The Game with Alex Hormozi - The Shift from Business to Investing (on the Founder Podcast) Pt.2 - July ‘23 | Ep 588

Episode Date: September 16, 2023

"Most times the focus is that people can't say no to the fast money. And by doing that, they say no to the big money (…) which is the money you got to wait for.” Today, join Alex (@AlexHormozi) as he guests on the Founder Podcast with Chris Lee to discuss the shift from business to investing and the mindset required for success. They talk about the importance of creating value and attracting potential investments. The hosts also share their criteria for the ideal company to invest in, including a strong founder who wants to scale and has big dreams. This is part 2 of the interview.Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth.Check out the episode on the Founder Podcast’s YouTube Channel!Timestamps:(3:45) - Identify motivation, admit weakness for improvement.(10:38) - Self-deception in valuing businesses.(13:00) - Focus on long-term success.(15:08) - Shift from business to investing.(19:46) - Different pain, different businesses.(26:50) - Leverage existing opportunities.Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

Switching from business to investing is a massive change in mindset. Because when you're in business, you're used to selling all that. But when you're doing deals, it's actually about trying to get to know. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more per customer, and how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. Dude, so acquisition.com, obviously a big shift from gym launch. Like, I love your play right now as like just create bad.

value, value, value, value, value, and basically have the natural, like, people reach out and then where you just have your, you're picking. What are you focusing on with Acquisition.com as far as, like, if you had the ideal company to invest in, what would that look like? So an ideal company to invest in, you know, for us is going to be doing, you know, two to $10 million in EBITA. They're going to have a founder that wants to scale. It's a big one. A lot of those people think they want to scale, but then, like, they don't actually want to scale. You know what I mean? Like they double or triple their income and then they're like, oh, wow, I'm good.

Like we had a company that we tripled the profit for. And then all of a sudden, like the CEO was golfing every day. And I was like, bro, what's up? He's like, dude, I'm making more money than ever made my entire life. I'm like, yeah, but like I'm not in this for this trouble. I'm in this for a 20x or 50x. Like that's why I want to do this, right? Like we want to do big stuff.

And so it's like they have to have big eyes. They have to have big dreams of what they want to accomplish. They have to be coachable. And that's a big one because, and this is actually probably. one of the hardest ones to find is that anyone who's achieved a certain level of success has some level of confidence that they're good. But the problem is like the difference between and you can appreciate this. They're just doing a million a month and 10 million a month is oceans. You know what I mean? It's and they're like, I'll just do 10 times of what I'm currently

doing. It's like, it's not, that you wouldn't be stuck right now. And so they have to like, because there's really two aspects of this. So like, I'll rewind one quick. There's the business component and there's the founder, right? Like who we're doing the deal with? Now, for us, the founder matters a lot more than to like a traditional private equity firm. And because traditional private equity firms exclusive, almost exclusively by majority, we sometimes by majority, but if we buy a majority, it's like a micro-hundredre. Like, you know, we're like 51. You know what I mean?

And that might be because we have some sort of grand elements we're tying into it. Or whatever reason, right? Like of all the holdings, we only have one majority. We will probably do more because that one's doing really, really well. But most of our deals are like, you know, 33, 49, 51. You know what I mean? That's kind of the range that we do. We have a couple early deals I did at 20.

But there's the founder in the business. The founder is coachable. They have big dreams. We like actually hanging out with them because this is like, if I don't look forward to talking to somebody, like to me, that's a big red flag. Like if during the process, any of us have any hesitation.

So we have this thing called the five flags, which is like if any of these five red flags come up, we stop the deal immediately. So we don't need like three strikes. We just need one. And so we just try and codify it. Right, right? If there's any kind of dishonesty or any discrepancy between numbers,

if we feel like they have like, a culture of like fear within their organization. Those are all like signs for us that were like, okay, this is probably not a good fit. On the business side, it's the more traditional stuff. I want to dive a little bit deeper in because you said you want to have

somebody that has big goals, not someone when they triple, they're going to go be on the golf course. So obviously that can't be motivated by money. Because both you and I know that like money is essentially oxygen, right? Like once you have enough, it no longer motivates or pushes or whatnot. So like how do you identify the person that really is able to be driven past money, past accomplishment, past a certain level of achievement?

How are you identifying that person? So it's usually in the language patterns that they'll present with. And so I'll give you a couple different examples that are different but still would accomplish the same thing. So some of them might be like, I really want to create an amazing place to work. That would be one where like that's going to continue to grow. They might want to continue to get more and more people in and create an amazing place to work. If they said, I want to change this industry. If you want to change an industry, it's like you have to have a big vision for it.

If you want to change a community, same thing. Like if you want to change a local area, like, again, big, big impact. Some of them, it's like, I just want to do something big. Or like their desire is to see what they're capable of. Like they want to test their own metal. And so the whole point of the game for them is to continue to move the bar. Right. That would be another example.

And some of them just straight up say, like, I do want to make a ton of money. And to me, that's fine. As long as that's true, right? Like, they're like, I wouldn't get to a billion dollar company. That's badass. Like, that's fine. I totally respect that. But it's that they actually want that and they already have all their personal needs

fulfilled. Like, if they already have their monetary needs fulfilled and they still say that, to me, I'm like, okay, this guy wants to run. So those are like the positive flags. What are the red flags that you see of like somebody that will be satisfied? Usually they just talk in small numbers. They talk in small numbers. And this is from the business perspective.

The majority of our flags are actually about the founder. So like the red flags for the business are, you know, just like, okay, if it's going down, if it's not profitable, if we don't see a path for growth, if it feels too complicated, if the founder has like shiny object syndrome so like they can't focus on one thing. They're like, oh, yeah, I've got this other business I want to start. This actually happens all the time. Somebody comes to us, they're like, I've got this business. I want to partner with you on.

I've got these other three businesses too. And I'm like, close all those and I'll work with you on this. And so it's like, and sometimes guys will do that. And then they come back. I'm like, this guy's in it. Other guys are like, I can't do that because of X, Y, Z. And I'm like, cool. Then go chase five rabbits and hope you catch one.

And so, like, are they focused? Are they coachable? Are they honest? And honesty is like, you know, a lot of people think about it in terms of like black and white, like honest or dishonest. But it's really like, how honest are you? Like, if I hear a lot of exaggeration at all points in time, like everything just seems to be rounded.

You don't know what I'm like, oh, we're amazing. Everything's, like, if you don't know where the bodies are buried, you're not close enough. Like, you should know where the bodies are buried in every single department. Right. And that's actually one of my limit's test. CEO, not that I am anymore, but when I was CEO, if I don't know what's going wrong in every department, I'm too far away. If something's just good, I mean, I don't know what's going on. Because of course, there should always be opportunities for a burden. So I got to know what's happening.

So if I hear that kind of language, those are red flags. And then just the big one of just they talk in small numbers in terms of growth and they talk in small numbers in terms of the ultimate size that they want to grow the thing. Because like, I can't make you believe more than you do. You bring up a great point of not only knowing where the bodies are buried in different departments, but being willing to admit where the bodies are buried, right? I think there's an aspect of business owners where they want to lie to themselves, whether you're in sales, whether you actually own the business, whatever, you're managing a department, right?

Like one of the most important things in order to enact change in order to improve is actually being able to admit, we're weak here, we suck at this, this, that, and the other, and like getting real, right, you know, non-self-deceived, right? Self-deception, I think, is, like, the greatest downfall of any CEO, any manager, any salesperson, right? Like, I'm sure you'd agree with me on that. If they're, like, microcontrollers, right? Like, they want to micromanage everything.

Like, that's another example of, like, because the equal opposite, right? There's the pendulum. Like, on one side, they're too far away. They're too disconnected. The other one is they're too close to everything. And I want to make a point that I think. is worth making, but they also have to have realistic expectations of value, and they

have to be willing to have a smaller slice of a bigger pie. Like, a lot of people think they want that, and so they're like, they want to have the round shape of the pie, right? And I know you probably can preach to this more than anyone that, like, the more people who are trying to build something, the bigger it can get, right?

Like, you didn't have 100% circle of your circle. And guess what? Elon Musk has 20% of Tesla, right? But that still made sense. It made sense for him to give 80% to other people to help him build it and he can still become the wealthiest man on the planet. And so, like, having to shift that belief in someone is really hard if someone doesn't already come in believing it. Like, I'm willing to part with the chunk of the business in order to have a 10

times or 100 times more valuable thing. Right. Like if they don't believe that. And then part of it is also unrealistic expectations of valuation. So this is actually a pretty big one. So they hear about your exit, right? They hear about my exit. And they think, oh, that multiple. applies to my $2 million profit, you know, company that is basically me with a couple of helpers running around. And if I die tomorrow, the whole thing dies. Like, no, it doesn't apply to that business. Because, and here's a stat that might astound your audience. For businesses doing less than 10 million in sales and 2 million in bottom line, all right? So those are the two numbers. Top line and 2 million in bottom line. The average, like the median trading value is 2.5x on

profit. That's the median. All right? So like that's that's the middle. Right. And over 80% depending on the source. So this is SBA. So small business administration is one that has a huge component of seller financing. And so that two and a half X is also not cash. Like that two and a half X is the total enterprise value. And the person who's like so like let's say you did a hypothetical deal with somebody doing one million dollars a year. Okay. So one in profit. All right. So one million dollars year in 12 months. And let's say they got the median valuation. So the person who's buying is adding no. a value. They're just buying the asset. They're coming in to do nothing, right? Because that's

who is buying this, right? If you and I might want to buy something, I would expect to get a discount on something because I'm going to be doing a little work to grow the thing. Right. I don't want to pay you to work. So the idea is like, okay, let's think through this. A million dollars, two and a half X is the is the median. And let's say 90% of have seller carry. Okay, well, if you're selling half the business, then now we're at one point two five, and let's say, and you have a seller carry part. So you might only get a few hundred thousand dollars for half the business. Now, again, the part of it is that people then in that situation, and this is where deals don't happen, is that they're like, I'm worth at least 10. It's like,

you're not, bro. Like, you're not because you can't walk away. Like, you could walk away from business and it still grows. Like, Jim Launch continues to grow. And Alex is on a podcast with Chris right now. The idea is that you have to build an asset that can grow on its own. And that takes time. And the thing is, is that people are really impatient or they feel like they're getting, I mean, and to be fair, that's the nature of deals is that both people have to agree, right? But like, that's a big one, is that a lot of founders will have realistic expectations about how valuable the company that built is because they're measuring it based on the effort they've put in rather than the output of what's been created. Yeah, it's so interesting how many people are

self-deceded on the actual total enterprise value. I had a guy give me an offer the other day for he's got an Instagram profile with a ton of followers and he's netting like 350 a year and everything like that and he wanted is there's something like five or six multiples on a social media platform or like a social media account that is dependent on him as the face and it's just like dude what in what world is this worth five to six multiples you're crazy like you get out of here man And it's so amazing, like, how self-to-see people are. Dude, I want to dive into one other thing that you kind of mentioned, and I know that you're phenomenal at, is like,

walk me through how you get to know, right? How do you tell yourself no and get away from, like, the shiny objects and how do you keep digging in the same hole that is boring or whatnot? Like, what are the mental exercises for you as an entrepreneur that keep you disciplined to continue to say no and only say to the yes to the one thing that is giving you the most value. I think that this is probably like

if there's a single trade of entrepreneurs that can make them successful, it is that they can master this. And it's also probably the hardest one to master because we're the best people at deceiving ourselves when it comes to this. Like we convince ourselves that this new opportunity is going to be worth more.

And there's a lot of natural follow questions. Like, when do you know when to pivot? Like when you know you've tried enough, like when you need to change your idea, things like that. I would say that post-procal problem, market fit. All right. So this is a big caveat. And this is why advice gets hard because it depends on the season. If you don't want to buy your thing, right? Or they don't like

the thing yourself. Then yeah, you should iterate. Keep trying new things until eventually you start getting buyers. At that point, you lock it. And then you say, if I only did this thing for the next 10 years, would I get this outcome? And if that outcome is a yes, then anything that's not that, like you already have the deal with yourself that you're willing to get that big outcome. So like for acquisitions, I mean, imagine the amount of opportunities that we get right now that are like, dude, could you, like, dude, if you built this thing and, like, do it. People were like, dude, you should sell a course. And you know what? If I did, I probably would make more than all course creators.

So like if I did that. But would that detract from the one thing that mattered most, right? And I think most times the focus is that people can't say no to the fastest. money and by doing that they say no to the big money which is the long money which is the money you got to wait for right because like no big things love that are built fast like I'm very convinced about this like almost everybody goes to this like five to seven years of eating period where you just don't it doesn't feel like you're making progress and as tacky as this may sound like your overarching strategy is hope like unshakable faith that it's going to happen but being paranoid about the

present that it's going to die right right so it's and I think jimmy Collins, he has some sort of dust position that he said more elegantly than me. But it's maintaining both those things. And so for me, my ultimate vision is that like acquisition.com compounds into a billion or higher company. And we do it, doing it our way. Right. And like that's what I want to do.

And whether it takes five years, 10 years, 20 years, like, it's a game that I'm dedicated to playing. And anything, like, I know the plan that we set out for because we spent 18 months thinking of all the different things we can do, what do we want to do? We said we want to combine social media and invest. that was the big that was like something old and something new and we figured if we create proprietary deal flow and do significant value add to businesses that we can buy a good rates and we could add value to them too because typically investing is one or the other either you buy

really cheap like that's Warren Buffett's strategy is buy really cheap right now he says wonderful companies at fair prices whatever or you've got somebody who's like a really niche like if you bought solar stuff which you can't because you're have you non-compete but yeah like if you didn't have your non-compete like you going into a solar business it's like well, you have expertise there and you'll immediately be able to grow, right? And so you don't even need to buy at a great multiple because you know if you 10xed, it doesn't really matter what you bought it at because it's going to be worth way more, right? And so for us, we try to combine both those things. You create an investment thesis. And the problem with,

and I know, like you're, you're in this season now, right? Is that switching from business to investing is a massive change in mindset. Because when you're in business, you're used to selling all that, right? It's selling and promoting and selling and selling and selling and selling. But when you're doing deals, it's actually about trying to get to know, which is so counter everything that we've, like you and I have had ingrained in our minds. It's like, God, I want this person to say yes. But the thing is, is that like, if you keep upping the price and changing the terms, then you can get someone to say yes, but it might be a terrible deal for you. And so, like, no longer is about yeses. It's about, you know, coming to agreements within a defined box that

you define for yourself that like, this is a deal that makes sense. Right. And so that's been probably one of the hardest transitions for me going from business owner to investor. But an investment vehicle also doesn't give you the quick hits that business does. You and I could rattle the sales team and then boom, we'd see sales hours later, you know, coming in the same day. I can't rattle the deal team and then like get a deal close, right? Like it just doesn't work that. Right.

And so there's this huge lag on when we start doing stuff and we start seeing the results. And so you think about like even improving a process, it's like it might take 90 days or six months to get through from beginning to end on a deal. And then we don't even know how the deal went. It's going to take us another year or two before we really even see like, okay, this was a good deal. This was a good company. This was a good pick.

So your feedback loops are so long. You have to figure out games to play in the meantime so that you can let the big machine work. And so like right now we have a snowball. But I mean, investor years, we're like, I did my first deal in summer 2020. So I'm three years in. So like in investor years, three years is like nothing. It's nothing. It's child's play.

And so I had to really change my perspective of like business versus investing. And that's been a very hard thing to do. But it's changed me a lot. And I think hopefully for the better. Real quick, guys, if you can think about how you found this podcast, somebody probably tweeted it, told you about it, shared it on Instagram or something like that. The only way this grows is through word of mouth. And so I don't run ads.

I don't do sponsorships. I don't sell anything. my only ask is that you continue to pay it forward to whoever showed you or however you found out about this podcast that you do the exact same thing so if it was a review if it was a post if you do that it would mean the world to me and you'll throw some good karma out there for another entrepreneur i love the distinction between you know running a business or being in sales or whatnot versus versus investing because you're exactly right it's drastically different i love uh the phrase in regards to what you're talking about aggressively patient right like just being aggressive in the moment

but very patient on any results, any lag, any, anything that's going. And I think that that drastically applies to both sides of owning a business and also in the investment world, right? Like, I'm doing everything to increase deal flow and increase opportunities on one side. And the other, I'm creating as many transactions, but not caring about the results. And just it may be boring and maybe long and maybe, you know, suffering on day to day. And the interesting thing is like, you don't have to be an entrepreneur to apply these principles, right? Like you can be in sales, you can be in a career path, you can be in any one of these things where you've just got to fall in love with the boring work, not get easily distracted, not looking for another opportunity, wherever they pop up.

And because it's the compound effect, as you talked about earlier, as far as like increasing your audience size, same thing as far as skill set, right? Like every month, every year that I'm, you know, hammering down on this one skill set. And it's just compounding. And then all of a sudden the results come fast and quick at the end. Yeah. The amount of growth that your company had in the last year is probably more than it did in the first five years. Right. And so like that's the thing is.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's a tough year ship. I mean, like, this is me just to share. I know you're in the process of this too. but like when you go from comparing your year 7 to your eight growth of a business that you owned to your two to your three growth of a newer thing that you're doing it's like we can't compare the two like this is this is what's been hard for me that i've had to like wrap my head around is that like

i'm like god like it'd be so easy for me to add another like 10 million in ebita to the solar business right versus like or or in gym watch like add another like six or out another 10 whatever it is right like adding that kind of like i'm i but like that can happen pretty quickly, right? Whereas the new thing, like, you have to think in percentages rather than in absolute amounts. Because otherwise you'll just get way too bog down. Like, you'll get way too sad about things are working as fast as you want them to.

And so that's been helped to. So shifting from absolutes to percentages to relative changes. And also just at least for me, thinking that, like, different businesses have different pain at different times. And so, like, I'll give you a quick extreme example. It's like, on one extreme, you got, like, info. businesses, right? There's lots of people who have those. The pain that you experience is when you want to get past a million a month, two million a month, three million a month. So you basically

pick a vehicle that's easy to start, easy to make money fast for it, but you're not going to make massive money, right? It's very hard to do it. Not so you can't, it's very, very hard. On the flip side, you start a software company, and like if you do it the right way, you're probably not going to make any money at all for a long period of time. And so all your pain is front-loaded. But once you achieve critical mass, then the things just starts compounding on its own month over month over month, and at no incremental cost to you, and the thing becomes a profit monster. Right. And so it's like, those are completely opposite sides of the spectrum, and it's really just like, where do you want your pain? And if you know ahead of time, this is where

the pain's going to happen, not being surprised when the pain comes. That is one of my favorite principles that I believe applies to every area of life. Your fitness, your relationships, everything is choosing pain now versus later, right? If I choose pain now, I experience real long lasting fruit later. If I choose pain later, I get fake fruit, short bursts, quick hitters, right? Like I hit the alarm clock in the morning, right? Hit the snooze button, I get a quick hitter in the morning, right? Like I feel good sleeping a little bit longer or whatever it is.

But it's my fitness routine or whatever it is, you know, which the long pain is is way, way more enduring way way worse and so this principle applies to literally everything i want to get your your take on on one thing so i asked uh i asked grant cardone it's it's really really similar to this perspective that that you're talking about is like so the question i asked grant and this and i'll give you what he he answered and i don't want to hear your your thoughts on it was a young guy he's wanted to launch his wanting to launch his first business and he's thinking about taking taking the leap away from corporate America going to do it. What do you advise? What advice do you have for that guy? Grant said, he said, don't do it. He said, don't go and launch a business. He said,

go and find somebody that has put in the years of essentially compounding and is pumping the brakes, go and figure out how to partner up with them and leverage that compound that's already been created, right, and participate in the upside. And I think it's a lot of like, what you're talking about as far as like year seven through eight is way easier to make way more money than zero to one, one to two, whatever it may be. And so with that, like, what are your thoughts on that question and on that advice? I think that I will have a slightly different taking brand. And it's not because I disagree with this advice, but because I think it depends on the context that it's given. And so I think that for me to start over, or for you to quote,

start over, I have a lot of experience in business. And so for me, it makes sense to go partner with those companies and, you know, let them have incurred that first pause so that I can walk with them to the much bigger upside, right? It's just that if you have no business experience, one, it's tough to get that business owner to say, yeah, you're going to be a huge value add to my business. And number two, you also probably, like, and if that person doesn't say that and you want to go to the finance route of like, I can route my some friends and family and get a bank loan and then try and buy this business because I took a course on acquisitions or whatever, you still don't know what you're doing.

And you don't know how to analyze what is a good business because you don't have a baseline. And so a lot of these things are, and again, I agree with the advice from my like, what is the best opportunity vehicle. I mean, like private equity is literally based on this. Like you get into private equity, you start a fund and you can go like a billion dollars in five years, right? Like, sure. All you got to do is raise a billion dollars.

Go buy five companies for 200. You know what I mean? let them double naturally over time. And there you go. You made yourself a billion dollars. Like, sounds easy to do. Significant out, right? What do we doing here, right?

Why do we suck so about, right? But it's a lot easier said than done, right? And so like, Grant at his station in life, because I had a conversation with Grant, I'll give you a micro example of this. And so I was thinking about what I was going to do with our big hunk of money, right? And I want to give you two very different perspectives on the advice.

All right. So I talked to Dave Ramsey and I talked to, sorry, I didn't talk to David. I watched the video of Dave Ramsey when you talked about this. and I had a conversation with Grant about this. So Grant said, go buy a massive building. He said, go buy the biggest building you can possibly buy. That's what you should do.

And I think the caveat there is that's what branched, because Grant's been doing real estate for 30 years. And so for him, him putting all his eggs in one basket, he's like, yeah, I can't lose. He's like, yeah, you just pick it and get a manager in there, done, right? Dave had slightly different perspective. Dave said, if your experiences and your skills were a pie, right? So think about a pie 100%. He said, how would your experiences break down between like investment assets?

You got like stocks and bonds. You've got like, you know, the skills you had. You've got business. You've got crypto, whatever it is. How does that pie circle out for you? When I look at my pie, it's 100% business. It's all business, right? And so when I heard that advice and I talked to a lot of people when I was in the like

really the season that I think you're, you just entered right now, which is like the post transaction season, right? I talked to every single guy I know who was worth over $100 million. Every single guy. I probably had, I don't know. I want to say minimum 40 conversations with guys who were worth 100 to multiple billions, right? And it was like, what should I do? And what tough part was is that all of them gave me different advice.

And so what many of them gave me is they gave me what they would. And that's, to be fair, that's fine. They're like, this is what I would do. This is what I did. Right. But the thing is, like, you're not them. And so for me, I'm good at business. That's where all my experience is.

That's where I can recognize risk. I can recognize value. I can see where I can add value. Like, I can see all that stuff. If you put an apartment building that's worth $20 million in front of me, and you put a business that's worth $20 million in front of me, dude, I got to the end of like four different real estate transactions that were in the neighborhood of like $15 to $30 million.

Right? And I would get right to the end. You don't mean like, like I would do all the deal. I had the Excel sheet, the projections, all this stuff, right? And right before I needed write the check for like $3 million or $5 million, I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I've ever done this yet.

I don't know, right? And I didn't want to buy a tiny house. Who gives me. Right, right? Why am I going to buy 100,000-a-house? It's a waste of time. Whereas me pulling up to a business that's worth of 20, me writing a check there for $5 million, I can do it an instant.

I don't even need the complex for jail. Like, I know what I get the business. Like, I know where the risks are. Like I know the termites, toilet tenants, whatever it is for that business. And so I absolutely agree that the best opportunity is leveraging what already exists and then going more, right? That's the entire private dignity industry. The hard part is, how do you develop the skill set to get to that point? And so I think that's the nuance that I would add to, which is like, once you have five years or 10 years, and this is why, in my opinion, most businesses at,

on a long enough time horizon become investment firms. Like they become, on some level of it, they have to reallocate capital. Now, the first and obvious place that you reallocate capital is within the business. You look at how can we bolster out new product offerings or new business lines or whatever it is, right? And then the second kind of layer of investing is that you look at strategic acquisitions. You see if you can buy other companies that are accretive or value add to your own business, right? If you can vertically integrate, I mean, your business is like an obvious perfect example. It's like, okay, well, if I can buy the financing company and I can buy the manufacturer of the solar pieces and not just have the sales team, I'm going to have a way more valuable business.

Like that's an accretive acquisition, right? The third level is just saying, is there another place that I can allocate capital that will get me a higher return than my current thing, right? And so all businesses, once they are successful enough, become investment firms. They have to make decisions based on returns on capital. And so I figured if that's where all businesses eventually lead, then that's what I'm going to focus on at scale. And so that's my two senses. Like you've got to learn a game.

And then once you learn the game, then you can recognize where the arbitrage opportunities are so that you can unlock all the upside. And I'm sure that the many people who gave specific advice would probably agree with me on that, if given an extra two minutes to answer the question. Dude, I love it. So, you know, the interesting thing is like exactly to your point, right? In order to get to a point where you can go and leverage a big business, you have to have the experience.

You have to have the skill set. And there's really two different routes that you can go to get there, right? You can go the employment route. You can go as an employee. And I think if you're going to be as an employee, you're going to want to be an entrepreneur. And typically that's in a sales aspect, right? like go and learn the product, learn how to sell, learn how to elevate it, try to participate in some long-term incentive plan or whatever it is,

but you're building a skill, right, getting up to a point where then later you can leverage and where somebody could look at you and say, hey, this guy can add value. I'd be willing to sharing some upside to help me scale up, or you can go the entrepreneurial route, go and fail, figure out things, whatever it may be. And so I love your advice that, like, yes, Grant,

that's perfect advice after you have positioned yourself to be able to do so. And so that's just phenomenal stuff. Man, I appreciate you. You're dropping lots of good bombs. For my listeners, what's the best platform to follow you on? Instagram, YouTube, where's the best spot? Well, if you're a podcaster, I have a podcast called The Game, so you can go, Alex, the game with Alex Ramosey.

You can just look at it. If you type in Hermosia, you'll probably find it. And then if you type in Ramosey on any platform, which is Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and if you're a business that is doing over a million dollars, even then you want to grow a lot more than that, then go to acquisition.com. We'd love to see if we can't be out.

Freaking dope. Last piece of advice that I want, and then we'll let you go. So somebody is just going through a tough time, whether it's in a relationship, business, like really, really struggling, wondering, you know, can I keep going? Like, is this even worth it? what advice you give in to that person?

Whenever I have the thoughts, like, why do I even bother? Like, why should I keep going? I just remind myself that this is the point where most people quit, and that's why they don't quit. Love that. Love that.