the week and we drove down on saturday and and started taking classes with the voice gracie and uh and then ultimately realized we saw how much money these guys would make them selling t-shirts and we thought why can't we do something like that

and of course we had no idea we don't know anything about making t-shirts. We were not in the t-shirt printing business. We had no idea how that worked. But we knew it was a good idea. So we just started from ground zero. We're going to go to these little tiny jiu-jitsu events and small MMA events that they were starting to have at the time that were still illegal in California but we'd go to these little events and we would set up a little tiny table I mean that video of us like four shirts all folded up in squares and like two hats sitting

on top of them because there wasn't enough room and we would try to sell our goods there and it started out really small you got to send me over a couple of those pics we got to feature that on here you know from oh yeah yeah what uh what year what year was this that this was all taking place so this is like uh so i i i became i think i got hired in 1993 and we started the the company around 1997, conceptually, you know, getting the drawings together, trying to figure out how we were going to make stuff. We got our first, but what was crazy was right out the gate, we got an ultimate fighter because, I mean, we got a UFC guy. So, because we knew a lot of the people that were in the space and we had met this manager who knew this other manager who happened to have a bunch of UFC guys. And we just saw the opportunity there. And it was like, we didn't have a lot of money and we just gave him a call and we said,

hey, do you think, you know, you have some fighters fighting in the UFC um and he said I happen to have a couple great fights coming up um Pat Miletic who's going to be fighting for the for the ultimate fighting championship belt and then also Jeremy Horn who's fighting a really tough guy from Brazil and we were big fans of Jeremy Horn because he was a big jiu-jitsu guy, so we had been watching Jeremy a little bit in different fights of his. And so I think he – I want to say he charged us about $2,800 or $2,500, which was like – I know it seems like nothing today, but it felt like a lot of money. You don't have any. Oh, yeah, because we're living to our means.

We're like – we're getting paid nothing as police officers hardly. And, you know, yeah, we have to drive a nice car. So he's driving a badass, souped up Mustang that he, you know, a Cobra that he put exhausts on and aluminum heads and all, you know, this thing's all souped up. And I'm driving this badass twin turbo RX 7 you know living to the last dollar so you have like no money left and but you know

that's you're not getting paid a lot either risk our lives put our lives out there but I think that you know it's just we had to figure out how to scrape 2500 and ultimately we figured out that we were going to just's it just we had to figure out how to scrape twenty five hundred. And ultimately we figured out that we were going to just put it on a credit card. What kind of what kind of money were you making as a police officer?

Oh, gosh. I want to say I was getting paid around twenty bucks an, right around that neighborhood. So 20, yeah, 20 bucks an hour is 40 grand a year. And 40 grand a year in California, right? Like doesn't go anywhere, let alone you're paying state income tax, you're paying all these things and you got to scrape up 2,500 bucks to get this sponsorship with this guy. Yeah, that's crazy.

So you said you ended up putting on a credit card? Yeah, you know, you could get, you know how that really high interest rate, you could like pull cash off your card and, you know, but you do what you got to do. And we just, it was something that we just kind of, we didn't know we could, I think at that time, we just didn't know what we didn't know. We didn't know we shouldn't, it shouldn't work or, you know, that we should fail. We didn't even understand the concept of failure. Like we should fail. We want to fail. Like it's a, it's a smart concept to look back now and go, failure is what made us, but I didn't want to fail because in our line of business, if you fail, you're dead.

So failure is not an option. So we always thought of failure as like, that's not an option. But doing is an option. And we have to do. We understood doing because, you know, you don't have a choice in law enforcement. You know, you've got an alarm going off in a building, a broken window, you're going in. There's two of you guys and you're going in, gun out, and there's nobody else. There's nobody coming to save you. You have to go in there and do that.

That's our line of business. So we understood the concept of we have to do, we have to go make it happen, but didn't understand the concept of failure really. Like it's a good thing. We understood failure, like there's no way we can fail. We can't fail. We got to make this work. Especially as we start to spend a lot of money and we're trying to figure out how we don't want to lose the money. We have all this money invested now of our own money. Credit cards are racked up, $20,000.

That's back when they give you, you couldn't afford it. They shouldn't be giving you $20,000 know, 20,000 bucks. That's back when they give you, you know, you couldn't afford it and you shouldn't, they shouldn't be giving you 20 or $30,000 credit cards, but of course they do. And we're maxing them all out trying to keep, you know, the business afloat. Yeah. You know, that's, that's always a scary time in business. In fact, my first business that you talk about failing, my first business that did fail, you know, things that you're sharing right now are like eerily, like reminding me of like times that we had to max out credit cards to make payroll, you know, you know, fortunately, I didn't go and get a cash advance on my credit card, but I found out, I found a buddy that would actually run my credit card through his business and cash me out, whatever the difference was in, in like the 3%

fee. And, uh, yeah, use that to cover payroll, man. Those, those early times of being an entrepreneur, when you're just scraping by and you're, and, uh, you know, it's, it's interesting because I think a lot of times entrepreneurs, the reason why we're successful is because we're a little bit stupider than other people you know like just stupid enough to do things like maxing out your credit card and taking risks that don't make any sense at all and it doesn't add up at least at least that's what i've found is like i'm just dumb enough to take a risk yeah i, I mean, we're totally stupid. That's exactly why we didn't know what we didn't know. We didn't know this shouldn't work.

None of this should work. Whatever we're doing should not work. You have no money. You're starting a business. You're building this company. I mean, honestly, at the beginning, we didn't really see the biggest vision. We thought we knew the UFC was going to be big. And we knew the sport because everybody we told it to every time we would show it to them. Like if I come over to your house and

I go like, Hey, there's this thing on tonight, we should get it. And we would go watch it. And I actually did this with like law enforcement buddies of mine. And we watched the very first, I can remember I was at a friend of mine's house, um, Jason, and we went to his house to watch the first UFC that we actually had our clothes in there. And I was with my partner because he was someplace else. And I was working. I was just getting off work, so I had to go straight from the office to this guy's house. And we were watching the first UFC, and he watched that thing, and he could not believe what was going on in the ring. You know, nobody, anybody who watched it couldn't believe it.

And they all recognize it, too, as being, you know, for law enforcement, you recognized and you have early adopters like John McCarthy, who was a ref in the early UFCs. He was, you know, worked for LAPD. So those we knew as law enforcement, this was going to be this was something. There's something to do with this with law enforcement. This is going to be big in law enforcement. Like they're going to all police officers at some point are going to have to be this was something there's something to do with this with law enforcement. This is going to be big in law enforcement. Like they're going to all police officers at some point are going to have to learn this. So what would you say like initially drove you?

Was it like the passion for the sport? Was it the idea that you could make money as an entrepreneur? Was it doing something else besides being a police officer? Like what what drove you in those early days to take all those stupid risks? I think it was honestly, I mean, I just have to say it was probably almost all the above. Like we, you know, you're not making a lot of money. So we're trying to figure out what is every cop out there has ask any law enforcement buddy of yours. They all have a side hustle. Every single one of them, some of them are making them. I know one guy who's making those little beanbag tossers, you know, that you try to get in the hole.

And, you know, somebody else is making tables. Another guy, he's doing a Turo business. You know, every law enforcement officer. Another guy's in with the local drug dealer getting paid on the back end. Hopefully they're not doing that, you know. But it's honestly what they're not doing that. It's honestly what causes guys to do that. That's the worst

crime in the world. An officer who betrays a dirty cop betrays his people. At the end of the day, that's why they're dragged into that. It's like teachers, you know, the teachers and law enforcement officers, those two people should be paid more.

And, you know, there's not a lot we can do about that. But if, you know, if I can ever vote for a bill where that we can allocate some money away from the politicians and towards the teachers and law enforcement, that's exactly what I would do. I agree with you. I was actually a victim of, you know, childhood labor because my dad was a school teacher, you know, and so we had the rule growing up in our household by the age of 12, you had to take care of all your stuff besides underwear and food on the table. Like you want to close shoes, go out, gas in the car, a car, whatever, right? Like we had to go and we had to make it happen. And so, you know, I got my first job when I was nine years old because old Chuck Lee, my dad, he, yeah, he wasn't getting paid enough as a school teacher. And my mom was a stay-at-home mom. So,

you know, we had to learn the art of the side hustle very early on. That's a great idea. I somewhat did that with my own kids too. It's the same exact thing, you know, start a business and have them work. You got to work in the business if you're going to pay your way here in the family. Love it. Love it. So, yeah. So you were, I mean, you were just driven on, on a bunch of different things. Like what was it, what was the turning point for your business? And I've heard this story before, and it's actually like one of my favorite things about you is just like the hustle that ultimately led to like the tipping point. Um, in fact, like what, what was the timeline of like when you started until like the tipping point finally hit?

Well, I think I mean, I think you're talking about the you know, the story with the ultimate fighter. But that's ultimately what changed our business because it changed the UFC to the UFC was it was if they were put a lot of money into it. Well, when Zufa purchased the UFC, which was Lorenzo Fertitta, Frank Fertitta, and Dana White, when they purchased the UFC in 2001, we were already sponsoring fighters and somewhat in the UFC. They were giving us a little bit of love. We were in their video game. So it was kind of exciting to us because we were having these small wins along the way. We're getting these little wins along the way and it's pushing us because you know tap outs all of a sudden in this video game uh the dreamcast video game tap outs on

this new fighter that just came out and he knocked some guy out you know tap out we're getting a lot of interest but we were so much the mouse in front of the flashlight we just the money we weren't making a ton of money and and in some ways i mean mean, we got to in the early 2000s, we were making over a million dollars, several million dollars. But every penny were self-capitalized business. So every penny was going into capitalizing the business. And we've never done that. I'm sure you understand this. But, you know, as you you're we had inventory so as you have to build this company

you have to put more money into inventory um all the money that you're making you're having to put back into inventory so you're not really making money or at least you're making money but it's not in your pocket it's sitting on the shelves out in the warehouse so we have this little tiny warehouse and um in 2005 they decided that we heard that they were going to do this television show, which was kind of big for us. We knew this was going to be somewhat – like we knew something was going to change because of this. We're going to be on TV now. Instead of just pay-per-view, everybody's going to be able to see this. So that was great for us because we could tell people, tune in and watch this.

You'll see what this UFC stuff is all about so we were I was driving I had I was living in a small condo I was driving down to San Diego and I get this call from my partner who says Chuck Liddell just called he said they're starting to film the ultimate fighter right now he just got got his place in, in Vegas and we need to leave for Vegas right now today. And I said, I'm on my way to San Diego. I don't, I'm, I'm going down there with the family to SeaWorld right now. You know, like what year was this? What year was this? 2005. So we're talking, you started this thing in 1997. 2005, you guys are starting to make some money. You got some revenue coming in, but it's all going back to recapitalize the business, continue to grow.

At what point did you drop out of the police force? I want to say 2003, I left for good in 2003. So six years of just straight side hustle, weekends, nights, mornings, lunch breaks, whatever it was to making this thing happen. A lot of people don't realize this is the underlying of what happens right most people look at guys like yourself uh myself or other people that have a nine figure 10 figure 11 figure exits right uh you know the the elon musk of the world or or whatever and and they think like it just everything lined up for them they put in you know a little bit of effort they got some financiers they got you got some seed funding, series A, series B, whatever, went public, got paid out big time. They never see the actual

and understand the real details of six years of side hustle. And then another two years of doing it full time and really just operating at a break even, maybe having a good job, but not really a great business. And so I don't know. I just want people to focus on that, right? Like how much deep roots you were sending down before anybody saw what was happening with the tree or with the bamboo shoots right like i mean it was just roots roots roots roots roots for a long time um so i i think that's that's so cool so so you get this call chuck liddell uh from your partner chuck liddell's up in vegas they're going to be filming this show you're down you have every excuse in the

world not to go up there, right? You're with your family. Hey, we'll do it later, whatever, right? Like there's always going to be another opportunity. Okay. So, so take us there. Yeah. I mean, I think you were so on point. I think what, you know, and just in the bigger picture, if I step back, that's the difference of what separates people, you know, successful entrepreneurs. Most of the time, it's just the fact that you're willing to keep going, you know, that you're six years in, seven years in, eight years in, seeing progress, but not the type of progress that you, you know, had dreamed about and you keep going. And at this moment, you know, I'm thinking, OK, I could go to SeaWorld with my family. I, you know, where bags are packed. That's that was our day.

Or I'm actually going to have to tell my little daughter that we have to turn around halfway down there and go back. And I'm probably dad is going to be gone now for uh you know two weeks three weeks four weeks right and that's what i had to do and i i turned back around and got home i had to go straight to the we had a small warehouse at like 1900 square feet or maybe 2200 square feet and i had to go grab all the clothes get them all ready. My partner met me there. We jumped in the car and we start driving to Vegas. It's four or five hour drive. We get to Vegas and we ended up sleeping on Chuck Liddell had this apartment and we just, you know, we didn't have the money really. I mean, we were making so little money, you know, so much money was on the

shelves that we were just paying ourselves enough to pay our rent. We were like, write a check for the rent, write a check for some groceries and that's it. You know, everything else we had to figure it out. You know, my, his girlfriend's working, my girlfriend's working, my, you know, girlfriend's working and we're putting, just being able to try to get by. And so we're sleeping on Chuck Liddell's couch. He's one of the coaches for the Ultimate Fighter. So he's going in there every day. So we want to make sure he's got tap-out shirts ready. And we would go in the middle of the night.

We found out where they were doing the show. We kind of tricked Chuck into telling us where. I mean, he wanted to tell us, but we can't let him know. We can't let the UFC know that he just gave it up. So he told us where the gym was going to be. And so we decided to start going to the gym

every night at like 1 p.m. or 1 a.m. And you know those little like slots where you put your mail in on the side of the door there? We would shove like 10 shirts in there and a couple hats and a couple pairs of shorts every night. And just praying that one day this is going to get to a fighter somehow. We didn't know how. We didn't know if.

We didn't know what. We just hoped that, you know, it would pay off down the road. We would go home. Part of us staying there, we wanted to wash. When Chuck was out filming, we would wash all of his clothes for him. I don't know if he knows yet because we never told him, but we would only pretty much wash his tap out stuff so he'd be left with like pit where which was his gym um with his partner hackleman and then um we would wash his tap out stuff so that's all he would have to wear when he went into the show

and so when you ask the producers today they'll still tell you there was no tap out in the first ultimate fighter but if you watch it you'll'll see there was, because that's what we were doing, you know, and then a few months later, what happened is, so they did these fights in the Ultimate Fighter, where they keep fighting to try to get to the end, and then at the end of the show, the two coaches are going to fight, and they, and then they have all the guys who were in the Ultimate Fighter are going to fight. And so one day for the show, the coaches didn't fight on the same day, but they had the show at the Las Vegas University out there, the University of Las Vegas. And that's where they held the event.

And we just, we didn't really know exactly what the event was, what was the event was going to be like, but we knew it was going to be televised and we wanted to sponsor the event, but we didn't have enough money to sponsor it. So they let us give them clothes to sell at the event, the UFC did just so that we could pay for the sponsorship. So before you go into this, let's recap. So you're in Vegas and you're just hustling, right? You're shoving t-shirts and shorts through a freaking mail slot at night.

You're sleeping on the ground, sleeping in your car. You're going into Chuck Liddell's laundry, doing his laundry for him, which by the way, is just a principle of how to network and how to add value, right? If you want something from somebody, like go and add as much value as you possibly can. Like the fact that, you know, this guy didn't want to be doing his own laundry, right? And like, he's got these guys that are, you know, that he likes, he likes Dan and his partner

and they're willing to do his laundry for him. He's like, sure, why not, right? But then the ingenuity of like, dude, let's only make sure that he has clean tap out clothes. And, and I think, dude, that right there, I've remembered that part of the story. And, you know, Dan told me this story a few years back when we first met. And, and I was just like, dude, that's freaking phenomenal. It is the, that is the epitome of entrepreneurial ingenuity hustle, right? It's like grit with some smarts and just willing to get it done. And all these little things,

all these little wins that you're doing along the line is ultimately what leads to this moment that you're about to share, which I'm super stoked about. So, so we're, you know, they're, they're about to air this big fight, right? You can't afford to pay for the sponsorship, but they allow you to sell some t-shirts. So you're going to get your name out there a little bit. What, what happens next? You know, I mean, we had a lot riding on this because we, you know, we put a lot of time and effort into this, trying to make sure that this was, you know, making sure we always made sure though, that we were, you know, is in every place that we could be. Um, and that we knew this big event was going to go on. So we just knew something special was going on when we got there because, um, we had it. So there were so many people in the crowd wearing our stuff and this guy, Diego Sanchez, who was going to be fighting they made him wear Ultimate Fighter stuff but we had our two logos on the mat and we had logos on the sides and we had their parents

wearing the stuff and we could we could see them on the on the big broadcast uh video screen they kept showing their parents you know of the fighters because that was kind of you know these guys were about to fight and so as they came in they wanted to see the reactions from their parents, you know, of the fighters, because that was kind of, you know, these guys were about to fight. And so as they came in, they wanted to see the reactions from their parents, and especially even as they were fighting. And they had our tap out stuff on. And we're like, we're all over this thing. And we're sitting next to Chuck Liddell. And when the Stefan Bonner fight happened with Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner, which is still considered one of the best fights in UFC history. At one point, these guys are throwing leather, and they're putting everything on the line.

And at one point, Dana White walks back, and he says, he tells Chuck Liddell, there's 10 million people watching this event right now. Well, the UFC. 10 million. 10 million. And in pay-per-view, were only getting you know maybe a few hundred thousand views on their pay-per-view shows at that time but to have on television

the mainstream audience who really didn't may not be um totally into the UFC but they were liking what they were seeing because that's why 10 million people were watching right now. And so not just that, but what we didn't know was at home, my parents are texting me and they're going, they're putting your logo on the television. Well, I didn't understand what that meant until later I watched the broadcast. And you know, when they do that, it just shows been bought to you by Budweiser, you know,

the king of beers. Well, that's what they were doing for us. We're like on there and they're saying, this show has been brought to you by tap out at in your face.com. Go check them out for the best white gear on. Say the URL. Once again,

I love, I love this. What was your URL, your original URL? So it's inyourface.com. That was – Yeah? Tapout.com at the time. Somebody else –

Was it spelled Y-A or in your – Yeah. It was so stupid because, you know, if you're trying to help people find your website, this is probably the worst name on the planet but it was i-n-y-a-f-a-c-e.com that was our site but oh i love that so about um right towards the end of the fight my web guy calls me and he goes what the heck is going on man and i i i could barely hear him get the fights going on i'm going what do you mean what are you talking about he's going your site is shutting down like there's so

many orders coming in right now there's 3 000 orders a minute coming in right now a minute sorry i'm sorry an hour 3 000 hours an hour coming in right now and it's happening so fast back then you know you're talking 2005 they didn't have gateways that could support that um at least we didn't have the gateway that could support that so he said i've literally had to stop the processing and all we can do is capture the credit card numbers so i said do whatever you got to do and i'm telling charles what's going on and the electricity in that room and then stephen bonner and forrest griffin fight that hold on time out for for listeners that don't understand what dan just shared he said so the credit cards actually weren't processing okay

which which means when when something processes it automatically happens by the computer it checks if they have the balance it hits you know so so on and so forth all they were able to do at this point it because the basically the website had been shut down was capture the credit card information so there was nothing being processed there was nothing in so essentially what had to happen at that point was like you had to go back and manually process every one of these right yeah just manually on those you know those credit card machines little square boxes that just has the punch it in phone number pad that's that's how we had to

process every single credit card after my goodness which were thousands and thousands and thousands of orders so how many orders came in that first night? I honestly, I wish I could tell you, but I don't even know. I just know it was thousands. And when we got back over the next weeks, we had so many orders that we had to shut off the, well, we didn't have an inventory program. So you figure most people now today, everybody's got an inventory program. Well that time shopping carts were like bills we have to build these things yeah and they

didn't really have we didn't really have an inventory program so unfortunately all the stuff that people were ordering we didn't have in stock so none of it was in our warehouse or most of it was you mean your your 2200 square foot warehouse didn't have thousands and thousands of orders no and so we ended up i i called i mean we're doing we're trying to do you know plug all the holes on the way home i remember driving home talking to my um i'm on multiple phones i'm talking to my web guy. I'm talking to the landlord. I'm trying to take the space next door because it happened to be empty. And so that was another twenty two hundred square feet.

So I tried to take that space and the next space, but the other space wasn't ready yet. So we just we got home, we cut a hole in the wall and we took that space next door. And we had thousands of orders just leaned up against the wall waiting to be fulfilled because we couldn't fulfill them all. That is wild. So you go in. If I remember the story right, like you guys just continue to like any piece of space that was adjacent to your building. You guys continue to to rack up over the next i mean foreseeable future right oh yeah we were in like an industrial park so you know it was kind of a like a built-in a c and it you know it's uh i think i can't remember exactly how much square

foot if you had the somewhat close to 100 000 but um we took all the big spaces all the way around um the the whole center until we had the whole place and so ultimately in the tap out center so i mean this is this is just like i've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and i swear i have never talked to somebody that just had such a pinnacle event right like that Like, that was just so changing. But, like, once again, as we talked about it, I mean, it was seven years or eight years of work. You know, six years employed, two years fully engaged in this business, right? You're just doing the work, doing the work, doing the work, paying the bills. That's it.

And then just smack, man. You know, you got lucky, right? Like basically all this ingenuity, all this hard work translates into this massive amounts of luck where the UFC, if I remember right, you shared that they essentially aired your ad because they weren't able to sell ad space to anybody else. And they didn't want to seem like just a small little organization. Is that right? Well, I think that early on, that was kind of early on. So early on, you know, they needed to put some sponsor there and they really liked our logo.

And we were already kind of in the UFC. So I think they felt sorry for us when they first bought the UFC and they wanted, and they felt like we were kind of the grassroots marketing of the whole space. And they, they honestly came to us in 2001 when they had their first show and, and they called us into the arena.

Lorenzo and Dana did. and we walk into the arena we'd never seen this and we'd never had this before um because we'd just been on fighters up to that point but when we walked into the arena we had two huge tap out logos on the mat and we were blown away we could not believe that these guys had did this for us. And so, you know, I always have to give credit to Dana and Lorenzo for helping us, you know, build. I think when you're relentless and you're always out there pushing and pushing and pushing and people see this in you, you know, they see they want your dream to come true too. You know, I know a lot of people preach that everybody wants to stomp on your dream. They don't want you to be successful.

But I think when people see your, you know, the energy that you put into and how much you believe in yourself or believe in a dream, people want to get behind those type of people. They want to get behind the dreamers. They want to be a part of that dream and i think and that's i think that's a lot why dana and lorenzo kind of took us under their wing and and uh started us off with that sponsorship and we were at that time we were paying them like three thousand dollars to be on that mat for every ufc and we would pay it in clothing we would literally give them3,000 worth of clothing to sell. And that's what we had to go back to because we would kind of go back and forth

between giving them cash and giving them clothes when we couldn't afford because we didn't have the cash in the bank to write that check. So we would go back to, so for this Ultimate Fighter, we had to go back to that because it was a little bit more at the time,

but we had to give them clothes for that because we didn't have the money. Right. Yeah, no, I love that. Yeah. Definitely other people are, you know, other entrepreneurs, they want to see people that are doing exactly what they did once upon a time, right? The grind, the, you know, and so the fact that Dana and those guys recognize that, that's really so cool. And it wasn't just because you showed up one day or two days. It was like you were there year in, year out, grinding, just doing the thing. And like, man.

And I think even as beginning entrepreneurs, because beginning entrepreneurs, when I see, like I see I'm excited for you, Chris, when I see your business grow. Like that excites me. I think even as a non-entrepreneur, like people that are building a coaching business or a podcast or whatever that might be, even if it's your first business, when people see you're passionate about something, that passion is infectious. Like people want to be around people that are passionate and relentless and have a dream. They want to be around that because sometimes it helps them find their own dream. And even if they never, you know, don't even if they're not entrepreneurs, they just see people who have a dream like that and they wish that they have a little bit of that in them. And so they're willing to follow them. They're willing to help.

That's why these guys like, you know, like gary v has a story about where his cameraman you know gave up his time to come filming for like three for like months on end until gary decided to hire one day when he was just giving up his time and that's i think people do that because they see this dream that this person has and they just want to follow them they want want to be a part of that dream. And they're willing to do that, do whatever it takes to follow this person. And I think every entrepreneur has to know that if they live that every single day, if you're relentless and you're talking about your dream all the time and you're putting it out to the world, that you'll get people that file in behind you and want to be a part of that with you.

Absolutely. I love that love that dude so from then on i if i remember the story correctly i mean that was really the catalyst and then things never slowed down from there you guys continued to just exponentially grow from 2005 until ultimately um you you ended up uh exiting from the business was it 2008 2009 when was it that you had 10 yeah i mean we were i mean it was always something always are looking for the next big thing i mean we have ultimately we had our tv show we had our own show um that we had signed for three seasons but um we only ended up doing two because unfortunately my partner got killed before we started our third season um we had the opportunity to be in a movie like warrior um we had a you know we've had a nascar we've had uh you know we've just done you know the things that the opportunities that this that that having a dream has given me and our part and my partners you know

is like unbelievable like i'll never i can't even put into words because it just it it's something that i never would have thought would have ever happened a person like me coming from san bernardino um in the place that i grew up in you know i, I had great parents, but we lived in, we didn't have a lot of money. And for us to be able to kind of have something like this for people, and I know it happens to a lot of people. I mean, I'm sure that there's so many stories. That's why podcasts like this are so great, because there's so many, every entrepreneur has a story.

Like I say, every police officer has a story, because every police officer could write a book from all the things that they go through every entrepreneur uh has a story has a movie in them has a a podcast in them has a book in them just because we all go through so much when we're trying to build our companies there's so much on the line everything is on the line everything is being sacrificed sometimes or you, our every penny that we have, every all of our time, all of our dreams and hopes and family members, sometimes friends that walk away. I can't tell you how many friends when we started Tap Out, we had other guys that were with us and they literally walked away from us. I was telling him, dude, we're about this

is about to blow up. This is coming right Right now, it's going to blow up. Please, just give us a little more time. I can remember being on the phone with the guy, talking those words to him. And he's, I can't do it no more, man. It's just taking up my time, and I just don't see it. You keep saying that. Yeah, I remember him saying, you keep saying that, but nothing's happening. And within a year three feet

from gold exactly there's a great little story about Howard Carter I don't know if you know who Howard Carter is but I was just watching a documentary about this guy Howard Carter that in the late 1800 1800s, he went to Egypt to find the riches. Everybody was kind of excavating Egypt at the time. And he went to Egypt at 17 years old with just this dream to find something. And over the next 30 years, he just every day trying to find what could be the next thing. And around 2007, he had got word. I'm in 2007. In 1907, he got word that there might be another king in the Valley of the Kings that they haven't found yet.

And another tomb. And that became his dream. And everything that he did from that point on just became about, how can I find this other tomb? Now, nobody believed in this guy. Nobody. Like, everybody's saying, no, all the kings in the Valley of the Kings have been found. All the tombs in the Valley of the Kings have been found. There's not another tomb out there.

Where are you finding anything that says that there's more tombs out there and but he had found little things and little clues and little things that said that there was um a little trinket that somebody found in in a dig that said that there was a king tut out there still and um in like 20 you know 30 years later or 20 years later from that point, they find on one of his digs that are being financed with the last dollars that they have. Literally, this guy had told him Lord Parnav and he was financing and said, this is the last last year that you're going to be able to dig. And on that last year, they're good. Imagine they've been digging for years. He still believed in this. He kept pushing forward and they find the steps to this tomb and they dig it out over the next couple months and um when he gets in there they open up a small hole in there and they tell this

beautiful thing that i just love what they said i'm so much so that i just remembered it oh it gets me a little emotional when I even think about it. But he said, he goes, Lord Carnarvon was there with him and they punched a little hole inside and Howard Carter looks through the hole. Lord Carnarvon, what do you see? What do you see? You know, they're both invested in this, time and money, millions and millions of dollars. And he says, beautiful things, beautiful things. And I could just imagine that moment because every entrepreneur has that moment in their life. You know, like for me, that was 2005, six, when the ultimate fighter was happening. They're watching this fight going going something special is going on here right

now this is something special like this is going to change our lives we didn't know how we didn't know it was going to be that much but we knew something special was happening and i think you i'm sure i know you have moments in your life where those things have happened for you and it's just unbelievable to kind of go through a life changing moment like that. But it's because you keep going. That's you won't have them as an entrepreneur. You won't have them if you don't keep going. Yeah, my my buddy Alex Ramosi, you know, he loves he loves talking about that. Like the only way that you actually fail is when you take yourself out of the game is what he was. He says, like when you quit, when you give up, it's it's as you continue to go, you keep pushing forward. It's the compound effect, really. And, you know, in my own

career, compound effect has been like absolutely insane because, you know, when you're when you're doubling a penny, those first five or six years of doubling a penny is hardly anything, right? But when you continue to double it, right? It's the old Chinese parable of double a grain of rice in 31 days and you have enough rice to fill the world. And really, those moments of seeing beautiful things of the 2005s and 2006s for tap out, you know, that my company SoulGen Power, you know, just kind of the pinnacle of things of like all the work, all the sacrifice for me, like it was the doors knocked and the failures and the opportunities slammed in my face that didn't work out.

And just like constantly, constantly on the grind looking for it until finally, right? Like the stuff really compounds and then it manifests and people begin to see all the grassroots that you've been laying for so many years, right? Like there was no respect for you there was no anything else you got you know business partners like you're talking about that are bailing out that they just can't catch the vision um you know they they don't believe in it um you know one of one of my my favorite things is like for me as an entrepreneur is, is being the evangelist and being the one that believes. And, and, uh, you know, I don't, I don't need, I love the definition of evangelist

as to be a true evangelist. You don't need others to believe what you believe. They just need to believe that you believe. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, that, that's always been, that's always been my calling in business is like being the believer and getting other people to believe so much that I believe in getting behind the vision and the direction and everything. And so, man, it's so cool to, to hear that part of your story. Now, obviously we're talking about all the glamor, like what, what is a point in your career? So you've had many years since 2005 and 2006. What's a point in your career that was, like, depressing, that was really hard to get through?

And, like, how did you learn from it, draw on it? Can you share something like that? You know, all the – so many, so many, so many times, uh, you know, Bill, I mean, of course, my partner was killed, was unbelievably hard. It's honestly why I decided to sell the company because we were, I just didn't feel the same. Uh, it didn't taste the same. Um, but, uh, you know, during that time in 2005, when we were, um, after the ultimate fighter and all those orders were coming through, we were only qualified for like $50,000 in credit card sales. And because we had all of a sudden started doing, you know, uh, almost a million dollars a month, they had canceled all the money coming through. And we needed that money because we didn't have any of that product produced.

We needed that money to produce the goods. And so I remember being on the phone with those guys, trying to figure out every way possible to get them to release some of the money, just some of it, so we could start putting orders together you know i was like release half of it because if i get half of it i can put the money you know i can use that money to go make the goods but they didn't want to release none of it and they wanted to actually hold it for like six months until they could make sure there were no chargebacks. And it was such an explosion. They

hadn't seen that before. So they just wanted to hold on to the money until they made sure it was safe. And I just remember being so like, I could not sleep. I was getting one hour of sleep a night. I was trying to deal with them every day. I was trying to find other credit card companies that could take us on. Nobody would. We didn't have great credit. And I remember at one point I'd thrown all the chairs in the office out in the parking lot. And I was just, I mean, I was emotional. I was sitting on a curb and I was pretty emotional.

And I called my partner. I said, I don't know, buddy. I don't know how we're going to get out of this. Like, it's done. Like, we need to make goods. And all these people are going to start, you know, it's crazy how you're in the best place in your life. And you're contemplating quitting. That's what comes over you. You know, during the best time of your life, the best things are happening to you in your life.

And you're contemplating quitting. You're like, oh, i don't know what to and that's why it's so great i think to have a partner because when you're down hopefully they're up and when they're down hope you know hopefully you're up and uh he gave me some great advice he does remember that guy we were talking to last week he was a great business guy that made a bunch of money in different businesses and we had met him last week. He goes, he gave you his number, right? And I said, yeah.

He goes, why don't you give him a call? And I gave him a call. Within like a few hours, I had the whole thing solved. He was willing to sign for credit for us with the credit card company. And they released all the funds immediately. The next day, all of our money started releasing and it fixed the whole problem. So it's just great.

I think always having a partner where you can look at, you know, they can see things that you're not seeing, especially when you're in those down and outs moments. And, you know, we always had moments like that. There were always never enough money. There was always, and it doesn't matter how big you get, it's just going to be bigger numbers. You know, it's like there's not, you don't have $20,000. Well, down the road, you're not going to have the million dollars to make the payment. And down the road, you're not going to have the $20 million

to make the payment. So I can remember writing, you know, I can remember $20 million coming in. I can remember $10 million going out. You know, that's those I wouldn't even have ever thought we could do, you know, be writing a check for $10 million. You know, just unfathomable at certain times of your business life. But you just got to keep your eye on the bigger picture and stay relentless and keep pushing forward. And if you don't quit, like Alex Ramosi says, if you don't quit, eventually you'll be successful. Eventually you'll make it. Yeah, man, I love that. A couple of things that you shared, you know, having having a quality partner is so very imperative.

Like me, I'm a partnership guy, right? Like I hate doing things alone. Sounds like you're, you're very similar based on your experience of what you've done and what you're doing right now. And, um, you know, for me, that, that business partner has been Daryl Kelly and then in life, my wife, uh, Andrea, and, you know, both have, have helped me really keep that good, solid perspective. And it's so funny, like these demons that we create and these big, like, we think that things are unsolvable, as you were talking about with like this credit card thing. And when in reality, there's, you know, there's a solution out there. We just haven't thought of it yet. And like, and it's so very important as entrepreneurs, as just, I mean, livers of life, right?

Like that we remove ourselves from the situation, remind ourselves like how good we have it. Like what's going good? You know, I have a good physical body. You know, God is still good. My family's good. We have all these sales coming in for these T-shirts. We just have no idea how to process them. Right. Like all the all these positive things. Like because when you when you get out of there, at least for me and I remove myself from the negative situation,

it helps me solve that at a way higher rate and especially look for solutions outside of what I'm currently thinking. Just having a different perspective, which I loved is what you shared. But yeah, man, that is so, so, so important because, I mean, just like you, there's so many times in my career that I just thought the world was crumbling, right? Like, oh, like I have no solution for this. I've never been through this. We're done. It's over. I should quit, you know, early, early in launching our business. So it was launched in October of 2017, January 2018.

We get hit with a million dollar fine from the state. And, you know, I think at that point we had like $5,000 in our bank account. And, you know, we had all these sales and stuff that we were trying to get processed very similar to you guys. Inventory problems, all this stuff. We get hit with this fine because of a an electrical infraction not only were they hitting us for actual infractions but they they tried to hit us with a fine for every single proposal that we had given to potential customers and you know i thought life was i'd tell y'all right now, you'd have been that early in the business. I'd have quit for sure.

I mean, it takes a lot to get through that. You know, you don't fathom the inbox at that time. I mean, dude, I thought we were done. I was just like, you know, all this anxiety, all this stress, all of my shoulders. Like, there was nothing I could do in the short term that I felt like I could do to get out of it. My business partner, he was stressing Darryl. But then like, you know, he came to me like the next day. He's like, dude, I just feel like everything's going to be fine.

We'll work through this. Let's get through this. And, you know, eventually, you know, we ended up fighting the state and we eventually put it off, put it off, put it off. And we ended up settling like 10 months later for like an eighteen thousand dollar fine. And it was like paid out thousand dollars a month for the next 18 months. You know, it was like it was like one of the best case scenarios of like what I initially thought it was going to be uh putting us out of business and so man it's it's it's amazing and you know you had this experience and we've had so many experiences like this where it's just important for anybody that's listening to this that that they understand like just keep going right like there will always be a solution life is too good to give up right like don't give

up on your job don't give up on your marriage don't give up on your life don't give up on like like there's so many good things that if you just have your head down you'll figure out a solution there's somebody out there that's going to be able to help get you through it so um appreciate you sharing that yeah there's i I think when you talk about having a partner, I mean, him just telling you that probably change your perspective a little bit. I mean, and you talked about your your wife, you know, like right now, we just started up our podcast again, too. And, you know, I was going to do a podcast by myself. And I was and I can I'm reaching for a partner, you know, like I'm like, I'm gonna for a partner you know like i'm like i want to have a

partner i want to have so i i love being able to bounce things off of people and so um when we decided to start our podcast we were like let's we have to do this i i wanted to do it together because i just i i felt like that was that was just my aim out and anybody who has partners their businesses there's some people who say I don't want partners in my business. That's OK. You know, that's them. But for me, I'm a partner type guy. You know, it's interesting. I actually had my very first business. I had a terrible experience with partnership. You know, both my partners ended up being just not people I could trust. You know, one after our business failed, went on to running a Ponzi scheme

and ends up serving prison time. Just like just some crazy, crazy partnerships. But luckily that didn't deter me from partnerships because Daryl has been an incredible business partner. We've done several different ventures together. Like I'm a, I'm a big, a big believer.

So, so obviously a very tragic thing with your business partner dying. Sorry. You know, I, when you first told me that story, I was, I was heartbreaking.

So you end up selling your business. It was a, it was a nine figure exit. If I, if I remember, right. Yeah, we're, we're on NDAs, but it was a it was a nine-figure exit if i if i remember right yeah we're uh we're on ndas but it was a good exit yeah it was a good one so it was not it was nowhere near where we wanted to be um i think we had you know i was kind of disappointed and you know sometimes you always as you start to get going you sometimes start to believe, you know, your own hype. And I think that we wanted

to build the next Nike. And I, I'm sure I made some mistakes along the way. There were things that I wanted to do different. There are things that I, I, I probably should have done different. We just, it was just so much, you know, going on. We had never built a clothing company before. There was no blueprint for this. And I just didn't know what I didn't know. And I, as we started to grow in clothing, the difference between, it's a really, really hard business because people will wake up one day and just decide, oh, that's not the clothing they want anymore. They want the next thing. And I think we dealt with that a little bit as it started to grow after the after the crash of 2008. People started to get away from we were kind of known for our big frames. out logos and um we you know it was a hard experience all sudden having a lot of pushback

in in the design area where people were um you know pushing back because they didn't want to wear that type of stuff anymore but yet the store still wanted it because they felt like that it was what was selling but we're like this is changing we could feel it on our side that this is changing right now and they didn't want to be a part of fixing it you know didn't want to be a part of the solution they just wanted to keep buying what was already out there and then when it ended one day they just kind of wanted to not do it anymore so we you know there were some things that happened out there in the retail space that became hard um we're still great business i mean our our our uh drink business is still out there doing you know uh you know nine figure sales uh every year you know just in the

drink business just drinks you know so we built an amazing business that i think we're very you know i'm very proud of um i know my partner's smiling down still. You know, I think that we will always be remembered because we were there at the beginning of the UFC, you know, nearly the beginning of the UFC during the explosion of the UFC. If you ever look back and tell the story, you have to tell the story of Tap Out too. Tap Out was there. Tap Out was a part of that growth in the early years. And, you know, we're proud of that. We're proud that we did our TV show.

Like I said, amazing experiences of, you know, having dinner with Jay-Z, having, you know, sitting down with people that, you know, Mark Wahlberg, or, you know, all these different people that we met through building our businesses, these amazing businessmen being signed to CAA. All these experiences were just life changing. And I wouldn't be here talking to you right now, you know, it all wouldn't have played out the way it did. Yeah, dude, that's it's such a such an amazing uh story such an amazing experience so question for you any regrets in selling the business would you do it again would you do it in the same timeline what what would you give do differently um you know i wish unfortunately

i think at that time i needed to sell the business. I didn't want to get up every day and deal with it, be the guy that everybody was looking at. I'd been going through that for a while after my partner passed away. I initially got excited at first about well I'm not excited because I'm still dealing with that my partner passing but I was like thinking that you know I want to keep this alive for him I want him to you know I want I want his I want to keep his name around you know we talked to the partitas about um and Dana about getting his name in the ring and they left they decided they were gonna they said as long as we own the company as long as we still own this brand Charles's name will be in this ring and they inducted him into the hall of fame all that stuff was amazing and

great that's awesome and it felt satisfying but at the end of the day I just didn't feel like getting up and doing it anymore and so taking kind kind of a backseat, because I stayed on as president for the next five years, taking a backseat felt like the right thing to do, even though I felt like, you know, so many things could have been done different during that time. And ultimately, you know, we didn't get the position for the UFC, you know, as the main sponsor anymore. And we were changing stores and a lot of stores didn't work out. So we were in different stores and it was just a lot of things that didn't happen the way I wanted them to go down. And it became difficult. So I left in 2015.

And, you know, I felt so good about the experience. I mean, of course, I wish it would have kept going in a, in a way, in a positive way, but I felt like we built something pretty amazing and, um, and I'm glad to move on and keep, you know, I'm going to build the next amazing thing. That's what I'm looking to do now. I'm, I love being with my family. I love we're, you know, um, just, I just, it's just a different part of my life. And I love how life takes you into these different transitions and you go through these different moments at the right time in life. I think that's God proposed. You know, I think God takes you through different parts of your life and puts you in those places at the right time of your life and in challenges that you can overcome and

experiences that you can either, you know, let go by the wayside or you can live up to that and build something great. Man, I think it's so awesome what you're able to experience. I mean, exiting a nine-figure business, like that's what so many entrepreneurs dream of. And I mean, most, at least myself, I don't ever view myself as like being a part of a company until the day I die, right? I'm looking at building value, being able to extract some value by selling off the business or whatever it may be.

And so like the fact that you were able to experience that, by selling off the business or whatever it may be. And so like the fact that you were able to experience that, that's something that very, very, very few people will ever be able to accomplish in their lifetime. And, you know, obviously you've been able to build upon that. You've got some really cool things going on. Do you share with us, like, what do you, what do you got going on right now? So I know that you're, you're involved in another clothing brand. Is that right? Um, no, not right now. Clothing brand. Oh man. Probably called it wrong. I'm actually, um, so, uh, I, I can't talk about my other, um,

I'm consulting for a big company right now that I'm really excited about, but I can't talk about it right now. Um, just because of some of the things that are going on. But we're about to make some big announcements, and it's going to be pretty exciting. So I can't wait for that to happen. I wish I could talk to you about it right now, but I can't. The biggest thing that I'm excited about, and that stuff's big, but that's not my full-time thing.

And really what my full-time thing is right now, I'm excited about starting my podcast or restarting our podcast. Because we came up on doing our podcast a year ago, and we felt like we were doing so many good things. And then life kind of took us in a different direction. Unfortunately, my wife's mother passed away, and we were going through some other stuff. My daughter had caught the C-word, and so we were dealing with that, and we were traveling, and it just felt like so much was going on. And we put it aside for a second, you know, and it's like the one thing that, you know, sometimes you don't drink your own juice. You know, like we know I know what would have kept that going is if we would just push through and found a way to keep continuing it. You'd probably be in a different place right now.

But we decided we really wanted to go back and do it because it felt really fulfilling just doing this type of thing with our kids. And, you know, our kids been speaking on stages and, and, and doing some amazing stuff, but we want him to see us doing this and he's on the podcast with us too, and our daughter. Um, and so we just want our kids to see us doing that together so that we kind of, you know, kids really learn through watching. They don't learn. No, they'll never learn through watching they don't learn no they'll never learn through what you tell them to do they always learn through seeing you do it and I my my youngest ones I have older kids to three older kids but my youngest my two young ones they they never they don't remember tap out because they're born way way after that so they I want them to see us building this business again I want them

to see us go through this I want them to see what building this business again. I want them to see us go through this. I want them to see what we have to do and the things, the struggles, the putting yourselves in a position where you're uncomfortable. I'm not always comfortable speaking or being in front of crowds or audiences or interviewing some people that I consider people, my mentors, people that I look up to. That's hard for me to do sometimes. And but I think we do a pretty good job. And I love having my kids on the podcast and I love them seeing what we're doing. I love watching them grow. And and right now, that's what's exciting me. So we have the Pretty and Punk. We just changed it a little bit. The Pretty and Punk Business Parent Podcast, which is about, you know, seeing the struggle, kind of struggles of founders, but, you know, the And it can be really fulfilling in the way that for your kids, them seeing what you're doing. Because, again, they're going to learn by watching.

I love that. You know, as a father of five myself, you know, that's like the most important thing to me in the world is my kids, my wife, and how I'm teaching them. You know, and to your point, they rarely listen to the words I say, but they almost always mimic my actions. And so, uh, that's, that's always cool because I think I do a pretty good job in my actions and I screw up my words a lot. Uh, so, so that's, that's, that's good. Um, dude, so cool. So a couple of things, social media, where's the, where's a good place that people can follow you? Um, at tap out punk ass, that's still use that handle. I just never changed it. I figured it's

where people know me by, they used to call me punk asses, you know, when I was running tap out and it's tattooed on my lip. So, uh, you know know at tap out punk ass on instagram and uh twitter and uh i don't dance on tick tock but i happen to be on there for just business purposes only and then of course our youtube you can find us at pretty and punk uh pretty and punk business Pretty and Punk Business Family Empire. Pretty and Punk Business Family Empire. Love it. Love it. So, yeah, be sure to follow you.

Hey, no judgment on TikTok. I think TikTok's one of the coolest phenomenons of our time. And it's actually one of the only social media platforms where freedom of speech still exists. It's like twitter and in tiktok and it's funny because it's owned by a chinese company and and here we are trying to shut it down and i think we're probably trying to shut it down more because of freedom of speech they want they want to shut us up but uh yeah you know so i i love TikTok. Great, great spot. Couple couple other things. So number one habit that like you or one or two habits that just drastically change your day, change your life, whether it's fitness or what are some of your favorite habits?

Well, man, you know, some of the habits I wish I had, I was better at, you know, one of the things I do, honestly, I think it's the one thing that keeps me grounded. And I actually started off for my kids. But, you know, I consider myself, you know, a church-going, God-loving father. But I wasn't, you know, in a lot of ways i wasn't praying like i probably should and i get up every morning now and i pray with my kids so it's awesome i think that's probably one of the best habits i have and then i have uh when i go to my kids see i get stupid emotional over stuff like this so great i love it more emotion the better oh man i uh so uh affirmations with my with my kids in the morning my my wife actually started that which is you know all the credit to

her for that um but i need two of the affirmations that you guys say um we just uh say i'm you know i have our kids say they'll they'll say it and then we'll repeat after them sometimes we'll do our own too but um they'll say i'm powerful and we'll say it and they'll say i can do anything through god and then i'll and then we'll say it and then they'll say you know i'm gonna change the world and they so we make them do 10 affirmations in the morning and uh a few at night. And they do a lot of quotes and stuff throughout the day. My son loves to do quotes.

So if you go to his Instagram, Daniel David Inc., you'll see all his quotes that he does and his speeches and stuff. How old is he? He's six. Oh, that's so cool. Good for him what uh so favorite favorite book favorite author you know uh favorite favorite you know fiction non-fiction what is it um well i mean of course star wars but i won't say that because nobody will get nothing from that um honestly the one book I honestly feel like changed, built our business. If I had to give credit to something outside of ourselves and God, I have to say that the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie changed everything.

Everything about the way we dealt with people. And it made, it built our business. I know there's no way, I mean, there was a, in September 11, 2001, when those planes were crashing into those buildings in New York and that horrible thing was happening, we were sitting in a conference room with two billionaires frank fortita and lorenzo fortita and dana white and we're talking about how tap out is going to be a part of the ufc as long as they own it that we that they will always that we will always have a place in the ufc we don't get into conversations with people like that unless you have some understanding how to speak to people in the right way and how to you know how to deal with people and how to um you just have those conversations and how to win friends and influence people it's not about, it's about influence in a good way.

It's about putting other people first. It's about dealing with people in a way that is selfish but unselfish. And it was just an incredible book. I've read it probably 30 times or so now. Listen to it. I have it on audio. I have the CDs. I have the tapes back in the day. I have it in all forms. I have it on audio I have the cds I have the tapes back in the day I have I have it in all forms I have multiple books I have signed books I sent you a signed book didn't I yeah you

did yeah you know I mean I I don't know I sent you a different book I've sent you a book but yeah but yes but uh the how to win friends Influence People by Dale Carnegie is my favorite book of all time. So cool. So cool. Thanks for sharing that with us. So kind of last question to leave off on, you know, somebody somebody's feeling discouraged in life, whether it's they're they're wanting to take the next leap, whether it's into entrepreneurship or they're feeling like giving up? What what words of advice do you have for them? I mean, we said it be relentless and don't give up. I mean, that's the biggest that's the only rules to success. I'm no I mean, I was not I was a D student when I graduated. I'm not the smartest tool in the shed. I'm a guy who just refuses to

give up. Everybody in the room is always smarter than I am. I get in the room and I just like, I make sure it's that way. You know, I want to be surrounded by great people. I think that was part of Tap Out's success. But you gotta know that if you just don't give up, and that doesn't mean the same idea. Like, you know, some people confuse this for like, hey, I have a great idea for this clothing company. Well, you know, down the road, you start, there's so many to tell signs that this isn't going to work. And maybe you have to give up on that idea. But don't give up on yourself. Be relentless about yourself. Decide that, hey, that didn't work. Maybe I have to pivot and it's going to be this instead. Be relentless. Don't give up. Don't listen to the naysayers and just keep moving forward. I know it sounds like something somebody would tell you in a book, but it's just so true. It's the reason why it's out there is because it's true that if you won't give up,

if you don't give up, you will make it at some point. Love that. Appreciate your time today, Dan. I know it's valuable and I know with family and business and everything else that you have going on. So appreciate you sharing some of your time with us today and excited to catch up with you in the future my man no thank you for having me on chris i appreciate it all right my dude have a good one you