The Bossticks - Courtney Reum On Learning To Invest, Create Life Systems, & The Common Denominators To Find Success In Life & Business

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

#626: Today, we're sitting down with Courtney Reum. Courtney is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of M13. He and his brother Carter founded M13 in 2016, and today the firm manages three top decile funds with more than $1 billion AUM in early-stage technology that powers the future of work, health, commerce, and money. Courtney joins us today to talk about all things entrepreneurship, investing, and how to grow as both a business owner and investor. He also gives us tips on what makes a great company and the common denominators of successful business owners and investors. To connect with Courtney Reum click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Fable Pets Fable Pets designs gear that solves problems for you and your pet, so the two of you can enjoy exploring the world together. Go to fablepets.com/skinny for 20% off sitewide and 35% off sets. This episode is brought to you by AG1 If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Go to drinkAG1.com/SKINNY to get a free 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Discover the new Bright Reveal Dark Spot Duo! Visit Target online and in-store to buy yours today. This episode is brought to you by Hiya Health Hiya Health fill in the most common gaps in modern children's diet to provide full-body nourishment our kids need with a yummy taste they love. Go to hiyahealth.com/skinny to receive 50% off your first order. This episode is brought to you by Wella Wella Professionals just released its most luxurious hair care line; Ultimate Repair. You can purchase The Ultimate Repair Miracle Hair Rescue at Ulta stores, or go to wella.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by WeightWatchers WeightWatchers is the #1 doctor recommended weight-management program and the trusted authority in evidence based weight-health. Visit ww.com/tsc to see if you qualify, and if you do, used code TSC25 to get one free month plus $25 off your second month Produced by Dear Media

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And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. One of my favorite quotes from our book is, the best entrepreneurs have a microscope in one eye and a telescope in the other eye. And you get the microscope in both eyes, and you forget about the telescope,

and it's kind of like the little wave coming behind you, and then there's this tidal wave that wipes you out. Because, like, if you're in an industry where Procter & Gamble and Consumer or Amazon can compete with you, I mean, that is the title wave. They see something they like, fom. They throw 100x the money at it, and even if they don't do it nearly as well, could be out of business the next day. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome to the skinny confidential him and her show. Today we have a hell of an

episode for you with our friend Courtney Ream. For those of you who are unfamiliar with who Courtney is, Courtney is the co-founder and managing partner of M13. And today the fund has over a billion under management to give you an idea of some of the early investments that Courtney and M13 identified. They're in class pass. They're in ring. They're in Coinbase, which she talks about. They're in Ampla, canvas, many businesses that have gone on to do incredible things. And this conversation doesn't have just information for investors. Courtney joins us today to talk about all things entrepreneurship, investing, how to grow as both a business owner and an investor, how to grow as a person. He also gives us tips on what makes a great company and the common denominators for successful

people, owner, and investors. I guarantee in this episode there is something that anyone listening can apply to their own life. Like I said, we talk on so many different things on how to be successful, how we started, what confidence looks like, how to use your weaknesses to your advantage, how to grow a company sustainably, what not to do when starting a company, the importance of persistence and so much more. We could have gone on and on with Courtney. He was a phenomenal guest and a total fountain of knowledge. Courtney, come back anytime. With that, Courtney Riem, welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. So, Courtney, one of the best things about that I've discovered doing this show is we get to, like, it's really strange how we

get connected with people. In a former life, I would have somehow tried to a cold pitch you and got in in front of M13. But what happens is I have someone like Brooke Burke on the show who has nothing to do with any of this. And she connects us over text. And I always, I always find it interesting. When people ask about doing podcasts, I say, listen, it's like the best hack to meet and network with people. And it's different than going to, you know, someone like yourself is saying, hey, let me pick your brain over coffee or let me get a dinner. But if I say, hey, come on and talk about whatever you want to talk about for an hour and a half, it's an easy, it's an easy yes. So what do you want to talk about?

And instead the punchline is I kind of like cold pitched you through a friend. But it's a real hack. Yeah, exactly. Like I got you to cold pitch me. Exactly. I want to talk about all of it. I want to talk. We can talk about business, pleasure.

We can talk about the state of the tech world, you know, what we're doing to optimize that all of ourselves, anything. What were you like as a little boy? I'm the oldest. So I think I was and still, I'm kind of the protector. I think my dad used to always say when Courtney's really into something, watch up. When Courtney's not into something, watch out, but in a bad way, you know, if I wasn't into something, I was just kind of piano lessons fall by the wayside.

Took like five years of lessons, couldn't even play anything now. But for the things I was kind of passionate about, I was usually pretty immersive. What were those things? Sports were kind of the first ones, although, you know, even my best sports, which ended up being soccer, which I played in college and almost kind of gave it a world to play after. I didn't even start playing until like about nine, which would be really late for, for now. But sports once I found it, but I always just love kind of being like outside in nature running around. I mean, what your brother and you have built is incredible. I just am fascinated by

the way your parents raised both of you. And we were just talking off air about Paige and Blake of Aviator Nation and Tom's shoes. That same thing there. I'm just so fascinated with how their parents raised them too, because you guys are both so incredibly successful. When you look back at your childhood, is there something that you can pinpoint now that you think your parents did really right? Well, let me also just say, as I said, off air, Blake is a really old friend of my I know, Paige, and I've spent a lot of time with Blake's parents. There's only a couple people that remind me of my mom more than Blake's mom. So you are a sooth say they're a little. I need to get some tips. There's a reason why they say this about you. I need to get some tips for

my kids. We ask these people, we say, what the hell is a pretty, putting the breakfast cereal, because, you know, my parents are just, they're both Midwesterners through and through, just super principled people, stuff that my dad used to do that I tell myself I'd never do, I now do. Like, he's very much about value. So I'm the person that could spend seemingly an exorbit amount of money, not think twice. And then I'm arguing about $7 because it clearly wasn't $7 of value. And, you know, it's things now that seem differently as you're older, but like they were not, environmentalist the way we call environmentalists now. But they were really big on turn off the lights when you leave the house. Don't stand there at the refrigerator door open. Just, you know, kind of a lot of those things of what affects one directly, affects everyone else indirectly. And so my grandparents and beyond were all very rich in terms of education and creating opportunity and, you know, maybe not money so much, but just incredible people and all did all did really unique things. I had a governor of Michigan in my family tree. The, first private practice in Michigan, the first female congresswoman in Illinois. And so I say that

all because they were just very principled people. And I had this amazing upbringing where I grew up in a town mostly outside Chicago, 900 people on a dirt road, couldn't see my closest neighbor. But you go 10 minutes, you're at the time, second or third biggest mall in Illinois. Ten more minutes. You're at a city that was the second biggest city in Illinois outside Chicago, 15 more minutes and you're in downtown in Chicago. So I had this great mix of kind of like country and city. And I think that along with just incredible parents was a big part of it. I want to talk about your dad a little bit because I know, listen, people have close relationship with their dad. But it seems like you had an extremely close relationship with your dad. And I'm sorry to hear about his passing, obviously. What are some of

the things that you look back on that he taught you that you have applied to your career and your life? Because it seems like it was an incredibly close relationship. Yeah. I don't know. guys are going to make me cry this early. But he's just one of those people that real strong leader, real, like real patriarch in the, in the truest sense, but in a way that until he was gone, you didn't realize, like, you know, all the other things he kind of did. I just had a great, he did everything to make sure we had every opportunity, you know, and we didn't start out very wealthy, although by the time he passed away, he had done really well, but that's, you know, over 30, 40 year period. So it's not where you start, it's where you end.

but just like a person of incredible integrity and a real family man. You know, when I, I'm sure you guys are seeing with your own kids now, I mean, sports games in high school, I went to like a Chicago public school. Parents would say above average, but I'll say a little bit above average Chicago public school. Sports game started at three, four o'clock. Didn't miss a single one. I mean, it's just now that I see he did stuff like that and ran a large company, just incredible, but never talk.

about it, never bit it made a big deal. I could tell you so many stories, but here's one that kind of symbolizes my dad. Through a weird convergence of factors, a company that he worked for, had four, became a corporate sponsor of the Bulls in 1984. Worst team in time, worst team in the league. A funny thing happened in 1985, they drafted Michael Jordan. The rest is kind of history, you know, but it took a bunch of years. So this marketing partnership, he was working for an industrial company. Like, this is pre-internet. So like people would see a banner that says, McDonald's or go to pay less shoes at the time when they saw this company called Interlake, like nobody would know what it is and no one had a way to look it up. But they got these four

courtside tickets to the Bulls. So I got to, so that company got sold. My dad somehow managed to take the courtside tickets with him. And so then he controlled him as opposed to the company. And we got to go to like every Bull's final with Michael Jordan. But there's four seats, five people in my family. My dad would take us to the, and my dad played college basketball, and almost played in the NBA until he had an injury. But all state basketball player, favorite sport by a long shot. He, for some of the biggest games, would drive us to the stadium. Chicago Stadium's not in a very nice neighborhood.

Drop us off. Go sit in the car with the car running, doors locked, read newspapers for three hours and come pick us up. That's the kind of person my dad was. If you don't do that for me and my kids, I don't want you. You know, because listen, we're going to talk about a lot of the business success and all of that. But I think, you know, I've met a lot of successful people doing the show. and known successful people as well. And I always think it's a tragedy when their biggest accolade is the business stuff.

And I think, like, now that I'm a new father, the goal over time, like, when I'm gone, is to have my children talk about me the same way. I think a lot of people don't have that relationship. And I think they lose sight sometimes over what's really important, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I think we could have a whole podcast, I'm sure, on a term like self-made. When people are you self-made? I'm like, no, but not to discredit anyone, but I'm not to discredit anyone,

but I think almost nobody is self-made in the sense that you've had influences, and for sure, people have come from more adverse circumstances than I have, but they somehow had someone or some things, or even a role model of, like, negative role modeling that help them, you know, become who they are. And so there's levels to it. But I think, like, even people who didn't come from money, you were not self-made if you came from a family rich in values and character and love and all that other stuff. When you look back now, are there a certain moment? in time that you could tell when you were little that you were going to be an investor? Like, are there little things that you did that have led up to this when you were young or a teenager?

Well, you know, I consider myself very much kind of an entrepreneur and investor. We've started a bunch of things as well. And so I think being able to empathize with that entrepreneurial journey kind of has made me a better investor. But I think I'm someone that was just always interested in how things worked. And when I grew up, it was like, what do you want to be? like one thing period. And I remember actually, you know, went to Columbia up town here. The college counselor senior year was like the average person graduating your year is going to have 10 different

jobs and five different careers however they define that. And it must be double that now for people graduate. But I was like, oh, wow, that sounds great because I love the diversity. I love kind of working on multiple things and multiple projects. So I think that's a big part of investing or starting things is being able to handle that and being curious how things work. What was your first entrepreneurial journey? What was the first thing you did. It's a story for over a drink, pun intended, but my brother and I both went to Columbia, both worked at Goldman Sachs, doing investment banking, and then we left to be entrepreneurs, which doesn't sound so crazy, but in 2007, only people that I knew working at Goldman,

who left to do something other than hedge fund or private equity, we kind of had this idea of creating a better way to drink. We were at the time, you know, working long hours, but still trying to be healthy. And then we're just ravaging our bodies, drinking Red Bull Vodka's, Grey Goose Sotas, you name it. And we said, let's try and create a better way to drink as a product in the bottle and as a company. So we created the first, we'll call it kind of sustainable and organic vodka alternative called VEV. I remember that very well. The bottle was so, is so beautiful. It was like a matte, like almost crystal. It's kind of like a matte frost. Matt Frost. Like everyone does their cars in these wraps now, but it was like a matte frost.

It was so chic and it did make drinking feel healthy, which is exactly what you set out to do. That's so crazy. So what did that journey with that look like? Well, I mean, it started the smallest of the small. You know, if there's ever an industry where talk about like legacy or, oh, I have a friend in it or my dad or mom's in it or whatever the case may be, there are not many people that go into spirits without having some hookup or preconceived notion. We just had like Google and some hustle. So we started it from scratch. We didn't know any distributors, didn't know where to find one.

And by law, alcohol has something that goes back to prohibition called the three-tier system. And so you have to work through a distributor. You can't direct sell the way you can, I don't know, other product, you know, snack products or non-alcoholic beverage. So we self-distributed at the back of a Prius in Los Angeles, went door-to-door guerrilla warfare to all the coolest accounts at the time. This is like even predating like a Soho house, but clubs that don't. exist anymore and eventually got it into a lot of them and, you know, open one state, because you literally have to open state by state and you name it. Within three years, we got national distribution. We had fun partnerships like we were the official cocktail of Virgin American

Airlines. We were Disney's best-selling cocktail. Eventually got to about a million bottles a year before we exited. But even to this day, 15 years later, there's no industry that I think is harder because there's so little tech, there's so much regulation. I knew where every bottle was Barry just about, so to speak, which is both rewarding and a lot of work. You know what's a hard industry? Sex. This is, no, no. Mike and I both just like, don't say anything. My friend has a sex company, and it's a hard industry like alcohol.

It's what you're saying. There's so much regulation around how you can post it online. Yeah, we have a company we incubated with Procter & Gamble around menopause called Kindra. And this is menopause, not even sex. I couldn't tell you the specifics, but I know that they've, been really frustrating because they're advertising, habitually gets taken down. We were talking about menopause,

not, not, you know, vaginal dryness, but to help people, not anything sexual. I mean, it's important,

though, to have these conversations because if people are trying to start businesses, they should know that those two industries are difficult. I wanted to know exactly how long it took you and your brother to sell the company. I'll call it about seven and a half, eight years of just a lot of work. A grind and six days of,

seven days a week at work and six, I used to drink six days a week. Like, just because I'm a really competitive person, I used to like, it logically doesn't make sense, but I would think that my liver could make this successful. Not to mention if I went out and, you know, having a meeting or you're hopping around to a couple accounts, which I love to do, I'll be like, oh, there's the VEV guy, have a shot with me. Yeah, you can't say no. I mean, that's like, you know, Santa Claus saying you're not getting a present this year. So I had a drink with Evelyn. And next thing, you know, I was averaging, you know, half dozen drinks a night. How do you wake up and be so successful in the morning. I'm such a pussy with hangovers. Doing it now, now three drinks and I'm basically like that.

But yeah, I'll never forget when I went to get a physical for the first time in 10 years, the guy's going down the list. Do you smoke? Do you do whatever? Do you drink? And he's not even looking up. He's just marking the things. And do you drink? Yes. How much per week? 30 drinks a week. He's like, what? Actually more like 40. He's like, just takes his glasses, lifts him off his head. And he goes, son, we've got to talk. And I was like, no, no, no. I can He goes, I bet you can. I was like, no, really. Oh, my God.

You know, because he just thought I was an alcoholic. And it was just because you were tasting all the drinks on the job. Yeah, for sure. Like the time early on I got pulled over and the cup pulls me over and says, there's anything in the car that I should know about. I was like absolutely not. Oh, actually, there's 50 cases of alcohol in the back, but I can explain that because we were self-distributing.

So I was taking into an event. I had like 300 bottles of alcohol. Did he get mad? It's not illegal, but he wanted to be really sure that I was actually taking that to event as opposed to driving to Tijuana. I have a question around, so you've obviously, you've been an entrepreneur, you are an entrepreneur, you've been an investor. There's a lot of young people that listen to this show that are thinking about starting a business. When you guys are, and maybe there's some experience as well, when you're speaking to founders or potential founders,

what are the character traits that you're looking for? Not even the ideas, but just the traits you're looking for in the individual. Does Michael Bostick check the boxes? Let's hear it. He's very handsome. So yes. I mean, already, you know, it's just a handsome. Handsome. So you're going straight looks. He has a great hair. Yeah, exactly. Straight looks. He exudes confidence. I think, you know, I'm sure lots of people have been on here and given lots of adjectives. I would say it starts with, you know, I do want the person who's like relentless within reason, you know, because the good founders start off here and then they have the proverbial pivot or whatever. The idea, somehow the best founders

always find a way, you know, to make, you know, to make, you know, to make lemonade. from lemons. It might not be the exact lemonade you thought you were going to make or is big a batch of lemonade, so to speak, but they always do something or they keep it alive. And sometimes this is a game of ping pong where you just keep the ball on a court for another day and then something good happens. So I think that counts for a lot because I've also seen what I consider what I thought were good founders and what I thought were really good ideas fail because the founder just couldn't will it to like the next bridge or the next milestone. So that's really important.

But I also think if you would ask me this question 10 years ago, I probably would have given a little more of that mold of like the Travis from Uber. And now I think it's much more important to almost be like on a good day how I perceive the president of the United States. Of course you can't know everything that's going on. Of course everyone has blind spots. There's only 24 hours in a day. So it's more important to be hyper, high EQ and self-aware and go, well, I'm good at this,

but I know I'm not good at this. So I need to fill in these blind spots. And I know I need to have this team around me because. No man or woman's an island and no successful company does it on their own now. So I think that's probably the biggest trade I look for is the rest of the team and the self-awareness of that. What's something that you and your brother roll your eyes at when someone leaves the room and you're like, fuck, they did that thing?

Like what's something that people do that like a lot of people do that's like a red flag, that you're just like, oh, like when they're like pitching or something? Yeah, that's so common that you're like, oh my God, 90% of people do this. Or not even just in pitching, but just, you know, trying to conduct business or just trying to get something done. Yeah. I think it's when, you know, and I used to be someone who had a lot of trouble showing vulnerability, showing weakness.

I'm really competitive. I'd like to win. If you like to win and you're used to winning, all you want to do is keep winning. So I think it's the people who never, you know, when you ask like, well, what's not going well, if this business isn't successful, what will have you gotten wrong? And you can tell they just give you the. canned answer. Like, it's like in the interview, the weakness question, but you give a fake answer that could also be. My weakness is perfection. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not a good listener, you know,

like, so I think it's those people who aren't being honest about, you know, where the struggles are. Because smart investors, like, usually hone right in and go, oh, okay, here's, here are the key things. Here are the couple questions. What, you know, where are you at with this? Versus, like, maybe there's some dumb money out there, but the smart money knows, knows what's going on and where the pressure pressure points are. So I think that and then just for a comical one in the world of AI, we had someone come in a few months ago and we said, we always say at the end of our IC investment committee, we always say, okay, what are you kind of raising? What's around look like? What's your ideal partner look like? And so we said, how much are you looking to raise?

He said, well, I can't really say that because I'm just going to let the market decide if we're an AI company or not and thus how much we're going to raise, aka if someone's willing to write value at like three times as much because they think you're an AI company, we'll take like three times as much money. And so that answer was just such a turn off because it kind of was a little insulting. It was a little bit like he has a new company that barely has any data, which he doesn't even know how to use. But it was the start of that, oh, everything was an AI company. You know, I was going to, I think for Dear Media is the first time I actually went and raised outside venture private equity capital. Everything else I've ever done has either been friends

and family are self-funded, and I did it for a reason. I think a lot of people have glamorized raising capital, as you know, and it's become like the benchmark. It's not like how, it's not like how is your company doing? It's like, how much have you raised becomes the new badge of honor? And I think, as we've seen, a lot of companies have struggled and a lot of founders have gotten in trouble with that. Playing the devil's advocate, the other side, when do you think it's appropriate for young founders who have an idea to seek out venture capital? or private equity. And when do you think it's, hey, like, maybe hold on to it a little longer and do your own thing without that capital? Yeah. And we, we, I think I have a whole chapter about this in,

the book we wrote. But I think it's changed a little bit. But in general, in this economy, as long as you can go without taking it, great. I mean, because it must mean you're doing something, right? It must mean you might not be profitable, period, but like unit economics profitable or whatever it may be. So the longer you can do that, the better, it'll force you to, you know, dig in, force you to not have the mindset of, why should I choose A or B? I can do A and B, you know, and we kind of went through this bubble period of, I can do this and that, not make tough tradeoffs and tough choices, which is, you know, any founder's job. So I think as long as you can go the better, I do generally believe that once you kind of start taking the house as money,

a, aka venture, you want to keep doing it to a point. I'm not saying how much, but I'm saying you, at that point, you want to keep taking the money. But I also think we're just living in this new era that will hopefully be a more permanent era of people just really trying to figure out how to make sustainable businesses. Because having a billion dollars in revenue is great. But if you're not making any money at a billion dollars in revenue, you might never be meant to. You know, like, I've been part of companies where we're like, wait, as we are, as it stands right now, every order that we ship, we are going to lose more and more money because shipping costs or whatever else. It's just the economics are getting worse, the more we sell. was a period of time and I think like you see these huge exits. I was just reading something about

dollar shave and how like enough times password. I guess they've was a uniliver. They kind of classified it as not the greatest acquisition. And I, you know, I think that's a technical term. Yeah. I think so. I think that was a phenomenal business and I know people that worked in that organization. But I think people read the headlines, billion dollars. And it was like at just billion dollars at the expense of, you know, profitability and efficiency. And I think a lot of founders have glamorized that or also use that as the playbook. That's the thing I have to build in order to get the exit. I have to build this massive revenue beast that may not be so efficient, but that's the only way I'm going to sell. Well, I'll give you a different spin on it,

which is that, yeah, I mean, that's public information sold for a billion dollars. I know Michael Dubin's some from L.A. Great, great guy. Love, you know, the kind of brand voice he had in doing that. But it's pretty crazy that someone would pay a billion dollars for it. It was, you know, got to about 200 million in revenue. Five times multiple isn't crazy. But what's, what's, what? What's crazier is if you start knowing that that's the big company's appetite and they're going to do it based on something like that, you're really incentivized to raise as much as you can, as fast as you can, grow it as fast as you can, but in an unsustainable way. So the unit economics weren't actually that great. But if you actually think what Unilever is thinking, they must be thinking, this only works if we can push a bunch of other products to this customer, right?

They thought butt wipes is going to be a huge thing. That's not a technical term, but that is literally what they thought. products like that were going to be a huge seller and they thought that customer was really sticky and it turned out they weren't. So there's been a bunch of other things like it. But I think you're actually incentivizing clever people like Michael Dubin to create something, reverse engineer it, to sell it to Unilever. And then it's kind of, he definitely won, which is great. But I know, I know him. He's a great guy and he cares about the legacy of something like that just as I do of anything I've started. And nobody wants to see the value of their company impaired, much less

written off. And I've had companies I've sold that basically don't exist today because you know next owner but it's because they can't don't know how to make it work if it's not a going concern yeah and the reason I bring it up is not to comment anything on anybody's personality but I think a lot of young founders are seeing that model and they're thinking that's what I do and and maybe you share this perspective that the market has just changed and I don't think those companies get rewarded in the same kind of way and so now of a sudden you have this big machine that's just killing cash all the time and there's no there's not going to be that unilever exit event yeah

you know what I mean I think you know My brother and I's personal journey, again, M13 was kind of, we did a bunch of personal investing in consumery stuff that kind of morphed into direct-to-consumer, lots of fortuitous exits in those kinds of products that you described. And then we've kind of moved more into tech for a lot of reasons. One, I think, can make a bigger impact, bigger innovation at scale. But the second part is that I think it's harder to spin up these kind of one-hit wonders. And it's the difference between having a product versus a, a, company. We want to be part of life-changing companies or platforms, not just a product. And too many times it ends up kind of being a single product. And to your point, there's just not a market

for them anymore. Investing does at times for a woman feel like a boys club. There's almost like an energy around it that sometimes when I talk to investors, they try to make it more complex than it is to sort of give it a superior complex. You and your brother have made it so digestible, which is so amazing. Like you've really like broken it down. If someone's listening and they feel overwhelmed by a conversation about an investment, how would you dumb it down in simple terms? It really depends on, you know, the product and the industry. But I think we're seeing now, I mean, as I said to my answer before, I would put EQ over IQ in most of these things. I will make a sweeping generalization and say that most of the women that have been lucky enough

to work for and with have had much higher EQs and brought a lot of those intangibles that now we're seeing are much more tangible. So I would start by just saying, don't let anybody do it to you in the sense that I try all the time to go, sorry, what did that mean that you just said? They're like, wait, wait, you didn't know what that meant? You're so-and-so or you're in this industry? I just didn't know what it meant. Sorry, you're using a lot of jargon there, Chief. I went to Chicago public school, just almost make them feel bad or not feel bad, but just don't be intimidated to just slow it down because, Chancellor, or whatever they're talking about, that's not the crux of it. The crux of it is something else, and they're just trying to kind of use some flowery

pros or some confusing things. And any woman who's in the process of starting something probably understands what's at the core of what she's doing. If someone is listening and they have an idea, you said that they don't need to take an investment if they don't need to, but what if they want an investment? How would you advise them to go about it? Say it's a very simple idea and they want an investor. What should they do? I think, you know, there's nothing, it's just human nature that you like to feel desired or, you know, that someone took the time to like find out who you are. So I think just finding out who would be like your dream investor or investors is a great start. And it's one thing just to reach out. It's another thing to reach out and say,

say like, I think, you know, I wanted to chat with you because X, Y, and Z or something. I always respond to emails that aren't cold emails, or sorry, that are cold emails, but show some level of they know something about me or about M13 and it's actually personalized, not the, you know, not the templatized ones because those are out of control. It's out of control. Well, now I was saying with, I was with a friend of mine who's, who you guys would know is a very prominent entrepreneur. And we were talking about how it went from like the cold spam email.

that are so hard, you know, it starts on, hey, long time, no talk. I'm like, do I know this person? And they send you the whole thing. And now they reply on top of it going, hey, just making sure you saw this. I'm like, wait, I didn't know you then. I don't know you now. And as my friend showing me the cold email thing, turns out that another friend of mine was cold emailing him. I was like, oh, yeah, anyways. But it's crazy. Just, you know, with AI or certain kind of tools. I mean, you can just, I know how many emails I'm getting a day. Like, imagine what Tim Cook's getting. Yeah, you have to really do something that stands out. I also think... Wait, can I just... Sorry to interrupt, I'll just say to your question. This is what I joke, but it's really true.

We live in a world where it's not hard to find Tim Cook's email. I have Tim Cook's email. It's hard to get Tim Cook to reply. Now, I've only tried like three times, but I'm over three. But it's that it's hard to get Tim Cook to reply. So give him a reason and something specific. And I don't know that you can get Tim Cook to reply, but you have a much better shot. You know what Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger do? They don't have email. You have to handwrite them a note in the mail to get their attention to do anything. I went and figured this out. And the note doesn't guarantee the precipitation. And the note doesn't get obviously the note. You've got to stand out in the note. Maybe I should drop like my thong underwear in there. To get Charlie's attention. I have an idea that involves your thong underwear. With your permission, Michael, can we go down this rabbit hole? Okay. So my first boss at Goldman, who went on to start a really successful company, he was the type.

Again, this is kind of on the fringe of email, and he said, yeah, email, we're starting to get a lot of it, whatever. He was, he started a company that targeted like Fortune 100 CEOs. And at the time, FedEx wasn't nearly as ubiquitous. And, you know, people being humans and having all kinds of different tastes, he said, I know, no matter who you are, you almost always check your own FedEx. And at the time, it was true, maybe not now. So, someone you want to get in touch with, just start sending them one FedEx a week with something in it or a note or whatever. finally this guy calls him who you guys would all know and says okay I got it you've got I've gotten 23 straight FedEx is from you what can I do and he goes oh oh really okay I was just kind of getting warmed up but great I'd love to chat so I think think think about that I don't know if Charlie and Warren are a little immune to your thong at this point but I think the principal holds if your thong doesn't work we'll send mine that could work we could send both and see what they prefer we'll see which one they prefer a little A-B test yeah let me tell you about the most aesthetically pleasing pet design gear. So here's the story. Let me set the scene. I was in my facelist office. Shout out to

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into the ground? What are some things that they do wrong across the board? It's always the very simple stuff, not treating every dollar like it's your own, you know, as I give you money, it feels different like you got some allowance that you're going to blow. As I said before, I think it is very much an open, open source, crowdsource sort of world. So almost unless you're in like deep cybersecurity or something, there's just not many trade secrets out there, right? Like it's not that hard to rip off Coca-Cola, even though it has its ingredient or KFC's

secret sauce. So too many people kind of end up hoarding their idea and then are shocked when all these people come along because they just didn't see it coming because you need that. that, one of my favorite quotes from our book is, the best entrepreneurs have a microscope in one eye and a telescope in the other eye. And you get the microscope in both eyes and you forget about the telescope. And it's kind of like, there's like the little wave coming behind you. And then there's this tidal wave that wipes you out, right? Because like if you're in an industry where Procter & Gamble and Consumer or Amazon can compete with you, I mean, that is the title wave.

They see something they like, fooom. They throw 100x the money at it. And even if they don't do it nearly as well, you could be. out of business next day. It's what seems like to me the ideas that really work are the ones where someone comes into a category that's already established and they do it better than anyone else. That's that's kind of what I've seen, even like posting when I post things like a swipe up or a link, the products that people love are the products that it's already an established category and someone does it better. Like floor mats.

That guy, weather tech. Yeah, I don't want to put him on blast, but yeah, he killed it. No, I think some of the, I think we're going to this road. You mentioned like AI and there's all this technology and you can do things in such an efficient way now that I think sometimes people get lost in like the tools and the gadgets and the gizmos and they don't put nearly enough emphasis on like building a true brand. You know what I mean? It's like just all the stuff. And you know, we were talking running to your media and people are like, oh, how do you think AI is going to affect? And I said, listen, it's a tool. But I think it's a mistake for people to think that it will replace human interaction.

right? Or to your point, a cold email with AI. Like people, I think there's something inherently in us as humans where like you need this kind of interaction and you can use the other stuff. But if you just slowly rely on that stuff, I think that's going to carry your business or your idea or your media, whatever it is. I think a lot of people are going to get in a lot of trouble. Yeah, I'm right there with you on it. I think in the world of Zoom, I mean, we try to never hire anyone. We haven't met and we've scaled up pretty fast at M13. But, you know, as you guys know, full disclosure, I was a little late today, which I'm sorry for. I had a meeting in Deep Brooklyn. What had actually had two meetings, but one of them was with a new person we're going to have handle all of our travel. And I just said,

he's like, I've had people for 10 years and named off clients that are, you know, really well-known people. I've never even met them. I go, that's just not me. And I know there's going to come a moment, probably not too distant future, where you're annoyed with me because I'm changing flights or I'm at an airport. I'm calling you at, you know, well, you're observing this or that. And I just want you to know, I just want to feel like I've met you and you're a decent person. I'm a decent person. and, you know, I think it'll just change the dynamic. And when I came into it, it was just like, that means so much that you came to me.

And he lives in, like, a really unique neighborhood. And I think, I think relationships will be at a premium, no matter what with AI, maybe not driving your car. But some relationship, especially one that gives off some kind of emotive feeling, will be at a big premium. When you work with your brother, what do you guys fight about? Well, you know, when people usually ask what's like working with your brother, I like to invoke the Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities,

you know, the opening line. twas the best of times twas the worst of times. Sure you two can relate. When it's going better, nothing better. When it's going worse, nothing worse. And I think figuring this out has been easier than us figuring out how to parent. Like figuring working together. No, not easier, harder.

Like, meaning like figuring all of this shit out has probably been more beneficial to our marriage than all the other stuff. I feel like this is so hard, as you know. There's so many emotions. And, you know, it's like a dance who's leading, who's falling. My favorite is when he really annoys me. I go, I'm not going to do that work today. She'll literally go on strike. Union strike.

You're unionizing. This is not great relationship advice, but I think some of the, I guess, reason that we've had success in our marriage is I think we've had to figure out a lot of this really hardship. And the marriage actually becomes the easier place to figure so. Does it make sense? Yeah. They're not married, though. That's different. Yeah. I'll come back to the married partner in one second. But I'll say this. It's now been 15 years of partnering with my brother. And as I said, before that, we both went to the same schools and worked to the same place.

So imagine you go from the Goldman Sachs to be business partners in like not only three or four different ventures, but three or four different types of ventures. Alcohol, some kind of other stuff that we don't always talk about, but some different brands. And then something like M13, it couldn't be more different. Luckily, our skill sets have translated. But I think it's not about, it's more just like learning each other's hot buttons and being careful when you pull the nuclear card. because it's that when we first started, we would read stories about these family businesses that blew up.

We're like, wow, can you believe? Like, that would never happen to us. And it never, it never got that close, but it got closer than I ever thought it could get. In the sense that, you know, our first startup, we had one car that we were sharing in L.A. where you need a car. We bought our house that was like a little bit

or a lot of a stretch for us. So we worked out of our house. We have employees coming, like some days I'd wake up a little later because we're, you know, doing whatever. and employees are sitting at my kitchen counter working. It's a lot. Like I could smell what he ate for lunch and that would annoy me on a given day and the whole thing.

But I think now over time, I think we both know that we're both kind of like to lead, both like to lead, although in different ways. We're both alpha enough and competitive enough, competitive enough that with M13, I actually think it's that we both find different kind of lanes. And although we partner in a lot of stuff, we kind of do a lot of our own thing. And then it's nice to actually come back and have a thought partner. And then truthfully, the best thing is we also have a lot of other incredible talented people at M13. So in our first companies, we were each other sounding board and we were the only ones to go to for

X, Y, or Z, even if we weren't the most qualified. Now there's people that are more qualified in a lot of different disciplines of what we do at M13. So it's great because we just get more diversity of thought. But it's all those things. And then, you know, you guys probably know my brother's now married to Paris Hilton. So that's a whole other dynamic. Who again? Yeah.

I watched Paris in love, so I know all about it. Did you see me make a couple cameos? Yes, I saw you make a couple cameos. We have to go rewatch it now. One of my questions for you is... It was a big upset because I had officiate a couple family weddings before that. You know, five-star reviews and references available. Paris's family really didn't want me to officiate the wedding.

So there's... I was in as few episodes as possible, but there's one where at The Bachelor Party and we're rolling the craps dice. Rulette. Paris's mom, Kathy, wanted to have a guy named Father Ed. So I'm throwing the ball around roulette and we're like, if it's red, Father Ed. If it's red, Father Ed. What was it? Well, the magic of editing, but let's say it didn't officiate the wedding. She wasn't going down one way or another, but you know, double zero all of a sudden. I want to ask you what the best business advice that you received from Paris Hilton, because she is such a mogul with her business and the way she runs it.

It's so incredibly impressive. Well, I think it's come out and we've talked about actually her specifically on the show that people don't give her enough credit, especially in the influencer creator space. Like she was one of, if not the originals. Yeah. No, I mean, if you really want to talk to Oliver Ackley's, my brother is no better hype man and husband than that. But I think, yeah, you know, everything from obviously someone like Kim Kardashian's Paris's friend long before she was Kim Kaye, but she did the first selfie. So I think in some way social media wouldn't exist without Paris. It's just been really great to watch her evolution as her now brother-in-law because there are some people that are really stuck on their view of her from simple life and 21 years old.

And, you know, at least at least a good portion of that I think was kind of an act. But now as she's kind of matured into motherhood and being a real entrepreneur, it's it's impressive to see. And it's impressive because she just has that it thing. not like, I'm not talking like walking a runway it, but that it thing where I think her, her superpower is that she really sees trends before other people and then it's really good to find out who to partner with. You know, again, I don't, I'm sorry, I don't have the stats exactly handy, but she sold billions of dollars of her fragrance. Now, she didn't produce herself, but I mean, one of the more lucrative licensing deals that I've ever heard of,

and she knew exactly who to go to and figure it out a way to be ahead of the curve on things like that and things like social media. Do you and your brother give her business advice? do, I'd say in the sense that she's had, she kind of went to the school of Hard Knocks, whatever you want to call it. Like, she didn't go to like a Harvard or go to a Columbia or work at a Goldman Sacks. So those are the people, not just Paris, but I find really impressive, who weren't classically trained yet kind of seemingly know everything I know, but they've kind of done it, done it, you know, through the, through the Braille method. It's incredible. So she's just got a lot of great business instincts. Sometimes we kind of give her a little more of like the academic view of it. But my

brother, truthfully shout out to my brother because he's done an incredible job of building her media holding company called 1111 Media because it's really a model, but he really applied a lot of our principals for M13 and other things my brother knew. But my brother's a real incredible strategic mind and a real incredible visionary. So anyone who gets that much of my brother's time is, I think, going to have some good success. I wanted to ask you a question around school undergrad specifically. I, a little bit different than you went to the Harvard of the desert, which was the University of Arizona. It was a little bit different. The University of Pussy.

Little different, a little different degree. But Lauren and I both on this show have sometimes been critical about taking on debt and going through university if you don't have somebody to maybe help support. And also, from my perspective, not to knock Arizona that much, but I felt like I was really kind of more just learning to be independent, being social, having some fun. I left and one thing I regret is like, man, I should have gone and gone into like computer sciences or finance or something more used. Like I was in like regional development. I thought I was going to be in real estate. It was anyways, I'm not applying any of it.

But from your perspective, I mean, you went to two extremely prestigious schools and it sounds like you had a phenomenal education. How do you feel about those programs? And maybe they've changed a little bit now. And like, do you think it's for everybody? Do you think people should pursue it or are there certain people that are that should not pursue it? Yeah, I mean, the short answer is no, it's not for everyone for sure. And I think that one says education's broken. They're not wrong. One of my, Seth Godin, who I'm sure

you guys know the marketer, he loves to say like, oh, you went to two famous schools. He said, I don't know if they're good. I didn't go there, but I hear people say really good things, but I hear them say about other schools. I don't know if you went to do really famous schools, maybe not two really good schools. And I think he's at least right to a point. They were they were good for me. They opened great doors for me. But, you know, when I went to Columbia, it was 30,000 a year. Now it's like, I think almost tripled out. I mean, who can afford that? Right. So I think, so I don't think it's for everyone. And, you know, I'm a big, my parents were really big believers in education, but also really big believers in it's not, it's not kind of like

where you are, but what you're doing. Because if you're in Arizona and Busting your, you know what, or Arizona has a great business school, an undergraduate business school. I think there's a lot of differences in how things turn out. But it is one of my real, as I get older, fears for like the future of, I'll say America specifically, because I was just in Cuba where their biggest exporters education, doctors and things because they do free education through the government. We have too big a middle layer here of people going to school because they're supposed to. But then they're going to school and not making the most of it. It's not about, are you learning science applicable, but it's like, are you learning, like I was a philosophy major. I certainly

think it taught me, it was one of my majors, philosophy and economics. It taught me in analytical way of thinking that at least made me put together frameworks for how I do like mental models now. And I just don't think people. And yeah, I was in a fraternity and had fun, but I just don't think people are being pushed to do that. And they're not graduating. A 22 year old graduating here, I can tell you feels very different than a 22 year old graduating from a place in Europe where it's just a different focus. Yeah, I guess the reason I ask is because, and again, not to knock the school, but I just feel like I didn't take anything out of that education that I, outside of just being independent, that I've applied to anything I've since done in business.

And a lot of what I had to figure out, like you said, is like this braille method where, you know, I'm on Google, I'm talking different people, or I'm just learning the hard way. And I go back and forth sometimes thinking, like, man, if I would have had that education, like, what have I accelerated and missed some of those, like, early mistakes? Or were the early mistakes the things that have now set me up for greater success? You know what I mean? Yeah. But it's like, if it, looking back, if it hasn't served you and you've kind of had to do it all yourself,

I'm sure there's some lessons there, but I only went to business school because I was sitting at Goldman and a woman walks in. The camera, she was from Bainer McKinsey, she was from a consulting firm. And I was kind of on the fence and she said, you know, the way I view it is, if you're going to have a 40-year career and I could do something for two years, aka business school, that would enhance the other 38. Wouldn't you do it? And I was like, that sure makes sense. And one of my parents' big things was like, you don't have to know what you want to do, but like keep your options open. I would hate to see you make a bad decision or series of bad decisions at age 16 or age 18 that you would never get a chance to recover from the rest of your life because you were

down a certain track or these doors closed. And so that's something I was really grateful for is optionality and option value. Yeah, I think the one thing that like I, we try to tell a lot of young people is to your point, like, I can't believe how expensive some of these schools are now. And if someone's ambition is like, hey, I want to go and be an influencer or I want to go and be a creator, I want to start a podcast. I'm like, well, maybe you don't need to take on $90,000 a year in debt to do that. I think like not enough people talk about the purpose behind taking on that debt or paying for that service. And it's one of these things where I think you're just like quote unquote, you're supposed to do it or you have to do it to have success.

And I think the times have just changed. And so for sure. I think my corollary if I was talking to my kids would be at 17 here, you think you want to be an influencer. And so we forego college. And now you don't want to be or something happens. And all of a sudden, you might have fewer options. And you might not, but I've come to believe a lot of the most interesting people I know had really alternative paths on education, might have even been homeschooled. And to your point, don't get me wrong, Columbia or Harvard or whatever, were really hard. But in some ways, my like, slightly above average Chicago public school was really hard. Not A to Z, but the top 20 people there are all fighting like heck to get out and make

something themselves and do something better. And so that was really competitive among those 20 people out of 400 kids because everyone, and wanted that. So it's, it's, it's, it was the same kind of pressures. Out of all the companies that you've invested in, personally and with M13, what one has been the most successful and why? And maybe like, you could talk about exits too. Hot water question. I want to know what, like, what's like, like the best one where you're like, oh my God, this is amazing. I guess it, not to be too pedantic, but it depends on you define best. My best personal...

What you think is best. Well, so the one, I'll give you a couple answers, if I may. The one that I made the biggest multiple on was I made a... My brother and I, before we started calling M13, made a thousand times our money on Coinbase. And that is not playing Bitcoin. I mean, like, we invested in the Series A of Coinbase at a $15 million valuation. So 1,000 X on that. So if you put in $10,000, you would make $10 million.

That'll never happen again for a myriad of reasons. The, it's a great question. I'm trying to think what company we've invested has had the biggest exit. You know, we've, we've been in companies, you know, early like Pinterest and Lyft and ring the video doorbell, but it's such a function of how much capital goes in. And honestly, it's about getting out at the right time because we've had some now, like Lyft, we did very, very well. Lyft, the market cap is not reflected of that, but I've sold all my shares in Lyft years

and years ago. But I think it's, so I think it's a lot about that in terms of, can I give you an answer of one that I think has tons of potential now? Yeah. Yeah. It's the one sitting right here in the picture called Lifeforce, which is a kind of a vitality business. We started about 18 months ago with Tony Robbins, who's a old friend and we'd invest in some stuff together. And he said, I want to do something with you, call your shot. And I was like, that's pretty cool. Tony Robbins said he'll kind of do anything that I come up with. That's pretty fucking cool. Yeah, that was, that was one of those moments of like, okay, maybe I made it when Tony Robbins. Robin says, you're my guy for like anything that has a tech angle and a consumer focus. We went back and forth on some ideas, couldn't quite figure it out. And you had this book coming out called Lifeforce, all about kind of his latest and greatest longevity things, but really more like vitality, meaning feeling better today. So you can hopefully live longer tomorrow because there's, I think, a big distinction.

And I was like, Tony, this is this is the one that we should we should do because can we take that one percent, if you will, concierge's experience, medical. experience that we've all been lucky enough to have and then take that to like a much broader set of the population, not not the other 99% yet, but like the next 10% and the next 10% so I know you guys have had like a Peter Atia on like can we take, I don't even know if Peter Atia talks about what he charges for his concierge practice. So with something like Lifeforce, I just feel like can we just so many people don't have access to good food and good health care or just like knowing what what the best practices are.

And so luckily, I'm not doing most things for money these days. Tony Robbins certainly isn't or Peter Diamandis. And we just said, wouldn't it be great to do something where maybe someday, you know, tens of thousands and eventually hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of people would have access to like the best parts of a concierge experience where it's everything from, you know, checking your biomarkers to telehealth to certain supplements we might prescribe and performance health coaches. And we kind of build from that, but it's just about building like a quarterback of your

health in your pocket and just kind of giving you that glide path because most people just don't know where to start. And we've all, I'm guessing most people we've had on are lucky enough to know how to do that. But if you don't know where to start, like it just would feel great to feel like we put someone on that path. So I think those kind of companies can be huge. You said you're not doing things for money. So what are you doing things for now? When you wake up in the morning, what was that shift? Like, what's your reason? Well, I'll kind of give you an M13 answer, my personal answer. My personal answer is I feel like for two, two and a half decades, maybe my whole life,

I did all the things that other people wanted me to do to either have a chance to do whatever I want to do or to be successful, not even just as a human being, but be successful with a capital S and successful in terms of money, which is the easiest measuring stick. And it's only the last couple years I got to a point where it's like I have more money than ever thought I would have. So I feel really lucky. I don't have like a, I don't live a crazy life. You know, my brother's spending outpace his mind a little. And so we, it's not, it's not about having a bigger this or a better that. I'm really lucky that I, I don't long for things that I, that I could want. But I, and conversely for M13, I don't think the world needs another venture

capital firm, but they need another, we think they need another kind of venture capital firm doing things differently, whether it's the things we invest in or how we're resourcing. which I can go into. And so we said, wouldn't it be great to do well by doing good, but just really say, hey, maybe 10 years from now how venture capital works has kind of evolved or how it adds value. And we were a part of that solution. And so I really want to be at the tip of the spear of big innovation, which I think means, for us, it means it kind of has to start with technological innovation.

But then always kind of keeping, we love to talk about future of consumer behavior. So everything we focus on has some kind of future element. We invest in the future of health. a.k.a. it's something like life force. Future of money, future of work, and the future of commerce. And we think that kind of encompasses all the places that people are looking. And yeah,

to me it's about, it's a weird thing to say in my 40s, but I really feel like it's about legacy and impact, which is a great place to be. I'm sure you guys, have you guys read about the Charles Feeney guy recently? You know, we were skiing one time in this place and we met his business partner, silent business partner. When?

When? When we were in Stodd. It's kind of like when you guys met me and didn't remember. Remember Tony? What? Michael and I had read We didn't be in touch and passing. Tony. Oh, yes, yes.

And he told us this story before this, and he gave me a book that Charles Sveen wrote. It's called The Billioner Who Wasn't. I don't know if you've seen it. It's on my bookcase and it's got this incredible story of this guy who made all this money,

but he basically donated all of it. I just ordered it. I had read an article so I knew who he was, but he's one of the co-founders of duty-free, made $7, $8 billion in his lifetime, but then started giving it away while he was still alive. He just passed away recently at 92.

And silently, too. gave away all of it. Yeah, mostly anonymously. Flies commercial. Lived in a two-bedroom place in New York and rode the subway, which I can relate to. But, I mean, how cool is that? It's really cool. To actually see that impact.

I have a question, and you know, we, in a completely kind of different lane in conversation, which I feel he did not get enough credit for what he was saying. We had Dan Billsarian on the show, and he was talking about basically that the things that derive the most happiness for him now is really not the money. And I think he's known and he's created this image as this playboy that's, you know, spending lavish amounts of money and doing crazy things. But he was saying it's like the little things in life that you can, that doesn't cost anything that make them most happy. And a lot of people give them shit like, oh, easy for you to say you have money. And I'm sure people

will pull a clip from you saying, okay, easy for you to say in the position you're in. But what are some misconceptions or some things that you thought money would bring that it didn't bring? Or I guess maybe some thoughts around, you know, once you got, you know, comfortable sure what change and what didn't well you know we all have something different tugging inside of us right and money doesn't doesn't solve that money doesn't doesn't guarantee you love all all the all those things and I think for me I'm just one person wherever wherever like I put a lot of effort usually something happens hopefully good but something happens and where I don't so if money had been at the it been my number one or number two priority for a long time like it had that part worked

And then other things that were like four or five on my priority list, like starting a family, hasn't happened yet, you know? And it's not that I don't want to make any more money, even though it's not really the focus, but I just realize if I don't flip the priorities, money just has to go much further down and not even money, but just like anything involving that. And I have to put the other, you know, personal things further up. And listen, I also want to just say, I acknowledge what what people say to Dan because I've had it said to me, like, oh, easy for you to say.

And I agree. No one should feel bad about their circumstances. we've all, listen, I've had my hardships, but I'm not comparing those anyone else's. But I also think, I also really love, you know, to those who much is given, much is expected. And I own that and I want to. But if I don't, you know, if not me, then who? Like I just sat here and told you I've had incredible opportunities than I had. So that's a lot of pressure too. But I want to take that pressure because, gosh, like, I would be so disappointed in myself for my parents and the incredible job they did if I didn't try and do better.

I think people that say easy for you to say to need to look inward. I think that that's a projection of something that they're insecure about onto someone else. I think that that's something if someone's saying that, you got to sit with yourself and figure out why you're saying that. I don't I say this eloquently. I think sometimes they will look at somebody who's reached a certain level in life that's maybe unrelatedable to most people. And because it is not relatable anymore, like it's not common, I guess, they will discise. count the information that's being said or shared. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so when I was listening to Dan and I just was observing the comments come in, I was like, no, there's some value into what he's saying

because so many people glamorize and chase dollars and money and think it's going to be the solve to all of their issues and problems. And listen, to a point, obviously, you know, if you're struggling to pay rents, you can't buy groceries, like, you know, money is obviously going to be helpful. But I think this endless pursuit of just more, more, more, what he was basically saying is like at some point, you're going to have extremely diminishing returns if you don't find a greater purpose outside of that pursuit. And it's also the, again, easy to say when you don't have any money, of course you have to prioritize money. But once you make some money and research shows if you read these happiness indexes, it's like $60,000 a year. Above that, it doesn't bring any more happiness. Now,

I don't know all the footnotes of like that might not be $60,000 in the U.S. that might be spread across the world and 60,000 U.S. goes a lot further in some parts of the world. Inflation is pretty high right now. But I would say it is, I mean, I think it seems pretty clear. And you go back and read ancient Greek philosophers. I mean, people knew that 2,000 years ago. We've just kind of lost sight of it. But I think for me, I always want to go back to like, if I'm going to not make it about money, then, you know, I want to prioritize my time. We're on money because that's, that's the one thing that, you know, we all have in common, right? We all have 24 hours in a day. And so how we choose to spread this one shot we get at, this precious thing matters a lot. Most vitamins are basically candy in disguise. So when I had kids, I knew I had to do my research when it came to the vitamins that I was giving them every single day. So inner Haya. This is pediatrician approved and they're superpowered chewable vitamins.

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and Ulta now. Let's talk about Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers is the number one doctor-recommended weight management program and the trusted authority in evidence-based weight health. Beyond the science joining Weight Watchers means you become part of a powerful, passionate community. They're all about community there. We got to learn all about that when we had the CEO on our podcast. The company's purpose is to always inspire healthy habits and lasting weight loss. So how they do this is they focus on behavior change, nutrition, science, and real connections, while never giving up on the food that we all love. Personally, I really love how they've evolved their approach to weight loss over the years, and they're really like with the times, which I appreciate. Weight Watchers has helped

millions of members on their journeys over the years, and recently they've launched Weight Watchers Clinic. And this provides support to even more people across the weight health spectrum. Most importantly, I think that Weight Watchers knows that weight management is not a one-size-fits-all thing. There are behavioral and biological factors to consider, so they really have a multi-faceted approach when it comes to losing weight. Head to www.com.com to see if you qualify. If you do use our code TSC 25 to get your first month free. Plus, you get $25 off your second month. That's www.com slash TSC. I want to talk about your time, your time management. You're a high performer. How do you manage your time? You've got a lot going on. And I mean like I want

you to tell me, do you have a color coded Google calendar? Do you wake up at a certain time? time, like, what are the little things that you do to streamline your day for efficiency? I've had lots of iterations of how I've spent my time. I mean, I used to be really proud of, like, go look at my calendar. I still use, I'm an Outlook guy, and just go, you go find me a white space in there if you want to talk, right? And I used to take a lot of pride in that. Now, I think, one, I've definitely become a believer. Have you guys, has anyone ever referenced Paul Graham? So Paul Graham's like a real innovative thinker. I think he started in the tech world. He writes

a lot of great thought pieces. So he has one that I love called maker versus manager schedule. And the gist of it is something like this. If you're a manager, you spend all day, you know, in meetings. We go from a meeting to this or that. And if you're a maker, a creative person, you need to leave lots of blocks during the day to like create or to like have that creative juice come over you, right? Oh, I love this. And so his whole thing is like, you know, if you're a creator and you have nothing booked for that day, but you have like one meeting with Courtney at one o'clock, you wake up in the morning

you're like, oh, breakfast, I'll get a little creative. But in the back of your mind, I have that meeting at one o'clock. It's nine o'clock, then it's 11. Then you go, I got to get ready for the meeting. We take for granted how much it sideswipes a big portion of your day. And so I've kind of tried, for sure I'm a manager, but I also consider myself a maker in some ways in a creative. So what I try and do is a couple days a week, but this is what I try to do. It doesn't always work this way, is especially on the West Coast, because you're always kind of

wake up chasing the day. From like the afternoon on, like two, three o'clock on, I try not to book anything the rest of the day so I can like have long blocks where I don't look at my phone or go for a hike by myself or just take time to like think about what's working, what's not, all that. So I've actually made a big effort to put more slack into the system in order to try to like go slower to eventually go faster. That's one thing. I, you know, most of my ideas are not my own, but I do read a lot. So I think like, I do like the how your first, this is easy for me to say without kids, how that first hour or two of your day goes, so two your day goes.

So I try to really hard not to schedule meetings before like nine or 10 a.m. So I can get up and like when you're on the West Coast and I mainly live in L.A. I wake up to like 100 emails. So even just getting through those and figuring out what to look at, what to delegate, what to look at later, how to prioritize it. I mean, that's a real art that I think is one of my super. superpowers, like, if I have to, I can go through those 100 emails in 10 minutes, not have read all of them, but at least decided what to do with all of them. And so I like my day to kind

be like the morning, because that is the quietest time to be like an a la carte mix of those. So I love things that are net, I call it net zero dead time, meaning I'm doing something while I do something else that I would have done anyway so it doesn't cost me any time. Meaning, I go in my infrared sauna for 20 minutes, but I do it while I read some emails, so I'm kind of catching up, do a little cold plunge, do an Andrew Huberman go and get some light, go for a little walk. I have a pretty extensive menu of things that I do, and depending on the day, I kind of mix it up, a little stretch. I went on a trip with charity water. If anyone knows that organization that builds wells and brings clean drinking water, people have never had it about five years ago in Africa.

There's a guy in the trip who runs around to everyone going, do you stretch? And everyone's like, Why is this guy asking me? Five years later, if I do this like five minutes stretch in the morning, it can even be three minutes, but it's like three to seven minutes. I feel markedly different during the day. If I just do it like a couple of these stretches. What is the stretch? You gotta tell us with the stretches.

I'm kind of, I'm like a low back guy because we all sit a lot. So there's only one chair called all 33 that I can sit in for eight hours. Yeah, all three. All 33 is Dennis of Peak Wellness's chair, Michael. Dude, Dennis is the man. Can we just agree. Dennis is on the show. Dennis takes care of everyone in my family.

including my 7-8-year-old mom. And that is a guy. Talk about givers and takers. That is a giver. He adjusted my implants on Instagram story. He moved her baby. He moved my baby. He moved my baby.

He moved my baby. You know, it's funny. Dennis has been on this show. I love Dennis. I mean, he is. I think he's one of the best people. I have so, you know, I went to a dentist, a dentist, not Dennis. A dentist like three months ago.

And this person took care of me, like, you know, just for a teeth cleaning. In a way that like, you're just like, wow. people who are so passionate about their craft. Whatever it is, if they're a teacher, God bless them, because I couldn't do it. If you're a dentist, I couldn't do it. If you're a dentist, I mean, it's incredible. And Dennis is one of those people, just like, he's like, he's like a true healer. When I told Michael, I'm like, I have this guy.

Everyone says they have a guy. I'm like, no, I have the guy. The guy that the guy is the guy that I have. You used to want a doctor and a lawyer. Now it's like you want someone like a dentist. I mean, you want Dennis over. The best. Yeah.

Okay, so you sit in all 33 chair. I've posted this chair, you guys. Only one that doesn't make my backer. I can sit in eight hours straight. Other than that, it's like 90 minutes and I need to sit up. That's the only chair I sit in. What was a question?

No, we got to you. No, I like, I like how you're giving us textual things. Yeah, I mean, everyone's different, but if you sit a lot, it's all in the lower back and hips, so I have to do a lot of, a lot of twisting.

Like, I have to do like a lot of knees in the chest, rotate over, like a lot of twists. I can get some good cracks usually, even though it shouldn't be about that. But I definitely have to do some twists just like a little mini yoga, a little, little down dog. I just recently started doing like a little plank thing. And actually it's amazing.

They say if you do those planks, it actually helps with having a little lower back stiffness and it so does, which is kind of counterintuitive. You and I could go off because what did you call it net? What? I think I made this up. Net zero dead time. So I do it while I'm doing something else. So other than the stretching, which I don't do anything while I'm doing that,

everything else I do. I sit in front of red lights. I stand on the vibrating plate. You and I have this thing called a biocharger. She gets a facial and then she's doing emails. I lay on my PMF mat and like put my feet in the shake machine while I return emails. That's my favorite thing to do. And when people are like, how do you get stuff done? You habit stack it. Yeah. And I love the, I first heard that term from Arianna Huffington. Who's a dear friend of mine and I'm on the board of her company Thrive. But it's all about those like, habit stacking the little resets during the day, like you're upset about something. And she has these, these like thrive resets. It's amazing how I can feel totally flustered,

really upset, 60 second reset. That's all takes to reset your nervous system. So I love those because I'm sure like you guys get enough stuff thrown at me during the day that if I don't, if I don't start with some level of zen or try to do a little bit of that, it can just spiral quickly. I think that, you know, what you said about the calendar and having space open on the calendar is so important. Ryan Holiday has this picture he always posts and I always send it to my assistants and it's like in he thinks a day is successful when there's nothing on the calendar. And you are right as you grow as a business person. It's like a badge of honor to like show how busy you are and how many different colors are on your calendar. What the real fucking flexes

is having nothing on your calendar so you can create what you want to create. Yeah. I mean it's it's GSD get shit done. Whatever can we on this podcast? It's been done before. Okay, sorry. But that's the measure, right? It's, it's not about anything. It's, it's busyness with a Y versus busyness with an I. It's just getting done what, what you, what you endeavor to get done, right? And I think it's just so important to, to leave that slack in this system. And I just think it's, yeah, I mean, that's, that's for me what it's, what it's all about. I think to take things to, oh, sorry, I lost my train of thought, you saw that, but it's come back. Okay. Okay. Here's,

Here's something that I actually think would be counterintuitive to most people. I took control of my calendar myself about three years ago. Oh, fuck. Yeah. I don't think I should do that. Oh, my God, Courtney. So my brother uses an outsource assistant for his calendar in the Philippines. That's a whole different story because the time zones and everything.

And every time I try and use her, it's, you know, there's complications, we'll say, because of the time zones. But taking over my calendar does an interesting thing. I, like in the final say on anything, it goes on my calendar. Because what I found was there's just too much going on that I don't need. to do and if it's not a heck yeah, it should be a no, do I need to be in that meeting? There's already seven people in it, 12 people in it. So one, it made me just say no to a lot more stuff. I think as you get, for me as I get older, it's more about simplifying and pruning than adding. And that's so hard because I can speak for my brother when I say he and I got here by saying

yes and yes and yes and just stacking and stacking and stacking. And when you start at Goldman Sachs, working 80 hours a week seems like a vacation when it's for yourself. So now it's about saying know and simplifying. But then the other thing that happens with the calendar is, like, say people in my company, who should I go to get this on your calendar? Oh, right here. What do you want? I'll come back to you. You know, when it doesn't go through your assistant, nobody sneaks anything on there, nobody bullies anything on there. And then it's really ingratiating when Tony Robbins is like, this assistant just emails me, shek, there's no one you want to have do this. I was like, there's someone who could do it, but I'd just rather do it. I promise you

have one email with me. I'll say this time. If you say no, you give me two times and we'll pick one. This motherfucker is going to take this tip. I see his wheels spinning and spinning and spinning. He loves these tips. I like the, I think that it becomes a challenge. I mean, listen, this is, people are at different stages, but in the beginning of our career, and I know we're getting on time here, in the beginning of our career, it's like you say yes to so many things and you get in that habit. And I think at some point you have to transition and be more selective and say no to more than you say yes. And it's counter advice because to your point, like Lauren and I were the people when we started the show. Like we were working different jobs. We had different businesses.

And we were in the car. We said yes, yes, yes. We'd get on a plane. We're carrying all the way. Now it's not that we say no to the show. But the point is, is that we would run ourselves into the ground. And we wouldn't be able to be as focused as we are. No is actually the war. You almost everyone probably has to say yes for a long time before you're in the position to be fortunate enough to say no. But some people never get to the point where they can say no. Yeah. I love things even like, like I said, I'm an old school outlook guy because that's what I kind of grew up on email-wise, but I love timers. Do you use timers? Yeah, I use the twisty ones. Yeah, I use tons of timers. Because it's like this, it's like, there's people I have to reply to

right away. And there's people where if I reply right away, Altcamp is another email comes back. And it's, and I know parameters of things. So it's like, well, that doesn't need to happen until next week. So I want to respond. But if I don't respond now, it's, I do net zero inbox where as opposed to my brother does like 30,000 unreads. So I reply that email right now. But then I set on a timer for three days from now to go out on Friday. And it's like, great, we're on pace for next week. So it just paces out things while still keeping them moving. Now, occasionally you have some faux power where I set the timer wrong and it'll be like,

hey, great talking to you, whatever, whatever. Like, we didn't talk. And I'm like, whoops, the timer didn't happen. So I sent the email right away. You're talking about timers for email. Timers for email. I use boomerring. Do you know boomering?

Boomering. Yeah, yeah. But like, just as a pacing thing to your day, I love timers to like, because I'm like, the timer slows down the pace. of your day. Wait, so hold on. I have to understand this. Hold on.

You'll learn something here, Lauren. I'll probably. You send Lauren rapid fire's emails on like a psychopath. No, I have a tip on a Sunday. My way works too. It's a different way.

No, no, no. No, no. It's chaotic. She writes rapid fire emails on a Sunday. So no one can respond. 40 of them. But then they hit the, 600 emails.

But if you used a time where those emails would go through, but they would go through in like an appropriate time. I don't, the time that, the time that I have to respond to my emails is on Sundays. I love it because no one can write me an email back. So I get it all out of my inbox and it's all delegation. Where does this email go? Here you go.

And then I go like this until next Sunday. And I don't check my email. But half of them come to me. Too bad. I think when we were on email, I got the out of office saying you're, you're a way writing. That's another boundary that I've set because that's a boundary. It's like I, my email to me is a tool. It's not somewhere where I live.

You know what they say. The inbox is someone else's, someone else's to-do list for you, not your own to-do list, right? And guess that letter shuts down things that maybe I don't need to see or maybe I don't need to be involved in or maybe I don't need to respond shuts it down. It does. I can't argue that. I would say my learning on the Sunday is one, let's say it's my internal team. I just don't want to burn people out. So an email that I would reply to Sunday morning, I set a timer for Sunday night.

and on the off chance they want to like get ahead of their week, the real industrious ones, they'll check their email at like 9 o'clock on Sunday, but it's not like I burned them. And if they don't, they see it Monday morning first thing. That's smart though. That's what I'm saying. So you're saying like I can do my emails on Sunday, but like don't overwhelm people. It takes a touch more effort. But it's funny too.

You also learn, let's say I used to be one of those people that like would almost have a list of I want to meet these people, right? This is important who I want to meet sometimes for reasons, sometimes for no reason. And what you learn is, because I would always reach out. So a lot of them I didn't have their cell phone number, but I found their email, Tim Cook or whatever. It's almost 50-50. Those that respond on Sunday because your email is a better chance of getting seen with those that you piss off because you emailed them on Sunday. It's about fit.

So then I find out. People get pissed if you email them. Who's checking their email? I don't check my email. But that's what I'm saying is. So I don't know if anyone emails. That's good. You're equal.

I think you're right. Some people will get irritated, myself included when you email me 18 times. You do the refresh thing. I don't do that. Because I like to do zero inbox too. Yeah, I think some people are, but I do think it's, whether it's timers, it is like, you know, Tim Ferriss taught me a long time ago. It's, it is, you're, you're, I think we both agree that there's something like timers or something like batching. You know, Tim Ferriss has a different kind of company than I have, but like he kind of, you know, said, used to say he did it. I'll check his email once in the morning, once in the middle day and once in the end of the day. Short of like the building burning down, what could possibly need more than that. And I do, I don't adhere to that. But I feel like I've done that for periods and the world doesn't end, right? You and Michael are very similar with your relationship. We've covered a lot of ground. I'd like to keep covering more.

Yeah, you can come back on. Do you like Pareto's Law? That's one of my other big guiding principles. What's Pareto's Law? The 8020. The 80-20 rule. And I actually think it's sometimes 80-20, and depending on what you're talking about, it's somewhere between 80-20 and 95-5.

What do you apply it to, though? What do you use that rule? Give me something and I'll apply it. Let's say I want to write a book. Well, I guess it would be for Pareto's Law. I mean, it's 80-20. meaning like, I guess that's like the how you write your book. Like maybe you decide for a while you're going to focus 20% of the book if you're in no

deadline, 80% of your day job or vice versa. But it's like, Perot's laws like this. Like you're a salesperson for most sales organization. 80% of your clients do 20% of your sales. It should be the inverse. You should have your top 20% of your clients doing 80% of the sales. Think how much easier your life would be if you can go deeper with those. Like diet, I think diet, you know, depending on how strict you want to be, 955 or

80-20. For me, I'm an 80-20 sort of guy because, like, I know I've, there's been points where I've had a really good six-pack and I know what that's like, it's no fun. And I don't have a real good reason too. So I'm like at 80-20, try to be healthy 80% of the time so I can enjoy the other 20%. But if I want to have a ripping six-pack, it's got to be like 95-5. You know what? I've learned a lot this podcast. Pimp out your book. Everyone needs to go buy it. It is so digestible and amazing. I screenchotted it to Michael and was like, we have to get this guy. Both, both, of you guys, we have to get Carter on at some point. You should get Carter and Paris on.

That would be fun. It's like to get both of you too. Fun fact, do you know I've been on your podcast before? I love these blank looks. Don't edit this people. I've been on your podcast before. I mean, mentioned on your podcast. You've been mentioned on the podcast.

I'm like, I'm like, maybe more than once, but we've done a lot of these. Brooke connected us. Who mentioned you? And I listened to her, I was listening to Brooke. She was talking about sitting with a friend who was in a relationship trying to decide kind of analytically if the person,

I can remember what word she used, but she said, yeah, that was me. Wait, wait, wait, she showed, tell me the story because I want to remember. You were trying to decide if like this was the person you wanted to. This was a person and kind of like digging into like, what's it look like five years from now and 10 years and now, and the mother of my kids and what are the traits I'm looking for?

And it was funny because I was listening in preparation for this. And then she's referencing, she's having this talk with someone. And then she said something like a friend of mine. And then she said, brilliant. So I was like, okay, probably not me. and then she said, older friend. And I was like, and then she just described it all.

And I was like, oh, wait, no, that's definitely me. So I texted her and I said, was that me? You said, older? She said, well, I like to keep my friend's secrets. So I appreciate it. You almost just tripped me the fuck out. I was like, wait a minute. I was trying to think.

I'm like, we've done a lot of these shows. One of the things that I think makes you so successful after interviewing you. And we can, I'm saying this on air. We figured you out now in an hour and a half. You are a very thorough person. It seems like whatever you do, you give 100%. Don't you get that from him? He's a thorough person. Well, do you remember when you guys almost made me cry about my dad? My first quote I gave was my dad used to say when Courtney really

wants to do something, he's into it. Watch out. When Courtney doesn't really want to do something, watch out. But I think that's true. You're going to be a good dad. I hope so. I'm ready. Where can everyone find you and your book? Our book is called Shortcut Your Startup. It's been out shockingly for five years, but I'm really proud of the fact that actually the sales are like very consistent over after the initial pop, which hopefully tells me how some longevity and people are getting something from it. My Instagram is, there's only one Courtney Ream. So if you Google hard enough, you'll probably find me on LinkedIn, just at Courtney Ream on Instagram. And then of course, my company M13,

so at M13 or M13.com is so passe. You can come back on any time. No AI cold emails. No AI cold emails. No AI cold emails. But if you do an email, I'll, I'll guarantee if you do an email with some personalized thing that resonates. I promise I'll report. We need the audience. Everyone send your thong to Courtney. I'd rather take Michaels. It's just safer at this point.

You send yours to Charlie and Warren. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you for coming on. Thank you so much for having me.