Asking Millionaires How They Got RICH! (Austin)

excuse me man quick question for you is this your AMG it is what do you do for a living man I primarily made a majority of my net worth in e-commerce got started in 2015 and secondary commercial real estate I ended up in the high-tech field so I co-founded a couple companies here in Austin what has spent the most amount of money that you've ever made in a single year so we're gonna Revenue around 30 million gross the most amount of money I've made in a single year is about 11.2 million most I've made in a day is a million how much money has your business raised over the last six years about 87 million how much money would you say your business is going to generate this year Well what I would say is our business should be valued at about a billion in May how much you sell your first company for the first one was all of 150 million back in the day in 2005 and then this company just did a go private round with a big private Equity Firm for Austin Texas is the fastest growing city in the United States and is one of the top cities throughout the country with the most millionaires today we're going to be going all over the city asking multi-millionaires how they became successful and how you can start your path to becoming wealthy in today's world thank you [Music] what's going on Josh how you doing bro good to see you man thanks for having us out beautiful Lamborghini you know if you're an eight-figure entrepreneur for those that don't know like what industry are you in right now what are you doing exactly so I have a few different businesses I'm a Serial entrepreneur I primarily made a majority of my net worth in e-commerce got started in 2015 and secondary a lot of real estate what has been the most amount of money that you ever made in a single year so gross the most amount of money I've made in a single year is about 11.2 million most I've made in a day is a million here's the crazy thing it's easier to make a lot of money in a short period of time than it is to make a little bit of money over a long period of time I remember working and making 16 000 a year twenty thousand a year then a hundred thousand a year then my first million dollar year you worked longer you worked harder and when you work smarter and you come up with different promotions different launches different joint ventures um different product launches utilizing different marketing strategies you can have a higher velocity to profit so of course you can't sustain a million dollars a day however when coming up around special uh holidays special promotions and launches you could definitely crush it with the right marketing you sold 10 tens of millions of dollars on the internet what's been your secret to sales selling in a competitive industry in e-commerce and this is a super good question actually this is one of my favorite questions so I use an analogy or an acronym that stands for wwad and that stands for what would Apple do so the the mistake that a lot of people make is they try to reinvent the wheel literally all I did to bootstrap My Success is mimic what already works right literally recreate what is already working so I study Apple huge they're a trillion dollar company and how is Apple phones a thousand when Androids are 200 how are Apple laptops 5000 when Dells and acers are two or three hundred and how are they worth significantly more right there's a misconception that you can't charge a lot and grow right so price is only an issue when value is absent so my key the secret sauce is to out value the competition and the easiest way that you can do this in e-commerce physical products or in any Niche category or business model is to look at consumer feedback so what I like to do is take an Excel spreadsheet I category one star to three star reviews and four and five star reviews one to three is bad four to five is good we keep what they like and on one to three we obsess over improving what don't they like were they complaining about what features they wish they had and if you can listen to those questions you can listen to those issues and you can solve those problems then you can crush it Naveen James I had the pleasure of listening to Naveen James speak he's a multi-billionaire and when asked Naveen James how can one become a billionaire he said answer a billion questions but here's the thing you don't have to answer a billion individual questions you can answer one question that a billion people have have to be able to scale from seven to eight figures yeah so I was able to scale from seven to eight figures to focus on mitigating and delegating mwa activities which are minimum wage activities when I started and too many entrepreneurs they like to wear all the hats in their business and do everything so what I think that I did one of the things that I did right was identify what are those tasks that I can delegate those mwa or minimum wage activities that I can delegate so I can focus on high income earning assets or high income earning activities and that's what I was able to do so identify what really moved the needle what catapult the business in that 80 20 rule kind of like Gary Keller's book The one thing and I focused on that and I literally die deep on that thing too many people tried too many different things expecting to move the needle when all you have to do is test a bunch of things identify that one thing and then exhaust that thing man that was an awesome experience getting to film with Josh He provided so much value on really what allowed him to go from seven to eight figures as an entrepreneur gave some great gain but now we are back in downtown Austin to ask some entrepreneurs and some multi-millionaires how they became successful and the secret to creating wealth in any industry all right you guys we are in the tech District out in Austin Texas my man put up in the AMG the Mercedes we're gonna go ask him what he does for a living how he was able to afford this car out in Austin Texas excuse me man quick question for you is this your AMG it is what do you do for a living man so I'm an entrepreneur I have a company called met group and we're in a couple different Industries primarily the residential and commercial solar space and so we uh we're headquartered here in Austin but we do business in 15 states yeah and how much money is your company going to make this year so we're going to revenue around 30 million we've expanded and grown a ton of different sales channels and so we're looking to grow to 100 million in the next two to three years amazing and how long have you been in so about five years you know I started flipping sneakers selling stuff online selling things on eBay to ultimately just saving up bootstrapping everything and starting this company from scratch just for myself to adding one two three four and then scaling you know all over the country we go all over the country asking business owners to advice to their entrepreneurs could we ask you a few questions for the channel sure I'm down how old were you when you became a millionaire 24. I helped with crypto because I was so when I first got my first sales job I first started selling on DirecTV and Walmart I started selling stuff online I did anything I could to make money I would just buy anywhere between 500 to 1000 bucks a week of Bitcoin ethereum and other really good stocks and stuff like that so a combination of that on top of being really successful in sales and then becoming an entrepreneur helped me reach that Target what's been the best financial advice that you've ever received Warren Buffett says this number one rule of money is don't lose it if you have a 50 loss it takes a hundred percent gain to get that money back you you know it's just like the the turtle and the hair right if you you can get a 10 15 20 return year over year for 20 years you're going to be richer than anybody anyone can have a great couple years it's hard to do it for decades and so the thing I've tried to transition and really work towards is let's just be basic let's be boring and stack money take my main source of income and put it into something that can compound and grow over the next 10 20 30 years you became a millionaire at 24 years old in 60 seconds what's the blueprint to becoming a millionaire in today's world first focus on yourself invest and learn and create yourself into a person that's capable of receiving a million dollars and being consistent at it what knowledge what mindset what information do you need to know two pick something that's boring that you can be amazing at it's interesting if we live in Austin and you go to Lake Travis and you'll talk to all these people that have these multi-million dollar Mansions you think they invented something interesting and they have a plumbing company a roofing company a flooring company some of those basic things ever but they're Masters at it so Master a craft and then scale it and and that's when you can take that same money that you're you're making from what you've mastered and then invested into assets that appreciate and pay you rents and repeat man shout out to Grant mint not only is he an eight-figure entrepreneur but he just dropped so much value for all the entrepreneurs out there one thing I want to note about Grant and all these successful entrepreneurs is they're always willing to provide value and help people out for all you guys out there you don't know where to look for advice to help you out in your career or your business just go and ask for it the most successful people are always willing to help out so go ask for help and don't be afraid what industry did you decide to pursue a career in commercial real estate I'm a attorney by trade and so I figured you know everything is kind of within the law and then as quick as I could I got into the business that I knew I was a little kid I was going to be in how many assets under management are you currently have under your company right now hundreds of millions we have over a million square feet under construction at this exact moment 600 000 feet next to Tesla fully developed everything I don't know probably two and a half billion when it's when it's all when it's done over the next four years we're just getting started man I mean this is just the very very beginning like I just feel like I just got they just let me you know gave me a seat the table and I'm not [ __ ] leaving how can someone make their money work for them in today's world index funds go find an index fund that spreads along the equity markets and automate money and put it aside and I know you've seen a lot of just Financial gurus and Instagram influencers and these people say this but it's it's really true the con the market grows on average between eight to ten percent a year compounded okay so if we're conservative and take it down to eight percent even putting aside hundreds of dollars a month thousands but automating where it just goes and sits in that account you start doing that in your 20s in your 60s it's millions and time is Real Enemy the longer the time period it starts to hit a J crew of growth so in these early years no matter who you are but it's not 50 bucks decide 100 bucks plus a thousand bucks twenty thousand whatever the number that fits your budget automate it fix it index account has been [ __ ] forget about it I love it I love it obviously like a massive Kubota a business and success in real estate is sales what's been your secret to sales personal relationships and actually giving a [ __ ] about the people that you deal with like whether broker investors Bankers like actually building deeper relationships because as much as you think that people you know your clients and our business certainly are focused on making a lot of money the underlying fear that they have is that they're going to lose their money or some sham or some whatever so showing them that you have great risk controls that you do care that your money's invested that you're you know have a vested interest your interests are alive and not being in the [ __ ] fee business like we're not in the fee business we're in the performance business there's a big difference you know people that are just here they want to make a fee they're rewarded for Capital raise I'm not rewarded for Capital raising I go make money and we make money we take a piece of a piece of it also and when they understand that that alignment is there and you have a vested interest magic happens man that was a super dope experience to go out and meet Ari not only is he a nine figure entrepreneur but he's managing billions of dollars worth of real estate throughout the entire city gave some great advice to all the entrepreneurs out there let's keep it rolling and go get this next one all right guys we got a very special surprise we're about to go interview the founder of one of the largest tech startups in all of Texas renji bajoy the founder of immerse VR he's about to take his company public so we're going to ask him how he was able to raise tens of millions of dollars for his business and his secret to scaling and the competitive tech industry in Austin Texas what industry did you decide to pursue a career in AR VR spatial Computing so technology technology software and now Hardware how long have you been a business owner for about six years how much money has your business raised over the last six years yeah so I mean including some of the stuff that we're now closing this fall about 87 million 87 million dollars that is incredible and what's the name of your business it's called immersed what made you decide to start a business in this industry in particular because all the tech giants like meta Microsoft Google Apple they're all supporting dozens of billions of dollars into it this will allow us to sort of Follow That wave but do it better and at the end of the day like I don't want to just sell to like a Facebook or Google I'd rather build the next one and how much money would you say your business is going to generate this year Well what I would say is our business should be valued at about a billion in May so that's that's what the whole it's gonna be crazy yeah but then again it's a tech company right so tech companies have higher multiples than other companies ninety percent of businesses and startups they don't make it past five years but let alone you've made it past six and you've created a nearly nine figure business so what would you say is the blueprint to creating a successful startup in today's world you need to build a product that people actually want and actually love and you need to build the team that then builds that product and then you need to scale it from there to find the funding to then fund all of that so those I believe are the three key pieces Founders oftentimes are hopping to the next money making thing that everyone else is already doing no offense but a lot of people just hop into real estate because they think it's easy but how are they differentiated from the next Real Estate person right for me at the end of the day I'm good at coding so I'm gonna do that if you're able to find a product that people want to pay money for a team that can help you build it and that's a that's a craft in and of itself and then find the funds to then support that team to keep growing it or you build a product that pays you for for you to have that team to then grow that you're just gonna be able to build the best product in the world man you crushed that man that was amazing bro man this awesome video has been absolutely insane but I want you to comment down below who's been your favorite interview and why we love connecting with you guys I want to know all what you guys think about this video what industry did you ultimately pursue a career so that's a funny story uh I ended up in the high-tech field but if you would ask me in college I would have said that was the last place I wanted to be I had taken a year of computer science hated it um I had been around sales people that were in like the used car world and I hated sales so the last thing I thought I'd ever want to do was be computers or sales and my first job was at IBM and computer sales so are you a business owner yes so I co-founded a couple of companies here in Austin one was called waveset we founded that in 2000 after working for big tech for a long time uh wave set and then we sold that about five years later to a now defunct company called Sun part of Oracle and then we started another company here sailpoint in 05 that company's now coming up on 18 years old it's grown to be a very large company a little over half a billion in revenues 2 500 people around the world so I've been on a crazy journey of being an entrepreneur how much did you sell your first company for the first one was is all of 150 million back in the day in 2005 and then this company just did a go private round with a big private Equity Firm for seven bills if you were to go back to when you started that first business what's the best advice that you would tell yourself I think I kind of knew it because I didn't start that first business until I was 38 so thankfully I'd learned a few things but I think what often tell younger entrepreneurs is two things kind of be self-aware know what you're good at none of us are good at everything so I think a likelihood of success in the in the world of any entrepreneurial venture but particularly Tech is surround yourself with great people who are good at what you're not good at because a team strength will always be any individual what was your secret to really scaling your business at the point it is today I get I I think we sometimes glorify some of the most famous Business Leaders entrepreneurs as if it was just them in this generation it's folks like Elon and in my generation 30 or years ago is Bill Gates or Steve Jobs and it takes very little research to figure out those guys did not build businesses by themselves they always had a core team sometimes one sometimes multiple key team members that actually enable them to generate that kind of success so I think there's like this mythology of the brilliant entrepreneur who's all by themselves it's just not true if you're going to win big I think in the marketplace any kind of business you're going to have a great team around you thank you so much for your time yeah I really appreciate it your pleasure all right thank you guys so much for tuning in and watching this video be sure to leave a like And subscribe we've got some amazing content coming soon and click right here to watch our full video going all over Dallas asking millionaires how they became wealthy

Channel: School of Hard Knocks

Views: 177,673

Keywords: School of hard knocks, Asking Millionaires for advice, asking business owners how they got rich, asking millionaires how they got rich, interview with millionaire business owners, How Can Someone Make $1 Million?, Asking Millionaires How To Make $1 million, asking millionaires what they do for a living, asking people in Austin texas for advice, interview with texas millionaires, Asking Austin Millionaires how they got rich, interview with Grant Mitt, Austin millionaire interviews

Id: pBjoezYFA0Y

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023