Paul Graham | (Part 2) The Wisdom of Paul Graham, the Entrepreneur & Investor Behind One of the First Online Shopping Carts, ViaWeb (Yahoo! Store). Paul Is the Investor Behind Dropbox, AirBNB, Reddit, and Y-Combinator.

Audio Transcription

What you will get wrong is that you will not pay enough attention to users. You will have, you will make up some idea in your own head that you will call your vision. And then you will spend a lot of time thinking about your vision in a café by yourself. And write, build some elaborate thing without going and talking to users because that’s doing sales, which is a pain in the ass. And they might say no. And you’d be way better off finding someone, anyone who has a problem that they will pay you to fix and fixing it and then seeing if you can find more people like that. Best case is if you yourself have the problem, right? But like, you will not ship fast enough because you don’t want to face the, you’re embarrassed to ship something unfinished and you don’t want to face the likely feedback that you will get from shipping. It’s humbling and humiliating when they tell you how shitty what you built actually is, right? But that’s the only way you get it better. Yeah. So you will shrink from contact with the real world or contact with your users. That’s the mistake you will make. It’s business school without the BS. Welcome to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. I feel it coming. I feel it coming, baby. I feel it coming. I feel it coming, baby. I feel it coming. I feel it coming, baby. I feel it coming. I feel it coming. I feel it coming. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to this Black Friday edition of the Thrive Time Show on your radio. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former USSBA Entrepreneur of the Year. And typically we are joined here with the incredible entrepreneur and optometrist, Dr. Robert Zellner. But he is out expanding his vast entrepreneurial empire, probably enjoying some leftovers from yesterday’s Thanksgiving feast. And so today, inside the box that rocks, we are joined with none other than my brother from another mother. It is Mr. Eric Chupp, the business coach who’s kind of like a secret weapon. A lot of people don’t realize the power of having a business coach because they feel stuck and they feel like that everyone’s stuck. Because if you look at the data, Forbes shows that eight out of 10 businesses are failing. And so they don’t know what to do, and so they just kind of die a silent death of just every year realizing our business isn’t gonna grow. Hopefully we can just survive. But Paul Graham, the guy we’re breaking down his life in time, the guy who built Dropbox, the guy who built Airbnb, this is what he would say to you if you feel stuck, if you feel like your business isn’t going to the next level, he would say this. This is why he would advocate hiring a business coach like Eric Chup. He says, like having a child, running a startup is the sort of experience that’s hard to imagine unless you’ve done it yourself. The best source of advice for new founders is not professors or investors, but from other founders, from someone like a business coach. And so this is very tough for a lot of people to realize that you don’t know what you don’t know. Chuck, can you break it down? When you work with a business coach client during that first month, what are some of the things maybe at that first meeting? What are some of the things that you uncover typically? Or what does that look like, that first meeting with a business coach? A lot of times, we spend almost the entire thing just really figuring out why they’re in business in the first place. They just got launched into it, they started something 20 years ago, but they lost their way. They lost why they do this, why they’re putting themselves through this doom loop, what it seems like. And so we spend a lot of times, that first meeting, first couple of meetings, really focusing on what they’re trying to do to get where they want to go and figure out where that even is. Here are the big three things that I find that we have a 13-point assessment that we do with every coaching client as part of the onboarding process. But the big three that I find we do all the time is one, is we definitely figure out why you’re in business. Like Eric just said, we always want to figure out why you’re even doing this. What is the purpose of the business? Well, the purpose is to make money. Why? I know that. But how much money? Yeah, why? How much money and why? So as an example, let’s say your goal was to make $100,000 per year so that you and your family could do A, B, C. That’s great. We just want to figure out what are your goals and how much does it cost. It’s really not that complicated, but we need to do that. A lot of people have never thought about what it costs to achieve their goals, and so we need to do that. We need to figure out your goals and what it costs. We call this the F6 life, where you break down your goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, and your fun. What does it cost? And then we figure out, okay, how many somethings, point number two, how many somethings do you need to sell to achieve that goal? So let’s say that you are a personal trainer, you do personal training, you’re a fitness trainer, and you charge your clients $500 a month, right? And let’s say your goal is to make $100,000 a year. So approximately $9,000 a month, about $8,500 a month. So you would need 18 clients. You need 18 clients. There you go. Now step three, you want to figure out how many rejections will you need to get those 18. Well it turns out if you’re selling blender burgers, you need a lot of rejections because they’re just going to keep coming. For people just tuning in here, we were talking about Paul Graham says it’s so important, this is what Paul Graham said, he says it’s so important that you build something that people want. And you were joking about that, for everyone just tuning in. You actually tried to create what now blender burgers. Yeah, I thought maybe hey I could take this wonderful But cheeseburger flavor and we could blend it up and make it a little easier to eat maybe on the go and I can see Your face right now. It’s so pretty crazy, but that brings up a Jack Welch quote to mind He says face reality as it is not as it was or you wish it to be So I was wishing that people would like what I might like in that situation. And that was stupid, right? Just like Paul Graham was saying, nobody wants online art galleries at the time. Here’s an example. For me, I’m a guy who really loves studying business. And so I would love it if everybody did want to study business like I want to. I would love it if everybody would read Search Engine for Dummies every year, get the annual update, that 550 pages of awesomeness. I’d love it if everybody would read Get Rich Click by Ostrovsky. I wish everyone knew the Retargeting Playbook. I wish these were things that were interesting to you, because if you knew how the internet worked, you could make a lot more money. But most people don’t do that, because they’re watching The Voice, and they’re doing what they do during a typical week. They’re out there trying to save $0.02 per gallon on gasoline, or out there trying to get a bag of burgers for $5 because it’s on sale, or they’re trying to get the TV, the flat screen, right now, you gotta get in the car right now and get the Black Friday special. It’s curved, it has a backlight, oh, sorry. And so it doesn’t make you wrong, it just means that I’m also not interested in a lot of things that other people are interested in. And so as a business coach, I’ve realized what I do isn’t a mass marketing thing, it’s not something where I’m gonna work with thousands and thousands of people, it’s more of a thing of like we make a huge impact with the brands we work with. We’ve worked with O’Reilly Auto Parts and Hewlett Packard, we’ve worked with Phone Doctors right here in Tulsa, we’ve worked with Barbie Cookies, the Tulsa Oilers. A lot of companies that are top in Google, a lot of companies that are growing tremendously. Our Thrive Business Coaching team is kind of the secret sauce behind their success. And that’s what Paul Graham does now. Paul Graham’s company is called Y Combinator. And what they do is they look for aspiring, promising entrepreneurs. And they will give them the three C’s in exchange for 7% of the ownership of the company. They’ll give them the three C’s. They’ll give them the capital. They’ll give them the coaching. And they’ll give them the counsel. And that’s how it works. They’ll give them the coaching. They’ll give them the actual advice. They’re going to give them the capital. And they’re also going to give them those connections to very wealthy people and mentors. They can learn from mentors instead of mistakes. Now, if you can, I jump in right there. I just want to say that if you’re out there and you’re on the fence about hiring a business coach, I can tell you that it’s going to be a great decision because not only do we work with you on all the things that Clay was just talking about, but also just kind of personal growth or or having somebody while you’re up there on Mount Austin by yourself to just talk to about your business. I actually met with four clients yesterday morning. Really? Because we had stuff to do, right? Bam! So we lined them up, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, and we got them all done. Excuse me. And so one of them was telling me how he’s like, he can just tell that just through these implementations of systems and checklists and to-do lists, his life is getting easier, not just his business. Like he’s doing more things with his off time that he didn’t used to do because he sees the momentum. And he never would have gotten there without a business coach. And I was very thankful for him for telling me that because it kind of built me up and affirmed what we’re doing here and it was an awesome situation. But you will not regret that because like Clay was saying, you don’t know what you don’t know. Okay. So you got to get out there and find a mentor instead of learning from those mistakes because they’re going to cost you a lot of money. So back to the life and times of Paul Graham. So 1995, age 31, he hears the radio broadcast talking about the future of online commerce. The next year, he’s age 32, he’s still working on trying to code out this website, this code. He’s trying to make it in a non-Microsoft compliant way because he’s an artist, because he doesn’t like Microsoft, because there’s a lot of reasons. But what happens is that he also, looking back on it, looking back on his earlier life, he said, as an entrepreneur, you must make something people want. If you make something users love enough to tell their friends, you grow exponentially and that will convince any investor. So he starts making this program using open source code on a program of a platform called Unix, on a coding language called Unix. And so he’s working on it. He’s just grinding every day. He’s working on it. He’s grinding two years into it. He’s working. He’s grinding. Yeah, he’s really, I mean, he’s seriously, he is absolutely dialed in. Now what happens is, is that the program, he’s kind of stuck. He can’t really get it to where he wants to go, and he goes to sleep. And he wakes up, and when he wakes up, he had this dream that people could download the program from anywhere, and they could basically access it from the internet. You know, that you could actually click on the software, but the software wouldn’t be on your computer You would download a connector a kind of a connection that would allow you you click the icon on your computer But it would take you to the website and then the whole the whole shopping cart would operate from the internet itself No one had ever done it yet, you know And so what he decided was you know what this is huge because people wouldn’t have to have, I could develop the software faster. Anytime I wanted to push updates, I could just update it right there on the internet. And he said this looking back on it. He said, it’s really hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower. I repeat, he says, it’s hard to do a really good job on anything you do not think about in the shower. What he was pointing out was that he was thinking about this all the time, obsessing about it, and it was because he cared. It was his vocation. It was his calling. The difference between a vocation and a vacation, a vacation is where you’re trying to vacate your current situation. You’re trying to escape, and a vocation is your calling. You’re doing what you love to do. Some people call it flow state. In psychology, they call it flow state. It’s where you lose track of both space and time while doing something because you enjoy it so much. And so he’s obsessing, he goes to sleep, he wakes up, his subconscious mind is trying to think of a solution while he’s sleeping. While he’s sleeping, his subconscious mind begins working. And so he has this euphoric, he wakes up going, oh my gosh, Robert, do you know what this means? This means that we could build a shopping cart that could work on the internet. It could be internet based. And in a state of euphoria, the two nerds are like, it’s going down. It’s going down. And so within a week, they finished creating their first version of this software. Those keyboards were probably smoking. They were smoking. They were just getting after it. Now, this is what he says looking back on it. He says he says the reason the reason why nerds are so unpopular is that they have other things to think about. The main reason nerds are so unpopular is that they have other things to think about. So at this point I mean he’s obsessing about whether people are thinking about the next party and the next vacation and where to hang out and who’s popular and who’s not popular and where they fit into the hierarchy of life and if their aunt likes them and if their in-laws like them and if they’re funny and popular and if they’re going to fit in at the church group and they did people worry so much about fitting in and being part of I hope everyone loves me and my extended family and we have them all over here for Thanksgiving and I hope that everybody likes me that’s my number one goal I just want everyone to like me and so I’m gonna talk in circles and not to offend anybody and then think about the movie we’re gonna have to go watch and you end up doing what you’re doing but if you’re not somebody who’s obsessing about your vocation you’re never gonna put a dent in the universe you’re gonna make anything huge if all of your downtime is invested in thinking about popularity and he just pointed he goes on and on talking about this but he’s most people’s focus so much on popularity that they can’t you know ever focus on their vocation furthermore. They never find their vocation therefore They’re always working at a soul-sucking job looking for the next vacation So during three weeks these guys are just grinding and they find a friend of theirs and their friend basically says you know what I’ll invest ten thousand dollars in the company for ten percent of the business and however, there’s very few existing merchants that were interested in the idea. And so they didn’t bring in a whole lot of customers quickly. They didn’t bring in a whole lot of customers. But what happened is, is they just kept obsessing on it and trying to get it out there. And then one by one, small businesses and medium-sized businesses discovered, you know what? This program called VIAweb is really a powerful way to make an online shopping cart. And it just works. It works well. In fact, it works so well that I should probably tell a friend about it. And it starts taking off and growing that slow exponential growth that that slope curve begins to grow. And then they get a call from the good folks at Yahoo. Yahoo? Yahoo. They get a call from the good folks at Yahoo and we’ll tell you what happens when we come back after the break. It’s a Thrive Time show on your radio. Stay tuned. Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show on Talk Radio 1170. Alright, Thrive Nation, welcome back to The Conversation. It is The Thrive Time Show on your radio. And today we’re breaking down the life and times of Paul Graham. If you’re just tuning into the show for the first time, what we do every single day on The Thrive Time Show is we provide you with business school without the BS. We teach you the stuff behind the stuff. business school without the BS. We teach you the stuff behind the stuff. Between Dr. Zeller and I, we’ve been able to build 13 multi-million dollar companies, and it’s not because we’re geniuses, just because we have spent an inordinate, a disproportionate amount of time studying how to build successful companies, and it’s relatively easy at this point. And so now what we do is we teach people just like you that want to grow a business, and here’s a little secret. It’s actually easier to get to where you want to go if you know the way. Here, let me just throw this idea. Years ago, we went to Thanksgiving down in Houston. Now this was before, this was the dark years. This was the years before GPS. The literal dark years. This was, I mean, Chuck, this was a time where, and I’m 37, so when I hopped in the car, this would have been like 13 years ago, okay? There’s no GPS. Right. If I get that brick Nokia with the game Snake on it, maybe at that point. Exactly. And a friend of yours, what they would do is you get on the phone, you call somebody on the, you had cell phones, so you get on the phone, you call them, and they would tell you, your uncle, your aunt, someone would tell you, my uncle John, would tell you verbally how to get from Tulsa to Houston. And then he would go on MapQuest and he would print out the map and he would take what he said mixed with the map and you would put it down and you’d formulate a plan. So you drive this way for 81 miles. So we go down, you get in the car and you drive from Tulsa south on a highway 75 and then you get to there’s some sort of another road and then somehow it becomes another road that leads you to Dallas. That road is 75 as well. I do directions like you apparently. So yeah, there’s some other road after 75 there. So there’s some other road you get on. It’s a toll road. It’s like a 51 or something. And I get that part wrong. So we’re driving the wrong way. We end up kind of getting close to Oklahoma City somehow. I’m not really sure how that happens. And then, you know, so now our 8-hour, 9-hour trip, it’s about a 10-hour trip to Houston, becomes like an 11 hour you know. Well then you know we get down there and I miss another ramp, I miss another turn. I really shouldn’t drive a car but I just keep missing turns, missing ramps. There’s no GPS. My wife who’s right is trying to give me feedback about hey maybe we should pull over, maybe we should get some directions. No! These are all things that I am resisting because I feel like if I just follow the map I’m gonna get there. Anyway I’m not exaggerating I think it took us like 17 hours to get to Albuquerque. Now it’s like 3am, 4am, we’re arriving in Houston. And this is pretty much the Clay Clark experience to traveling. I just don’t do very well with it. But now with the GPS, now with the smartphone, now with the GPS move, you can actually, Chuck, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, you can actually just put in the address of where you’re trying to go, and then you put it in there and it tells you turn left, turn right, and it’s turn-by-turn navigation. Get right out of town. And it takes you where you want to go. That’s amazing. And that’s what it’s like having a business coach. And the opposite is what it’s like to not have one. You think you’re driving to Houston and you’re not. And this is what Paul Graham is. He doesn’t call himself a business coach, he calls himself an incubator. But what he does is he takes 7% of the equity of your business in exchange for providing you with the three C’s. He provides you with connections to people who know the way. He also provides you with capital needed to fund the business. And he provides you with that coaching along the way, that counsel. And so what happens is, he didn’t have his own system yet. He was trying to find his way. So he had this idea to create the first internet-based program designed for starting a business, but before that idea he just wanted to build an online shopping cart But because he hated he could not stand Microsoft He built it in an open source coding language and then as he’s doing this It occurs to him. You know what if we just made this internet-based I could push updates of the company faster I could update the product faster users could use it easier. They could just click right there on the end. Oh, this is huge. Brilliant. So after two years of working in the wilderness, in three weeks, he gets at the program where it’s working well. He gets a $10,000 investment from a friend of his in exchange for a 10% ownership of the company. His friend Julian is who put in the money and he’s off. And this is what he says, looking back on it. He says, determination has turned out to be the most important quality in startup founders. We thought when we started Y Combinator that the most important quality would be intelligence. But that’s the myth in Silicon Valley. And certainly you don’t want founders who are stupid, but as long as you’re over a certain threshold of intelligent, what matters most is determination. You’re going to hit a lot of obstacles and you can’t be the sort of person who gets demoralized easily. So what happens is, they’ve been working on this for two years. And the question I would have for our listeners is, have you ever worked on anything for two years? I mean, has anybody listened to this? I’m sure you have. I’m sure the people who are listening to Rush Limbaugh right now, those people have probably never invested two years in this. But I’m just asking you this sincerely. Have you ever worked on anything consistently without seeing fruit for two years. The only thing for me personally I can think of is when I started working here about two years ago I started this mural of you. A mural? Yeah, I’m doing a big painting of you. Oh no. It’s something that I won’t be able to show at the office necessarily. It causes nausea. It’s in a good way, but I’ve been diligently working on it. That is disturbing and that’s the reverse of an early holiday gift. That is, okay. It’s an anti-gift. So this is the deal. This is what made ViaWeb so spectacular after the guys have worked on it for now three years, 36 months. That’s such a big thing to realize too. Three years. You’re going to have to work hard, right? Like Dr. Zellner talks about this a lot. Most people that he knows that have given up on something, they gave up right before, right before they struck gold, right before they got there, they just didn’t know. They think that path’s going to be short, and it’s not. They think the road is going to be paved, and it’s rugged. They just give up right before they get there. ESPN never made money for over 10 years. You know that Tesla didn’t make money for over 10 years. You know that Google, and we’re going to be talking about Google later next week. They’re the Google story, the Life and Times of Larry and Sergey. They didn’t make money for years as well. Amazon didn’t make money for almost seven years. So when we come back, we’re going to break down how VIAweb, the company that Paul Graham created, differentiated itself in the marketplace. Because after three years of innovation and focus, it had four unique features that made it different from anything else on the market. And the good folks at Yahoo began calling, because Yahoo wants to gobble up technologies that are producing a profit. This is the Thrivetime Show on your radio. Enjoy the sweet vocalistic stylings of Justin Bieber and Boyz II Men and also enjoy this incredible Black Friday. Make sure you go out there and buy a huge TV, wait in line for four or five hours and get into an argument with somebody about who took the last Elmo. It’s the Thrivetime Show on your radio. One through then on yours You can get it, get it, get it, get it out Make your wish tonight When you’ve been your eyes When the lights go bright, girl, I’ll be right there Baby, you deserve everything you want It’s your night, oh When I put my E to your chest, girl Baby, I hear melodies when your heart beats Baby it sings to me like Baby I hear melodies when your heart beats Baby it sings to me I know that it’s Christmas time You’ve got all my favorite dress shows Looking, looking, looking at you So far away Welcome to the Thrive Time Show, a show for the enemies of average. Oh yes, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show on your radio. Eric Chipp, when was the last time you watched Home Alone? It’s actually been a while and I feel bad. I need to get… I mean, my daughter’s seven. Do you have a favorite holiday movie you like to watch? I mean, Christmas Vacation is always up there at the top. With Chevy Chase? Yeah. The Griswolds. I feel like I am Griswold. A lot of sap. A lot of sap. I feel like I am him in many ways. And I say all the negative qualities of his personality. He’s a positive. He’s a hard-working family man. He provides. You know what I mean? Yeah, I just think there’s so many parts of the movie that are amazing. There’s one scene where he wants to say hello to the boss. And he says, hey boss, thanks for the Christmas card. And the boss looks at him and is like, we sent you a Christmas card? And he goes, yeah, you know the one where the… and he says, yeah, thanks a lot, you sent it to me. And then a membership to the Jelly of the Month Club or something. And he says, well, yeah, Mark, you’re welcome. And Clark tells him for the third time, my name’s Clark. And he’s like, sure. And he just, the cynicism of the insincerity of the gesture and the corporate BS, he just, he can’t participate in that stuff. And then he has certain family members, cousin Eddie. Crazy cousin Eddie. Everybody has a crazy cousin Eddie. Maybe I am your crazy cousin, Eddie. I don’t know. But today, we’re breaking down the life and times of Paul Graham on this fabulous Black Friday. I know many of you are listening to the show today while stuck in traffic, trying to make your way down Restaurant Row or to the mall or to Lowe’s or Home Depot. Or probably nobody’s going to Atwood’s today to buy Christmas gifts. But if you are, I’ve registered there for Pennywood. One ton. He’s got a palette on the registry. You know, some people register for their wedding. I register for Christmas at Atwoods. At Atwoods. And so if you are looking to… Not a sponsor. If you’re looking to invest a copious amount of cash in things that you are… We are literally burning money. Please go to Atwoods and buy me some pinon. That’s all I want for Christmas this year. Now we’re breaking down the life and times of Paul Graham, the guy who launched Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, and a myriad of other companies. His main hub, his main business is called Y Combinator. And but his first big hit, it took him three years to make it happen. And if you’re just now tuning in, we talked about it. But age 31, he felt like he never, he couldn’t, he hadn’t found his calling yet. He hadn’t found something he could really sink his teeth into, he didn’t really find any job that he loved. And so what happened is, is that he was listening to the radio, he heard Netscape talking about the future of the internet, and he realized, you know what, instead of just listening to the future and trends, I’m gonna become the trend. Instead of just watching TV, I’m gonna make the kind of life that they’ll make a movie about. Instead of just watching life pass me by, I’m going to participate in it. And so there, he grabs his buddy Robert and for the next three years, they’re grinding on creating this program called VIAweb. Now when VIAweb finally became a viable product. They had four unique value propositions. They had four variables that their product had, that their online shopping cart had, that nobody else had that made them unique. The first is their program lived on the internet, which meant that they could actually make consistent changes. It wasn’t built to work with Microsoft applications, and it wasn’t a software. Back in the day, you would go to the store and you would buy a box with the software. CD-ROM. The CD-ROM. And you would load it onto your computer, and the software would live on the computer. Right. They thought, you know what, we’re going to make this live on the internet. And it was the first. It was the first internet-based online shopping cart like this. The second is they could learn directly from consumers and improve the product faster because it was web-based. So because they can make changes real time, if somebody emailed them and said, hey, I can’t check out, I can’t figure out your shopping cart, they didn’t have to run it by another coder or a team of developers. They personally could make those changes. The third is that the company’s founders were like the de facto, they were the default sales force. I mean, these two guys, Robert and Paul, that’s all they had. Two people. These two guys, they were kind of like the Salesforce. And because they got customer feedback every day instantly, and they could make changes real fast, it became very easy for them to pitch their software to consumers and big companies because they watched and monitored the user activity all day. They really knew what the users liked and didn’t like, which gave them a unique power. They could look into the mind of the user because they got the user feedback. So when they’re out there selling, they knew what the users wanted. And the fourth is because it was the first web-based program in the history of the planet that allowed someone to start an online e-commerce business, they had no competition. And so what happens is they built this company, it took them about three years to do it. And then in 1998, Yahoo came calling. So Yahoo, the big company, Yahoo, there’s obviously Google, everyone knows about Google. If you don’t know Yahoo, just Google it. There you go. And by the way, Google is now a verb. It’s actually an official verb, I think since 2006, according to the Webster Dictionary. So when you say you are Googling something, you now are actually saying something that is part of the English language. It’s an action. And my understanding is that you can’t just go Yahoo something because Yahoo is not actually a verb people think you’re crazy so Yahoo bought his business they offered him in for 49.6 million dollars so in 1998 three years after starting the business he says you know what I’m going to do that and sometimes as a business owner you have to know when it’s time as Dr. Z says to cook the pig so this was in 98 right do you think that in 1990 he partied like it was 1999? He probably did that year. I think so. He probably partied like it was 1990. It literally was. And he had like 50 million bucks. So for the next three years, he began writing essays, which I encourage every single person to read. I encourage you to go to Paul Graham dot com. And if you go to Paul Graham dot com, I’m going to pull it up for you so you can see this here. Paul Graham dot com has not been updated since he built Paul Graham dot com because he wants to keep it that way. Look at this. So the site still looks the way that it used to look. And I encourage you to just go to paulgram.com and you can see. What is this, cuneiform? He’s kept the website. Hieroglyphics? What do we got going on here? What he did is he used some papyrus and he took some reeds, he dried them out, he compressed them, and he used cuneiform to make the website. I knew you couldn’t tell, but go off on that. Here he is at age 37, and he’s still, for the last three years since selling the business, he’s still writing long-form essays. Well, when he’s writing that many essays, because the way Google works, whoever has the most relevant content begins to become top in the search engines. That’s how it works. And so he was asked to give a talk to Harvard, where he graduated, in 2005. So this is seven years of writing essays. He’s been writing essays online for seven years and Harvard says, hey we found your essays, you’re a graduate, you’ve obviously done well, we’d like you to come speak. So he gave a talk at the Harvard Computer Society. The talk was entitled, how to, was titled, how to start a startup. And it gained significant praise from the student body and people said, man you should teach other people how to do that. And so, at the age of 44, ripe old age, he begins to kind of refine his idea and he comes up with the concept that maybe his career, his new career could be teaching entrepreneurs how to grow a successful company. He knows how to do it. He thought, you know what, I’m gonna start a business that gives people the capital, the actual counsel they need, and the connections they need to start a successful business in exchange for seven percent of the ownership. That sounds intriguing. And so he actually now owns, has built Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, and countless other companies. I encourage you to go to paulgraham.com to check out his portfolio. When we come back, we’re breaking down the life and times of Paul Graham right here on the Thrive Time Show on your radio. If you’ve yet to enter into the endless traffic jam near the mall, I invite you to do so now. And by the way, if you already are in your car and you’re trying to get those Black Friday good deals, just lay into that horn and hold down that horn until the person gets out of their car and comes by and says, why are you honking at me, buddy? And you say, listen, I’m just celebrating my Americanism, celebrating my freedom, being thankful, and I’m thankful for the Thrive Time Show. So if you would honk your horn too, we could get this thing. We want to start a movement in Tulsa. We want to start the biggest honk-a-thon ever. I think I can hear them. Begin honking right now. Go, Foundation. Honk that horn. Stay tuned. It’s a Thrived Time show on your radio. We don’t need no medicine, we just don’t need honking. Business School without the BS. Featuring optometrist turned entrepreneur, Dr. Robert Selner with USSBA Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark. Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away. I feel like they wrote this song about me and you, Clay. Last Christmas I did give you my heart. You know, Chup, I appreciate you not sharing that on live radio, but yet you continue to put our relationship out there in the open and It’s a real thing. I’m not gonna deny it I’m gonna do this for the Thrive Nation because I know the Thrive Nation loves the song last Christmas by wham What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna end today’s show by playing the heck out of that song We’re all just gonna crank it up We’re gonna sing along and we’re gonna just celebrate this fabulous Black Friday. Roll those windows down, put your hands out, and just dance while you’re driving. And you might want to pour out some champagne for our main man, George Michael. He’s no longer with us. His music is still here, so maybe a little drop. Maybe just a little, not too much. If you spill, just dedicate it to George Michael. Hey, to George. So this is what happens. Paul Graham sells the business, age 34. He’s worth almost $50 million. He and his partner, you split that, now they’re worth about 25 million each. You pay taxes, now you’re worth about 12 million each. He’s doing well. So from 1998 until 2005, he just begins writing essays. And you can read his essays up there on paulgram.com. Now why did he write the essays? Why? Well, I’m gonna explain this concept to you and when I do, I hope that it makes sense for you. Benjamin Franklin talked about that reading makes a wise man. Reading makes a wise man. So Benjamin Franklin, again, this is one of the world’s most successful people, he talks about reading, but he says when you discuss something, it makes you a clear man. So what does that mean? Well, a lot of times you think that you know something this is what Benjamin Franklin says he says reading makes a full man meditation a profound man discourse a clear man, so what he was doing was trying to clarify his Views on things and he has some profound writings that we’re gonna break down on the next two shows They’re just they’re just profound as an example He talks about how you look at a photo and you go. Oh my gosh I can’t believe I looked like that in the 80s what in the heck my hair was crazy The mall it was a bad decision flock of seagulls. It was a fuck It was I cannot believe I love the flock of seagulls It was a crazy look for you back acid wash jeans But yet you look in the future now in the now in the future. It’s easy to see in hindsight Well, I can’t believe I used to dress like that now when he talks about is people tend to do that with their ethics. They tend to go, you know what, slavery is okay, you know, because everyone’s doing it. You know, slavery is okay. But then now that we’re so far past slavery, people go, oh my gosh, I can’t believe that slavery was a thing. People start to say, you know, Galileo should be put to death because, you know, he’s questioning our sacred, our sacred religious views on the way that the earth works and to say that the earth rotates around the sun That’s like sacrilege. We should kill him. But then looking back at they go. Maybe we killed him too early, you know There’s kind of those things that people what happens is is it’s easier to see in hindsight where your mistakes were Therefore it’s easier to learn through mistakes And in fact you if you’re just aware of what’s going on, you can learn through mistakes. But the idea of becoming a proactive person is you can learn from a mentor instead of those mistakes. And so Paul Graham thought, you know what I’m going to do? I am going to write down everything I’ve learned as a way to give back to people that don’t know what I now know. But they’re long form essays. So be buyer, not buyer, I guess, premium user beware. It requires reading and thinking. Top to bottom, left to right. But what he does is they start to get so much traction that literally millions of people are now on the site. Well, why are they on the site? Because if you want to get to the top of Google, and by the way, we’re going to begin teaching you on next week’s show, we’re going to teach you how Google works. You understand whoever has the most content wins. Whoever has the most high quality content really wins. Whoever has content that’s so good that people share it, dominates. So he invests seven years of his life- Of his Harvard trained brain. Writing what he learned in route to building VIAweb. So he gets asked just to speak in 2005 at the age of 41 to Harvard, to the Harvard Computer Society. When he gets up there, he gives a talk called How to Start a Startup. And it is so well received that people start saying, man, could you teach us the systems? And he says, you know what? I’m working on a system. So he created this company called Y Combinator with his wife, Jessica, and a couple other partners. And Y Combinator says, listen, if you have a viable idea that you’ve been working on, you’ve shown that you’ve actually put your own money into this and you have a business that makes sense and it’s in the tech industry, something like Dropbox, something like Airbnb, something like Reddit, then I am willing to team up with you, I’m willing to go down that road with you, I’m willing to teach you and be your mentor so you don’t have to learn from mistakes. But he talked about this weird relationship he has because he asks for 7% ownership of your company, and he gives you counsel, like he coaches you. He gives you connections to very wealthy VCs and people who know what you need to know and who you need to know. And he also gives you the capital. But he talks about that even though he’s giving you counsel, capital, and connections, most entrepreneurs don’t want to hear his advice. Which is the weird thing about having a business coach and the weird thing about our job. And so if you’re out there listening today and you feel like your business is stuck in a rut, it’s probably because you’re doing the wrong thing and doing the wrong action items over and over won’t help your website get to the top of Google. It won’t help you sell more. Refusing to fix your website. Refusing to change and modify your logo that your step-cousin made for you four years ago. Refusing to look at your accounting and being honest. Refusing to adjust your prices. Refusing to have a written down scripted system. Refusing to build a workflow. Chuck, that can keep you stuck. If you don’t make those hard decisions and seek coaching, and you don’t seek learning from mentors. You have to learn from mistakes and that’s painful. Well, we’re like a broken record here. You don’t know what you don’t know, right? So you can’t fix those problems if you don’t even know that they’re problems. So you, you feel, I’ve seen it before. I’ve done it before. I watched my father do this. My grandfather, it is, we all, they all had businesses. You’re just trudging along and you’re working so much. It’s like, how could I do more? But it’s not about doing more. It’s about what you’re doing with that time. You need to be working on your highest invest use Needle-moving activities, that’s what you need to be focused on You need to be creating systems to hold people accountable for the other things that need to be done in the business now Thrive Nation I have a direct ask for you I usually don’t ask a whole lot, but I want to ask you something right coming in here He goes if you feel stuck with your business Are you willing to invest two days of your life to learn what you need to know to make the business grow? Not Tuesdays, two days. Two days. And on December 8th and 9th, we have a Thrive Time in-person two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s a game changer. And because of a generous sponsorship from Paul Hood with hoodcpas.com, the tickets are just $99 for the two-day event. Now if you could invest two days and $99 into something that could change your life, would you do it? And the reality is, the sad reality is that most people wouldn’t, but I know you will. So I encourage you to go to ThriveTimeShow.com and buy those tickets today. And we have a scholarship available, so if you can’t afford it, now you can. But we can’t help you if we don’t get a chance to know you. So go to ThriveTimeShow.com and buy your tickets today. And this is a real conference, guys. This is a real action item field. It’s not going to pump you up with emotions and, you know, oh, you’re doing great affirmation. This is going to send you home with things that you need to actually do to your business to make more money and time and freedom for your life. What you’re going to learn about optimizing your website alone is worth the price. It’s worth thousands of dollars. Now, if you go to thrive timeshow.com, we have four tools to help you. Tool number one, we have the podcast. If you haven’t subscribed, you’ll never miss the broadcast again if you subscribe. Two, there’s one-on-one business coaching. Three, we have the in-person workshops. And four, we have the world’s most affordable business school. Thousands of videos out there available for you. All you got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com. And your first month to subscribe to the school is just a dollar. And every month thereafter, it’s $19. So check it out at Thrivetimeshow.com. My name is Clay Clark. That is Eric Chup. He’s a business coach. And we always want to end this show with a boom, but today we’re going to end the show with a boom and then a wham. We’re going to end the show with a boom and then a wham. It’s like old school Batman. I’m excited. We get the boom, we get the wham, we get multiple sound effects here. So, Chupp, I’m going to do the 3, 2, 1, boom, and then if you could say wham. I can’t. I know we’re Caucasians, we’ll have to work hard to get this on beat. It’s going to be tough for us to do this, but I think we can pull this off so now I think boom at the same time I’m saying boom then you’re saying we’re good okay three two one boom wham oh that was nice here we go Thrive Nation go for it crank it up when you’re on your a.m. dial one hand on the wheel all show up and you can sing along here we go Last Christmas I gave you my heart But the very next day you gave it away This year, you saved me from tears I’ll give it to someone special Last Christmas I gave you my heart But the very next day you gave it away I’ll give it to someone special. Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the grill gun. Hi, I’m Bob Healy. I’m the inventor of the grill gun and the civvy gun. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27 and 28. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. And a lot of people have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had, where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. He’ll be presenting. Now we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like a real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind 9 Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk, and not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches, so he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you got to come learn from him. And now the best-selling author of The Carnivore Diet and the multiple-time Joe Rogan guest, Dr. Sean Baker, joins our two-day interactive business growth and life optimization workshop. Also, let me tell you this, folks. I don’t get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. He said, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes! Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Tong, and I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27 and 28. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. It’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell. I’m sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed so when June 27th to 28th who you you’re gonna come who you I’m Talking to you. You just get your tickets right now at thrive timeshow.com and again, you can name your price We tell people it’s 250 hours or whatever price you can afford and we do have some select VIP tickets Which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things and those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop over 20 hours of business training We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book the millionaires guide to becoming sustainably rich You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company It’s practical. It’s actionable and it’s Tebow time right here in Tulsa, Russia Get those tickets today at thrive timeshow.com again. That’s thrive timeshow.com Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful, sunny weather of LA, come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at the… Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military, and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting up shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live time show, two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today folks, if you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to get in, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? ThriveTimeshow.com Shine, everything rising tonight Even if I got three strikes I’ma go for it this moment We own it, eh I’m not to be played with Because it could get dangerous See, these people I ride with This moment, we own it Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system. When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250 we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Keosak University Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds and of a special guest today Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent I’ve done this show before also But very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts as a mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just want to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. So anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba, watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey, I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school and I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place, so having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored. You’re awake, alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, he’s pretty friendly, helpful, very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. The biggest takeaways are you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics, so you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is their old house. This is their new house. This is their new house. This is their new house. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen. And I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past. And they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales. Which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just wanna thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The Atmosphere Plays office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business, as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before, we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that, because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on, how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find a purpose in your business and find a purpose for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.