From $300k to $35M+ Selling Dog Ramps with Ramon Van Meer, CEO & Founder at Alpha Paw

Shaan Puri

I remember we were drinking... we were drinking water from a little paper cup. We were at this burrito place, and you were like, "If I could buy this cup for 5¢ and sell it to you for 7¢, that's my passion."

Ramon Van Meer

ramon

Shaan Puri

He is back! This is the guest from episode 2, which was one of the best episodes ever of this podcast. Then it was taken down for a bit. I don't know what happened; there was something we had to take down to make a little edit. People started hitting me up.

Ramon Van Meer

yeah

Shaan Puri

"Hey, what happened to Ramon's episode?" That's how much people cared. They wanted to know. People were just keeping track. "Is that episode still in the library?" Something happened... some people noticed, which was amazing to me. Wow, and now you're Twitter famous! Yeah, as of today.

Ramon Van Meer

Well, because of you and Sam, yes. Because as of today, because you and Sam retweeted me, I got almost 8,000 followers overnight. I went from 2,000 to 11,000 within 24 hours, so...

Shaan Puri

wow okay same thing

Ramon Van Meer

with us

Shaan Puri

Well, it's not just because we retweeted. I retweeted a lot of stuff. You told a great story. I'm just actually going to... I'm going to find the hook here because you did a good job. Did Sam write this for you, or did you have him edit this? Because this was so well done. I felt like... this can't be your first thread. You can't have started off this good on your first thread. How did that happen?

Ramon Van Meer

No, well, it's Sam dripping off the whole two tweets. So Sam actually helped me. Okay, this is what would work: This is the concept, this is a little bit like how you format it. Then he gave a little bit like, "I would start with this, I would do this, and I will explain that." Then, of course, I... you know, explained it and then...

Shaan Puri

I can't imagine how

Ramon Van Meer

like yeah this this looks great

Shaan Puri

How would you have started it normally? Then I'll share... I'll read what the end result was. What would you have normally said? Or what do you remember your version one might have been?

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, well, you and I are friends so you also know me personally, Sam. It's like, typically, I would not start off with "I bought something for as little as X and now we're doing Y." I will not put...

Shaan Puri

that

Ramon Van Meer

Yes, out of notes. But you know, Sam said, "No, you need to do that." And you know it's true as well, right? So why not just explain it? That's what gets people interested. Now, I think we have 7,000 likes and a bunch like 1,000+.

Shaan Puri

in tweets what you're saying you said 2 and a half years ago I bought a dog ramp business for $300,000 already interesting what the heck is a dog ramp business since then I've sold $35,000,000 of dog ramps boom that's the the hook right you you know did a this little thing turned into a big thing and then the promise why you should read this thread I'm gonna explain why I bought it how I scaled it and why I bought a business versus starting from scratch but first dog ramps? And then that is and then the little hand pointing down like come read more that is you didn't take my power writing class but that is exactly what you would have been my star student in this if you had done this as the example because it has all three elements right so it has the what I call the frame I bought it for 300 k and I've sold 35,000,000 so that's the the wow factor why should I pay attention to this and why do I stop scrolling right so you have a scroll stopping number $35,000,000 of dog ramps you have a curiosity gap which is what the heck is a dog ramp and how did this guy do it and then you have a promise which is I'm gonna tell you a b and c but first dog ramps which is like you you gave them a lightweight entryway that they they have even if they don't wanna know how you bought it why you scaled it all the operational stuff I do need to know what the heck dog ramps what the heck and so beautifully done and then you tell the story and the story is kind of amazing because people know that I people know that I don't talk about what my e commerce business is but they know that I have an e commerce business and what they don't know is that it started because we were hanging out in your backyard and we were talking and the whole time we're talking your phone is just going cha ching cha ching it's like the and I didn't even know what this was it's the shopify shopify is like notification sound and you you didn't even notice it because it's always just normal to you your phone was sitting on the table and I was like do you need to get that like what does that sound and you go oh sorry that's like sales and I was just like you know people love this idea of make money while you sleep like passive income oh make money while you sleep that is a sexy idea this was this was even better it was like you were just chilling and having fun and money was just being made for you on the side and just like a little cha ching every 5 minutes and it was literally in that moment I was like I'm gonna do this I'm gonna start an ecommerce business because I can't sit here and just let ramon have all the fun this is too good so you inspired me to do it for sure

Ramon Van Meer

That's awesome! Yeah, I had to turn off that notification because it drove me crazy eventually. Like, every time there's a sale, it was fun in the beginning. It was really like that, you know, endorphin release each time.

Shaan Puri

that yeah

Ramon Van Meer

chinked

Shaan Puri

Exactly! If you're on YouTube, if you're watching the YouTube channel, which is just... I don't know what it is. Is it youtube.com/myfirst1000000? I think it's something like that, or HustleCon. Just search "My First Million" on YouTube, and you'll find it. You can see the ramp behind Ramon; he's got all the products behind him. So, the company is called Alpha Paw—that's your thing. We're going to talk about a couple of different things. I thought it'd be fun to have you on as a substitute teacher for Sam. Like any substitute teacher, the class always has more fun when the sub comes in. So, that's what we're going to do. I think we're going to talk about a couple of things. I want to discuss buying and selling businesses rather than starting them. How do you do it? We'll go through some examples of what's out there, and then we'll jump back and dig into your story—how the heck you got started. But first, I want to give the people—and myself, really—a crash course on this process of buying businesses. I was amazed when you told me you bought this business for $300,000. Did you buy this off of Flippa or Quiet Light? Where did you end up buying this one?

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, I bought this on a similar broker like QuietLite. They're not around anymore, but it was a similar broker, not as [big as] Flippa. But it's more of a broker and...

Shaan Puri

When you bought it, I was sort of like, "What the hell? Who does that?" I didn't even know anybody who buys off these random websites. I could see you buying something for a few thousand dollars, but $300,000 I thought was a lot. And I was like, "Dog ramps? What the heck?" You had told me then that you're like, "Yeah, the business is doing good, and the person really wasn't doing any marketing." They didn't run any Facebook ads, I think was the case. So you just saw a clear growth lever. Break it down: what is your "why"? Why do you do this? And then, how do you do this buying businesses thing?

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, like, I personally think it's also about your personal preference and your skill set. Some people are really good at going from 0 to 1; they are really builders. Others are really good at going from 1 to 10, and those are the scalers. I'm not really good at building; I'm better at scaling. So, I like to buy versus build because it gives you a lot more speed. It provides you with history and data. It's similar to real estate, where I try to find crappy houses that need to be fixed up, but in a good, up-and-coming neighborhood. If that makes sense.

Shaan Puri

right

Ramon Van Meer

Right, like, you know, okay, yes, good market. There's a market fit. You know, if this house was amazing, you would be able to rent it out for 2, 3, or 4 times more than the current owner does. It's the same with websites. So, I look for websites that have a good product mix and product fit. It has history; it doesn't have to be going really well. I'm not looking for websites that are overly optimized. So, I tend to not buy websites from other internet marketers because they already did all the things that I probably would do for it. So, there's not really room for growth. So, I look for...

Shaan Puri

so what was the person

Ramon Van Meer

like often

Shaan Puri

What was the person like, or what was the business like when you bought the dog ramp business? So, describe kind of what you saw and what made you decide, "Yeah, I'm gonna buy this one."

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, it solves a real problem. I wasn't aware that this was actually a problem. I have a dog, but I have a pit bull; I don't have a small dog. So, there's a real problem for a niche audience that you can really target on Facebook. Those were the good old days when you could niche target effectively on Facebook. There wasn't a lot of competition at that time. Not many people were promoting ramps on Facebook, Instagram, or even Amazon. The website was very poorly designed, and I knew that if we switched to Shopify and improved the copy, the pictures, etc., the conversion rate would most likely increase. In this case, the two founders were not doing any Facebook ads; there was no paid acquisition happening at all. Even though they had a decent-sized customer database, they were not emailing existing customers, let alone trying to capture cart abandonment.

Shaan Puri

So, this was a good market, which is pets. It's, you know, a house that you said, "Okay, if I renovate the kitchens, the floorboards, the countertops," which is like redoing the website, the branding of it, and the copywriting. Then lastly, they're not even trying to rent it out. They don't rent; they don't post it on Craigslist. They don't have flyers out in the neighborhood saying, "Come rent my place," which means they weren't doing paid advertising to attract customers. So, you saw it, you bought it, and you grew it. What's another example? Let's walk through some real examples, and then you tell me what you like or dislike about some of these businesses because I know you did some research on what's out there today.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, so for example, there's one out... It's sort of a crossword puzzle website. Think of like when... I think a lot of people play these Words with Friends games or Scrabble games. And then there's a website out there, apparently, that you can just put in your letters and it will give a bunch of word recommendations.

Shaan Puri

its website yeah exactly

Ramon Van Meer

I kinda love it because there's nothing to do. I think there's probably a database that's already pre-built that you can buy. You build it basically once, and then it's just trying to get SEO traffic to your website. For example, there's one for sale now for $9,000,000. They started it in 2017 and it does $3,500,000 in revenue. Because there's not really a team needed, it's almost all profit—around $3,000,000 of profit. It's just, you know, printing money basically. I like these types of niches where not a lot of people think about, but there's definitely a huge search volume. Another one is... yeah, what would...

Shaan Puri

You do... So give me two pieces on that: 1. With something like this, how would you try to grow it? Or would you not buy this because you say, "I don't know how I would grow this," where you know you'd get a faster payback on your money? 2. What would you do? How would you think about the growth levers for this one?

Ramon Van Meer

That's a good question. I will personally not buy it at the moment because of the price tag. Typically, I only buy things in the couple hundred thousand dollar range, not one million. Without knowing too much about the current business model, I would definitely try to increase RPMs. This means figuring out how to squeeze more advertising dollars out of the same traffic. They get tens of millions of visitors a month, and I looked at a couple of similar websites. I think there's a huge opportunity by placing ads differently just to increase RPM. Similarly, if you have an e-commerce site, you want to increase conversion rates. If you have a content site, you want to increase RPMs, meaning how to get more people to click on the ads or things like that. Secondly, I would look and do research. For sure, if there's a huge segment of people that love Scrabble, what other games do they like? Maybe build a sub-site that does, I don't know, Sudoku or whatever. So those are the two things that I would consider if I were to buy this type of website.

Shaan Puri

And basically, when you buy something like this, most people say, "I don't have $9,000,000." I think when you started doing this, when you first began looking at these websites, you also didn't have enough money to buy one of these. So, tell the story of how you first started going to these websites, even when you didn't have enough money to buy one of these companies.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, like I've actually bought and sold websites. I started by buying something for $500 and then sold it for, you know, $1,500. I started on Flippa 12 years ago, and I've bought a piñata website that sells piñatas. You can send a picture of Sam and it's...

Shaan Puri

a pinata of him

Ramon Van Meer

Yes, a company in Mexico, in Texas, would make a piñata and then ship it directly to the customer. So, I bought that for $5,000 that I scraped together. I improved the website traffic and made my money back in two and a half months. Then, I sold it a month later for $22,000. Right, so it's not huge numbers, but those really helped me to grow a little bit and gain a lot of experience. Then, when I started Soapop, I actually saw a similar website for sale on Flippa that was listed for $100,000. It was in the daytime TV era too, and the topic was about daytime TV. Of course, I didn't have the money; I had like a couple of thousand dollars, so I was not able to buy that. But what I did was think, "Hey, let's see if there is something there." I decided to do a small test, build a fan page, see how the engagement goes, and then really assess if there is something there to grow from.

Shaan Puri

I guess we should explain you you created if you if people have listened to episode 2 they know the full story we won't go the full story again this time but your claim to fame the the what episode 2 is about is telling the story of how you created a soap opera content site like a soap opera website that was basically just saying hey you're watching days of our lives or you're watching you know I don't know the young and the restless here's the recap here's the spoilers of what's coming next so you kind of built like a spoiler site for daytime soap operas like who the heck thinks of that and then you ended up selling it for 9 or $10,000,000 cash and that's like an amazing amazing exit and this is from a guy who has never watched a soap opera episode in his life so I think people love that because it was so a random but b interesting and relatable how how you did that and it sounds like one of the ways you were getting business ideas was you were going on these websites and you I think you had told me at the time you're like I saw a website for sale that was also in the daytime tv niche that was like a $100,000 for sale and you were like cool like I don't have a $100,000 but if this is worth a $100,000 maybe I can make something like this and then you went through this process where you said okay how can I test these ideas because when I met you you I was like alright what's your passion you know silicon valley style and you were like you know what problem you really wanna solve what what topic what industry are you really passionate about and you were like there was a cup on the table I remember we were drinking we were drinking water a little paper cup we were at this burrito place and you were like if if I could buy this cup for 5¢ and sell it to you for 7¢ that's my passion like I like to buy things and sell things for a little bit more and I'm basically an internet marketer and I don't care if it's cups or dog ramps or soap opera spoilers it doesn't matter to me I love the process of like business and selling things and I was like that's amazing you know I love the the sort of self awareness and honesty and then when you were testing ideas for for before you created the soap opera site you went on facebook and if I remember correctly you basically made like 30 fan pages or something like that because at the time you could promote a page a fan page on facebook for like cents you could go get a bunch of likes of your facebook page and a lot of likes weren't worth too much but you could kinda test what topics are people most engaged with what what topics if I post content in this page will I get a bunch of likes for and I think it ended up being like the top 3 were something like what was it it was like right wing politics like soap operas and what was the last one it was like wrestling or something like that

Ramon Van Meer

Wrestling was really popular. Soap operas, politics, wrestling, and cars were also pretty high up, right?

Shaan Puri

Then you were like, "You know, I hate politics. I don't wanna do politics." "What's the next best one? Soap operas? Okay, great." Hire this woman in the Midwest to write blogs every day about soap operas and then drive traffic, baby. Sell... wants to go sell some paper cups.

Ramon Van Meer

Exactly. I just didn't really overthink it. I didn't write a business plan. I just went on Upwork.com and said, "Hey, looking for a writer that can write soap opera spoilers." I put a very simple blog up just to test if people would go from Facebook onto a blog and write a story. That's how it basically started. Then, you know, I started with 10 cents a day from Google AdSense, then a dollar a day, and then $10. That's how it grew.

Shaan Puri

Right, okay. Let's look at a couple more deals, and then we'll jump around again. So, give me another one that you saw before you came on the pod that you want to talk about.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, so this is one I just saw an hour ago. I thought it was interesting. It was a goat milk soap website. They sell goat...

Shaan Puri

milk so what the heck is that

Ramon Van Meer

Yes, so apparently goat milk soap is better for the environment. They say it's cruelty-free because, apparently, a lot of traditional soaps do testing on animals, etc. Forgive me for people that know about goat's milk soap; this is the first time I heard about it, and that's why it intrigued me. This could probably be a product that people who use it are very passionate about. It's similar to how people who are into keto are super passionate. There are tons of examples where it's a pretty small niche, but people are so passionate that they will spread the word for you. So, this is why you can find it on Flippa. Just search "goat milk soap," and I'm looking at the listing.

Shaan Puri

It's... it says 4 years old, monthly profit $20,000 a month. It's got a 29% profit margin and it's selling at a 1.8x multiple. Right, so okay, what is that? Let's say 20 times 12. We don't do public math, but we do type things in: 240. 240 times 1.8, so it's selling for $400-something thousand. Is that right?

Ramon Van Meer

correct 400425 is the asking price

Shaan Puri

right okay amazing so walk me through how do you think about something like this

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, so first I look at... I will do a little bit of research about the product. Does goat milk really work? Is it more of a gimmick, or does it actually solve a problem? Are people really interested? Is there a need for this? And again, if it's a gimmick, that's fine too, right? I'm... this is not like an "Oh, the answer's no, we'll not buy it." It's just important to know.

Shaan Puri

right back to the putin pinata example

Ramon Van Meer

exactly how many because not it's very important too for like not all bit ideas have to be a $100,000,000 idea like I think a a $1,000,000 a year business is amazing as well right so maybe goat milk soap is you know a very passionate niche product I will look I will do research like okay how many people in the us search for it you can use Google trends or you can use all kinds of search volume trackers that you can see how many people are searching for these keywords I will look on instagram are there like is there a rabbit fan base you know like goat milk you know fans or facebook groups then I will also look on amazon is this sold on amazon if yes how is the trend and what is the sales and then you can use a tool called helium 10 to see how many how much revenue a listing is doing it's by the way a really amazing tool to do research I do the same for pet products you know I look what is trending on amazon what is you know blowing out the waters for sales and then I will do research if we should also start selling that then I look of course on the business stuff like business is the is the trend up or down or flat and also like most of business I bought were either flat or down because that's how you know you get you know a good deal so even if it's flat even if it's not trending up I still would you know potentially buy it what is important are the traffic channels diversified is a hun or 90% coming from just facebook or is it just emails or is it just seo that could be a little bit you know risky especially if it's all paid traffic from facebook because all the ecommerce founders or listeners on this podcast will know you know apple can make an update and suddenly you know the paid traffic landscape changed so I'm I'm looking for diversified channels then of course I look at revenue profit margins so you can really calculate like okay if I pump is this gonna be more of an scale where I can pump more money into facebook I put a dollar in I get the $3 back or is this more like of a long term play where I have to create seo content that you know is less costly but it's a longer game and then also what's important to understand what you're buying are the trademarks are there patents is there email subscribers or in this case they have a 43 1,000 email subscribers there's 33,000 sms subscribers I think there's a social media all these things in my opinion are valuable because that's the same with when I bought alphapaw they had a huge instagram following a huge facebook following they had an email list they had trademarks and patent all that was you know included in the sale

Shaan Puri

And if you... those are great, those are the assets. So let's take a business like this. Let's say it's a $400,000 listing. How does it work, you know, if you don't have $400,000 lying around in a briefcase like an evil genius? What do you do? How do you buy a business like this if you don't have $400,000 lying around?

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, so you can use SBA loans to buy internet businesses. An SBA loan is basically a small business loan that, I don't know when they started, a few years ago, where they now also fund internet businesses. You can borrow up to 90%. So technically, you can buy something that is for sale for $400,000, and you only have to put down $40,000. The interest rate is pretty low; it's anywhere between 5% to 7%. So it's higher than a mortgage, but it's much lower than a traditional business loan for people like us. Then the second thing you can do when you see the asking price of $400,000 is to make a cash upfront offer. You can say, "Hey, I will pay you $250,000 cash upfront at closing. The remaining $150,000 I will pay you spread out over the next 12 months, interest-free." Every time I buy a business, it's never 100% cash at closing. I always have 60% to 80% cash at closing, and the remaining is either a seller's note or an earn-out.

Shaan Puri

Right, and that keeps the seller helpful because they need to help you out. It also lowers the amount that you have to loan. Let's just say, let's do a little loan calculator. The SBA loan is what, a 10-year loan? Something like that? Yes, a 10-year loan. So, let's say you did the full amount, no seller financing, just for simplicity. You put down $40,000, and you're going to take the other $360,000 as an SBA loan. Let's say you're paying 6% a year for 10 years. Your monthly payment on that loan is going to be **$4,000**. This business makes **$20,000** a month in profit. So, you take the **$20,000** a month in profit, pay back your loan for **$4,000**, and you're left with **$16,000** of profit every month. Right now, you could buy this today and be making money. So, that difference, let's say **$16,000**. You only put down **$40,000**, so it only takes 2.5 months for you to get all your equity back. Then you're profitable every single month, and you could reinvest some of that into growth. That's like a pretty sweet deal, and that's more than most people are making at their "quote unquote" safe job.

Ramon Van Meer

Correct. The beauty of SBA loans is that, of course, they look at your personal credit history, etc. However, they really focus on the business when making a decision. The lenders will never fund you if there's too high of a risk. If they think, "Oh, the borrower cannot pay the interest month over month," they won't proceed. It's amazing, too. I spoke with Joe Valley from Quiet Light Broker today, and he told me a story about a woman who bought a business for $1,250,000 with an SBA loan two years ago. She just closed and sold the same business for $5.5 million. I believe it was in the $5 million range, but she only put 10% down. So, she didn't even put $200,000 down, but her return was... you know.

Shaan Puri

4,000,000 yeah

Ramon Van Meer

I don't know... Yeah, so if done right, you know, SBA loans are a really great tool. [They're] a good leverage tool to get into internet businesses or buy a business.

Shaan Puri

Amazing! Yeah, it's one of the tricks. Now, what do you give people a sense of? How do you make sure you're not buying a lemon?

Ramon Van Meer

Yes, that's a question I get a lot. When you go to **Flippa.com**, I would really be careful because Flippa is a marketplace. Anybody can just upload their listing or their website and basically claim whatever. It's on you to do your due diligence. If you go to a broker like **Quiet Life Brokers**, they do all the vetting for you. They will look at the business and check if everything is legit, so the risk is much smaller. But regardless, if you're new to this or if it's your first business, you can hire a due diligence company. **Centurica** (centurica.com) is one I think is well-known. You pay depending on the listing price, but it's as cheap as a couple of hundred dollars and goes up from there. They do all the due diligence for you. They look through all the traffic: Is it legit? Is the revenue legit? Is everything they claimed true? Then they come back to you with a report, saying, "Well, we looked at all the data and numbers. You bought it for $1.2 million, but we think it's actually worth $900,000 because of these reasons." So, I definitely recommend going with a due diligence company like Centurica.

Shaan Puri

Gotcha, okay. So these are a business you could buy. What was the first kind of... like, how the heck did you become you? So, how are you figuring out how to do this? Give people kind of the... not too deep into anyone, but just describe kind of the journey. Then I might poke into some that sound interesting. So, okay, you're Ramon. You're born... and I don't know when you got your entrepreneurial start. What was the first kind of entrepreneurial venture? Were you in your teens or your twenties, or what?

Ramon Van Meer

My first real business was a construction company. I had done things before that, but they were nothing really significant. I think the way I started the construction company is really in my DNA, if that makes sense. When I look back, a lot of other companies I started were basically the same. I didn't know anything about construction. The story is quick, but I think it could be helpful for people who might be overthinking steps or overthinking things. I was out of a job at 20 years old and had to pay my rent. A coworker of my mom said they needed a painter to paint the inside of their house. They offered to pay me a certain amount—I forgot the number, but it was like a month's worth of money that I made in 3 days. I thought, "Oh, this is amazing! I can be my own boss. It's a lot of money. The harder I work, the more money I make." That was really what intrigued me. If I could do this in one day, I would actually make the same amount of money as I would in a whole month. So, you got paid based on your output.

Shaan Puri

not your input

Ramon Van Meer

Correct. And, as you know, I'm a high school dropout, right? So there was not... that's.

Shaan Puri

what what year did you actually drop out

Ramon Van Meer

officially 15 but I stopped really going when I was 14

Shaan Puri

okay so that's basically a letter right that's us nights

Ramon Van Meer

I don't

Shaan Puri

know what it is there

Ramon Van Meer

Okay, actually, my mom got a letter from the board of schools with an official waiver. It stated, "Okay, your son doesn't have to go to school." In Holland, you have to go to school until you're 16. They actually gave me a pass because no high school wanted to accept me, but that's a different story.

Shaan Puri

so that's a bad guy

Ramon Van Meer

On Sunday night, she paid me out. I said, "This is amazing!" So on Monday morning, I came up with a name: **Home Improvements** or **House Improvements**—one of those two. I built some very ugly business cards, made a one-page website, and put an ad out on the Dutch version of Craigslist. I thought, you know what? Let's not just do painting; let's do everything construction-related, like remodeling from A to Z—whatever it takes.

Shaan Puri

and you don't know how to do any of that by the way

Ramon Van Meer

no no I don't know anything I barely was able

Shaan Puri

To pay... so, what gives you that confidence to say, "I'll renovate everything A to Z," and yet I don't know how to do anything A to Z?

Ramon Van Meer

I think that's the naive part of me that I still have... it's like, "Let's just see first if I can get a job and then figure out how to solve or do the job." And so an hour later, or two hours later, I got an email from a guy saying: > "Hey, I'm looking for an electrician and I am rewiring the whole building, blah blah blah." I said, "Sure, no problem. I will see you tomorrow."

Shaan Puri

I'm a 9th grade dropout I'll be there in 3 hours I I got this yeah

Ramon Van Meer

I went out to buy an official construction outfit so I really looked like a construction guy. I went there the next morning, and as a disclaimer, of course, I will not have done things that could potentially kill people. I just wanted to see if it was something simple. He gave me the tour, and I couldn't even understand the words he was saying. He was like, "Oh, we need to wire this, and we need to do that." The floors were open, and the walls were open. I was still playing along, but in my mind, I was thinking, "There's no way I can do this. It's dangerous as hell." So, he went out to run some errands. I waited for him because I didn't want to be an asshole and just leave. I waited for an hour. When he came back, I said, "Listen, I'm going to be honest. I don't know anything about the construction company. I don't know anything about electrical work. I just started yesterday. I want to build a construction company, but I don't know anything." He laughed his ass off because he was an entrepreneur, and he actually gave me work. He said, "You're hilarious. Just help me with..."

Shaan Puri

carry this box over here yeah

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, and he paid me the same amount of dollars or euros hourly rate than he would have done before. I think, also, by the way, if we have young listeners, it's so important to do those things when you're young. Because if I were to do it now, I'm 40 years old.

Shaan Puri

not endearing

Ramon Van Meer

I don't think it's endearing. It's not like, "Oh, I appreciate your hustle." No, it's like, "Hey, you're a con man." It's like, "Yeah, you're..." So if you're young, take advantage. You know?

Shaan Puri

sam was also really genius of doing that as

Ramon Van Meer

Well, right. You can just get away with so much more by showing hustle. But also, I think he appreciated that I waited for him and was just honest. I said, "Hey, listen, I don't know anything about this." He gave me a really good tip. He said, "In order to own a construction company, you don't have to know everything or do it yourself. If I were you, find freelancers. Focus on getting the projects and then outsource it to freelancers." So that's what I did. I found an electrician, a freelancer plumber, you know, everything you need—a whole crew. Two weeks later, I got a second job, and I didn't do anything. I just had my crew. Yeah, I sold it for $10,000. My cut was around $5,000, and that's how I basically grew the construction company. Within a year, a little over a year, we had about 20 to 24 people, depending on how many projects we had. At that time, we did close to $1,000,000 in revenue.

Shaan Puri

and you're like 19 20 years old something like that at that time

Ramon Van Meer

yeah 20 21 when we you know were a year year in

Shaan Puri

and so what happened to that happy ending or sad ending to this story

Ramon Van Meer

well very quick maybe story about how I scaled the scaling part I think is also maybe could be helpful for people is that the big problem with construction is every like the job is 2 weeks and then you have to find another job the job is 4 weeks and you have to find another job right so it was really hard to keep the guys busy and really you know make sure that the the projects align if that makes sense so I thought hey who can I find what can I do so I don't have to find jobs anymore so real estate investors they buy apartment buildings all at once they all need to be renovated at once so I went to local real estate meetups that was actually horrible because I was a really out of my place I was way too young I was like you know blue collar guy with all these fancy pants but one thing lead to another that I met the biggest real estate investor in my region that I lived and he was like literally bill buying apartment buildings at the foreclosure every month between 20 a 100 buildings at the time so now he became my client and he was my client to the end basically I'd never had to search for a new customer the so that was all the good news then I made a bunch of mistakes cash flow projection was one where construction you really so similar a little bit similar like with ecommerce I think you could grow yourself into bankruptcy if that makes sense making for example you with a construction same with ecommerce you have to put a lot of money upfront I have to pay every friday the the crew I have to buy the supplies but I only get paid all the way at the end when the project is done so the faster you grow the more projects you have the more money you have to put out in the open and you have to wait for it so that started that was really and I was just not good at cash flow projection I'd well I just didn't do it and another thing that really was bad was growing too fast that I have to hire people that I normally would not have hired and really lost grip of the business if that makes sense and you know it started to break and I had to close the company and after 3 years more or less

Shaan Puri

And our mutual buddy Sully was at my house this weekend, and he said something like... I don't know if maybe you already... maybe this is the guy you already talked about, but he said you had some kind of mentor help you early on. Somebody who really changed the course of your life. I don't know, is he talking about the guy who gave you that first kind of insight to hire freelancers? Or...

Ramon Van Meer

is there somebody else that he's

Shaan Puri

talking about no

Ramon Van Meer

This is a different story. Alright, that story was before my construction company. I was almost 18, or around that time, when my mother kicked me out of the house. She said, "You have to figure your shit out." So, I had to pay rent and find a job at the local Best Buy, the Dutch version of Best Buy. A couple of weeks in, I thought, "This sucks," right? Long hours, whatever. Then, a guy came in wearing a nice, expensive suit. He wanted to buy something that was not in stock. He gave me a business card that said "Software Solutions." I didn't know anything about software or programming, but I knew about solutions. I didn't know much, but I realized there was a lot of money to be made and a lot of opportunity because this was like the early internet days. Right? You know, I'm an old guy. This was before 2001, before the internet bubble, if people remember. So, I didn't know what he was doing, but it was something in software and solutions.

Shaan Puri

How did you know it was so good? Was it because he came in a fancy suit, or had you separately been thinking about the internet?

Ramon Van Meer

separately been thinking about because I always was like trying to you know oh let's buy this type of product in germany and then try to sell it in holland like I was always trying to build these doing these schemes legal of course but internet was just like this whole new like for me my like this was like amazing like there's so many upper so much opportunity and so I knew that I just didn't know like exactly what how to get started how to even you know write a line of code or whatever so I started stalking him I said hey and this is again the benefit of being young like hey I wanna get a job at your company and he said no we don't we're not hiring but I kept stalking him respectfully but I did caught stalking him for months like 3 4 months to a? Where he said you know what I'm so sick and tired of this in a good way let's make a deal if I'm gonna give you a book on friday we have an internal exam for programmers if you pass that exam I will give you I will hire the company will hire you and give you a 6 months internal program to become a Microsoft developer but you have to promise me if you fail this exam on friday you have to leave me alone for the rest of your life I said okay let's do it I didn't know what it was expect he gave me a book about Microsoft database access access database programming studied that if my life was depending on it did exam and I passed I didn't pass a + but I passed enough and so they gave me a job like they gave me a job and for 6 the next 6 months they trained me I was able to become a Microsoft software developer within this company they gave me a a lease card they gave me a laptop they gave me like a phone like it was it was insane yeah so this guy really changed my life because I think learning how to code really is helpful also in other ways in in your life like because it really you analyze problems in situations just different if when when you know how to code that makes sense

Shaan Puri

And you, but today you don't consider yourself like a coder. For your e-commerce website, you're not the one going and making changes. Do you do it sometimes, or early on, before you hired people, did you just do stuff yourself? Or no, you're just saying that learning it back then and using it back then, and learning how to think that way was helpful.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, at that time, I had to learn Visual Basic. That language doesn't even exist anymore. So, it's like I know how to read PHP and HTML, and you know, I know how to do it, but I never actually do it. Basically, I think what's so frustrating as a programmer is finding bugs. You have, you know, a 10,000 line code, and if one thing breaks, you have to go through all the code. But it really trains your brain to narrow down what it could be and where the problem could be. That mindset you can use in all kinds of other real-life situations. So, no, I don't program right now.

Shaan Puri

Okay, fair enough. We have 5 minutes left. You had a game you wanted to play at the end. Let's do the game!

Ramon Van Meer

okay so I wanted to ask you

Shaan Puri

and why did you wanna play this game by the way

Ramon Van Meer

Because I think your audience would like to know these questions, like "Would you rather..." So, it's a "Would you rather..." Let's give it a try.

Shaan Puri

the people what they want yes

Ramon Van Meer

Alright, so here's the first one: Would you rather be the CEO of Apple or the President of the UFC?

Shaan Puri

Oh, okay. President of the UFC, like Dana White. Too much travel! I'm traveling; I'm on the road all the time, dealing with all kinds of event planning. When I threw my wedding, I thought, "This is the only event I'll ever throw like this." For the UFC, every weekend they throw a mega wedding. So, no way I'm doing that. I also wouldn't really want to be the CEO of Apple. So, I'll take the job. I'll go buy your company for half a trillion. I'll buy my company for half a trillion, and then I'll peace out.

Ramon Van Meer

I know you. Alright, that's awesome. I saw this on a meme actually: Would you rather have dinner with Jay-Z or take $500,000 cash?

Shaan Puri

$500,000 cash, easy. What would you do? Would you take dinner with Jay-Z? I feel like you might be a "I want a unique experience" person. No?

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, I will take the cash too. There was a whole debate. People say you should take Jay-Z because he's...

Shaan Puri

Taking tips, let's say $50,000 cash. I think $50,000 cash is a closer bet here.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, in the situation I'm in right now, I will take the dinner. If I have no money, I will take the cash.

Shaan Puri

Right, yeah, yeah. I'm in the same boat. I think the dinner is most likely going to be kind of lame, but you know, I get a good story. Who knows? Maybe we hit it off. Maybe he's interesting. $500,000. You could go buy your charity dinner with Jay-Z for $90,000 and have the rest left over for goods after that.

Ramon Van Meer

or you can buy a goat milk soap website yeah

Shaan Puri

Exactly. I mean, with five of them, whatever. That's the question: would I rather have that goat milk business today or just dinner with Jay-Z tomorrow? I'll take the goat milk business today, thank you.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, let's do "Would You Rather." Would you rather bootstrap a $1,000,000 business or venture capital back a $10,000,000 a year business?

Shaan Puri

I think I would rather have a VC-backed $10,000,000 a year business. I'll tell you why. I think that once you can get a business to $10,000,000, the odds of you being able to get it to $50,000,000 or $100,000,000 are quite high. I think going from $0 to $10,000,000 is a lot harder and more likely to round down to $0 than $10,000,000 will stay at $10,000,000. So, I think $10,000,000 really means, "Hey, just stick with it for a little bit longer, and you'll be at $30,000,000, $40,000,000, $50,000,000, $70,000,000, something like that within 2 to 3 years." Now, a lot of people think VC means you're VC forever and that you're in this endless chase. They're like, "Well, the VCs say you need to grow," or "The VCs say you have to raise your next round." My experience with VCs has actually been quite different. VCs give you the money; they might want you to do something, but it's your call what you do. You can raise one round and never raise again from VCs, or you can raise one round and grow at the pace you want. They might strongly advise you to do something, but it's on you to say, "Look, are you going to fire me? Do you have the power to do that? Are you going to fire me? If not, then I'm going to need you to, you know, shut the fuck up and stay in the back seat and let me do what I'm going to do here." So, I think the $10,000,000 business is just better than the bootstrap to $1,000,000.

Ramon Van Meer

Then, a very quick note for the listeners who have an idea but not the capital: Would you tell them to try to get VC money, or should they try to get the company started, generate some revenue, and then pursue the VC route?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I mean, this is going to sound cliché, but it's true. Whoever is doing this needs to hear this: raising money is not the goal. A lot of people are like, "Hey, I want to talk to you. I'll invest in a company," and they'll say, "I want to talk to you about what metrics we need to do to be able to raise an A in 9 months," or "We're starting to plan for our Series B. I want to talk to you about what metrics we need to hit the B." I understand what they're saying, and it's good to be thoughtful and plan. But there's a sort of implication that raising money is the milestone. It's like, "Oh, what does this business need to do to be able to achieve this outcome?" It's actually the opposite. I have a business outcome I'm trying to get to. I'm trying to get to $10,000,000 in revenue with 20% EBITDA, or I'm trying to get 20% market share in this market, or 5%. I want to grow 20% a month. You have a business outcome in mind, and then you just say, "Do I need more money to make that happen? Yes or no?" Money is the fuel; it is not the destination. It is not the...

Shaan Puri

Of the journey for raising money, I would just say, like, yeah, when you start, when you have the idea, the goal is, "Okay, well, I need to get like 1 customer, 10 customers, 100 customers, 1,000 customers." You start doing that, and then at some point, if you get stuck because you lack the money—meaning you truly need to go buy inventory or your paid ads are working, and you just need to spend more to get to the next milestone—then you raise the money. Don't raise money as your excuse to go do the business.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, and you also see a lot of deals where people are approaching you. You know me in a liquid, lesser way, but I do feel like there are a lot of people who think they need money to launch a business. Actually, they don't. They think, "Oh, it needs to be pretty," or "It has to have all these functionalities." But maybe they could just start with one functionality and have a Fiverr designer do it. You know, at least get started.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, my favorite people to fund are those who have created a company and made all the mistakes. They ended up with a small win where they got a taste of success, but not enough to retire on a yacht. The next time they start, they're not going to waste those six months on design mock-ups, branding, and getting the trademark. They know what the traps are, and they understand what you really need to do versus what you think you need to do. There's a big gap there. Usually, even if somebody tells you that experience is the best teacher, the voice in your head—typically from most entrepreneurs I meet—is giving you some bad advice the first time through. It's okay; just go do it, learn those lessons, and then the second time, you're much better off.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, I agree. Then, last question: would you rather do a boxing match against Sam or do an Ironman with me and Sully?

Shaan Puri

Both, I’d rather do the boxing match with Sam because that sounds more fun and exciting than an endurance race. But yes, I would do a boxing match with Sam. I think that'd be great. You know, I've always wanted to feel what it's like to be in a real fight. I think I got into one or two little altercations when I was younger, like in high school or middle school. But it was always like I hit the kid and then he ran away, or like he hit me and then it got broken up. It never...

Ramon Van Meer

yeah yeah

Shaan Puri

I was like, "Okay, let's do this. Let's get started. No one's gonna break this up." And the... [goal] is to actually get in a fight, so I would do it. Although Sam is definitely like, you know, on horse tranquilizers or whatever... like horse growth hormone or whatever he's taking. That guy's built like an **absolute monster** right now. So, you know, I need a little training. But I would do it.

Ramon Van Meer

Actually, a lot of people have been noticing because he's been posting videos of me and him sparring. You know, he wants to become a fitness influencer now.

Shaan Puri

To his credit, by the way, he posts videos of you hitting him and him going down. Normally, when people post, they cherry-pick what makes them look good. He does the opposite; he posts videos of you hitting him with liver shots and him falling down over and over again, like a compilation.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, and to be also to his credit, he started 4 or 5 months ago. Not super serious, not that he's doing it every day, but he actually got really good really fast. You know, I've been training much longer. But a lot of people in the Twitter comments are actually voting for you versus Sam. So, yeah, maybe we should give the fans what they need.

Shaan Puri

Let's give the fans what they want! Yeah, we need like a Kickstarter or a GoFundMe or something. It's like if a certain number of people vote for this or buy the pre-pay-per-view—$5 pay-per-view of this—we'll do it. We need like whatever, 10,000 pre-buys.

Ramon Van Meer

okay 10,000 pre buys that's the goal

Shaan Puri

10,000 pre buys of a $10 pay per view and then we'll do it

Ramon Van Meer

Okay, let's set it up and then you can...

Shaan Puri

it can be like

Ramon Van Meer

you can

Shaan Puri

be like I don't know 4 months to to train and we'll fulfill the training

Ramon Van Meer

4 months to train

Shaan Puri

do it yeah 4 to 6 whatever

Ramon Van Meer

Each one can get one good boxing trainer. Do you want to do boxing or MMA?

Shaan Puri

Boxing is simple. I don't have time to learn five martial arts, so we'll get to the point where we're both not great at boxing, and then we'll do it.

Ramon Van Meer

Yeah, let's do it! I think we should do it. Then maybe Sully and I can box too as the pre-fight.

Shaan Puri

The unguard? Yeah, we should get... we'll let anybody. It's a CEO boxing tournament.

Ramon Van Meer

Yes, and we stream it. We do it in a really small, ratchet boxing gym here.

Shaan Puri

that's right

Ramon Van Meer

So we can go there and then we'll just stream it for the people, right? 10,000 pre-buys, that's a lot but I think it's doable, especially if we can get the support of your listeners.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, we're saying it now. People will just have to see. We'll just have to give them a link, and let's get them a link and let's do it.

Ramon Van Meer

it yes alright because I cannot wait

Shaan Puri

Alright, perfect. Okay, I gotta run. I have to do a call with this guy, Ramon. Thanks for being on! Where should people find you? So now you're Twitter famous. Is it @RamonVanMeer? Is that your Twitter handle, right?

Ramon Van Meer

yeah ramon at ramon van meer altogether

Shaan Puri

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