Clay Clark | Business Coach | The AIRBnB Story | How 3 Dudes Went From Renting Air Mattresses to Becoming a Billion Dollar Business

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Drive Time Show! Good look as the father of five, that’s what I’m about. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. All right, Sly Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time show during your drive time home. And as always, my name is Clay Clark. I’m the host with the most. And we are here on the Thrive Time show today talking about things that you want to know about. We’re talking about how to start and grow a successful business. Specifically, specifically we’re going to be unpacking the story of the company we all know about. We all know about these successful companies. We all cheer for them when they get to the peak, the pinnacle, but nobody knows how they started. It’s the Air, B, and B story. It’s how three dudes went from renting air mattresses to becoming a billion dollar business. But before we get started, I’m going to get us started today with kind of a chant. I talked to a guy today and he goes, I found this show on the radio and now I love it. And so I’m going to just kind of want to get stuck into your brain. And so here we go. It’s Thrive Time Show. Drive Time Home. Thrive Time Show. Drive Time Home. Show, drive, time, home. Drive, time, show. Drive, time, home. There we go. Now, it’s stuck in your cranium. Now, moving forward, just share that with four million people and we’re all good. That’s all I’m asking. Four million shares, that’s all I’m asking for. To make this show happen today, we’re always surrounded by a cast of characters, great people. Dr. Z today is out expanding his vast entrepreneurial empire. I am joined with Ms. Sherita. No, she’s married. You, be respectful. She’s a married lady. It’s Mrs. Sherita Bent. Mrs. Sherita, how are you? I’m great. Happily married and fabulous and happy to be here. Now we have a very special guest today. He is a Thriver, meaning he’s a guy that we’ve worked with. We have an honor to serve him, helping him on website updates and things like that so he can get all that stuff off his plate and focus on his big vision. This guy played football. He’s a big fan of football. He’s a big fan of the Big Red. He’s a big fan of the Big Red. He’s a big fan of the Big Red. side updates and things like that so he can get all that stuff off his plate and focus on his big vision. This guy played football at Boise State. Remember when Boise State beat OU and half of the state was like, 80% of the state was like, I hate Boise State. Well this guy played on the field. Mr. Brett Denton, sir, can you explain a little bit, what was your role on that team? Were you the one individually responsible for that loss? I mean, do we need to blame you? Yes, 100% responsible for that loss, as a matter of fact. Yes. Okay, now what do you do now? Apparently you’re the founder of a fitness company that’s grown from, you started it from the ground up to now where you have 500 people that attend this fitness facility. I want to know, what’s the name of this facility? And then tell me about this performance coaching that you’re doing now for entrepreneurs who want to achieve a little bit more. Yeah, so the fitness facility, you know, it’s called Cavell Fitness and Nutrition, and we just help people get in shape, you know, lose weight, get in shape. And then performance coaching is for executives, it’s for busy people, busy parents, and we help them, you know, reach their peak. I have to ask you this because a lot of people want to know when they start a business, I mean, was it scary for you, and did you have overnight success? I mean, how long did it take you before you got the business to a place where you weren’t just totally freaked out of your mind? How long did it take you to get a little momentum going there with Cavell Fitness? I think it probably took a year. I moved in with my sister, had my car repoed, was broke for a while, and yeah, 12 months later I was finally starting to make some money. Now before you judge, you moved in with your sister, you got your car repoed, what’s wrong with you? Well let me tell you what’s wrong with these guys. These are the three dudes who went from renting air mattresses to becoming billion-dollar business owners. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Shar, can you kind of share with us a little bit about what Airbnb is all about? Yes, it’s awesome. It’s a peer-to-peer online marketplace. It’s a homestay network, and people are able to list or short-term rent lodging. So, you’re staying right now, right, Brett? We were talking about this. He’s using Airbnb right now. So you can rent a home. You can rent portions of a home. You’re staying at Airbnb right now? Right now. What does that mean? Are you staying in someone’s house? I am. Somebody’s room. Are they there? They’re there. Yeah. And they’re cool with you being there? They’re cool. They’re nice. Yeah. Is it weird that you’re there and they’re there? It could be. It could be. Have you ever asked them to leave? Yeah. This is the thing though, Airbnb. Yeah, it’s cool. Those of you who don’t know about it, you Google this mess, it is awesome. Now I’m going to say this, I love Airbnb. My wife and I, I can’t remember what state we were in, we traveled a lot there for a while. Was it California? My wife’s in the studio at the Man Cave today. Were we in California or was it Las Vegas? She’s not mic’d right now, but she’s telling me here. She’s not, what state was it, California? I think it was California. Okay so California. We’re in California and we stay in this unbelievable really nice downtown place. You’re staying in someone’s house. It allows people to rent out their homes to make extra income. It’s like turning your home into a hotel. Sure. Air B&B. So here’s her story. Sharky, you ready for the story? I’m ready. Brett, are you ready for the story? Ready born. It’s story time. So here we go. In 2007, Brian Chesky and Joe Gabia, they’re living in an apartment in San Francisco. Now, have you guys ever been to San Francisco? Brett, have you been to San Francisco? I have not. Shreeta? I have. It’s expensive. It is. I mean, everything is like a $7 hot dog. It’s like a $9 latte. That’s why people are so… All those people are there. It’s just super expensive. But you go there, and they move there, and they realize, man, this is expensive. We cannot afford to pay rent. They’ve already signed the lease. So what happens is they rent out three air mattresses. One of them, I’m sure, is Brian. He’s like, hey guys, here’s the deal. We can rent out our rooms to other people and they can stay there and pay us. And I’m sure Joe, the smart guy, he goes, but if we’re renting out our own house, where are we gonna stay? And he goes, in the closet. And I’m not kidding, these guys stayed in the closet. Like Michael Jackson back in the day. Keep it in the closet. That’s a song Michael Jackson. You have to Google that if you haven’t heard it before. Sam, have you heard that? Our producer? No? Okay. Keep it in the closet. You never heard it? I’m singing about you baby. It makes me want to give it to you. It’s awesome. It’s much better when I don’t sing it. It’s great. You have to check it out. The thing is, these guys, we’ll rent out our house and we’ll live in the closet. They’re kind of like, well, why would we live here then? But anyway, they honored their lease What happened was there’s this industrial design conference that’s being held in San Francisco It’s the industrial design conference and they’ve got these did any industrial design society They’re putting this thing on and there’s not enough of affordable hotel rooms. So people are going. Yeah, we do want to stay here So they start renting out the room and they go Maybe this is a thing. So they went ahead and started a blog website with maps called AirBedAndBreakfast.com. If you check it out, it’s AirBedAndBreakfast.com. That was the original website. And it officially launched, check it out, August 11th of 2008. And check it out. Two men, I’m sure it was awkward, and a woman show up. So, I mean, imagine what that was like, right? So it’s like, yeah, we’re here to stay at your house. And me too. You’re like, are you guys together? No, we’re just, we’re all, we’re separate, but we’re together tonight. We’re going to sleep in your house. Where are you guys going to sleep? We’ll just chill in the closet. I mean, it’s got to be the most awkward, I guess in San Francisco, maybe that’s normal. I don’t know. But the thing is, this is what Brian Chesky says. He says this. He says, when you start a company, it’s more an art than a science because it’s unknown. Now Brian Chesky, he is the founder of Airbnb. He says when you start a company, it’s more an art than a science because it’s totally unknown. Instead of solving high profile problems, try to solve something that’s deeply personal to you. Ideally, if you’re an ordinary person and you’ve just solved your problem, you might have solved the problem for millions of people. So Sherita, I want to ask you this. Would it be weird, I mean, is Airbnb kind of weird to you? You know, I’ve never used it and stayed in the house with someone. That’s a little weird to me, so mad props to you. I’ve used it and we’ve had the whole house to ourselves. That’s not weird to me. But I don’t know how I feel about staying with people that I don’t know. I’m asking my wife. We’re in the man cave. My wife can’t respond necessarily where she can hear her. But this is one of our guys, Eric Chup. Chup, if you’re listening, one of our great producers, a great guy. When we went to New York, he stayed at Airbnb with a lady. And she was like, so, you know, you want some soap? You want some shampoo? You want me to serve you breakfast? To me, that’s weird. Is that weird to you, Brett? It’s a little weird, yeah. I’m staying with a lady right now. Is she being nice to you? Oh, yeah, she’s nice. Is she like, hey, you want to hang out? Yeah, she’s great. You guys want to go rent a movie or what? She wasn’t like that, but yeah. I don’t know what the Air BnB code is. Are you able to go see a movie? It’s a little weird though. I agree with you. But you’re in their house. I have friends who have stayed with people before. And I think just depending on the personality of the host. They might do things together. They might go out for dinner or they might just leave you alone. Just depending on what you want. Well, these guys are renting it out for $80 per person. So you’re like, hey, I’m doing the math here. I’m like a wizard. That’s like $240. That’s huge, Brian. And Joe’s like, that is huge. Like $240. That would be enough money to put some food inside the closet that we live in. You know? And this is like the real talk, okay? So now, Brian, you say, well, who’s Brian? Was he some genius? No, he’s the son of Deborah. Deborah, big shout out to you and Robert Chesky. His parents, how do I know these things? This is why you do. Other people are watching shows. I’m making shows. The thing is, his parents were both social workers. He has a young sister, Allison. So as a child, Chesky was interested in art, replica paintings, design, shoes, toys. Probably a normal dude. But he later got into landscaping and architecture design. But the thing is, in 2000, what happens is, these guys realized, these guys started to realize around 2007, this could be a thing. But work with me on this. They did not launch the site until August 11th of 2008. So they thought it could be a thing back in 2007. Quick review of the timeline. Now it’s just audio only. But these guys, in 2007, they’re renting out air mattresses. 2008, they go, this could be a thing. How long of a time… For those of you scoring at home. Shark, for those of the people listening who are struggling to make a timeline in their car, how long is 2007 to 8? That’s like a year. And you know what? I would love to see what their first blog, that little blog website that they put out. I would love to see what that looks like. I need to go see if we can find like the retro shots of that, you know? Now here’s the deal. When we come back, Thrivers, a lot of you want to know how can I do that? I have a secret Thunder Move. I’m going to show you how to find the original website. Oh, it’s sick. It’s like he’s got swine flu. I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I’m just sorry to leave on this helmet. Darth Vader, you’ll be fine. That’s what happened. Darth Vader just got a cough. Next thing you know, the Emperor, he just pulls him aside and is like, Seriously, put on this helmet. You’ll be fine. Next thing you know, be Darth Vader. No, but seriously, Thrivers, it is awesome. When I come back, I’m going to teach you how to find these archived websites. It’s a secret move. A lot of people don’t know the secret move. Not that secret, but a little bit secret. And then we’re going to get into the next part of the timeline. We’re going to talk about where these guys, they go, it could be a thing. So let’s take our thing to the South by Southwest conference down there in Austin, Texas. And let’s try to sell it. And let me tell you what, when they tried to sell it, some crazy stuff happened. And was it, did they have instant success? Maybe. Did they have instant success? Maybe. Five times sure. Okay, I think we’re going to sell a ton of cupcakes. Why? Because cupcakes are hot right now and because we have a great name. Cousins Cupcakes. Boom. We’re going to the top. All the way. Now, in order to get to the top, we’re going to have to come up with an amazing business model. I came up with something that I think is going to blow your mind. I can’t wait to see it. Can I show you? Please, can I show you? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce to you for the first time, the Cousins Cupcakes business model, Shelly. ♪♪♪ For goodness’ sake, come to Cousins Cupcakes. What is this? What is this? What are you doing? Last week you said we needed a business model. Not a business model. Well what then? I’m talking about a business model. Oh. Come on man. Beautiful weather, huh? Yeah, gorgeous. It reminds me of Dubai. Really? I was just out there a few weeks ago. The Sultan of Abu Dhabi flew me out there in his private jet. Do you know him? Friend of a friend. I met him in Vegas. He’s pretty wealthy, right? You know how they make those lists? The world’s wealthiest people? Yeah, like Bill Gates is number one or… Used to be. Sold. He’s got a hundred million dollars in his Swiss bank account. He can’t touch it. Really? It’s ten thousand dollars just to get the paperwork done. Okay, well I think he’s got ten thousand dollars. Can’t do it. It’s illegal to use your own money. Of course. I pay. Something like, Salton, listen, I’ll invest $2,500. I’m sure I can get some guys to pitch in $2,500 as well. Okay, we’ll get the $10,000 and you get your money and go on your merry way. He was so moved by my compassion that he said, I’ll split the $100 million, half for the investors, half for himself. Half of $100 million? That’s $50 million. Is it? Yeah. I’m going to split it. I’m going to split it. I’m going to split it. That’s not half of a hundred million dollars. That’s fifty. That’s fifty million dollars. Is it? I don’t really pay attention to the money. I’m just trying to help a friend out, you know? Here’s the crazy thing, though. We just need one more guy to pitch in twenty-five hundred. Dude, that’s me. I’m the guy. I can do that. I barely know you. I don’t want to oppose. Wish there was time. What do you mean? I have to have the money by 6pm when the whole deal’s off. That’s in like three minutes. You know, I’m sorry for bringing this up. Wait, whoa, wait, whoa, wait. Thank you, it was nice to meet you. Who do I wire the money to? Live, local, now. You’re listening to The Drive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. All right, Thrivers, what’s going on? Welcome back to The Thrive Time Show. During your Thrive Time home, if you’re listening right now and you’re going, I’m about ready to step inside my casa. I’m about ready to step inside my house and find out what home is all about. But you still want to listen in, you can go to Facebook Live. And on Facebook Live, you can join the Thrive Tribe. And we have a lady named Donna in Valparaiso, Indiana. Valparaiso, what’s up Donna? Donna, how are you? I know that my flag is not compliant with the patriotic rules, and because I care so much about you, it’s on my to-do list. I’m going to flip that flag, readjust it, flip it, reverse it. I’m going to make it happen for you, and it’s going to be great, and you’re going to love it, and we’re going to have a great thing going on in Valparaiso. You guys are great people out there. We also, for anybody who’s not listening on Facebook Live, who says, what are you talking about? We’re in the man cave. It is the dojo of Mojo, where we come together on a weekly basis to teach you how to start and grow a business. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. In your ear, and I am joined here, you see ear, ear is all rhyming, I’m joined here with Ms. Sherita Bent. How are you? I’m great. Hey, real quick, real quick, I want to brag on you. You are working today with a good friend of Mr. Brett Denton. We’ll get to Brett in just a minute. I don’t want to steal your thunder. But you’re working with a good friend of Brett’s today. They have a company called Peak Medical Tech. Neat business, great business. What do they do? What were you doing with these people today? Well, we were working on this great new software that they are launching, which is really pioneering and changing the whole industry as far as pathology software, laboratory work. Pathology software. Is that a thing? It is. It’s amazing, and it’s revolutionary. And he’s helping just make that path and that process of like dealing with people’s blood work, their reports. And he flew in to Tulsa, Oklahoma. He came to Tulsa. With a teammate. What was your name? Yes, her name is Cheryl Hammond. Flew in to meet with you. Yes. And you and Darlene worked today. Yes. You’ve got a workflow chart. Yes. See Thrivers, when you come to the Thrive15.com world headquarters, and I’m not bragging, I’m just pointing to the scoreboard. We help people start and grow businesses. We don’t walk on fire. We’re not like, do you want to walk on calls? Hey, how do you feel about how you feel? Listen, we could take you to the next level here at the next Tony Robbins seminar. Are you ready to unleash me? I’m Tony Puppet Robinson. Tony Pup. By the way, I always say that because Tony, if you watch his Netflix special, he curses so much. It’s just unbelievable. But no, you helped him grow his real business. Yeah, definitely. Real deal. He left here with software. It’s developed. It’s ready to go. It’s beautiful. And you didn’t try to high pressure him with the back of the room, high pressure, magic money system. No. Crazy. No. I almost can’t believe it. Yeah, it’s true. You know what Tony Robbins had to say about that? Unbelievable. And now we have Brett Denton here from Boise. He’s actually a thriver. He lives up there in Boise, Idaho. And apparently, he worked against us in the state of Oklahoma. He played in the game and actually beat the Oklahoma Sooners in the national championship game. Sir, why would you do that? Well, it wasn’t quite the national championship game. It was Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. So it’s good. We can call it whatever we want. It felt like a championship. It felt like one. Any time that we play any game, it’s a championship. You got it. That’s how we are. We’re sold out over here in Oklahoma. No, but seriously, though, so you played in that game and you were responsible for some of that victory sauce. I was responsible for a little bit of it, yeah. A little bit of that. Now, what do you do now? Tell us about what you do and how people can get a hold of you. Yeah, absolutely. So I own a gym. It’s called Cavell Fitness and Nutrition in Boise, Idaho. But also what I do on a nationwide basis is I coach executives, entrepreneurs, business owners to reach peak levels of performance, whether that be in their family, in their business, in their sport, whatever it may be. And I can be contacted just by calling my phone, 208-991-6537. One more time, that phone number one more time, just kind of slow like a pro, because I’m trying to write it down, I’m trying to drive, and the Congress has passed laws, a state where I can’t text and drive, but I can write and drive. Yeah, absolutely. So I’m writing and driving. Here we go. Yep. 208-991-6537. Boom. Now, Thrivers, we’re talking today about the Airbnb story, how three dudes went from renting air mattresses to becoming a billion-dollar business. Now I told you guys they had the idea. In 2007, they said, hey, we can’t afford rent in San Francisco. Maybe we should promote our house for sale, maybe on Craigslist or whatever. They had three people, two dudes and a lady show up. They rented out for $80 a piece. And then in 2008, on August 11th, they launched a website called AirBedAndBreakfast.com. And Charita’s was what says, wouldn’t it be cool if you could see that site back in the day? Yeah. Shark, where can people go? I’ve shown you the tools to the keys to the universe. Where can people find it? He showed me the tools. You can go to archive.org, and then when that comes up, there’s this little screen at the top that says Way Back. You type in the website that you want to see and you pull it up. We did that during the break and the website actually looks really good. Oh, it looks really good from the very beginning. But you have to click on the bubble after you search. I didn’t know that. Now I’m going to tell you a little story in just a second, okay? So what happens is, in 2007 they started to say it could be a thing. We’ve rendered it out to, we’ve got data. We’ve got two dudes, one lady, boom. This is data. It’s three pieces of data. So they said, hey, we’re going to call her former roommate. Nathan was a former roommate. So you know how you have like roommates where you roll together, you stick together for a long time. I don’t know that dynamic. I can’t get into that mindset. But in my mind, if you’re a former roommate, there is a reason. There are a lot of times where you go… Well, you have great stories about your business building and your roommates. What happens is, I’m just telling you, I went through three roommates, all my fault. But if you’re someone who’s a former roommate and you say it’s time to move on, it’s because you’re like, I can’t live with you usually. Or you get married or something happens. The thing is, they reach out to Nathan and they say, Nathan, his last name, I’m going to spell it for you. It’s amazing. It’s like B-L-E-C-H-A-R-C-Z-Y-K. And they say, well on radio you’re supposed to practice the pronunciations before the show. Yeah, you try to pronounce that. I locked myself into a room for like a week trying to practice it. So in 2007, they were pumped. They got Nathan. He built the site. He’s a web developer. So their first site was a pro site. They go to South by Southwest. For those of you who don’t know, it’s in Austin, Texas. It is a huge technology conference. It’s one of the biggest in the country. They go out to this thing. They’ve got a trade show booth. Now, who here… Brett, have you ever had a trade show booth? I have, yes. Shark, have you ever had a trade show booth? You’ve been in one? I’ve worked in one before, yes. Okay, so you’ve got the banners going on. You’ve got the trussing. You’ve got a video playing. You’ve got business cards. Brett, do you have like trifolds? What kind of… I’ve got trifolds brochures, yep. A trifold, I’ve got a trifecta. And people are walking by. They’re trying to get food samples and all that. And everyone feels like, when I go to a trade show, I’m going to kill it. I’m going to kill it. And by about noon, you’ve been on your feet for like seven hours, and you’re just like, I don’t know if I like this trade show. Well, I’m going to tell you, they killed it at this show. They dominated the show. They did so well, in fact, they sold an entire trade show. They spent thousands on it. Beautiful website. They had two bookings. Two bookings. Two bookings. They just killed it. Not only did they have two, but it was almost double what they had before, which is three. Right? So they have two. Could you imagine now the feeling of what it’s like to go to a trade show, to travel from where you’re currently living in San Francisco, let’s do the math. What does a ticket cost from San Francisco to Austin? A lot. Time, energy, money, code of sight, you travel and you sell too. How many people listening right now would go, this is good data. We’ve doubled the business. It’s time to move on to the next level. I mean, how many of you would hear it in your ear, yes, you’re on the right path. Very few. And so what you have to do right now, if you’re listening right now, you’ve got to ask yourself, if this was your story, would you keep pressing on? Would you do what Brett did, as he mentioned in the previous segment? Would you move in with your sister? Would you have your car repoted? Would you be willing to do what it takes to build a successful business? Now today, Brett Denton, if you Google Cavell Fitness, that’s K-V-E-L-L Fitness, you will see the man has 500 people that go there to work out on a weekly basis, monthly basis, members. Would you be willing to live with your sister? Have your car repoted? Would you be willing to go to South by Southwest and sell two somethings? Or are you going to go, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem like it’s working out. I probably just tried to get a job, but not very good. The majority of people would quit right then. They would quit. Not you, though, Thrivers, because you are at the right place at the right time. You are listening to the Thrive Time Show. You’re in your Thrive Time home. Stay tuned. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to your inspiration station right here. You’re listening to Tulsa’s only local business show. It’s the Thrive Time Show and the audio dojo of Mojo. We’re always broadcasting from the left coast of the Arkansas River, but today we’re in the man cave. Yes, an undisclosed location where I choose to be undisclosed. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the father of five human kids. I’m a man who has matriculated several chickens to full maturity, many of which have been abducted by raccoons, but I have coached several to success. I say several, maybe one or two that have not been eaten by the raccoon race. But I’ve had success as a business owner. I was a former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year because I wasn’t focusing on chickens. I am joined here today. I’m always joined with Dr. Robert Zellner, but today he’s out expanding his vast entrepreneurial enterprise. And so today I am joined with the hostess, with the mostess, Ms. Shreeda Bent. How are you? I’m great. And I’m joined here with Mr. Brett Dinn, all the way from Boise. Can you tell people a little bit about the business, the businesses that you’re involved out there in Boise, Idaho, the potato state? Yeah, absolutely. Got a fitness business called Cavell Fitness and Nutrition. And we’ve got a performance coaching business that helps business owners, entrepreneurs, peak performers reach their peak. Now here’s the thing is, Brett has a story. He came from, he started at the bottom, kept working, working hard, working on his build a very successful company today and we’re going to get into that in just a little bit, but today’s main focus is we’re talking about the Airbnb story. This is a billion-dollar business started by three dudes who went from renting air mattresses to being billionaire business owners. Unbelievable. So if you just missed the earlier segment, you can go back to thrivetimeshow.com and listen to the entire show. Thrivetimeshow.com. But now we find ourselves in 2007. They go to the South by Southwest conference, convinced that their idea is going to be awesome because they sold, they rented their room to two people, two dudes and one lady for 80 bucks a piece because they couldn’t pay the rent. And by the way, they rented out their apartment so they could pay the rent, therefore they had to live inside a closet. Then they’re like, okay, this is what we’re going to do. They go to the South by Southwest conference. They only sell two reservations. So in 2008, to help fund the website, they created ObamaOs. For those of you who are going, what are ObamaOs? What is this? Is this a political show? I don’t know if this is the right show. No, this is not a political show. This is a business show. It’s Business School without the B-S. But these guys started Obama-O’s, these cereals. They created this cereal right before a major event. Because what happened is that San Francisco, okay, San Francisco, it’s like a big, pretty liberal, pretty Democratic, heavily populated by Democrats. And they had a big political event coming to San Francisco. And so they decided to make these Obama O’s. Now, Shark, are you curious about how they made their own cereal line? I am, but I also want to point out for people that they were equal opportunity, so they represented for the Republicans too, and they made some Captain McCain’s. Which didn’t sell at all. No, but they did sell maybe two boxes. They tried. Seriously, if you look it up, it’s a historical fact. They didn’t sell hardly any of the Captain McCabe’s. The thing is, they went ahead and made these Obama O’s. What they did is they would go to the store and buy the generic cereal. You get that cereal probably in a yellow box or something. The big bag. Big bag. Big bag. The big bag, you get the bag. I want the bag. The cheaper one is in the bag. It’s in the box. It’s not a good deal, right? Right. The ultra… I forgot. I remember growing up as a kid, you had all the yellow boxes. So I’d open up my cupboard and it would all be yellow boxes. And they always say, like, great value. Sure. This must be a great value. Yeah. Every brand is a great value. Great value. Wow. So I guess now it’s in a bag. Yeah. So they bought the cereal in a bag. They take the Obama O’s. They take that bag and they put it in the box that they made. Yeah. So you’re like, you mean they didn’t even make their own cereal? Yeah, because they’re real entrepreneurs. It’s all branding, baby. Now they’re selling these boxes of cereal. Guess how much, Shrader, they’re selling them for? If you had to just speculate. Sure. I would guess maybe 8 to 10 bucks is what I would guess. But how much would you pay for some Obama O’s? I would say 5 to 10 bucks. See, this guy, he shows his political bias, obviously. I would pay like 90 for that. Guess what party I’m a part of. I’d pay 90 for Obama O’s. No, seriously, but seriously, they sold these for $40 a piece. Uh-uh. Yes. So they generate $30,000 of money. I’m like the people who bought that. So Paul Graham, who is the founder of Y Combinator, if you Google Paul Graham, these guys started Dropbox.com, you mean the billion dollar business? Yeah. I didn’t know that. Reddit.com. Reddit? But Paul Graham? You mean Airbnb? The same guy? Yeah, they attracted the attention of this guy, Paul Graham. And Paul Graham says, and I’m repeating, you can Google this, historical fact, he says to Brian, he says, you guys are like cockroaches. And they said, what do you mean? He says, you guys won’t disappear. You guys keep coming back. I mean, you’re funding your Airbnb business, Airbed and Breakfast, by selling Obama O’s? So he sits down with them and he says this, he says, guys, the first thing, this is what Brian Chesky said in an interview, I’m reading quote, he says, the first thing Graham, at this point they’re buddies, he’s like, boom, my buddy Graham, boom. He says, the first thing Graham told us was, it’s better to have a hundred people that love you than a million people that sort of like you. Find a hundred people that love you. That’s good. Brian’s like, I thought we were trying to make money here. Oh good deal that we didn’t have a million people because we don’t. So he invests $20,000 in them. They just raised $30,000 doing cereal. So we’re on a hot street. We got 30, we got 50. In San Francisco we’re living in our closet. This makes sense. Everybody rented out their own house. Imagine you’re living in Tulsa right now, and you’re living in a house, and to make ends meet, you go ahead and rent out your own house, and you’re living in a closet. I mean, to what end? Ridiculous. Well, I guess they have good credit, you know? I’m like, don’t fart. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unbelievable. And was it two of them in one closet? I want to know so many details. There are so many details there. So they get the $20,000 of funding, and when we get back, Thrivers, we’re going to talk about, we’re going to explain to you what they spent the $20,000 on. And then we’re going to get into Brett Dinn. We’re going to pick his brain and ask him during that time in his business, when he thought, should I sell these Obama Hoes or should I just fold up the tent? Should I repackage this stereo or should I just end it all? I mean, is it worth it? Is it really worth it? Because every entrepreneur has hit that part of their career at some point. Thrive Time Show. You want to listen to your Thrive Time Show during your drive time home. When I think of adversity, I think of tolerance of rain, I think of dark clouds, I think of things that you don’t have any control over, and yet they’re coming at you. And you have to make a decision, what do I do? Do I just stand here or do I move? You know, going up in the Mississippi Delta as I did during the era of legal segregation, it was a time that adversity was surrounding one’s life. It was like torrents of rain that had been coming for generations. And sometimes it seems as if it would never stop. But somewhere along the way you ask yourself the question, how do I get out of this rain? What do I do? What can I do to make a difference and bring some sunshine into my life? Into every life, as the song says, some rain must fall. And rain is what people run away from, to get out of. But it is also the rain that waters and nurtures those incredible ideas that live within us. I think that adversity is challenging, no question about it. But it also becomes a great teacher as well. Oh, mighty for thee, God-bred, Hey, what are you doing? I’m just cleaning the bathroom. Looks good. Let’s go watch. Let’s go watch! Alright. You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Inspiration Station. It’s the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home. And yes, this is the Business School without the BS experience that you’ve been looking for. You see, you’ve been working hard all day. A lot of you have been working for the man. You’ve been working for the man. In fact, according to Forbes, 57% of you want to start a business, all right? And then, a lot of you, you are the man. You’re like, I am the man. I’m the man. There’s nobody more the man than me, but I, holy crap, I work all the time and my business owns me. I don’t even own my own business. What’s going on? So what happens here is we are going to teach you how to start and grow a successful business, but specifically today we are talking about the Airbnb story. Airbnb? Shark, have you ever stayed in an Airbnb? Yes, I have. Explain it to the people listening, just kind of a quick kind of layman’s term. What is Airbnb? Sure. So you go online, it’s AirBed and Breakfast, and you can rent a room in someone’s house, you can rent out an entire house, some people you can rent out a floor, a loft, you can rent anything that you can imagine. And we’ve got Brett Denton in the house. He flew in all the way from Boise, Idaho. He’s a thriver, he’s got a very successful business, he’s a very successful entrepreneur growing his business. Brett Denton, he does performance coaching. So what he did is he started a business that teaches people how to get in physical shape, right? And it did very, very well, called Cavell Fitness. But then over time, he was like, hey, a lot of my clients are going, hey, could you help me with performance coaching, like how to optimize my schedule, how to better manage my time, how to be more focused at work, boom, boom, boom. So he started working with him in that capacity. He flew all the way in, and he chose to stay in an Airbnb. How perfect, Brett! Yeah, I know, right? Perfect. Brett, are you like a paid endorser for Airbnb? I wish. Yeah, I wish. And we didn’t plan that either. You didn’t? That’s just real talk. We did not plan it. It just happened. Real talk. You’re on Facebook Live. That’s a real man. Not a hologram. It’s not some old school Tupac concert with a hologram. No, this is a Michael Jackson hologram. It’s real. This is a real show. Okay, but seriously, if you’re on Facebook Live, you’re in for a visual dojo of mojo when you just look at this man. It’s just so beautiful. But here’s the thing. In 2007, the Airbnb guys, they get this concept. They say, hey, Joe. There’s two guys. And one guy’s name is Joe. He says, Joe, hey, Joe, here’s the deal. We can’t pay rent. And he says, oh, OK. Why don’t we just rent out a room in our house? They go, we only have a room. OK, well, let’s rent out the whole apartment then. So they rent out the apartment to two dudes and one lady for $80 apiece. Next thing you know, they go, this could be a thing. So they call their former roommate Nathan. They said, Nathan, can you build us a website? He builds a website. They spend all their money. They go to South by Southwest. At the conference, they tried to sell it. It sells so well, they doubled their sales. Almost. They sold two reservations. Kind of a sad time. Then they said, I’m out of money. So now it starts selling Obama O’s. Obama O’s? What are those? They took Cheerios, old-school generic Cheerios, take them out of a generic bag, put them into a box they created. They’re funding their business. For those of you who are political, I thought, wasn’t McCain running at the time too? Yes, they made McCain, was it with Captain McCain? Captain McCain. And they took all the money they raised by repackaging cereal. Now somebody’s listening. This is the thing. Some people are listening and you’re not listening. You’re listening, but it’s like a BB. I’m shooting a BB at a battleship, and it’s like, bing. Because they’re going, bing. And that’s how they’re taking in the knowledge. Bing! They’re going, but did they have a business permit? No! Bing! Did they have an LLC? No! Bing! So how did they get their employees? Were they following the Fair Labor Act? Bing! No! These are dudes living in a closet! Someone says, well that’s not ethical. Okay, so Steve Jobs, where did he start his business? I’m gonna go on a brief, just a brief rant because I wanna help you, I wanna get down to your deep core then I’m gonna pitch it over to my good friend Brett Dinn because some of y’all, we’re in Oklahoma, some of y’all need to hear this. Some of you just need to get real. So I’m gonna give you some real talk and I hope this can just sink into your head. Here we go. Google started in a garage. Did they have a permit? No! It was in a garage! Larry Page, Sergey Brin, they’re graduates of Stanford, they rented out a garage with their friend Susan. Susan? Was she a big corporation? No! We move on. Apple started in a garage. Steve Jobs is not wearing shoes. Right? But Ron Wayne and Steve Wozniak are showing up. They’re going, your feet smell weird. They have a, bing! Do they have a permit? Bing! Do they have an LLC? Bing! Do they have a permit? Bing! Do they go to a local small business conference and get all their papers together to minimize their risk? No! These are real entrepreneurs. Amazon started in the garage. He runs out of money. He says, Mom and Dad, Jeff beats us. He says, so I’m out of money, but I wanted to see if you guys would be willing to give me all of your money. They gave him all $300,000 of their retirement to fund the business in the garage. In Walt and Roy Disney, Walt had gone into bankruptcy. They started yet again in the garage. All I’m saying is if you have a garage, you can start a successful business. You don’t have a garage. You have a closet. These homies are starting in a closet. Brett, did you ever get to a point in your career where you were going, I’m in the garage. I’m like in the mental closet. I am basically ready to just mail it in. Where did you get to that? Have you ever got to that point when you were starting your successful company where you go, I don’t know if it’s worth it? Yeah, I think I’ve been there several times. Every other week for a while there. But the main time, I was over $100,000 in debt. Oh boy. I wouldn’t tell my parents what I was doing because I didn’t want them to add any negativity to my already negative situation. Are you selling drugs? He’s like, I’m making Obama owes, mom. So I started moving in with my sister. Car got repoed, as I talked about a little bit earlier. I had probably about 20 clients only problem is those 20 clients were all free. Oh yeah yeah, you had the big tribe of free people? Yeah, I had the whole tribe of free people. So it was ripped people that weren’t paying. Yeah. Bro, my six-pack abs are sick bro. No money though bro. That was great. So that’s kind of where I reached you know the turning point of I either need to do this or I need to get a job. And I will say, what is the benefit of owning your own business instead of just having a jobby McJobberson? For me, it was control to do what I wanted to do, to build something that I wanted to build and to not have a boss, quite frankly. And I’m going to tell you, some of you are listening right now and you’ve got the, like, you know, remember back in the day that sweet old man, Obi-Wan Kenobi? Yes. How did he talk? Wasn’t he always like, Luke? He’s kind of a European almost, like, Luke, Luke, come join me, you know, Luke, let’s go. He was a European on Tatooine. Yeah, he says, Luke, you know, so what we’re going to do, Luke, is we’re going to join, I’m going to grab this lightsaber. This is a little lightsaber, I’m just going to show it to you. Hey, Luke, look at the lightsaber. And then meanwhile, he’s going, he’s on the other shoulder. Yeah. Start a business. Join the dark side. You don’t know the power of the dark side. And then, Doth, if you strike me down I’ll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. He’s so good. And so what happens is that you right now, listening right now, 57% of you, you go, why did you choose the dark side to be the good side? Because I’m a sick freak. I don’t know. But the point is, 57% of you want to start a business, and you’re listening to that inner ear going, you don’t know the power of the dark side. It can be very scary to be in that middle because in the middle it’s kind of like, I’m starting a business, maybe I’m not, I don’t know what to do. So here’s the thing I’m just going to tell you, a little encouragement for you, is everybody has to start at the bottom. So what do these guys do? They made $30,000, so and Obama owes. They get the attention of Paul Graham. Paul Graham is one of the most successful incubators, business coaches on the planet. He goes, guys, guys, you’re like cockroaches. You won’t go away. He says, you guys are like, you guys are awesome. Let’s do this.” So we invest $20,000 in these guys. $20,000. And Sherita, if you had $20,000 from Paul Graham, what do you think they did with their $20,000? Well, I would think that they would invest it in their business and try to keep moving forward with that. This is what Paul Graham said to them. He says, remember, Paul Graham says, this is Brian Chesky explaining what Paul said. Paul said, the first thing Paul told us was, it’s better to have 100 people that love you than a million people that just sort of like you. Find 100 people that love you. So Brian took this to be literal. He’s going, hey, Paul Graham has said we gotta get 100 people to like us, bro. So we gotta go meet them. And he’s going, and their partner’s going, we built a website. The idea is that we don’t have to physically meet them so they can book online. No exaggeration, Thrivers. They spent all $20,000 on airplane tickets. And they flew to meet the six people who had booked a room. And they’re like, how did you hear about us? It’s like Garth meeting you. Hey, so how are you guys doing? Kind of good to meet you. We flew all the way from San Francisco. And they’re going, you flew all the way from San Francisco to meet us? You sick freak. Yeah, I wanted to know what you like about the website. And over time they found people said, it was really hard to use and your photos were weird. And they’re going, why were you coding all night? We were coding all night. And we were just working so hard. And so they were making $200 a week at this point. Three dudes, $200 a week. But people started saying, hey, your photos aren’t very good. So they start going, note to self, here’s the deal, the photos are not good. Snap. Check. All right, next person, photos aren’t very good. Check. Photos aren’t very good. Check. I know what we should do, Nathan, web developer. Why don’t we make the photos look good? Oh, man. Why don’t we stick together in the closet tonight and snuggle and think about it, bro? This could be our thing. Yeah, let’s snuggle. We’ve only been starting this business for a year and a half together, bro. I’m sure we’re going to make it. This is awesome, dude. I can smell your feet. Hey, hey, hey. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time show. During your drive time home, it’s business school without the BS. And many of you, many, many of you have started to say, what is this show? Where are you from? What are you talking about? I thought this was a political station. Let me explain this to you. We have some great political shows during the day. You want to talk about constitutional law. You want to talk about who’s elected, who’s not elected, the future of the country, all the very important things. That’s a great, we have a lot of great programming. But if you want to talk about the future of your wallet, hey, if you want to talk about the future of your wallet, if you want to talk about the future of your monetary system, not the International Monetary Fund, but your own monetary fund, if you want to talk about growing your business, if you want to talk about creating time freedom, personal freedom, wealth, boom, we talk about it here. It’s a Thrive Time show. It’s Business School Without the B.S. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, and I am also a recovering, recovering, I’m just working through a lot of therapy, a lot of therapy, trying to take baby steps, recovering disc jockey. I started DJ Connection back in the day. Today I’m a partner with Elephant in the Room, Men’s Grooming Lounge, a lot of other businesses, partnered up with Dr. Zellner to start an online school called Thrive15.com. It’s an honor to be here with you today, and today we are talking about a subject that is so exciting. It is the history, the timeline of Air, B&B. How three dudes went from renting air mattresses to becoming a billion dollar business. And as always, I’m joined here with an assortment of awesome people. Typically it’s Dr. Zellner, but he’s not expanding his entrepreneurial empire today. So we brought in, not a substitute, we brought in somebody who’s really, I would say, an intellectual equal of anyone. It’s Mrs. Sherita Bent. How are you? I’m wonderful. And we brought in Mr. Brett Denton, all the way from Boise, Idaho. We shipped him in with a bunch of potatoes. He’s a successful entrepreneur. Brett, for the people who don’t know who you are, can you explain who you are and how they can get a hold of you? Yeah, who I am, I’m a man. I own a fitness business, Cavell Fitness, and a performance coaching business where we help entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs get a hold of their life and live at their peak. And so if someone’s listening right now, I mean, what kind of problems do you solve? I mean, what kind of issues, dilemmas do you help them solve in performance coaching? Yeah, we solve issues where people can’t get a hold of their life and they feel like their life is living them, their business is living them, they don’t have any family time, they don’t have control of their health, they don’t have control of their wealth, those types of things is what we solve. Well quick reset, we’re talking about Airbnb, these homies in 2007, they can’t pay the rent so they decide to rent out their house to two dudes and a lady. It goes so well they end up living in a closet and renting their house to other people. They decide hey this could be a thing, they hire their former roommate Nathan to build out the site. He builds out the site, they’re all excited, they go to the South by Southwest conference to pitch the idea. A whopping total of two, two, two people rented out their property, which was now they went from three to five. They almost doubled. They realized, hey, we’re kind of struggling financially. They run out of money. They end up starting their own line of cereal, their own line of cereal. Yeah, they take cereal they bought generically at the grocery store. They repackaged it. They called Obama owes they sell for 30,000 They sell thirty thousand dollars of Obama owes for $40 a box And they get the attention of a venture capital investor named Paul Graham and they keep pitching to Paul Graham over and over he helped Fund to Dropbox and read it. He goes hey guys listen You guys are like cockroaches you keep coming back, so I’m gonna go ahead and give you $20,000 They spend all $20,000 flying around the country, knocking on doors, meeting with AirBnB users, of which there’s like 10, saying, hey, what did you like about AirBnB and how can we make it better? They do that and they end up making $200 a week at this point. Shark, you had a question for Brett about why he didn’t give up or kind of the mindset. Walk us through what kind of questions you were asking Brett off the air there sure well It started when you were talking about the successful entrepreneurs that we all admire Steve Jobs You know Sergei Google Amazon all these people who never gave up And I just wanted to ask you Brett like when you had to move in with your sister when your car got repoed you have 20 people they’re not paying you how do you keep going? What was inside of you? What was that mindset? Yeah, I think that’s a good question. And you know, I think it comes down to two things. Number one, I just didn’t want a boss. I had so much hatred for ever wanting a boss ever again. Really? I know, strange. I felt comfortable. That’s very weird. Okay. And number two, you know, at that point I had started looking for mentors and I believed that I could find a mentor that I could then rely upon. So you just kept pushing through. Yep, just kept pushing. And when you’re pushing through, what kind of inner dialogue? Were you saying stuff like, oh, you’re so drunk, you don’t even know. You’re just living this van down by the river and no one will even know that you’re not there? Or were you so motivated? Were you like, hey, I am listening to every Joel Osteen ever. I’m listening to all the Joel Osteen. I’ve got T.D. Jakes. I’ve got Napoleon Hill. I am just positive. I am a positive life force. Were you doing yoga? Were you wearing yoga pants? How did you stay positive, bro? Yeah, you know, at that point it was just action, action, action. I’d wake up and I’d work and I’d work all day long and I’d go to bed and then I’d wake up and I’d work and I’d work. So there was no time for anything other than that. And Conrad Hilton, who started the Hilton Hotel chain, you mean before Paris Hilton? I didn’t know there was anything before Paris Hilton. I thought Paris Hilton started the business. No, it was Conrad Hilton. Yeah. And Conrad Hilton, he said that he says, you can Google it tonight, you can verify, he says that all successful entrepreneurs have a bias for action. Oh, so right now, if somebody is paralyzed by analysis, you got that paralysis by analysis, you’re listening right now and you’re going, there’s so many ideas, I just don’t know what I’m gonna do. Well, check it out, 2008, they’re flying around the country, they realize, people don’t like our photos. So, short, what do you think they did at that point? I mean, if you knew, you spent 20,000 bucks, traveled around the country, all the money you have from your venture capital partner, and you discover that no one likes your photos, what would you do? I would get some new photos. So they went to New York City, door to door, to take photos of the houses. They took the photos themselves. Were they trained photographers? No! And I hope I’m getting to the core. I feel like sometimes I’m just this BB gun shooting at the battleship of just, bing, bing. Because so many people, you’ve gone to college, you’ve gone to whatever, and you’ve realized if I just get one more certification I’m going to be able to be successful.” Every time you come to me, you fly in, you drive in, you call in, you talk, and you go, hey, I want to start a business. You should start a business. I want to. It’s like a t-shirt company. I said, you should. I want to. You should. What kind of LLC do I form? I said, listen, stop asking me that question. Go out there and try to sell something before you worry about all the legal stuff. I’ll give you a rule. Don’t ever try to form an LLC until you’ve sold 15 somethings. Now Paul Graham, this is what the advice he gave, and this is the guy who started Dropbox, Airbnb, Reddit. He’s the guy who took them to the next level. He says this, what I tell founders is not to sweat the business model, LLC, too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. For those of you who needed to hear that in slow motion, want, want, want. For those of you who are going, what? What are those words that you’re saying? Want, what? Let me repeat it back. What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task is to build something people want. Why are you saying it that way? If you don’t do that, it won’t matter how clever your business model is. You see how clever I was there? It won’t matter how great your, he’s saying it doesn’t matter. You have an LLC, you got a business plan, if you can’t sell it, it doesn’t matter. Shark, you meet people, you work with entrepreneurs, you help coach these people, they fly in, you work with them, you help thrivers, you care, I care, we all care. Where do people get this wrong, my friend? Where are they getting screwed up? Sure. I think some of it may come from an old mindset. Sometimes things you learn in school, how things need to work, you follow these certain steps and you’re going to get this certain outcome. I would never start a business until I had 27 things done. The first is I’m going to get my papers and my registrations and my licenses and then I’m going to get my catering company started. And then after I get my papers, what was that? Oh no, I’m too old. What father time? It’s time to die? Oh, I guess I should have started earlier. I have a lot of people down. I love that you pulled the glasses down. I hope you could see that on Facebook Live. It was the best. That’s what happens. It is. How do we move past it? You always talk about this and Brett just highlighted that with his answer. Action, discipline, and action, discipline, and action. Check it out. 2008. This is a full year and a half after starting the business. They end up making $400 per week. Why are you saying it that way? Why do you always say, wha, when it’s supposed to be a W? Because it’s memorable. Memorable? Oh my gosh. Homies, I’m a purple cow. So you’re listening to the radio right now. You’re not used to this. You’re listening to somebody trying to keep it politically correct. I don’t even know what that is. So here’s the thing is, $400 per week. Shark, what would it be like if you had a business for a year and a half and you and three people are splitting $400 a week and you are living in a closet? What would that feel like? I don’t want to know, really. How would you feel if you had three partners and you are splitting $400 a week? I’m very emotional right now. Shark, can you read the next part of our timeline here, point 14? I have to just get myself together. I can. I can. Well, this also happened in 2008. They were rejected, hardcore, by the famous venture capitalist, Fred Wilson. And Fred Wilson, he’s the guy who has funded Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, and Kickstarter. So imagine what it’s like. You go up there and you say, I’m going to meet Freddie McWilson. Freddie Wilson. I’m going to meet Freddie freaking… You know what they’re doing. They’re in the car going, Freddie Wilson. Freddie Wilson. If you’ve ever listened to this, guys, if you’re a Thriver and you’ve ever started a business, you know what I’m talking about. When you have a good pitch, my wife knows what it’s like for me to get ready for a big pitch. When you get back, Thrivers, I’m going to tell you when I pitched the founder of Sky Vodka, with the preparation that you do when you get ready for the big pitch, it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing. It caused, I mean, it’s not, my wife didn’t appreciate it, I’m sure. She didn’t like me during this time. But you get focused, you’re ready for your big pitch, you get a chance to meet one of the top venture capitalists in the world. This guy is funded Foursquare, Tumblr, you’re going, oh, we did it, oh! Your friends are like, sick, you’re meeting Freddie. Wilson, and then what happens is, is that you go meet with him. What’s he going to say? What’s he going to do? Stay tuned, Thrive Time Show. All right, Thrivers, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. During your Thrive Time home, we’re broadcasting today from the Man Cave. A place where everything is burnable. You can burn anything. You burn paper, you burn wood. Anything that’s good, you just burn it. It’s the Man Cave here at an undisclosed location. It’s the Thrive Time Show remote edition here. We’re talking today about the success story of Airbnb. How three dudes went from nothing, sleeping on air mattresses, to starting a billion dollar business. If you ever wanted to know how Airbnb or another billion dollar business made it, you can tune in and we teach these things. My name is Clay Clark. I’m a former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. I have an unhealthy interest in business and I’m here to help you grow a healthy business. And I’m joined here with Mrs. Sherita Bent. How are you? I’m wonderful. And Mr. Brett Denton. Mr. Brett, how are you? I’m unbelievable. Now, here’s the deal. You apparently worked together with the good folks at Boise State. Is that the Blue Turf? Blue Turf, yeah. Smurf Turf. Smurf Turf. So you teamed up with Smurf Turf, if you heard. Smurf Turf, to team up. You guys beat Oklahoma back in the day in the Nachos, Fastitos, Tacos Ball. Yep. Yep. What was that? Tostitos Fiesta Ball. I’m sorry, I’m very hungry. I was mentioning all the food I want to eat here soon. But the thing is that you played on that team. You went on and you started a business. Tell us about the fitness business that you started. Yeah, group training business. We help people get in shape. General fitness. We help you lose weight and feel good. Where can people get a hold of you if they were living in Boise right now and they say, I want to get in shape? Yeah, best thing is to go to our website www.kvellfit.com. They can go up there, they can sign up, check it out. It’s a game-changing fitness program and regimen. And you’ve done so well helping people with their performance and fitness that people have begun to reach out to you and go, hey, could you help me with other areas like my financial fitness, my mindset, my time management? I just need some performance improvement. And you’ve said yes, and you’ve started helping people, and those people refer other people. How do people get a hold of you if they need a little bit of performance coaching outside of the realm of fitness? Yeah, for a little high-level performance coaching action, you can call me at 208-991-6537. Oh, yeah. Now, here’s the deal, Thrivers. We were talking about Airbnb. They started in 2007. These two dudes are living together. It was three dudes. They shrank down to two dudes. They couldn’t pay the rent, so they start renting out their house on Craigslist and such. Two dudes and a lady rent it out, 80 bucks a piece. Pretty soon they’re living in the closet, barely able to pay rent. They go, this could be a thing. They hire their former roommate Nathan. Nathan builds a website for them. They go to the South by Southwest conference filled with ambition and excitement and optimism. They go. They sell two reservations. Two reservations, not having any success, they kind of, well, double occupancy almost. And so they ended up turning these, they took obscure cereal, like we’re talking about generic cereal that you could find in the store, they turned it into their own brand of cereal called Obama O’s. How did they do it? Did they get a permit? Did they have a license? Did they get it registered? Did they get a trademark? Did they get a logo? No. They straight up just paid someone to do some graphic design. They made their own box of cereal. They took cereal out of another box, put it in a box, sold it for $40 a box during the time when Obama was trying to become president. They make $30,000 doing this. Then they go pitch yet again to Paul Graham, who is one of the big venture capital funders out there. He helped launch Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit. They reach out to this guy, and he was like, you guys are like cockroaches, you won’t quit coming back. So he invests $20,000, that’s so small, $20,000 in them. They take the $20,000, they spend it, they travel around the world, they discover that Airbnb people, they discover that people aren’t using Airbnb because people are saying they don’t like the photos. So they change the photos and now they start having rapid growth. Now they’re going from making $200 a week to $400 a week. And now they get a chance to pitch to Fred Wilson, who is one of the top venture capital funders of all time, one of the top venture capitalists out there. He’s the guy who funded Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Zynga, Kickstarter. And he rejects them. He shuts them down. He says, Not gonna do it. So he shuts them down and they’re going, Why did you sound like Darth Vader? I thought you were very nice. He says, Well I am very nice until I become Darth Vader and I shut you down. The thing is he shuts them down. And so now they’re like, Oh no. But then Barry Manilow’s drummer, they go Barry Manilow. How obscure is that? Yeah. Barry Manilow who’s a jingle writer turned pop star, is kind of where you’re stretching. Because you’re like, Barry Manilow’s drummer rented out our place, though. He rents out his whole house. And they go, that’s a thing. So they’re able to use that little bit of credibility, that little social proof. And people start to go, Barry Manilow’s drummer uses Airbnb? I should use Airbnb. Then in 2009 they changed the name from AirBedAndBreakfast.com to AirBnB. This is March of 2009. Now the site’s expanded. They’ve learned more from their customers. They’re now renting out treehouses, teepees, igloos, private islands, the whole deal. True story. So now they kind of get the media’s attention because they’re renting out an igloo. Where else can you rent out an igloo? Or a treehouse? Or a private island. But I’m going to tell you how it feels when you pitch to somebody and you get rejected. Here’s the deal. Back in the day, this ends positively for me, but the guy who was the founder of Sky Vodka, he reaches out and his assistant says, hey, Mr. Kanbar would like to meet with you about helping him market his properties. Now, if you don’t know, Mr. Kanbar, K-A-N-B-A-R, he owns one-third of downtown Tulsa. He invented Sky Vodka, sold the thing for about $650-700 million dollars, and he claims there’s a kind of a court thing, you can look into it, but he claims his partner bought downtown Tulsa without his knowledge. Like a third of it. So like the Chase Tower, the Bank of America Tower, these big, iconic buildings, he owns them now. And so I’m like, oh man, I’m going to pitch this deal. So what we did, I’m going to open up my man fridge in the man cave here so I can show you Thrivers. I’m sorry the audio got a little weird there, but this is what we did. I passed out Sky Vodka bottles to everybody on my team and I said, here’s the deal. I want you to put Sky Vodka and orange juice in a red cup and put it behind you so when he walks in the room, act like you’ve been drinking vodka, but you’re trying to hide it. So everybody, we have red Solo cups. Take orange juice, pour vodka in there with it, and when he walks by, act like you’re trying to hide the bottle. So we’ve got like probably 30 guys doing this, okay? And then I read his entire biography. Vanessa knows his entire autobiography. Read it once, couldn’t sleep, read it again, had all these notes, made a super detailed presentation. He walks in and we hello Mr. Canebar, how are you sir? He’s kind of a smaller guy and he walks in the first guy goes, and I’m sure on Facebook Live you can see, he’s like, oh sorry sir, and he tries to hide the bottle and he laughs and then the next guy, oh sorry sir, and we all try to act like we’re formal, we’re all in ties, but we’re all hiding vodka bottles. So we sit down to do the presentation and we use the Brookings Institute as our… they have a paper on urban renewal. I totally reversed engineered that thing, had a super detailed PowerPoint, detailed… it was awesome. It was sick. And I showed him how we’re gonna help reinvigorate downtown Tulsa, which we did by the way. And so we helped him recently set all this downtown space. I get halfway through my presentation, he looks at me and I’ll never forget, he goes, Mr. Clark, sometimes you need to know when to stop talking. I’m like, okay, did I talk too much? And he goes, you’ve got the deal, son. And I’m like, yes, that’s good. Now imagine the opposite of that feeling when you go meet with Fred Wilson, the top venture capital guy. You’re emotionally pumped up, you’re mentally lubricated, you’re doing push-ups the night before you’re taking steroids or I’m pumped up going to meet Freddy We’re going to get the bomb top and then you meet him and your friends go how’d it go and you go? Good shut down. What was that bro? You got shut down shut down stay tuned throughout time show Hello thrive nation Oklahomies people in other countries people in other planetary systems people in other vast areas of the ether that surrounds us all. Welcome to the Thrive Time Show. This is your place to learn how to start and grow a business. Today we’re talking about the Airbnb story, which is how the guys at Airbnb went from three dudes living on air mattresses to becoming founders of a billion-dollar company. If you miss the rest of the story, you’re going to want to tune in. You’re going to want to go to Thrivetimeshow.com where you can hear the entirety of the story if you missed it. But basically, 2007, they get this idea to rent out their house because they’re out of cash. Now 2009, two years into the business, these guys get shut down by Freddie Wilson, one of the top venture capital people after they’ve spent all of their money. Shark, Sherita Bent, she’s our co-hostess with the most issues with me tonight. Mrs. Sherita, how would you feel if you’ve been working on something for two years and you get shut down by the top. I mean, in your mind, you’re going to meet Yoda. Imagine you’re face to face with Yoda and he’s going, no, no, no, fund you, I will not, bad idea. I would be sad and disappointed for sure. You would? Yeah. Now Brett Denton, successful entrepreneur from Boise, Idaho. Sir, how would you feel? I’m going to have to agree with that one. So you guys would feel a little bit down. Definitely. So this is what happens. 2009, out of space, but people start booking. Oh, they start booking one by one. Just boop, a little bit of email coming in. Boop, another one. They’re going, dude, that’s like two today. And this is after the Manilow drummer, right? Yeah. Barry Manilow’s drummer booked with him. Booked his whole house out. They’re going, well, at least we got Barry Manilow’s drummer. Like, who’s, what’s his name? It doesn’t matter. Do we even know for sure he even had a drummer? Is that, can we verify this? Don’t worry about it. We’re on a roll. The thing is, so 2009, imagine they’re just barely struggling. They now are starting to get some revenue, they’re barely making it. Revenue’s coming in just a little bit. And imagine just the sound of an email coming in. Boop. Okay? They’re like, dude, we booked something, it’s crazy. And then, boop. Well, pretty soon, they go, there’s enough boop boops that we now have to hire some people. These are the guys who used to be living in a closet. They rented out their entire house as a way to pay rent. They’re living in a closet. Now they have 15 people. These are people who apparently don’t value space. Those 15 people. I could not be with them. I could not. Yes, all 15 employees are working in their bedroom. So they’re just living there. Because they can’t afford office space. But here’s the deal. Google started in their garage. Apple started in their garage. Amazon started in their garage. You’re going, well you just keep saying garage. Disney started in their garage. Hewlett Packard started in their garage. You just keep saying garage. Listen, the garage mahal is where y’all need to start. I’m going to repeat that. The garage mahal is where, he’s Oklahoman, where y’all need to start. That’s how you do it, okay? But I’m telling you, you’ve got to do this. You have to start somewhere. 2010 comes along. November 2010, early 2011. The company continues to experience rapid growth because they’re starting to sell some things. Now, Sherita, if I’m doing the math, 2007, you know, when you look at 2010, you take seven from Canada. How long have they been working on this? They’ve been at it for three years. Yeah! Now, early 2011, this is four years. The company continued to experience growth and they raised $7.2 million in Series A funding from Greylock Partners in Sequoia and announced that they had 700,000 nights booked out. 80% occurred, though, in the last six months. So they had nothing, nothing and then boom. That is always how it happens. And the thing is on the other side, right when you’re one step away from giving up, that’s when most of the success happens. But a lot of people begin to quit right before that. Right when Yoda says no. So why is that? Shreya, in your mind, you know a lot of people. A lot of people got motivated. A lot of people are good people and they just quit. What’s the deal? Well I think, number one, you have to have a strong personal conviction. That’s what I heard Brett talking about. That’s what you hear from entrepreneurs who have been successful. I know that about you, Clay, as well. You have your own personal truth and conviction about I’m going to do this. I’m not going to give up on this. I think that’s the first level. You have to have that. I’m not going to quit. Yeah, no matter what. So what year do they start? In 2007. Now 2007, things are taking off and those of you who have ever Googled, just Google Airbnb tonight. They’re taking off. Now my wife isn’t on the set today. She’s on the man cave today because we live here in an undisclosed location. She’s here. But I’m just going to ask Vanessa rhetorically, but could you imagine what it would be like to have worked in a business from 2007 to 20, at this point, okay, it’s 2011, and then to get a class action major lawsuit against you from almost every major city who says it’s illegal to rent out your home? How would that feel? Worse than Yoda. I’m like, worse than Yoda saying no, right? No, and you’re like, oh no. She says stressful. I’d be stressful. Could you imagine opening up your inbox and going, hey bro, what’s that Brian? Here’s the deal, we’re being sued. Oh, that’s cool. We got funded $7.2 million from Greylock. We’re being sued for like hundreds of millions of dollars. Oh gosh. From who? Probably just random people, right bro? Upset random people. Entire cities, like the city government, you know like the people who are in charge of the planet, you know in America. I mean imagine the sinking feeling. But check it out, YouTube, Google them tonight. Has YouTube ever been sued? Yes. Has Google ever been sued? Yes. If you start a successful business will you ever be sued? Yes. And if you’re going to have success, will you ever be stressed? Yes. So check it out. If you want to have success, this is how it goes. You go from stressed to some success and then to some blast. That’s how it works. You start with that stress. You come back, Thrivers, we’re going to talk about how Airbnb has taken it to the next level like Aaron Neville. Octave, boom. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to your inspiration station, your audio dojo of mojo the place where you go to learn what you need to know to start to grow a business And a lot of a lot of people have been telling me they’re going I was driving down the road one day And then it was like a spiritual I got slapped in the face, and I’m going I didn’t know that I did not know that I’ve been living life. I’ve been I’ve been going to school checking the boxes doing the thing, but I did not know that. Now here’s the thing. I’m going to give you some things I want you to know and I want you to marinate on this and I’m going to read them off to you one by one. I want you to understand the complexity of what I’m talking about, but the simplicity of it, okay? Because complexity does not scale, but simplicity does. But it requires a very pig-headed or a very complex mind to grasp this concept. Dr. Zellner is not on the show today because he’s out expanding his vast empire, but between he and I, there’s an auto auction called z66aa.com. They’ll sell thousands of cars every Friday, and guess what? I’m not out selling a car. He’s not out selling a car. Then he’s invested in a bank called bankregion.com. He’s also invested in an optometry clinic. I have a photography company called epicphotos.com, actually the world’s largest wedding photography company. Elephant in the Room Men’s Grooming Lounge exists. And I go on and on and on. There’s the Z’s Sleep Center. There’s Sprick Realty. There’s all these companies I’m involved with, he’s involved with, and they’re all growing. And check it out, I’m not actually selling the real estate, parking the car, selling the thing, putting on the glasses. Because we built systems that have the capacity to work without us. That’s why this story today is so phenomenal, because these three dudes, they went from sleeping on air mattresses to building Airbnb into the billion dollar business that it is today. If you missed the earlier segments, I’m going to give you an abbreviated version. Basically in 2007, they are realizing, we live in San Francisco. They’re going, we live in San Francisco and we can’t afford anything. Oh my gosh. Imagine what it’s like getting your utility bill in San Francisco or your rent bill and you go, oh no, and you can’t afford to pay it. So they said, hey, here’s the deal. We’re going to rent out our apartment. So they rent out their apartment to two dudes and a lady, kind of weird, but two dudes and a lady. They rented it out and basically they rented it out for 80 bucks a piece and they end up bringing in 240 extra dollars. They’re sleeping in the closet. They go, this could be a thing. They take all their money, they hire their good friend Nathan, he builds a website, they go to the South by Southwest conference, they have almost no success. They only sell two bookings. Then they start recycling basically cereal. They take cereal, Cheerios, or generic cereal, generic O’s of some kind, they take those, they put them in a, they keep them in a bag, they put them in a box, and they start this thing called Obama O’s. They start marketing Obama-Os, like President Obama-Os, like President Barack Hussein Obama-Os. They’re starting to sell these Obama-Os, and they raise just enough money, selling them for $40 a box during an election year, that they stay in business. They go pitch to Paul Graham. Paul Graham, who’s Paul Graham? Paul Graham’s the guy who helped launch Dropbox and Reddit. Paul Graham says, you guys are like cockroaches, you won’t stop. He gives them $20,000. They take the 20 grand, they fly in a plane all around the country. They discover that people don’t like the photos on airbnb.com and that’s why they’re not booking. So they fly back and they fix the photos. They fly back out to New York and they take more photos. They fly back, they’re out of money. They’re making $200 a week. They put the new photos up, they’re making $400 a week, and they now are starting to sell enough. They get 15 employees to work together at their house. Now they’re basically all living together in some sort of weird Branch Davidian, Waco, Texas communal. Do we all need to share our clothes? We all need to share our clothes. We all need to share our wives and our clothes because we’re all going to make Airbnb together. It’s like cultish at this point. It’s weird. Wouldn’t it be weird working with 15 people in a house? In a bedroom, definitely. Isn’t that weird? Definitely. Isn’t that weird for you, Brett? That’s weird. Okay, so we have Ms. Sherita Bent here. Yeah. She’s the Thrive 15 hostess with the mostess here. And we have Mr. Brett Denton, a very successful entrepreneur based in Boise, Idaho. He started a company called Cavell Fitness. It’s done very, very well. And so they’re on the show today, but that’s weird for you guys. Definitely. And sleeping in a closet. True, true. For me, man, I’ll tell you what I dream of. You know, you’re talking about dreams. I dream of 15 people living together on an air mattress. And then we rent it out with a website. That’s cool. I mean, you throw in some Obama O’s, we’re talking like, woo-hoo! That’s great, Leroy! I mean, that’s not… Very few people have that dream. Right? So what happens is, very few people have that dream. So what happens is, they work hard. They work hard. They grow the business. So now, in 2007, they start it. In 2011, they just start making some money, and then they get sued. Sherita, they get sued from all of these cities. They’re still being sued. I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t see it coming. I thought they had made it. You guys have got to Google this right now. They’re all being sued. Now I’m going to give you…if someone is listening to this right now and you go, that’s a weird story. I’m going to give you a weirder story and then Shredda has got some great info for you. Shredda, do you know who Razzell is? Razzell? No, I don’t think so. Oh, okay. So the Roots. We all know the Roots. The Roots crew. They’re the band for, I believe, Jimmy Fallon. They’re awesome. So they have a guy who beatboxes. He’s a human beatbox. Okay. Now imagine what it would be like when you’re around your friends and they’re like, hey, so Rizel, what did you do this weekend? And you’re like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, Human voice. Human voice. Could I have some more volume please? This is all one man. One mic. This could be your vision. It could be weird. You want to be a beatboxer? You want to build Airbnb? People say, you’re weird man. A little more volume please. He wants a little more volume, that’s all he wants. He’s working it. Here we go. Uh-oh. Here we go. Oh yeah, see, now you’re 2007, you start that business, you get rejected by Freddie Wilson. Freddie, look at Wilson, venture capitalist, rejection. Now people 2009 are going, I’ll book it, I’ll book it, okay. Mary Manilow’s drummer booked it, I’ll book it, okay. I see what you’re working with. 2010, people are starting to book. Now real quick, 2010 they get 7.2 million dollars of investment capital. Uh oh, 2011. 2011, they brought in 112 million dollars of investment capital. Oh, 2013. These homies are now making some cash. But this is his job now. Listen to that. Drivers, are you hearing this? This is a man. Listen to this, I’m spewing ahead. Come on. Faster. He’s going out in arenas beatboxing. Faster. Give yourself a wonderful round of applause. Now we got a man who’s going out in an arena. He’s going out in an arena as a beatboxer. How crazy is that? So you go from a crazy person with this dream to make sounds with your mouth and you’re so poor all you have is a microphone in your voice and you just focus on it and you get to be so good that if you Google right now Razzel beatboxing Red Bull you can check it out this guy filled up an entire arenas and the stuff he does his mouth I just want to play one more audio clip it’s so good it makes me cry almost it’s spiritual to me. Listen to this. How is this possible? It’s one voice, but now people cheer for him. Airbnb, now people cheer for them. DJ Connection, I started that in my dorm room. Now people cheer for it. People are going to cheer for it. People are going to cheer for your business. If you’re listening right now, I promise you, if you refuse to quit and you will listen to the market and you will continue pivoting and continue learning and continue, this is the process, the four-step process. Someone needs to write this down. You define what you want to do, then you act, then you measure, then you refine. Here we go. You define, you act, you measure, and you refine. I’ll bring it back. And you define, and you act, and you measure, and you refine. One more time. And you define, and you act, and you measure, and you refine. One more time. There it is. You got it? That’s how it works. Now, Sherita, for anybody who wants to define, act, measure, and refine, where do they need to go? They need to go to Thrive15.com because it’s going to be really important who you study, who you partner with, who you work with in community, who you learn from. And we have so many mentors who are successful and they can teach you. You know, we have the guy who did PR for Nike, Pizza Hut, Michael Jackson. Michael Levine, he’s crazy. Yes, we have Rustic Cuff, the owner of Rustic Cuff. Jill Donovan. All these people. Teaching you branding. Yes, giving you all this information. Lee Cockrell, he managed Walt Disney World Resort. 40,000 people. Amazing. David Robinson. It’s $20 a month, homies. Yeah, it’s a no-brainer. How could you not do it? I can tell you how you can’t do it. What you can do is you can be a happy hoper, and you can hope that someday that other people come to help you, and the economy gets better and so good in fact that people just help you start your business for you. Or you could be a diligent doer and you could say, you know what, I don’t want to go to your website but I’m committing to action. That’s fine. That’s all I’m asking. But I’m asking you to right now to reject mediocrity and to move into a place of success. And if you want to learn more about today’s guest, Mr. Brett Denton with Cavell, just Google KVELL lab. You can find him. He’s a very successful performance coach. He can help take your career to the next level. And if you want to subscribe to the world’s best business school, just go to thrive15.com, the world’s best business school. And as always, 3, 2, 1, boom. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. 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. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. 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 hundred million dollar net worth. Wow. Who’ll be presenting. Now we’ve had a couple presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like 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 Nine 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. Also let me tell you this folks, I don’t get this wrong because if I get it wrong someone’s gonna say you screwed that up buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. You say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for 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 a 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. So 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 and 28th. Who? You. You’re going to come. Who? You. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 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, Russell 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 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. 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 out shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast and he’s traveled 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, 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 James, one more time for the boys. ThriveTimeshow.com Shine, everything rides on 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 We are winning. 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 you. 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’ve 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 king’s point new york octagon watch what a person not what they say good morning good morning good morning barbecue soccer the rich dad radio show today i’m broadcasting uh… from phoenix arizona not scott till arizona their clothes but the from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And we have 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. And it’s a Mr. Clay Clark. He’s 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 is my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, I have to, 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 wanted 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, but I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, you know, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. 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. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. 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 in Kings Point, 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 and 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, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and 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 know, 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. He’s 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, and it’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun, super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s gonna come eventually, or try to pick up these taggets. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just wanna give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just wanna 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 our old house. Right, this is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s been 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 4 to 14 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 through the door 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 our 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 gonna grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purpose for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone needs to attend the conference Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.