Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Howard Panes - Billion Dollar Brand Builder

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of The Radcast! This weeks guest is entrepreneur Howard Panes!"Howard Panes is an icon and pioneer in the electronic cigarette industry, who famously went from $600,000 in debt, to building the world's fastest growing e-cig company, LOGIC, that broke $100 million in sales in its first 18 months. Panes later sold LOGIC to Japan Tobacco, and is now one of the most well-known guerrilla marketing entrepreneurs on the planet."To keep up with Howie P check out his website howardpanes.com, and follow him Instagram @HowardPanes. For more information on the Think Billions Experience visit ThinkBillions.clubIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com. Check out www.theradicalformula.com. Like, Share and Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RadicalHomeofTheRadcast or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radicalresults @the.rad.cast @nick_weaver If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know, it hit me deep inside. And I come from a pretty much entrepreneurial family. My grandparents came here as immigrants, started a trucking company. I was loading tractor trailers where I was eight, nine, ten. I like the fact of getting paid, you know, I like that I could get that cash and do something with it. And I realized that at a very young age that financial freedom is really important. I'll do any task. No task is below me.

And this is really where my success really, you know, it helped me in my, in my world. Because I talk to everybody in every store and every walks of life. Because that's, for me, that gives me life. To be able to communicate with everybody, no matter what level you are. The only difference is I spent, you know, when everyone puts so much pressure on themselves to be successful or to find success or to find happiness. And I think the most important thing is to find what you're passionate about. You know, what is your passion? What do you love to do?

And really focus in on that. Everyone's trying to do a million things and to find and seek happiness. And as I dove deeper into my experiences, I came up with the Howie method. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast.

We're talking billions today, my friends, not millions, billions. Billions, billions, billions upon billions with Howie Pee, Howard Payne's, serial entrepreneur and billion dollar brand maker. What's up, brother? What's up? Thanks for having me. I think your show is amazing and, uh, I appreciate you having me on. Hey, I appreciate that. You know, flattery gets you everywhere, as they say, in this world. So we appreciate it. We love telling good stories. We love having good people. And your people contacted my people. And I'm like, I didn't know how we pee. But now I feel like I know you a little bit. I felt like I was getting in shape, you know, going through all your stuff, your brands. You know, I never going to get to all that. But no, I think real recognizes real.

And I appreciate you coming on the show and excited to tell everybody about your journey. Yeah, I'm super pumped. I mean, I love inspiring, motivating, and I'm glad my people reach out to your people. But now there's no in between. It's just me and you. Just me and you, baby. Me and you mixing it out. Yeah.

No, I'd rather, let's figure out a way to make some money together. We don't have to mix it up. How's life? Where's home these days? So home is Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And I also just got a place in California. Everyone's moving out. And I bought a place in Palm Desert, little castle.

Ah. So a little getaway there in the desert. I like hiking and I like the vibe out there. So ocean here, desert there. It's a good combo. Nice. Get the best of both worlds. Neither one a bad place to be,

especially the Fort Lauderdale area. It's very nice down there and get that all those tax breaks in Florida and all the great weather. A little sticky sometimes, but hard to beat, hard to beat. But Howard, Howie P. Now you've got that in my head, brother. I'm going to like, it's going to be hard for me to lose it. Let's talk your journey, man. I know you got a great story.

And I'm really excited for kind of the audience to hear kind of your entrepreneurial journey, the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows. Let's start it, brother. All right. So, you know, growing up, I came from a middle class family. My mom was an entrepreneur. She was into clothing and fashion. So she had jewelry stores. So she was always taking me to work. And I always saw how, you know, she controlled her own destiny and how her being an entrepreneur and very motivational. She had the freedom to buy what she want and do what she want. And for me, that really, you know, it hit me deep inside. And I come from a pretty much entrepreneurial family. My grandparents came here as immigrants, started a trucking company. I was loading tractor trailers

when I was eight, nine, ten. I like the fact of getting paid, you know, I like that I could get that cash and do something with it. And I realized that at a very young age, that financial freedom is really important. And as my father and my mother, you know, growing up, we took nice trips and we had a real great relationship, you know, all pretty tight relationship. I got brother and sister. And for me, at a young age, I really took to people like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was big into, I always wanted to be in the fitness.

So like Schwarzenegger, Bruce Lee, and Tony Robbins. That was like three people I really filled myself really at a young age. And that really just, you know, built me up. I was, you know, I programmed myself at a young age that I really wanted to be successful. I wanted to be tough, you know, the martial arts. And I wanted to be built. And I wasn't the tallest guy. So I had to have all the other components.

And so, um, My journey as a young, young kid, I was shoveling driveways, snowblowing business, cleaning windows, anything I could do to make an extra buck. I love to do. Where was this? Because I hear the accent. Yeah. So I was born in New York, raised in New Jersey. Okay.

So I'm a Jersey guy. There we go. Went to like a private Hebrew, Hebrew day school when I was younger. I had a pretty religious, you know, Jewish family growing up. My grandparents were big benefactors of Israel. And so actually my grandfather, who became very successful, becoming a, he was a fruit cart vendor and built a trucking route by delivering mail on his fruit cart to people and built actually a huge company in the 80s.

They had a thousand tractor trailers, east coast, west coast. So at one time I thought, maybe I'll never have to work. Grandpa will leave me some money. I never tell this story. You're going to love this. This is the first. I say, Grandpa, you know, leave me something, you know, when you go, when you pass to the other place, leave something for your best grandson. And he says, yeah, of course I'm going to take care of you.

I said, what are you going to give me? He goes, I'm going to have a nice, a nice note waiting for you. I go, what's going to say? He says, say, hello, Howie. I'm like, Grahams, it's not even funny. And you know what? That's what it was. There was nothing. Zero. He spent it all.

But anyway, he was a, he was a, he was a giving guy. He was, I get a lot of take after him a lot of way in his generosity and the way he was with people and respectful of everybody and treated everyone graciously and respect. No matter who, what their place was in life, he just, he was that kind of guy. from him, you know, that. And it was very important for me in my life to just treat everyone like gold, whether I've got a restaurant, I'll do any, I'll do any task. No tasks is below me. And this is really where my success really, you know, it helped me in my world. Because I talk to everybody in every store and every walks of life, because that's, for me, that gives me life, to be able to communicate with everybody, no matter what level you are. And so,

He built this Hebrew school that actually started out in a trailer and at a church, believe it or not. We were in a church parking lot in a trailer or a Jewish school. Imagine that. And then finally, like when I was in fifth grade, he built a school. And then ninth grade, I went to real high school, public school. I was like, what the heck? This shit exists. I played tennis. I was a tennis player, BMX, rode motocross. So I was into, you know, fast activity, always into fitness, took martial arts for six, seven years. Went to college, went to Syracuse University, with Derek Coleman, Sherman Douglas, Ronnie Cycley, some of those dudes you may have heard of basketball guys.

I remember those guys. And I was a business major, basically fitness minor exercise in nutrition, fitness, exercise physiology. got out of college. I got an offer for Staples. Do you want to be an aisle manager? I'm like, mom, went to college four years to become an aisle manager. Staples, no way. I said, I got to do something.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I can. And by the way, I had jobs growing up, but a lot of jobs, like, they let me go. Like I tried to do the landscaping, was on the machine. First day, that big machine flew off and just blew up on me. So basically, I had some bad experience. working for other people, and I just, I always saw things like my way. So I, you know, I had to do it the Howie Way. And, uh, graduated college and got an offer, 24,000 a year.

And I say, you know what, this shit's not for me. I'm going to become a trainer. So I got all the certifications. My mother had a trainer. I worked for another guy, six months, taught me the business. Then went on my own, opened to my first gym. Started doing an in-home training first. after I left this guy, built my own clientele, opened the gym back in 1990 when I got out of school. Six months after I graduated, I opened the gym. Growing up, I was always in a gym, carrying my own food with me on the plane.

I did some bodybuilding shows. I was just big into fitness. I loved it. It was like, that was my way to really challenge myself for basically goal setting for, you know, one more pull-up, one more push-up, heavyweights, getting in six days a week, doing some powerlifting, working out with some big dudes. For me, that was like, you know, the world where I felt like I was just, I was immersed in it. And I felt like that was really building up just my mental, my mental power, my energy,

feeling confident with myself, feeling like I can just take on the world. And this has been sort of like, you know, the Bible, my place where I think all my successes come from. And I can talk a little bit about it after. And I open my gym. I'm jumping around because it's an ADD, ADD, you know. Open my first gym, 1990, 10 to 93. I opened up another gym, close the other one, opened a bigger one. But for me, I mean, the gym was great.

I love motivating people and inspiring them and, you know, learning from a lot of my clients who are business people. But I noticed that when I was their coach, you know, it was more of a lifestyle enhancement specialist. I improved their life all around. They got more fit. They got healthier. They stopped going on medications.

They felt more confident. They were making more money in their work. I said to him, I only charge like $100 an hour. You're paying like $400 for your lawyer and only does his paperwork. I do everything. I'm like, I'm better than a lawyer, your doctor, your psychologist. All these people combined. And I, you know, for me, I kept clients, Ryan, for 20 years.

20 plus years I had clients. And it was the dedication, the focus on them, the basically really caring about them, right? It was really caring about them as a professional coach that made my success and made them keep coming back, right? I had expectation of them. And it was great. It was the best career in my life. And during all that time, as have you heard in my story, I know you dig two inches deep, but maybe you had to go three inches to find these. I had 29.

It's probably more. I said to say 29 because I want to go over 30. I call them failed startups or learning experiences, tattooed t-shirts, energy shots for gamers, health and fitness search engine, CBD companies, real estate tech. The list goes on. Diet pills. I was watching old YouTube videos, and I sounded just like I am today 15 years ago. the same how we haven't changed the only difference is i spent you know when everyone put so much

pressure on themselves to to be successful or to find success or to find happiness and i think the most important thing is to find what you're passionate about you know what is your passion what do you love to do and really focus in on that everyone's trying to do a million things and to find and seek happiness. And as I dove deeper into my experiences, I came up with the Howie method. Howie P's method. The Howie method. So what is the Howie method?

I said, what is my name stand for? Why did my parents call me Howie? You know, why did I have Howie all of my wallpaper in my house? I had Howie and my brother had David. I was like, what the heck? I look back and, uh, so for me, the H. Five easy things, everybody.

This is five easy tips you can do to change your life forever. The H, I leave my life in the cornerstone of health. Health is well. If you have health, you have everything. It helps your energy levels. It helps you think better.

It helps you just feel better and you're feeling energized and you can perform better. Do everything in your life better by having health in your life as number one. I say health number one because you can take care of, you know, four kids, your family, if you have more energy and you're well-rested and you feel good and your health is good, your quality of life is going to be up here.

And, you know, it's not just now, but it's when, you know, you get to my age, right? You know what I mean? And a little bit older. So health is a cornerstone. Oh, what is O? O is originality. I say, be you, be real, be proud. Be that one person.

You look in a mirror and learn how to be happy with that guy because that's who you are. You know, how can you make that the best person, the best version that you are? Because this is going to be your most success. I was never the smartest kid. I was never the biggest kid. I was never the best-looking kid.

Although I look okay. I, you know, never a great athlete. I was never great at anything. You know, when I say to myself this, and I tell everybody this out there, is I can beat guys all day long that are smarter than me, stronger than me, tougher than me. I can beat them all day long in the howie, in my way, in the way I'm confident about myself. And I think this is the best thing that I can offer anybody is you're so special and you're so individual, unless you have a twin brother, then you're screwed. but you're so special an individual that you have such talents, you just have to tap into them.

So originality is so important, be you, be real, be proud. The W is work. You've got to put the work in. Look, you told me you did 300 plus podcasts. I don't even, I never met you before, but I'm super impressed. I know how hard it is. I know the dedication. And plus with a whole family, you know, you've got a sacrifice to do a lot to get that done.

And so I commend you. You know, that's awesome. So hard work, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't hack hard work. You can do things smarter, but listen, for me, I don't know. Time is something I put in, I put in long and hard into my, into the projects that I've gone into. Most not successful, one that took me to the stratosphere. hard work is everything the i innovation it's easy to be a copycat in life but can you innovate can you do something different can you serve the world differently solve problems in a different way that weren't

being solved before and for me this this jacks me i i know i'm supposed to be getting eight hours of sleep and lately with a lot of new launches and things i'm doing four hours five hours is good the 20 years i had my gym i was putting eight years i was putting eight years to 100 hours a week. I'll say it again because I didn't stutter. 80 to 100 hours a week. And for me, people say I'm putting 60, 70. I'm like, that's pretty good. You know, you're going to get there some days. For me, that's a light week. And, you know, that's just the way I'm wired. So I, innovation, got to innovate. And the E is, we were talking about your little drink, energy. Got to energize yourself daily. You know, what energize?

you. I have certain songs I listen to energize me. I have certain, you know, YouTube videos. There's some motivational ones. I picked a few that really get me, get me amped up. And you see a lot of professional athletes, world-class Olympians that they listen to certain things before they perform because it heightens your, you know, your level of alertness and your energy level to a new level. So energy is a big part. So I love, you know, going out there, my best foot forward every day, I like it. I'm going to read them back to you. You see, I have no notes, know anything.

And I didn't know this coming in. Health, originality, put in the work, innovation, and energy. How to do. Hey, my man. Five for five. Focus. That's focus. That's focus.

And execution right there. Yes. So the big, so, you know, I hear people talk about, you know, building seven, eight, figure, nine figure companies. I could never build a million dollar company, just so you know, in 22 years. I couldn't build my fitness business to a million dollars. They said you weren't a good business guy, Howie, you're a gym rat, you know, you should have franchised your gym business. I also developed another fitness product in 2000, spent 500,000 of my savings, pushing out this energy ball product. I did six videos. I mean, I've done everything. I've pushed.

I don't even know how many hours. And this is the best. I'm 600,000 in debt 10 years ago. I'm broker than everyone on your show watching right now. I'm broker than you. Trust me. I was broker than you. I was more down than you.

I was poor. I had nothing. Everyone was against me. So if you ever feel like this, you're not alone. I was there 10 years ago, broker than broke. And I was at my last straw going. through divorce. I have three kids, 25, 25, 19. I love them to death. And, you know, my whole life, I just wanted to be a success. I wanted to create a product that could give me, you know, millions of

dollars so I don't have to work so hard. And I dreamed about it. And this energy drink I thought was going to be it. And this weight loss thing was going to be in my fitness product. Everything was going to be like the savior of my life that I wouldn't have because I was spending too much. I was living way above my means, way above, and it just came crushing down, you know, lost my house in a short sale. I was down to nothing. Then the divorce was there 10 years ago, and I said to myself, what am I going to do? This is our last draw, Howie. You got to really, you got to really, what are you going to do?

and basically 10 years ago, I was, buddies of mine were in the, they were, they managed professional athletes, and they were in boxing and mixed martial arts. And they said, I said to them, I was good at setting up meetings. I could get, I can land meetings and reach out to people. So I told them, listen, I'll set up this meeting with Tap Out, which was that mixed martial arts company. I know if you heard of Tap Out.

I don't know if they're still around. But they were in California, and I said to him, you know, he told me they're looking to bring MMA to China and get the Shaolin Temple fighters in American style fighting. And he says, Howard, if he gets up the meeting, I'll give you a little chunk of the deal. He was my client, Richie. And I go, all right, Richie, I set up the meeting. We went out to California. And we were in Beverly Hills at a meeting. And basically, I'm sitting at a table.

Guys blown big smokescreen next to me. One of the guys in the meeting. Brian, I was like, what is this? I hate smoke. So smoking is my biggest pet peeve. I don't like smoking, and I'm not a drinker, but smoking is the worst. It just, it kills you so bad, you know, inside. People don't even realize how bad with your teeth and your gums.

It just, it basically just kills you everywhere. This guy was smoking, blowing big smoke in my face. I'm like, dude, can you stop smoking? He's like, he's like, this is not smoke. This is vapor. I'm like, vapor. What do you mean vapor? So he takes it and goes to burn my head.

hand and I'm like, what is that? So me being an inventor and a creative guy, you know, I was like, you know, what is that? He goes, this is the future. It's cancer-free smoking. When I tell you, something hit me like a bomb, like a bomb went off, like everything else evaporated. And this was just in my mind. I'm like, this is it. This is my calling. How can I get millions of people off This thing's going to do it. It's called an electronic cigarette. Never heard about it before. I was just started talking about distribution.

He's like you could buy $10,000 worth. You know, I'll print up $5,000 or whatever, 4,000 of them. I'd have 10 grand. So he walked away. I got three samples from him. Richie and his buddies are next to me across to me. And they're like, how, what are you guys talking about? I'm like, dude, e-cigarettes.

The electronic cigarette. Did you hear what this guy just said? This is the future. They're like, Howie. This is why you're broke. You're broke. You have tension deficit. And, you know, it's total put down.

I'm like, man, you guys are my friends or what? They said no. And by the way, these are the guys that are like, dude, have we, like, missed out on the opportunity of our lifetime? Like my friend Richie's like, dude, he tells my story. He tells a story to everybody. You know, he still tells everybody. So they say no.

I'm thinking of myself, all right, I got to do this e-cigarette thing. Go back to my, go back to New Jersey, and I'm at my gym, and I'm emailing factories from China, and I'm getting samples. And after three months of trying to smoke, you know, smoking them, thinking about what I'm going to do, how I'm going to market these things. I hit myself, you know what the problem is, Ryan? I don't even, I'm not a smoker. I don't even know what these things are supposed to taste like.

This is the best. So in any business, right? If you're not the expert, you've got to find somebody who can help you, right? Eli, next door, he's like the Russian-Israeli military cyber force guy. I remember telling me howie, when I, you know, in Israel, when you're in the military, they give you a pack of Marlboro in your uniform. That's your uniform. It comes with a pack of Marlborough.

Every day I was driving to work. Eli smoking cigarettes outside the salon. And his wife, I was friendly with his wife. I trained her a bunch of times. And, you know, we cross-promote. So I said, I got to get Eli. I got to pitch him this. So he's walking by down the hallway.

We had a common corridor in this, we had a strip mall in New Jersey. He was right next to me. He walked, I remembered this vividly. He's walking by. I go, Eli, I got to show you something. He goes, why, what, what? So I take it and I put it between my fingers. He's like electronic cigarette.

I was blown away. I was like, this guy knows about you cigarettes. He goes, Howie, 2008, my wife bought me a kit, $250. It had chargers, refills, wires. He goes, it was so complete. It was, you know, you need a college education, and I never graduated eighth grade in Israel. So I took it out of the draw.

I looked at it. I looked at the instructions, and I put it back in, never opened it again. I go, Eli. I gave him the pitch. I go, Eli. I go, Eli, this is, he go, I go, Eli. Susie goes to 7-Eleven down the road every day, buys a cup of coffee in our brand.

I go, cancer-free smoking. He goes, let me, let me see. Can I use any language on your show here? Yeah, it's a rap cast. Okay, good. Oh, it's radical, radical. Okay, so I can, so I could, it can be fluent in French. Yes.

So he takes it like this. I'm dying. I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm praying that the guy likes it. I'm praying, right? He goes, this is a fucking gold. Let's cash it in. I was like, I was like, oh my God, this is the day. This is the day.

Dude, we started. So the story is a long story, but I can, we started ordering from China. You know, we, I borrowed 10 grand from my dad. which I already owed him so much money from loans. He's like, you know, payback's going to be a bitch one day. I'm like, pops, come on. This is the one, I tell you.

I give him credit because, you know what, he never put me down. And he was like, you know what? My mother was always encouraging, which is a great thing because a lot of parents aren't encouraging. And so they're like, oh, man, we just lost on like five other things. You told us this crazy, this crazy macamamey things they call them. I go 10. I just need 10 on this one.

And, you know, I borrowed 10 for my pops. He put 10 in. And we went to work. And basically, where was, so e-cigrets had already been around. And so,

and you were in California and someone already had something. We're, talk to me about where we are. Because I think everybody listening, now that we're kind of given the punchline a little bit away with these cigarettes. Like, where was, what was the industry at that stage? Because obviously it must have still been pretty early because you obviously struck gold here. I know that's coming pretty soon down the path here.

But what was the state of the industry when you were doing this? So the state of the industry was, you know, the FDA was trying to regulate it as a medical device. Right. and so there were you know they were there were a lot of court battles at the time so this is like 2012 2011 yeah yeah yeah 2010 okay 2010 yeah 2011 and but 2008 is when blue came out blue was like one of the first yeah remember that you know and the market was basically the market was saturated with it was 250 brands Ryan 250 brands out there trying to pitch their product the best and people said to me howley this is so such a dumb idea eat cigarettes first of all they're

not only you're broke but you're going to be in jail because you're this this stuff kills people yep you know and i was like you know what i'm just going to go forward with what i feel here yeah i feel like i can help millions of people get off deadly cigarettes that's going to be our mission and uh that's what we so basically the state of the industry was it was all rechargeable there were a lot of products in the market. There wasn't any leading brands. There were a few brands, but basically it was just, you know,

it was the Wild West. You know, it was figuring out, you know, what you can put. You know, you couldn't make claims that it was healthier or better for you. But you know what we did? We did some key things. Basically, when we named,

so him and I, we came up with a naming convention. It was called Logic, Electronic Cigarettes. And we came with logic because we said, you know what, if you use your logic, you'll make a better decision. You know, logical decisions are better ones. So this is logic. It's better for you. So that was one of the things. That was one of the things that we did that people like, you know, I thought subconsciously it would talk to them like, it's logic.

Right. Now, the second thing I'm going to tell you is super, you know, it was like a super secretive move that we did. I sort of, I think I got the idea from the five-hour energy guy. I think that's where it came from, where basically a lot of people sued him because they said, it doesn't give me five hours of energy. Well, he said, that's not my trademark. I mean, that's my trademark. That's not what I'm promising.

I'm promising feeling in minutes lasts for hours. That's what it said. So basically, his trademark is five-hour energy. So I said to myself, hmm. How could I use that sort of that spin to make a claim that my e-cigarette was better than everybody else's? So you know what I did? I registered the trademark, the most trusted brand. And I got it.

Just the most literally that basic, the most trusted brand. Yeah. Not even the most trusted, the most trusted e-cigarette brand, or just the most trusted brand, period? The most trusted brand, period. Oh, my God. How the hell did you get that? That's exactly. So my buddies who are lawyers go, Howie, that's freaking genius.

I'm like, listen, I don't know how genius it was and it would work, but it worked. And so, you know, basically all the, I'll go into New York City Radio and all the taxi cabs. But basically that was like, you know, where's your study groups? Where's your test groups? They wanted these marketing firms wanted 100,000. $200,000. We only had 20 grand. And you know what? I'll tell you guys, this is really important. You don't need experts for everything. And you just got to try on error. You got to have balls. You got to go out there and try it and do it. Okay, experts are not going to save you.

And most experts, as I was telling buddy of mine today, they just wrote books. They never really built companies. And they're really good at selling you and building subscriptions. But how many of them really built companies that actually they exited on a monster cash deal that started with 20 grand. That's my story. So we already know the name of this episode. You got to have balls. Yeah. I'm summing it up right now. You got to have balls because no balls, no results. Yep. You know, you can't just spend your way to success because most people are just going to spend your money and they're not going to really care about your company. And we just did it ourselves, step by step, everything, from the marketing to the website design, all that. I did it all myself

to setting up the warehouse, loading the trucks, doing the fulfillment. I was doing the work of 10 people. And, you know, the reality is, so the most trusted brand worked great for us. And at the time, what was really different, Ryan, what we did differently is we really focused on the disposable electronic cigarette technology. So we had some innovations, key innovations, and I'll talk about them right now. Basically, how to differentiate us from 250 other competitors besides having a good naming convention and the trademark didn't come right away? Basically, we figured out that this is the simplest concept. And if you think about it, regular cigarettes always work, right? They burn and they work.

But we found from going into the stores was that rechargeable electronic cigarettes had a very high defective rate because they had too many components. So I went all in on the disposable. You know, the disposable was a big, you know, Eli really liked a fact. fact that it was disposable because, you know, his previous experience was all those parts and all these opportunities for it to go defective. Every logic had to work. That was one of the key factors of our massive success. And it offered 40% gross profit.

We went in, we go, listen, Mr. Such and Such, Nothing in your store gives you $4 profit. Every time Susie comes in buys a cup of coffee and a couple of coffee and a lot of, a logic. So we offered 40% GP. And we had to make sure we had the richest flavor and thickest vapor. So those were like our ingredients, right? We had like the triple threat. We started out selling him in his salon. He was pushing him in his salon. He goes, man, people really like these. I'm like, and then we just went to work. We were going to every 7-Eleven. I would do the signs. I was like the marketing guy. He was, he was collecting the money. And we had, listen to this, this is great. We had no accounts receivable. There was no consignment. I like the word commitment.

So when I went in there, I said, listen, we're giving you gold, you cash it in. We don't do consignment. We do commitment. You commit. We know if you're committing, you're going to sell our product that will be good business partners. And we knew every store that we set up with our system, that that would be like a little franchise, you know, little logic. I'll tell you a crazy story. I figured out that one of the big factors of going in the store and they offered 20 different e-cigarettes was the guy behind the counter didn't know which one to recommend.

I made it easy. You want to hear my technique? Yeah. We had white boxes, these shitty boxes for. China, 24 units in each. I said, you know what I'm going to do? When someone buys a Marlborough red, like, which brand do you offer them? And he says, I don't know which one. I go, okay, you're going to offer them logic. You know, I wrote on the box, so we had a platinum. That was our strongest. I go, Marlboro Red on the box, dude. I put it on the counter.

I put Newport for our, I put Newport for our menthol. was it illegal probably but you know what it worked like a charm and then by the time we had real boxes with branding they knew what brand to get and which one what would flavor and strength so there there were so many things and then i was flying back and forth to china we broke a hundred million in sales in 18 months i was broker than broke 10 years ago i skipped a million dollar company and went to the billions i got to got on a rocket ship and flew to the moon. It's unbelievable.

And that's why, you know, I have this, created this Think Billion's sort of, think Billion's mission where I was thinking I wanted to become a millionaire so bad, and I skipped the whole level. Damn. So I tell you sold the company, right? Yeah, so check this out. So I was living in China.

You know, I got to talk about the hard work, too. The funny thing is we You talked about a lot of hard look right there, I think. We flew to China in the back of the plane the first six months. Yeah. And after the seventh, eighth month, when we were catching traction, I mean, it was unbelievable. We really, we made some great moves,

and the company really, really was taken off. So we went from sitting in the back, six, seven months flying to China every three, four weeks to flying on Cathay Pacific, where my partner was stealing my caviar, because I don't eat caviar. Yeah, so 2000, a little under five years, we built 100,000 points of distribution. 2015, we were the number one brand sales per point of distribution. So that means for every store we were in, we were selling more than anybody else. 2015 Nielsen ratings.

You know, it was a dream. I mean, it was a dream come true. It was unbelievable. boy. We moved to New, from New Jersey to Florida. He tried to get me to go to Puerto Rico because there was no tax there. And he said, Howie, just sleep. And you'll make $25,000 extra every day. Every day you sleep, just sleeping. I'm like, I know, but I didn't want to do Puerto Rico. So we did Florida. We moved to Pompano. We opened up a massive, refrigerated warehouse. I bought the most sophisticated these crown lift, electric forklifts. And it was just,

just a machine. We ship, we manufactured everything. And by the way, one of the things we did differently was we air shipped everything by DHL as we got smarter because we knew it was like fresh milk. When we could deliver a product that was fresh and it said 250 pops 300 and they got the 300, we were winning the game. Yeah. So 100,000 points of distribution. We had a bunch of companies that Goldman was talking to to sell our company. Yep. And we close a deal with Japan tobacco, 2015 in New York City. I had my room with the Waldorf, I had my suit, which I never wear, you know.

Unbelievable. And so that feeling is just, you know, that feeling has brought me just, you know, of course it gives you a lot of, you know, enjoy and, but it also gives you a lot of freedom. them to do good and expand. So after selling the company, is that number public? What you sold for? No.

All right. No, no. It was a nice bag. It was a good number, I'm sure. It was a nice bag. All right. So basically after I sold that, I, you know, like I said,

I had so many failed companies before that. And then after I had a bunch of companies I invested that went sideways, but what I did do is in 2017, I wanted to get back in fitness and health. And I wanted to see, you know what, I could get, I help billions of people get off deadly cigarettes. Can I get millions, tens of millions of people fit and in shape in just three minutes a day? Can I help them build a habit through fitness and gamification that can get millions of people in great shape? And we launched on a Kickstarter, Stealth Fitness. We actually did better than Peloton. In fact, when Peloton did their Kickstarter,

we did about 300,000 on Kickstarter. And we launched Stealth Fitness, which was the world's first gamified exercise, which was planking. We chose the plank. I chose the plank because if you could choose one exercise to do, plankings pretty much hits everything. And we built gamification into it.

And we said, you know what? Do you think if we build games, people actually pay for games in a subscription? And during COVID, we started building out the gaming and the platform. And, you know, we sold over a million units. And we have quite a few on our subscription platform. And we're building that out. And now we're coming out with a squat trainer. Then we're following it with a stealth cycle.

So this has been unbelievable how it's motivated people that never even thought about working out or, you know, that were ultra, you know, very heavy that weren't competent to go to a gym and work out. This just gives them an easy way to get into the world of fitness and help. And also, you know, gamifying the experience takes the way the pain, one and two, it makes it fun. And so this has been super excited. I can't wait to your kids try stealth. I can't wait to you guys try it. I know. I'm excited about it.

You know, and I'm expected. Am I getting this in the mail soon? Howie P? Let me tell you something. After this call, you'll have it by Monday or Tuesday. There we go.

I'm going to film me and my kids doing it. I'm going to get them off the Xbox and on the stealth plank. So this has been going five years. The company's doing tremendous. I don't want to brag, but it's doing great. I have a great team. My partner,

by the way, one of my partners invented the ab roller. Him and his buddy. They used to own the abs company. So he sold over a billion dollars of app rollers, this guy, Don Brown. Brilliant. The funny story is this guy was one of my idols. Like I'm like, man, this guy has this ab roller thing that's selling, you know, sold over

$100 million worth. And, you know, I pitched him so many products. And he was like, yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. And I actually offered him the ESIG. And then after he saw what I did, when I called him, he's like, dude, whatever you're doing, I want to in. So he became my business partner, him and his partner, and some great partners, some of the greatest partners I ever had. And then new company we're launching is called Mighty Young.

And it's basically the world's first plant base. It's not the company launchable is a brand, but it's a plant-based launchable. It looks just like it, but it's plant-based. And it's for kids and adults. And we're launching it September 8th and 9th at Jacob Javits. So I'm excited about that. And then we're doing this huge event at my house. The big palace I bought in California called Think Billions.

And it's all about the initiative to think bigger and think at higher level and how can you do bigger deals and meet people that have done, you know, monstrous billion-dollar deals. and a lot of my advisors and people I've curated over the past 10 years that really helped me in my life. I'm bringing them in there and I'm going to introduce them to everyone who's coming to my event so they can really level up and perform at the highest levels. So I'm just like, I feel amazing, man. I'm glad that you brought me on your show. I really appreciate it.

No, man. I'm, you know, I wanted to, normally I'm like, try to dive in a few questions, but you're a good storyteller. and I felt like you kind of had us on a good trajectory there for the past. But like what we heard the see the Howie, the acronym, the success. I was trying to distill as you were talking like, you know, for our listeners, like distilling it down, you know, to how to, because really it's kind of like thinking bigger. You know, like, and that's to think billions. It's thinking bigger, not millions, billions. but yes and obviously it's ingrained in you like in a lot of ways you know you're driven

you had a million i million failures but a million things you know you've been trying to you know do this this this do this i had a million things go wrong i have a million things go wrong yeah but what is the what's the putting the acronym to the side and like the steps but like what do you think it is that allows you to think bigger Like what, how can people, if you really distilled it down for people listening out there, like, how do they get out of their own way to start to think in that mentality? What do you think it is? You know, you know what I think?

I've always been obsessed with people who have made a lot of money. Yeah. I had this obsession. And I read every company, every company with every story, with every founder. And maybe this has been ingrained in me that if they can do it, I can do it too. Yeah. And, you know, whatever, whether it's a product, whether it's a service, I'll just go through Net Worth. And I've been doing this for probably, you know, the last 20, 20, 30 years, I've been obsessed with, you know, what people have done to build their companies.

The DNA of success. Yeah, yeah, the DNA and Tim Ferriss and all these. But, I mean, listen, don't get me wrong, guys. I do a lot of reading. and I do a lot of studying. It just doesn't come from just, you know, hope and wishing and working hard. So it's, you know, I think a lot of this training has come from, you know, being interested and curious, right? Very curious.

I'm a very curious individual, and I read everything. And I want to know how they did it, why they did it. What was their mindset? What were their failures? So, yes, this has been, this has been baked in me for a long time. And you know what? I'm very curious still. Listen, you have to be an everyday learner.

You know, like Buffett, the guy's reading 10, 12 hours a day. My business partner, Dave, is brilliant. My son, like one of the top of MIT, he's a big reader. You know, he's Twitter, he's Twitter. Yeah. His Twitter feed, he's reading. He's sending me, you know, I surround myself. with even, you know, bigger, you know, guys that are much more curious than me,

and they feed me a lot of information because they know I'm the idea guy, and they feed it into me. You know, I have great, great friends and great business partners that are super successful, and we all work together. What, it's funny, I hear you talk. I was like you, and, you know, I'm naturally curious. It's why I do this show. I learn a lot, and it's, people ask me, like I've been building like talking to a lot of successful people that curious natural curiosity is like one of my it's like it comes up every single time whether they say it or they don't say it I find it in those people the most successful people are the most curious people it just is it truly is yeah because they you don't have a defer too many people just defer and just don't it's not that I don't want to say they don't care but. But like they don't care. You know, and like to be curious is to care, right? On some level, because you have an interest in what made something tick, what made

something happen to learn from it. And it's just this common denominator with successful people. Yeah, I want to know why the Lamborghini service, why they tell me I need a new battery when they tell me the battery last four years. And it's only three. Yep. Why am I, why am I losing 36%? You know, what's going on?

Yeah. I dive into everything. Listen, I look at every bill. I look at every contract. I look over everything. I want to know. I want to know. And I want to know why it was wrong.

And I want to know why they forgot. And I want to know how we can make it better. Right. It's everything at every piece, at every level. Because you know what? I know that you can't leave a lot in other people's hands if you really want to control your outcome of success. And I hear that. too many times of everybody.

They think they could hire everybody to help them be successful when in fact it's you going to be curious and learn what other people did before and where their failures were, how that can help you, you know, be better, do more and be more successful.

So, you know, curiosity and knowing, it's easy when you defer to things, I think it's laziness, you know, there's a lot of times it's laziness and not wanting to take the extra step.

Taking the extra step is so fun for me because I know why it's so easy to beat other people because, you know, they don't want, so many people don't want to take the extra step. It's clear to me, you validate that and I think you validate also that the journey is everything because there doesn't, you're, you want to get right back on the horse. Like you did the cigarette thing. You want another journey. You're always looking for the next journey because, I mean, I'm sure you're enjoying the fruits of your, your laborers. and all those things. But at the same time, I don't think it would matter

how many cars you had and you drive around. You get bored of that. You need another journey, right? I don't even drive... Listen, I don't even drive the cars. I am so into seeing what I could do next to challenge myself.

That's really what my life is about. I really just putting myself through my own mental challenges where I feel like, you know what? I just raised the bar. And money is not raising the bar. Like, money's great, and you could all,

you know, when you, whatever you want to achieve, when you achieve that, trust me, it's not going to make you feel any different. I know a lot of rich guys are very insecure.

They have no confidence. And a lot of them, you know, you see them on TV, whether they're actors, these musicians that go on stage and perform. You know, money is not going to build your confidence.

Build your confidence is, really how you talk to yourself, right, and who you surround yourself with and the things you do for yourself on a daily basis. It's just like going in the gym, building yourself up, building your fitness, you know, you have to do it yourself. You can't pay someone to do it for you. Same thing with, you know, building your self, you know, your self-worth and your confidence. It's you got to work on it. And for me, I feel amazing. I don't want more things. I don't want more things. I like nice things, but more cars doesn't make me happy and more houses. I couldn't buy anything more to make me more happy.

But I'll tell you what, buying a place I call it the castle in California, is a Moroccan palace. The lady I bought it from flew guys in from Morocco for five years to hand lay all the stone. It's 16,000 square foot with an atrium glass roof. And by the way, you've got to come. All right. I'm in. but now to throw the event there it just made it all worthwhile it wasn't the place itself but

it's what I can create you in there is the magic Ryan this is the magic you know and the people that come there it's like wow I got this place and uh my girlfriend like she's like you know we we were sort of pushing to do something there she's like god I was like this is it isn't it and she's like yeah and so uh and so uh you know know, it's for me creating and helping others and bringing other people together and just creating magic is, you know, that's the energy in my life. I love it. Where can everybody keep up with Howie P?

Oh, where? So my Instagram, you know, you can see my Instagram, Howard, P-A-N-E-S, pretty much. That's where most of my stuff happens, I guess. Yeah. On my Instagram. You pretty active there? Yep. Oh, Howard Paines on Instagram, folks.

The billion-dollar brand builder, thinking billions belly. Yes, billion-dollar brand builder. Howie P and plant-based luncheables that aren't luncheables. Yeah, mighty young. We won't steal. Oscar Meyer isn't going to sue anybody. That's why I got. Marlboro and Newport and these stories.

Oh, I love it, man. It's brilliant, though. It's smart. I mean, you know, I commend the, I don't know, the passion, the drive and everything. And I look forward to staying in touch, and I'd love to come out to the castle. Where are you? I'm in South Carolina. I'm on the East Coast with you.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. We'll have to get up on one way or another. 100%. I'm looking forward to it. Hey guys, we really appreciate Howie P coming on today. Search for The Castle.

You'll find all the content from today from Howie P. Lots of ingenuity, lots of great stories. You know where to find me. I'm at Ryan Offord on all the platforms. Hit me up on TikTok. I'm blowing up over there. We're at the radcast.com. We'll see you next time.