How to Network with Billionaires with Andrew Wilkinson | My First Million Ep. #174

Sam Parr

Everyone we have a special episode with andrew wilkinson I'm gonna tell you about him in a second I think you're gonna like this episode but I have a huge favor so look sean and I we spend a ton of time preparing for this podcast like hours tens of hours a week 20 30 hours a week preparing just for these 2 episodes and I know it sounds like we're kind of shooting the shit in in a way we are but we actually work so hard at it and I need a favor from you I'm begging you please leave us a review in itunes so if you're listening to this on spotify just click click your podcast app or whatever it's called in android and go to the itunes store and just leave us a review click 5 stars and just click like I really like it or leave one star and be like hey sam you suck whatever but we need reviews and the reason why we need reviews is we go higher up in the charts and the higher up in the charts we go the more listeners we get and the more listeners that we get the more ad revenue or hubspot money we can make which we can then put back into the show and do more stuff if you notice we've hired a team to create videos we've done that because they've get we're getting more views and we're able to invest more into this podcast and we wanna do more stuff we actually wanna go on a live tour this summer and we wanna come to you we'll do it for free but we need to get more listeners and the easiest way to do that is just to leave a review I know you hear a lot of podcast saying do this and most of you are just like kinda skip to this part but for real do it in fact if you do do it and you send me an email [email protected] or I prefer you do this you tweet at me the sam parr and take a screenshot of your review and make sure I see it and I'm gonna call all of you out everyone who leaves a review I'm gonna call you out I'll I'll either do it on twitter or I'll do this on podcast but I'm gonna recognize you for doing it so please make that happen I have a feeling that this podcast is gonna get listened by a lot of people and so get that in sooner rather than later so I don't miss it but go ahead and do that and it'll be a really big deal for us so leave a review please now let's talk about today's episode so today we have andrew wilkinson andrew wilkinson is a good friend of ours he's really interesting because he does everything so basically andrew started with this design agency called metalab he grew metalab to like $50,000,000 in revenue out of based out of canada and it was very profitable something like 20 $30,000,000 of profit on like $50,000,000 in sales something like that and using that profit he went and bought a variety of companies and at this.

Sam Parr

They own about **20 different companies**, ranging from a bakery to various types of software. He just bought a company called **Girlboss** and a few others. In this podcast, we're going to talk about what companies he's buying and why he's buying them. He's also done some interesting things, like you ever read about how someone bought lunch with **Warren Buffett**? Well, he did that with a bunch of different investors, and that's really fascinating. So, give the episode a listen. Look up **Andrew Wilkinson**; he's very active on Twitter. If you tweet at him, he'll reply. If you tweet at me, **Sam Parr**, I'll reply as well. **Sean** did not make this episode because he has a **4-week-old baby**, so that's why we're doing some of these extra episodes without him. Please leave us a review and let me know what you think. **Abreu**, how did you rate this episode? I forget what you gave it.

Andrew Wilkinson

I think this was definitely in the A's. We covered a lot of ground—a bunch of stuff. Andrew brought the heat, as always. A bunch of opportunities; I think everyone's going to like it.

Sam Parr

Today's episode is an "A." That's good! I'll take it. What was your favorite part?

Andrew Wilkinson

He had a ton of stuff on how he grows his network. Andrew's super smart; he has a bunch of billionaire friends. He kind of lays out his strategy for meeting all these people, and I think that's applicable to just about anybody listening.

Sam Parr

Alright, well everyone, give it a listen. Please, please, please give us a review. I'm telling you, I'll owe you big time, and it actually makes a huge difference. Sean and I read every review, and we actually talk about all of them. We'll say, "Is this person right? Should we keep doing this?" Or, "This guy teased us for doing X, Y, and Z. Should we actually stop doing that? What should we do?" So, we read all of them. Leave us a review. Listen up. See you! Alright, what's going on?

Andrew Wilkinson

not too much man beautiful day here in victoria what about you

Sam Parr

Nothing. I've been spending all my time on this podcast, trying to make it huge. We've got some really cool stuff planned, and I'm excited to see it work out.

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, I feel like you guys are really ramping up. There's a new episode in my inbox like every single day.

Sam Parr

Well, what's... yes, it's going really well. We did the math and we're like, if it grows, if it lasts 16 months to repeat itself, we'll be at a million downloads a month by like December-ish, which is fine, which is great. But figuring out how to hack this has been really hard. So we're just trying to figure out how to make it huge.

Andrew Wilkinson

well what's hubspot what's their goal

Sam Parr

Their goal is that HubSpot has a bunch of cool stuff that they're launching. Basically, they have a lot of content initiatives, including podcasts. Their goal is to reach a certain number. I don't remember the exact number, but they say, "How do we get to 100,000,000 monthly newsletter reads, podcast listens, things like that?" So, a 100,000,000 monthly audience.

Andrew Wilkinson

And they've just done the math on, you know, if 5% of those people convert into HubSpot customers, then it pays back the acquisition or something.

Sam Parr

What? No, that's across that $100,000,000. That $100,000,000 is across all their content. It's not just the hustle. Right now, the hustle has close to 2,000,000 monthly subscribers, of which about 50-60% have an open rate. So that adds to the $100,000,000. This podcast accounts for right now $400,000, eventually it'll be $1,000,000 a month. If they have other podcasts, that's another let's say $10,000,000. So then we're at $50,000,000. Then, where's the other $50,000,000 going to come from? That's kind of how they're doing the math.

Andrew Wilkinson

But yeah, how has it changed for you? Going from staring at your P&L every month, looking at the bank account, freaking out about invoices not getting paid, to suddenly realizing, "Oh, I don't have to do that. I just have to focus on growing the audience."

Sam Parr

Yeah, so it's pretty great. A lot of people—HubSpot never said this—but a lot of people were like, "Man, you're only gonna work there for like a few months or a year, and then you're gonna want to bail." Frankly, I'm having a great time. I think I'm meant to start a company again. This is my first job I've ever had, but it's been really great. I can see myself doing this for a little while because it's awesome. And let's talk about the obvious: I made money for myself, so I can relax a little bit. It's not as hard. I'm working long, long hours, but it's not as hard because if I fail or screw up, I'm not gonna cost people their jobs. Do you know what I mean? If I make a wrong decision, I'm not necessarily gonna lose a significant amount of money, or someone's gonna have to be fired because I can't make payroll. So, the lack of stress is so good. Have you ever...?

Andrew Wilkinson

Have you noticed, like, your cortisol levels are dropping? Yes, and you're just more chill. Interesting. Dude, I'm like more agitated. I've never felt that. I've never felt that because I've always had so many different businesses. Anytime we've sold one, I've been neglecting another one for a year, and then that blows up and I get all stressed out. So, it's been... I've been thinking about this a lot. I've been going from stress to stress for, man, like 7 or 8 years, probably since we sold one of our first companies. I've been thinking lately, like, "Holy crap, I gotta de-stress." That sounds really nice, to not have to think about any of that stuff.

Sam Parr

Well, the way I described it is that when I moved out to San Francisco and put my stake in the ground, I thought, "Alright, I'm going to figure this out." I felt like I had been living with poor eyesight, and then I finally put glasses on. I was like, "Oh, this is the world! I can do anything! I could finally see!" Now, after selling, it's like I put my glasses on again and realized I had poor eyesight. I'm like to my wife now, "Oh my gosh, is this how you feel all the time? You don't have to worry about X, Y, and Z? What a crazy feeling! This is actually quite nice." Now, I want to put that stress level back on again eventually, but it's nice having that break. What I think about with you is that I'm envious of what you have in some regards. I think we're always envious of other people, especially our friends. I'm envious that you've built this huge, awesome empire that you own nearly all of, and that you have virtually all the control. Most people envy you because of that. But I also think to myself, "Wow, Andrew also hasn't chilled probably for a minute," and that's definitely the downside. In order to be the best, you definitely have to wear that worry backpack a fair bit.

Andrew Wilkinson

Oh yeah, it's crazy. It's so funny; the numbers just get bigger, right? I remember in 2012, one time we did payroll and we didn't have enough money. My business partner literally lent me money out of his personal account to close payroll. We've been at that level of stress, and you know, I never feel that now. We have enough money to go for years or whatever. It's a very different thing. But there's still that feeling of, "Oh fuck, there are like 600, 700 people relying on me to pay for their meal ticket every single month." And there are just constantly people problems, right? So yeah, I've got a lot of control, and the buck stops with me. There are a lot of things that people might envy, but at the same time, we've got 30+ companies, and there's always a problem to think about. I'm realizing I'm just constantly... I think I'm addicted to cortisol and stress. This year has been extra difficult because what I used to do is work at a café. I'd wake up, pounding with stress and cortisol, all pumped up. I'd do like 3 or 4 hours of focused work, get all the stuff I needed to get done, but then I'd go work at a café. My buddies would show up, and we'd start shooting the shit, go for a walk, play tennis, and just kind of f off. Now, with COVID, it's like I'm in a house from 8:30 in the morning until 5, and then I go see my kids. It's crazy how important distraction is. You don't get that right now, working remotely in a house. You just don't get those moments, the automatic breaks and stuff. I'm realizing, like, man, if I'm left to my own devices, I'll just stress to the nth degree and keep working.

Sam Parr

Do you think... and this is the last question I'll ask about this because I think I always try to be self-aware. Where it's like, "Oh, a bunch of dudes complaining about shit that maybe like is it...?"

Andrew Wilkinson

great problems right

Sam Parr

Yeah, well, my reply to that is, it is a great problem. But great problems are still problems. First world problems are still problems. Do you think that it will ever get... not stressful? Like, you know, we talked about Dan Gilbert last time. This billionaire guy who's got all this stuff going on. You said that he was pretty calm and present. Do you think that even a guy like him, who kind of has it all—or, I mean, people think you and I have it all, I imagine—but as a guy like him, who we think has it all, do you think that they still stress?

Andrew Wilkinson

I think it's interesting. I think Dan's probably really stressed out, or at least was, because he has so many different things that he's responsible for. If he doesn't intervene, it messes up. There are different versions of really successful people, though. Think about it: is someone who runs a private equity firm, where they have this big pool of capital they oversee and just buy businesses, the same as a hedge fund manager who buys stocks? You can have 20 employees, invest in Apple and all these companies, and at the end of the day, Apple does well or it doesn't, and you don't influence that. I think the number of things you influence is what causes the stress. In our business, we go, "Oh man, if I'm not scanning the sky for issues in all of our businesses, we could lose something or mess up." I don't know, it's a double-edged sword. Think about your parents or older people. They get upset about things like, "Oh, the neighbor moved in who doesn't want to water their lawn," or "Someone's dog keeps pooping on their front step." That stresses them out as much as you and I get stressed out about business stuff. So, I think everyone's programmed to be stressed. It's more about what tools you have to distract yourself from the stress. If you have a lot of those, then you're happy.

Sam Parr

Okay, so let's... here's the tool that we're going to use to de-stress you. Perfect segue! For the first topic today, we're going to talk about things that both you and I have invested in. Most of them are going to be things that you've invested in. We're going to spend about 3 to 5 minutes on each one, depending on how interesting they are. Whoever listed it will say what it is and why it's interesting. Then, I want to comment and tell you what I would do if I were you, and vice versa. But I want to hear your intel or your behind-the-scenes look as to why you are investing in this, why it might not work, and why it could work. Does that sound good?

Andrew Wilkinson

yeah sounds great

Sam Parr

Alright, the first one. You bought this company, who we've had Sofia Amoruso on the podcast. You bought her old company called Girlboss. Is it just girlboss.com? Is that the URL?

Andrew Wilkinson

girlboss.com yeah

Sam Parr

and what is it

Andrew Wilkinson

So, **Girlboss** is like a media company for women. Sofia started it about six years ago and built up this massive following. She began doing amazing events, podcasts, and built a social network. I met her when she was first starting it. She had done **Nasty Gal**, which was this big flameout. She built a really amazing business, doing $30,000,000 a year in online e-commerce selling used clothes. She was doing really, really well. Right, she didn't need the money, and she ended up raising from venture capital to take a little bit of money off the table. Then the venture investors got in and were like, "Hey, you gotta 20x this. Go take risks, start retail stores." She started the retail stores, and it all blew up. It was a really horrible story where she had a good thing, then she risked it, and it blew up. So, she was fresh off of that, and she said, "Look, I'm starting this company, **Girlboss**. I think I want to bootstrap it, and I might raise a little tiny round, but I'm not gonna raise venture again." We ended up investing and following along, and she ended up raising venture again. I don't know what it was specifically; I think she saw a bigger opportunity and decided to do it. The terms were great. So, she raised venture and decided to build all this stuff, like a social network for women, building an app, and all these really expensive R&D projects. It got to a...

Andrew Wilkinson

Where it just wasn't working and it wasn't venture scale. So, she sold it to these guys, Attention Capital, in New York and they... or LA.

Sam Parr

they're joe and nick right I think they're la yeah great

Andrew Wilkinson

Hey guys, yeah, and they basically focused on the event business. They had all these massive contracts that were booked, and then COVID hit. They just got themselves into a pickle where the numbers didn't make sense. They were burning too much money and lost all these contracts. So, they nudged me and said, "Hey, would you be interested in buying this?" I said, "Look, I will buy it only if I can just buy the assets." We looked at it and said, "Hey, they've got 2,000,000 social followers, a huge newsletter, and a massive podcast feed. All the pieces are there." But the cost structure was venture-backed. They had a big P&L and a ton of employees. We looked at it and went, "Okay, what if this company had 5 employees? Could you run it with 5 employees?"

Sam Parr

that how many you have now

Andrew Wilkinson

Now, I think there are maybe 7 or 8 of us or something like that. But we started with basically one person doing the newsletter, one person doing the podcast, and one person doing social media. Then we just said, "As we sell more ads, we'll hire more people." We ran it like a bootstrap business, and that's what we've been doing. I think Sophia was pretty nervous when we bought it, right? She was like, "Don't embarrass me. Make sure you hire the right people." So we worked in close partnership with her, and she's actually been really stoked about what we've been doing. So that's been awesome.

Sam Parr

I just you just you just announced a new ceo I think you hired

Andrew Wilkinson

a ceo totally

Sam Parr

So, okay, can you talk about any of the size? You have 2,000,000 subscribers and 2,000,000 social followers. How many email subscribers do you have?

Andrew Wilkinson

About $250,000, so I can't share the acquisition price.

Sam Parr

that's fine

Andrew Wilkinson

But it was, you know, let's say I felt it was a value investment based on the social followers. However, if you looked at it on a P&L basis, it was like, "Holy crap, this is a mess!" Right? Because they've been losing a lot of money.

Sam Parr

Okay, what would you be happy with for this company in 2 years? Like, how much monthly revenue?

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, what's cool about it is when we buy a business, we're generally going in knowing that if we're wrong about all the big opportunities, we might only be right about just base hits. So, like, "Hey, you know, we've got 250,000 newsletter subscribers. Can we sell $40,000 or $50,000 a month in ads on that?" If we can do that, we've got a good little business. Then, if we do that on the podcast, we've got a really good little business. And if we do that on social media, it just gets bigger and bigger. It doesn't need to be huge. Based on the price we paid, it could do $3,000,000 a year in revenue and still be an amazing business that gives us a good return. I think it could be a $20,000,000, $30,000,000, or even $50,000,000 a year business once we kind of do the events. We've been thinking about all sorts of opportunities within the business. But what I like about it is, you know, if we don't do well and if we don't grow it into a huge company, we'll still do just fine.

Sam Parr

So, I agree with that assessment. I actually think that as long as you're mildly competent, which you are, the worst-case scenario is $2,000,000 a year. I would say that's about $160,000 a month, based off of a quarter of a million email subscribers and 2,000,000 social followers. Now, it wouldn't exactly be exciting or the most fun thing. If that was the worst-case scenario, it would be like, "Man, we really missed the mark on this." But you're not going to go out of business, and you're probably not going to lose, which is pretty good. So, I actually agree with that assessment. I think that in 10 years, if you were at $30,000,000 a year in revenue, I wouldn't be surprised. It would probably be around $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 a year in advertising and $10,000,000 a year in user revenue, so ticket sales. More likely than that, I don't know if you would be able to get subscriptions to this. Maybe. I actually do think that there are a few people I know who have female-focused communities, and they do around $3,000,000 a year in revenue.

Andrew Wilkinson

Oh yeah, I'm seeing much smaller communities doing way higher revenue. We've looked at a lot of stuff for M&A, like even for Girlboss, and there's definitely some people doing really, really well with small communities. So the way I'm kind of feeling right now, like everything I look at... I don't know how familiar people are with our structure, but we mostly buy majority control of businesses. Usually, we're buying them from founders. Then, off the side of our desk, we also do a little bit of venture investing, maybe like $2,000,000 or $3,000,000 a year. We've got an AngelList rolling fund for another, I think, $11,000,000 or something like that. So my world is generally buying. So you have an $11,000,000 fund.

Sam Parr

well hold on you have an $11,000,000 rolling fund yeah that's crazy right

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, we... it's, it was insane. We literally were like, we tweeted it out as an afterthought, and we raised it in like 4 hours. It was totally insane.

Sam Parr

11,000,000 yeah

Andrew Wilkinson

I think we're one of the biggest ones

Sam Parr

I think so. I think that you might be like the second or third biggest. I think I heard of a $16,000,000 one, but you guys might be number 2.

Andrew Wilkinson

Might actually size it up because you can... it's limited just by the number of people. And if you have... yeah, there's no amount. So if someone wants to do $5,000,000, they can do that. So there are some people.

Sam Parr

who are looking

Andrew Wilkinson

To do more, we've got AngelList doing it. They administer everything and...

Sam Parr

then I'm sorry who's deciding

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, I decided, right? So basically, I already make probably one or two venture investments a month. It's usually like, you know, a friend of mine emails me and says, "Hey, I'm starting a company," or one of our agencies is working with a company that we think is cool or something. I just go, "Okay, well, I'll put in $100." Now, instead of putting in $100, I put in $500 or $1,000 via the rolling fund. I just invest my personal money into the rolling fund. So anyway, we do venture investing. I look at that as like a hobby. It's kind of like roulette, right? It's just betting on friends, having fun, looking at companies. What I'm seeing in venture is absolutely insane. I've seen companies with a founder who's a first-time founder with an idea, and they're raising at a $40 million pre-valuation. Right? Like just totally crazy stuff. In the private market, you know, there's all this crazy, you know, endless money and low interest rates and stuff. Almost everything we look at is just bid up like crazy.

Andrew Wilkinson

Where we look at it and we go, "I don't see any world, even if everything goes right, where we can make our money back at this price." So for most of this year, we've basically just been sitting on our hands and waiting, trying to find hidden value. The way I think about hidden value is kind of like "girlboss." You look at the P&L and it looks like, "Oh, whoa, this is losing a lot of money. I don't know how to value this." But you look at it and go, "Under our ownership, what can this do?" You make a new P&L in your head where you're like, "Oh, I actually need 5 people. My only costs are AWS and Mailchimp and stuff." So we've been doing a bunch of that. Really, we've just been kind of sitting and waiting and getting creative. I'll talk about this guy, Henry Singleton, later, but we really are just trying to issue stock when it's highly valued and buy stuff back when it's cheap. We've been looking across our portfolio and just going, "How can we do M&A with our stock? How can we buy cheap businesses and bolt them in that people don't understand?" But it's crazy out there, right?

Sam Parr

Now, what? Okay, but to play devil's advocate, this is something that I'm playing within my head: What do I stand for? What's going to be my principles for investing? I haven't settled on what those are yet, although I have some guiding principles. They're not solidified entirely. A good friend of mine, Andreessen Horowitz, said, "Don't worry too much about valuation because whatever's hot will continue to be hot." A lot of times, the valuations looking back will be like, "Oh, that was cheap," but then in the middle of it, it always appears to be expensive. But the real winners, it won't matter that much. Of course, his lens for looking at that is quite narrow, albeit effective, but narrow. What's your take on that?

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, I think I'm assuming Andrew Chen because I know you're friends with him. I think they're amazing investors—some of the best in venture. I think the hard part is, you know, if you'd taken that same approach in 1999, it would have been really hard to be a winner. Right? Because you see the same kind of stuff happening where historically, I think we're at an all-time high in terms of just like pre-money valuations. But back then, I mean, there were companies that were pre-revenue selling for a billion dollars and all the same crazy stuff. The problem is that within that haystack, there's an Amazon, right? Or an eBay or a Google, but you just don't know which one they are. So, I think if you were to go out and index and buy 100 random startups in 1999, you'd probably lose money. And I'd argue you'd probably lose money today if you went out and indexed. To me, the only way I'll bet on someone at a high valuation is if I know that they're a proven operator—like if they're a founder who's done really well historically and I have a lot of trust and think they're amazingly smart. I don't worry too much about valuation, but dude, some of the stuff I'm seeing is just wacky. Just crazy, crazy stuff.

Sam Parr

Is there one thing that you're seeing that interests you a ton? Have you had the chance to invest in it, or did you pass on it but still think it's quite amazing? So, you're saying that you've seen, and I have too, ideas from people who don't know what they're doing—or at least you don't know if they know what they're doing—and they're getting these huge valuations. Is there anything that you've seen lately where you're like, "Oh my gosh, this thing potentially could be the coolest thing I've ever seen?"

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, I think if there's one thing I've learned over the last 10 years, it's that when you see something and you get lit up about it, ignore the valuation and just invest. Right? Like, there are lots of companies that I was super excited about, but I was like, "Oh, I'm a value investor. I'm not going to do this on these terms."

Sam Parr

like what

Andrew Wilkinson

And I should have... I mean, I've got the ultimate anti-portfolio of, you know, Coinbase, Slack, and all sorts of other stuff. Running an agency in Silicon Valley for 10 years, you just see all sorts of things, right? It turns out to be big. I think the thing I'm most excited about and nervous about at the same time right now is the crypto stuff. There's a company I saw recently that I didn't get the opportunity to invest in, but I think it's genius. So the crazy thing about crypto is, at least theoretically, historically, if you are a member of a website like Reddit, let's say, and you're an early user—let's say you're one of the first 100 users of Reddit—and you built it into something, you actually derive no value. You don't get paid. You're like a Wikipedia contributor, and then Reddit makes a billion dollars.

Sam Parr

I know where you're going with this one

Andrew Wilkinson

For the first time ever, I could start up Andrew Reddit and I could say, "Hey, all the people who move over from Reddit based on the number of followers you have or whatever your rankings are, I'm going to issue a coin in Andrew Reddit." As everyone moves over and posts more, you become more valuable. It's kind of like the BitCloud thing. Right now, BitCloud's kind of whatever... BS. But I think for the first time, social networks and network effects are actually vulnerable to this. One of the businesses I saw that I thought was fascinating was a company called Braintrust. What they've done is they've basically created a really nice Upwork. So, it's like you go to the website, and it looks like a really well-designed version of Upwork.

Sam Parr

is this gabe yes I know gabe

Andrew Wilkinson

I I know him too

Sam Parr

He called me a year ago when he was about to launch this. He told me all about it because he was hiring a content person. I have not checked in on this.

Andrew Wilkinson

Go ahead. So, I don't know what he was doing a year ago, but basically, you go to this website and it looks like, you know, Upwork. It's like, "Hey, hire contractors for design and development, whatever you need." But then it says, "No fees." I was like, "Well, how the hell do they have no fees? That's crazy!" Because Upwork charges like 5 or 10% of all the projects. What they do very quietly is they have a coin. They have a Brain Trust coin, and they have people whose job is to basically be project managers on there. Those people get paid in the coin. All the transactions occur in the coin. So, it's almost like if Uber had issued a coin to all their early drivers, and then as they participate in the network, they get rich. They don't go to Lyft because they're already rich in Uber coin, right? So, it creates this lock-in and aligns incentives. Before, it was always this thing where it was labor versus capital, and this is the first time it's all aligned. It's all, you know, very theoretical and early, and I don't know whether it's a good time to invest right now, but it's obviously the future to me.

Sam Parr

Interesting. So, let's talk about this. For the listeners, the guy who started this, his name is Gabe. What's his last name? Asta? Astyokota?

Andrew Wilkinson

that's a is that

Sam Parr

He's got two last names. Him and his wife have hyphenated it, so I forget his full name. Anyway, he started a company called...

Andrew Wilkinson

luna oostaseki seski or something yes yes

Sam Parr

Yes, he started this thing called Cal... I forget what it was called. Caltech? No, not that. It was something like a lead generation site for roofers and home services. It grew to like $30,000,000 a year in revenue. I don't know how, but in some way, he cashed out. Maybe his partners bought him out or something like that. He started this thing called Brain Trust about 18 months ago, I think. So, I actually will email him after this and be like, "Hey, what's going on? You raising?" Because this is really cool. I think I agree with you; this is really cool. He's a very proven entrepreneur. Now, the thing I get nervous about when it comes to people like him is: will they be hungry enough to make it big? I get nervous about that. Do you?

Andrew Wilkinson

I don't really think too much about that because I think we all know, like, you know, you're going to have this exit and you won't be hungry in the same way where you're like, you'll claw someone's eyes out to be successful. You've already become successful. But I think, over time, it's just like you start going, "Okay, I proved it once. Now I have to do it again at double the size." It's the same thing that everyone says where it's like, "What's the perfect amount of money?" It's like 2 or 3 times whatever you currently have. So if you exited for $30 million this time, you gotta exit for $90 million next time. I... it's just, that's just the way people seem to work.

Sam Parr

God, that's great! Alright, let's talk about another one. I'll tell you about this one that I just did the other day. I actually think it has more reasons why it will fail than why it will win. It's called Tails. Let me find the URL... I don't even know it. I remember it's tailswriters.com, so I'm gonna text it to you. On the surface, this has a lot of things that I don't like. It's kind of like an iPhone game type of thing; it's pretty hit-driven. But I'm interested in this for a couple of reasons. Basically, what it is, is this technology where authors can upload their books that they've already written. They've made it so they can turn a prewritten book into an interactive story, which is kind of interesting. I invested in it for a couple of reasons. One, I've been crazy fascinated with how authors can make more money because I think books traditionally are a horrible way to make money off of someone who spends, like, you know, two years of their life writing something. It's pretty shitty. Like, our friend Jack Butcher probably makes more money off his one course, which impacts probably 10,000 people, than a book that is read by a million people. That's pretty crazy when you think about it.

Andrew Wilkinson

I think this is fascinating, though, because I'm writing a book right now. I don't know if I'm even going to release it. I might just turn it into a bunch of Twitter tweet storms, blog posts, or something, or make a podcast out of it. What's interesting, too, is that when you have all that content, you can take it and put it across all the different channels. Right? You can build it once, put it everywhere, and monetize it across all those different places. Well, there is legitimacy... there's legitimacy around that.

Sam Parr

I know being able to

Andrew Wilkinson

Hand someone a book and say, "This is my story," as I want you to understand it. You know, it's like Phil Knight is the man because of *Shoe Dog*, right?

Sam Parr

I agree. I don't think a book is going to go away, but I think that what you should do is write a book as a **loss leader** and then do all this other stuff, of which Tales is one of those things. The reason why this has fascinated me is that I think romance novels, anime, and entertainment like that, particularly among young folks and women, is one of the biggest genres there is. I mean, it's just a rabid fan base; people love this stuff. I invested in this thing because I think an author can charge like **$30** for an interactive book, and people will read it a lot and consume it a ton. There's a company in China—I'm always fascinated with how the Chinese monetize content—called, well, the American translation is just called **China Literature**. It's an **$80 billion** publicly traded company that does something just like this in China. I'm fascinated with how authors can make more money, and I'm interested in bringing the Chinese habits to America. Also, the founder of this company invested like **$800,000** of his own money into the business, and I was like, "Oh, that's cool. You're betting on it." I'm interested in that. So that's a recent one I did, but there are so many reasons why this can fail. It could be incredibly expensive to acquire users. I don't know if the users are going to even stay for that long, and it could be a total hits-driven business. So this actually has a lot of reasons why it could fail and a couple of reasons why it could work.

Andrew Wilkinson

How the... I think the hard part about this, though, is that you've got to do all this custom work on each book. I get they've built the framework, but you probably have to have someone illustrate like a comic almost for every single one.

Sam Parr

So, that's the technology that they've built. It's like they make it really easy for yourself, like you're the author, to make it interactive. So, that's the whole technology behind it. But we'll see if they can pull it off. It's been around for 12 months, so it's a working MVP, but it's to be determined if they're going to pull it off. That's one thing I've just invested in. Alright, your turn! What do you got? What do you want to go over? Which one?

Andrew Wilkinson

so we just we just we keep investing in this business and it's a lot of people don't understand it it's called medimap and alright let's talk about medimap so up in canada can you spell it yeah m e d I m a p so up in canada we have socialized health care so the government pays for it and if you want to get care you can't just call any doctor and get in right so there's this whole system if you want to see a dermatologist you have to go go to a you know a general practitioner get a referral it takes 6 months in many ways it's better because anyone who wants it gets health care but the quality of care is probably lower overall and what it's resulted in is a system where a lot of people don't have doctors and you have to go to a walk in clinic and there's all these walk in clinics you know all over canada and this this guy came to me like 5 years ago because I had invested in a few other health care businesses and he goes hey I'm gonna build this business called medimap and basically you're gonna be able to go to the website and you're gonna see the wait times at every single clinic in canada and I was like well why would the who's going to fill out the times right like how are you going to and he goes well I'm going to convince the clinic owners that they want to be on this site and they should punch in you know the wait times every hour and I was like this seems insane like f off I'm not going to invest right comes back 6 months later and he goes hey I've got 25% of all clinics in canada using this and I'm like well like how did you do that and it turns out that every single clinic every day gets 10 phone calls a minute and all the phone calls are is hey what's the wait time right because everyone's trying to go where the lowest wait time is and so there's this huge incentive all the clinic owners went oh my god I don't have to have 2 medical office assistants I can just have 1 and that that one can just punch in the wait time so now this business has 86% of all medical walk in clinics in canada and every single one has software installed wait time software installed on their computers so we've been investing in this business it's been you know losing money and we've been building out this network right and our thinking is once we have the network there's a lot of really interesting things we can do with the network and we've started expanding that so this is it started as a venture investment and then we ended up buying we now have a like a control position in it we're about to buy even more of it and there's a lot of models globally for this like zocdoc and other folks and so now that we've got the network established we have no competitors even if someone raised a $100,000,000 I don't know how you go out and convince every clinic walk in clinic owner in canada to switch to your software over ours and so we're starting to now layer in physiotherapy naturopaths massage all sorts of other services and then we're also integrating into the booking engines for all of these and these people can pay to promote their clinic and get more bookings and stuff like that so I'm super excited about it and it's one of those businesses you might look at and go you know I don't get it where's the value but it's it's really really cool and we're super excited about it

Sam Parr

Well, I'm on the site and I typed in my location. I'm like, "Oh wait, they're just in Canada." Yeah, they typed.

Andrew Wilkinson

in like vancouver or something

Sam Parr

I typed in "Vancouver." So, the way it works is, I typed in Vancouver, and it says "Crossroads Walk-In Clinic" closes at 7 PM. As of right now, they've got a 30-minute wait time. I can click and join the waitlist, and then I select what I'm going to tell the doctor and how I want to do the visit... yada, yada, yada. So, how do they make money? Does the doctor pay per leave?

Andrew Wilkinson

No, the doctor is totally free to use. I believe the doctor can create a nicer profile, so they can upload their logo and stuff, but we don't make any money off of that. The idea is that over time, we build a stronger network. We can start to get direct connections. For example, you can click to join the waitlist immediately, and that's all free. What we make money on is when you go and say, "Oh, I want a chiropractor," or "I need to find a pharmacy and send in a prescription." We can do referral agreements with all those different clinics or pharmacies. But right now, we haven't monetized it. This is like a task.

Sam Parr

people work there

Andrew Wilkinson

like 5 or 6 it's very small

Sam Parr

Oh, it's small and it looks like you got, according to SimilarWeb, you guys are getting around 100 to 150 thousand visitors a month. The traffic is mostly search and direct, which is like the greatest thing ever. I mean, that's exactly what you'd want. So, I imagine you are spending...

Andrew Wilkinson

it's a unique database right like there's nowhere else you can go in canada to get wait list times

Sam Parr

and I can't I'm so you're you're probably spending $0 on advertising is that right

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, we've experimented a little bit with it, but we spend very little on this. So, it's going back to understanding a moat and realizing, "Oh, this is something no one can compete with." We've spent the last five years losing money and building the network, and now it's like there's no way to disrupt this. Think of all the different things you can build in this. I always like to say, you know, we like to buy airport businesses. An airport is, you know, there's one airport in the city. If you want to go somewhere and fly, you've got to go and sit in the lobby for an hour. When you're sitting in the lobby, I'm going to try and sell you a bunch of stuff. So, I've got all the stalls, and I can put in a massage place, a bookstore, or somewhere to sell sandwiches, whatever. This is an airport business, and right now, all the stalls are empty. We're going to start monetizing it and filling in all the stalls.

Sam Parr

That's a great analogy or a great story. Where did you learn that one? Because before, you had New Zealand businesses, which I like. Where?

Andrew Wilkinson

who taught you made it up

Sam Parr

You made it up? That's a good one! I like that one; that's really good. I'm going to steal that one. So, like, yeah, Medimap. I could see how this is going to work. If I had to guess, I would say you've lost maybe $6,000,000 on this so far. Like, I...

Andrew Wilkinson

was I think that's that's like I think exactly how much we put in that was a good guess yeah

Sam Parr

I'm just doing the math. You're not spending... you're probably only spending money on 5 or 6 salaries a month, plus hosting, which comes out to be probably $85,000 to $95,000 a month. You've done it for 5 years. I just made that number up, so...

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, it goes back to if that was in the States, it would have been more competitive, right? Because in Canada, healthcare is not privatized. Not a lot of people are moving into it, and there's just not a lot of venture competition. So, if we were in the States, we would have had to raise $30,000,000, move super fast, and be really aggressive. But we're able to kind of quietly go out and do this and build the network.

Sam Parr

Is Zocdoc the nearest competitor? I mean, Zocdoc, I think they're a multibillion-dollar company, is that right?

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, they're only in the States, right? And so, you know, I think it would be illogical if they were ever to move internationally. They'd be a logical acquirer of Medimap. I think that they're a great model. Right now, we're looking at it and going, "Okay, how do we roll out the Zocdoc playbook or find similar businesses elsewhere?"

Sam Parr

I don't mean competitor, but I mean it's the Zocdoc... like the most, the nearest... yeah, the nearest comparable. Zocdoc is a multibillion-dollar company, I think. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I'm looking... I would imagine the thing with this company is going to be backlinks. What's interesting about you guys is I'm looking at it now. You've got 750 referring domains, which is actually lower than I thought. You've got 71,100 backlinks. But here's why it's kind of actually interesting: the way that you're doing it, none of your... all your traffic, I imagine, is going to be search. Like, someone's going to type in "this clinic wait time" or "this clinic phone number," and you're going to show up. Like, don't call, just click to see the wait time. But what's weird to me is, in Canada, do you guys have .gov websites? Is .gov only an American thing?

Andrew Wilkinson

No, we have that. It's like **.gov.ca** or something, but I think we have **.gov**.

Sam Parr

The reason I'm asking is if most of your traffic is going to come from search. You are going to... and if some of these clinics are... I don't know how the Canadian health care system is, but if they're a government-sponsored or a government-owned health care clinic, I would imagine they would have a doctor.

Andrew Wilkinson

This is the important distinction: they’re not government-owned, they’re government-regulated. So, the way it works is a clinic opens, and they’re challenging businesses because the government basically dictates how much you can charge per visit. The government has to approve it, and they may have to be run by a doctor. So, it’s basically like you can make sliver-thin margins. That’s again why having someone calling all the time, and saving money on not having someone on the phone all the time, is massive for a clinic owner.

Sam Parr

But here's what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at is this could actually be a much bigger moat than I realized. If you're getting a bunch of .gov websites linking back to you, a .gov URL is worth— the SEOs out there will correct me— but something like 100 times more valuable than a .com. So, I'm looking at this website. If you could... if I'm looking at your media, what's it called? Medimap. I'm looking at the clinics. If they all link back to you, and many of them are .govs, .orgs, or whatever, or .edu's, you're going to have a stupid amount of backlinks. You're going to have a significant advantage over anyone because you're just going to crush on search. Google ranks any .gov significantly higher than a .com or a .edu. So, let's say you can get a university clinic or something to refer back to you. It's going to be actually quite amazing, I think. I would imagine this is the type of company that's going to be slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, and then all of a sudden, it's just going to be like, "Oh!" No one's going to catch us.

Andrew Wilkinson

Like nobody, nobody gets this. They go, "Oh, you know, there's always virtual care, like Teladoc kind of stuff in Canada." I just keep saying, "Well, when you break your arm, you're not gonna go on Teladoc," right? This is like a certainty—like death and taxes. The certainty is people will always need physical doctors. Yeah, virtual will be 20%, 30%, whatever, but it's not going away.

Sam Parr

it's gonna yeah you you don't you I'm not gonna call the doctor when I have a kidney stone so

Andrew Wilkinson

why don't why don't you tell me about hustle + I don't know about this

Sam Parr

I wanna... I wanna... I wanna. Do you wanna do Hustle +, or can we talk about bakery and then cybersecurity? And then, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Wilkinson

yeah sure single's jump to that is that okay totally

Sam Parr

I wanna talk about bakeries so you is this the bakery that you've already bought

Andrew Wilkinson

So, no. I own a bakery. When I grew up, my little brother worked at a local bakery just down the street from our house. It was his first job, and I used to go there all the time. I got to know the owner, and I used to help him with his computer when I was about 14. Then, maybe like four years ago, he said, "Hey, look, my parents are getting old. I want to retire, and I'm thinking about selling my business." I was like, "Well, I don't know the first thing about bakeries," but he's got a really good manager in place. I didn't want this to go to the wrong people. I literally grew up going to this bakery; it's like an institution in my city. I love it. So, I said, "You know what? I'll buy it." And so I bought it. Now, I own an Italian bakery and deli, and it's actually a good little business. It's that thing I always think back to: if all this technology stuff fails and all my stocks go to zero, I always have a bakery. That's not going to go anywhere for 40 years. But the idea at the bakery... a couple of months ago, some friends and I did a paleo diet challenge, and I felt amazing. However, I had crazy carb and sugar cravings. I just wanted a treat, basically. When you're doing paleo, you're not allowed any grains or sugar. There are hacks around that, right? You can say, "Okay, I'm having something that's sweetened with honey or coconut flour or maple syrup," or whatever. But those are all total BS, right? They still spike your blood sugar. If you eat a spoonful of table sugar versus a spoonful of maple syrup, it's pretty much... maybe a little better, but equally bad for you. So, I started researching who...

Sam Parr

convinced you otherwise

Andrew Wilkinson

what do you mean

Sam Parr

I would have thought that that was obvious

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people think... like I talk to friends of mine and they're like, "Oh, I gave my kids these really great snacks. They're sweetened with coconut sugar." And I'm just like, "Dude, sugar is sugar." If you wear a blood glucose monitor, it's insane. So anyway, I started researching all these non-sugar sweeteners and trying to think about how to hack this and make some snacks that I could eat.

Sam Parr

like

Andrew Wilkinson

Stevia, like aspartame and all the old sweeteners, has been around for a while. I realized there's this whole new generation of sweeteners. A lot of the old ones can cause stomach problems, dysbiosis, or stomach cramps. However, there are new ones that actually taste really good, don't cause any blood sugar spikes, and are relatively healthy, like allulose, stevia, and xylitol. I actually found a baker and contracted them. I said, "Hey, make me 5 or 6 different things. I want to see if I can create something interesting." I started making chocolate chip cookies and blueberry walnut cookies, among other things. They were insanely good! What I would do is give them to my friends and say, "Hey, I baked these cookies. Let me know what you think." They would eat them and say they were really good. Then I would tell them, "Well, there's no sugar, and they don't spike your blood sugar. They're all healthy ingredients, like almond flour and almond butter." I started thinking about it. Everyone wants to be healthy right now, but they're used to going to a bakery and eating something unhealthy. Given the option, would they choose something that's higher-end and healthy but still tastes the same or better? Think about McDonald's. It was the standard in the '90s, but now there's Chipotle. If you're a little more health-conscious, you go to Chipotle. I thought, "Holy crap! I don't really want to get into the bakery business, but this seems like a great opportunity." So, I've been working on developing all these recipes. I've started making... are you...

Sam Parr

kidding me god you are so funny

Andrew Wilkinson

So, yeah, I’m literally starting a bakery. It’s going to be delivery only to start, just as a beta test, and I’m calling it **Euphoria**. The idea is basically to taste as good as a normal bakery, but it’s actually really healthy for you. I’ve worn a glucose monitor and I’ve done all these experiments.

Sam Parr

are you doing levels what are you using

Andrew Wilkinson

I'm not doing levels; I just use a Dexcom. But anyway, I'm beta testing it with a bunch of friends right now. In a couple of weeks, I'm launching it on DoorDash and going to experiment. Oh my, it's just like one of those random moments, you know? When a business just slaps you in the face. Yeah, didn't you? I want this for myself.

Sam Parr

That's so silly! I can't believe this. This is very you. I find this to be... I'm very envious of you for doing this. I think this is so freaking cool! How much did you employ this baker full-time, or what are you doing with them?

Andrew Wilkinson

You just contract. I found someone who can work part-time, and I'm just doing that to start. It's very like 80/20. I'm like, how do I invest as little money as possible and as little time as possible to do it? So, I hired a designer to do a logo and a simple website. Then, I hired a baker to do the baking and a photographer to photograph everything. And that's it.

Sam Parr

what's your start up cost going to be

Andrew Wilkinson

5 5 or $10 probably maybe a little more

Sam Parr

than that

Andrew Wilkinson

So, it's... and again, this is probably nothing, but it's one of those things like, at the very least.

Sam Parr

I just think it's cool. Yeah, it's definitely going to be something. I mean, is it going to be like *the* thing? Who knows? It's definitely going to be a thing. I mean, like, you kind of... if you screw this up, you're kind of an idiot. Like, yeah, this is...

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, it goes back to like if I just called it a "paleobakery," even if it was unhealthy and not great, it would do well. Right? And then you add on to that, like, you know, all the glucose stuff and all the other trends that are getting hot right now. I think it's quite interesting.

Sam Parr

To summarize, I think this is such a great idea. I think it will be fun and that it will make life worth living. Little stuff like this is what makes life worth living, but maybe you could be immensely profitable. This is really smart. I have a friend named David Hauser who started Grasshopper.

Andrew Wilkinson

know him

Sam Parr

Grasshopper... a lot of people know Dave. He's a good guy. Grasshopper was the software company that he sold for $200 million. It was entirely bootstrapped. It was basically like a small business phone service. You pay $10 or something a month and you get a phone line. He started this thing called Nut Butter... is that what you... no, what's it called?

Andrew Wilkinson

it's like a peanut butter pouch right

Sam Parr

Like a peanut butter... what it's called? It's a keto thing. Yeah, and the business is so much harder than a software company. But he's having so much fun, and it seems exciting.

Andrew Wilkinson

I think there's a double-edged sword, right? I used to always ask people, like, you always get all these tech people who make tons of money or whatever, and you're like, "Well, you know, what are you doing with your money? Are you starting any weird things?" You know, I love Dan Gilbert, which I talked about in the last episode, because he went, "How do I make my city better?" It's like doing the fun stuff with money. The way I look at this is like, hey, I'm scratching an itch for something I want, my friends might want, but I make my city better. It's just a cool, fun thing to play with, right? I think the fun part of entrepreneurship is going, "This should exist," and making it exist. But at the same time, I've done stupid stuff like that. I started a pizza restaurant and I lost $800,000 doing it. It was a total disaster. I was getting phone calls like, you know, we had an alcoholic manager who was sleeping in the restaurant. We had a sketchy landlord. We had just endless stress and bullshit. So, this stuff is fun too.

Andrew Wilkinson

And the key that I've learned is just hiring amazing people. I only like the beginning; this part is fun, but I gotta get out really quick.

Sam Parr

Have you heard of the Barber Motorsports Museum and racetrack? No? So, there's this guy in Alabama. Where is it? Somewhere in Alabama. Let's see... it's in Birmingham, Alabama, but it's in the country, I think, of Birmingham, Alabama. His name is George Barber. He's probably 80 years old now. His father started a dairy company—just imagine an Alabama dairy company. That's what it was. He sold it to Dean Foods for $500,000,000 or something like that. They were probably breaking it in throughout the entire 50 years in which they owned it. With all that money, he went and started this thing called the Barber Track and Barber Motorcycle and Car Museum. He has something like 1,000 or 2,000 cars. I believe it's the largest collection of motorcycles in the whole world. He has this world-class track where Indy cars and Rolex-sponsored Formula 1 races take place. People from all over Europe, Monaco, all come to Birmingham, Alabama, to go to this Barber racetrack. It's done so much for the community. I think he invested probably $50,000,000 to make it because it's a nonprofit. You can look at how many assets they have, how much cash they have, and what their revenue is. It's amazing. It's similar to your bakery thing. Now, a lot of people think, "Oh, how much can a car museum and a track help the community?" Well, it actually helps a ton because everyone says, "I'm gonna go to Barber soon and take this lesson," yada, yada, yada. And that's my version of a bakery or saving Detroit. I want to start a car museum and a car track. I think that... oh, I...

Andrew Wilkinson

I was talking to a friend about this yesterday. Do you remember like 10 or 15 years ago when Portland was suddenly cool? Everyone was saying, "Oh my god, you gotta go to Portland!" The reason Portland became cool was because of the Ace Hotel. The Ace Hotel was just kind of a funky hotel. It had a photo booth, a good bar, and all this other stuff. It was kind of new. I always think, what's the Ace Hotel that you can add to your own city? In Victoria, it's like, what's the thing that people come to see? Right now, it's some twee English shops, a beautiful garden, and a few other historical things. There's nothing cool. So I've been thinking a lot about this. Is it like a crazy bar, a music venue, or a hotel? What's the thing that makes this place a destination? I think something as simple as that can change an entire city. I don't know what the answer is, but that kind of stuff is really interesting to me.

Sam Parr

Earlier, you brought up Henry Singleton. I like Henry Singleton. I've read this really good book called *The Outsiders*. I know that's probably your bible, is that right?

Andrew Wilkinson

I love that book

Sam Parr

Okay, so *The Outsiders*—it's a great book. It's about 12 CEOs who are, quote, "outsiders." The commonalities are that they're kind of quiet and a bit afraid of the press. They are typically located in places like Nebraska or somewhere not in Silicon Valley or New York. They get pretty good results, and they achieve this every single year for like 50 years. They might grow something by 20% or 15%, but they do it consistently over such a long period that by year 20, 30, or 40, it's like, "Oh my gosh, they're Warren Buffett, they're Henry Singleton," yada, yada, yada. Who is this guy?

Andrew Wilkinson

so yeah and the idea is basically that they're capital allocators which is kind of a weird nerdy term but it basically just means they've they're really good at putting their money into buckets where they can make a lot more of it versus investing in the wrong thing and what what a lot of people miss is you can have the most innovative ceo in the world but if they misallocate their dollars and they put it into you know low return r and d versus high return acquisitions or whatever you can have a very bad result despite being very innovative and a great leader and manager so henry singleton is like everyone thinks warren buffett's the greatest investor of all time henry singleton you know I think he died in the eighties but I'm pretty sure he actually has a better record than warren buffett and nobody really knows his name they only know it because of the outsiders there's been one other book written about him but he basically got into these very niche very technical fields where they would do like it'd be like navigation equipment that's on like a you know a fighter jet or random little like diodes for for circuitry and all this kind of stuff but you'd find these niches where they could kind of own it or have a very dominant position in it what's there's this very simple kind of way of thinking about investing and his whole thing was when the market is overvalued and crazy that's a great time to issue stock and to sell things and when the market is undervalued you want to be buying not only buying back your own company so if you don't own your entire company you want to go and you know buy back more stock and you want to be investing then and so that approach is you know is very simple it doesn't sound like rocket science but I think it's a really important thing for people to be thinking about right now and I think now is a great time to be scanning your portfolio or businesses and going how can I how can I basically take advantage of valuations right now and either you know issue stock or use my stock in my business to go buy stuff or just wait for opportunities because right now it's like a crazy sellers market

Sam Parr

Which is shockingly the hardest part: the not doing anything. In time, like you have far more perspective on this. You're more successful than I am, and you're a couple of years older than I am. So, you just know a little more about everything that I am interested in. How are you and other people you've met who buy into this? How do you guys just sit and chill? How do you not do new stuff? Because I say to myself all the time, "I'm not gonna like pounce on X, Y, and Z. I gotta wait, I gotta wait, I gotta wait." I get so antsy, and I can't... like, it's hard.

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, there's a reason I'm starting a sugar-free bakery, right? That's the stuff that's honestly my secret to not doing too much. I distract myself. Before COVID, it would be distracting myself with sports, playing bridge, hanging out with friends, and going on walks. Now, it's starting businesses. They're really small little businesses; they're like hobby businesses. You know, it's like me just kind of playing with $10,000 or $20,000, but it's enough to keep me distracted, happy, active, and feel like I'm doing something. But in reality, I'm sitting on my hands and building up cash.

Sam Parr

And what, like, do you still have enough time to do that and do the e-commerce thing? For those who don't know, Andrew, I don't know how you describe it. If you started it, which you owned it, I don't know what the right terminology is. But you have this thing that went public and is currently, like, I don't know what it is today, but how many hundreds of millions of dollars in market cap?

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, we started a business about 10 years ago. We met the founder of Shopify, and at the time, we were running a design agency. He said, "Hey, we want to launch themes on our platform. We want people to be able to sign up and have different designs they can choose from, and we'll let you guys sell these themes on the platform for, you know, $150 to $250." So we were kind of thinking, "Hey, it's a small little Canadian company. These guys seem nice. Let's do it." We started doing it, and Shopify just grew into a behemoth. We rode the wave and did really well. We actually sold the business in 2013. We didn't realize how big Shopify would get, and then we bought the business back in 2019. We did a bunch... did you buy it back?

Sam Parr

for more than you sold it

Andrew Wilkinson

way more yeah I think

Sam Parr

it was that sucks

Andrew Wilkinson

We bought it back and we said, "We're just making a big bet. We think Shopify is going to get a hell of a lot bigger." We've made a holding company called WeCommerce, and we started buying businesses, kind of building a mini version of Tiny within the Shopify ecosystem. Then we took it public in December and were listed on the TSX Venture Exchange up in Canada.

Sam Parr

As of right now, I don't know if this is in Canadian dollars or American, but it's **$663,000,000** market cap. I think that's in US dollars.

Andrew Wilkinson

I think canadian

Sam Parr

That's Canadian, so $663 Canadian dollars. It's pretty big. But I mean, like you're saying, you're just sitting there, not doing anything, just waiting and waiting. It seems like you're doing something.

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, I mean, we started this podcast by me saying I'm stressed out and busy, right? So, I think I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. It's more that I'm filling my time, when I have it, by distracting myself with this other stuff. All of the things I'm focused on right now, for the most part, like while I'm looking at buying businesses, everything's so overpriced that I don't want to make a swing on the wrong thing. So, I'm filling the rest of my time with other things.

Sam Parr

And one of those things is not email. You told me the other day that for the first time ever—which is actually shocking to me—you've hired someone or you've asked your assistant to completely manage your email. You said something like, "This is the first day I've tried it. TBD if it actually works." Is it working? And what are you doing?

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, so I'm doing two things that are kind of interesting. First, I fully delegated my email to my assistant. Over the last couple of years, I've started receiving around 200 to 300 emails a day, and honestly, it was just making me kind of miserable. I've tried all the best practices, and we've even built a company called Mailman that basically slows down your email and implements a "do not disturb" feature, but it just wasn't enough. I hit my breaking point a couple of weeks ago. I was spending about five hours a day on email. So, I set up tech support software and piped my email into it. I have my assistant, and we also have another assistant in the Philippines. They monitor the email and follow a set of rules that I wrote out. For example, if someone asks me to sign a document, it gets sent to this person on our legal team for review. If they say yes, I can sign it as long as it's below a certain amount. If someone requests an interview, they check the podcast to see how many downloads it gets. If it's above a certain threshold, they can schedule it. I made about ten of these rules, and now I'm only getting around 20 emails a day. The only ones that come through to me are from friends asking direct questions, one of our CEOs, or decisions on investments. This change has freed me up by about two to three hours. It's a classic example of the E-Myth, where you're desperately doing all this stuff that you don't really need to be doing just because you've always done it. That's been awesome. What's the...

Sam Parr

what's the e myth

Andrew Wilkinson

sorry go ahead

Sam Parr

I don't know what the e myth is

Andrew Wilkinson

oh you don't know that book

Sam Parr

I I I I've seen it I I don't know what the myth is I've never actually read it

Andrew Wilkinson

oh the e myth the the entrepreneur myth I think it is but I think that's the best I

Sam Parr

thought see I always thought it meant electronic the elect like it

Andrew Wilkinson

No, it's an amazingly badly written book, but it has a very important message. It was transformational for me about 12 years ago. The idea is basically that when people start businesses, they don't build systems and they don't delegate. For example, the person who loves baking starts a bakery, and then before they know it, they're staying up until 2 AM baking. Then they wake up at 7 in the morning to mop the floor, and they're behind the till all day. They're miserable and stressed, thinking they were creating this utopian business that they wanted. In reality, it just sucks, and they're miserable. The reason it sucks and they're miserable is that they don't delegate, they don't build processes, and they don't hire people. When they do hire people, they don't give them a chance. So, it's all about how to delegate.

Sam Parr

got it okay and what were you saying about the email thing

Andrew Wilkinson

So, the other thing I did, which has been really fun, is that I used to cold email entrepreneurs that I thought were really cool. I still do it, actually. I still cold email entrepreneurs that I want to meet or ask some questions. About five years ago, I started getting emails from young entrepreneurs saying, "Hey, can you look at my startup?" or "Can you give me an opinion on this?" I used to write really thoughtful responses. However, as I got more emails, I just couldn't respond, and I felt really, really guilty about this. A hundred percent the same. I'd delete it sometimes, just be like, "Delete." Other times, I'd give a one-line response, and I'd be like, "Fuck, they think I'm an asshole."

Sam Parr

100% same, dude. I've done that with some people, and then I've eventually become friends with them. You know how, on Twitter, you can see and recognize people's thumbnails over and over? There's this one guy the other day that I've seen talk to me all the time. Then, I've been hanging out with this other person through a friend of a friend, like three different times now. I knew his name, and I'm like, "Fuck, you're the guy I've been ignoring."

Andrew Wilkinson

yeah I'm

Sam Parr

I'm so sorry, man. I didn't realize it. So anyway, I do the same thing, and it kills me.

Andrew Wilkinson

When you never know who they're going to become, or they could have this great idea if you just talk to them and get on the phone. So, what I ended up doing was realizing I was actually doing myself a disservice by responding. I would just say, "This is too long. Write me a shorter question," or whatever it is, you know, the douchey "I'm too busy" stuff.

Sam Parr

right yeah I don't know what you're asking

Andrew Wilkinson

So now I write them back. I have a template, or my assistant writes them back, and just says, "Hey, I don't respond to these via email. What I like to do is an AMA (Ask Me Anything) every month. If you can afford to donate to charity, you know, just as a way of paying it forward or whatever." If someone's rich, if someone has a big company already, I'm like, "Hey, go donate some money." If they're a first-time entrepreneur, we don't expect them to. Then Chris and I just do a monthly AMA, and everyone gets to enjoy the answers we provide. That's why... so it's been crazy! We've already donated $58,000 to charity from this. We basically double whatever the community donates and then donate it to a local charity. So far, we've donated $58,000, half of which came from people who donated. It's probably saved me 2 or 3 hours a month by not having to respond to these emails. So it's like a really great hack.

Sam Parr

should I copy that I think that's great

Andrew Wilkinson

totally yeah so did you make that up I yeah I think we made it up

Sam Parr

That's wonderful! That is such a good idea. Where'd you send the $56,000? Have you picked your thing yet?

Andrew Wilkinson

We did one project called "Bridges for Women." I think it was aimed at women transitioning out of abusive households. The other project was a local gym. Some guy set up a gym for handicapped people because there was no equipment for handicapped individuals in town. It provides a place where you can go and work out if you're, you know, paraplegic or something.

Sam Parr

What’s the most amount of money you’ve ever donated or given? Can you reveal that?

Andrew Wilkinson

I've given away probably like $3 or $4 million, I think, so far. Wow!

Sam Parr

that's crazy isn't it

Andrew Wilkinson

It's really... it's really crazy. I'm just kind of learning. I'm going like, "What's the most effective thing to do?" Because there's everything from like local feel-good initiatives, where you can help a small number of people and make their lives 10% better, but you're not saving a life. Versus if you put the money into malaria medication or bed nets or that sort of thing in the third world. You know, I think that's what I'm kind of debating right now: how to be most effective with my altruism.

Sam Parr

I can't believe, though, like you've given away that much money. That's a huge amount! I've like, I haven't done really much of anything, and I want to.

Andrew Wilkinson

It all started when I began donating to science. As I was researching different medical topics, I would come across researchers that I found really interesting. I thought, "I'm going to start donating monthly," and I would fund their work. Over time, I increased my contributions. Then, about a year ago, I started the Tiny Foundation. I don't know if you've seen that, but I began a program where I would find people who I thought were smart in fields I considered important. I would say, "Here's $100,000 to $300,000. You choose where it goes." You can donate it to your own research, a friend's project, or anything you think is important. This approach saves me from having to do all the diligence and work myself.

Sam Parr

So, I'm looking at it now. Even your foundation website looks pretty badass, which is awesome!

Andrew Wilkinson

we hired some really awesome designers for that

Sam Parr

Yeah, it looks really good. So for this, wow! Besides just doing good, which is the most important thing, but let's just be real, is there anything that you're getting out of this?

Andrew Wilkinson

I mean what I get out of it is

Sam Parr

other than feeling good

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, for example, I don't think I've talked about it on here, but I had horrible acid reflux for 8 years. I started researching it and read tons of studies about it. I was like, "Holy crap! If you get esophageal cancer, you die. There's literally no treatment." So, one of the things I'm funding is an esophageal cancer research center at UBC. As you know, you could argue that maybe I'm trying to save myself in the future if I get this. But other than that, it's a great way to meet interesting people as well, right? I've met all sorts of amazing researchers, doctors, and all sorts of other people as a result. But no, I mean, I'm just trying to figure out how to convert money into something other than more money and, you know, more problems.

Sam Parr

Last topic, something I want to ask you about. I don't... I think it was a friend. I forget who—Nick or my friend Nick Ray, or I don't know who said something about how one time you bought a charity dinner or charity lunch with Bill Ackman. At the time, everyone made fun of you, like, "Who's this idiot from Canada that would spend $50,000 on a lunch?" I mean, they don't realize that that money actually goes to a charity as well. But they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is so stupid," yada, yada, yada. Turns out, you actually became friends with Bill. I think... I don't know him, but I'm going to call him Bill like I do. You guys have done business together, and I'm sure you've made that money back many times over. But you have this interesting way of networking. You have this interesting way of getting your foot in the door. One time on this podcast, you told a story about Warren Buffett. You've told me a couple of people that you've been hanging out with, like, "Oh my gosh, I just did a Zoom with X, Y, and Z," and they're like pretty big deal people. What is your whole thing about networking? I mean, you're just talking about cold emailing. What... you have this weird philosophy about this?

Andrew Wilkinson

yeah so I'm gonna 1st to start with I think networking is really fun if you're an extrovert and I'm an extreme extrovert right so when I feel depressed or sad I wanna be around people I wanna share my problems I wanna connect with people right so so I by default do this and I would say like starting about 15 years ago I just started I started seeing all these interesting people on the internet and going wow they seem amazing like I want to do business with them I want to become friends with them and specifically there's all these people in new york who are big tumblr users who just seem super cool you know the founders of collegehumor and vimeo and all those people and so I started I started doing a couple of things one of them was I never eat alone so pre covid I'd always have lunch with somebody usually locally and I'd almost always do at least one call with a random person who I either haven't met or I'm just building a relationship with even if it's like 30 minutes first thing in the morning the other thing I did is I started paying to be in the right room so I remember telling someone 10 years ago I wasn't doing super well right I maybe was doing 15 20 ks a month of revenue or something like that and I paid $10,000 to go to the ted conference and all my friends were like what the hell are you thinking you're spending all this money on this when I went to the ted I have this whole thing about paying to be in the right room right so when you go to ted it's like a secret club if you get into ted every single person that's there is someone interesting and at the very least they've paid a lot of money to be there so they're legit and being in the room if you're in the room everyone goes oh they're legit too and so I was this like twerp with this tiny little business and I'm talking to al gore and the founders of Google and you know all these amazing people and just being in a room with those people you naturally over the course of going consistently for years you end up meeting all these amazing people and making connections you end up doing business with them and so my doing that just going to ted and probably spending 30 ks on on tickets for 3 years I think it ended up resulting in $10 or $20,000,000 of revenue for my various businesses and so I'm a big fan of doing that the other thing I like to do is host events so I try and bring someone really interesting to town in victoria and then I invite a whole bunch of other people who I think are interesting and then by doing that you know you've you've basically made this collection of people where you're the host and you know you're kind of in charge of of the whole group and you get to meet the speaker and other stuff and so an example of that is I thought shane parrish from farnam street was super interesting and brought him out to do a speaking event brought out all my favorite people from victoria and and elsewhere and I ended up becoming friends with shane and now shane is an investor with us and we've done a whole bunch of deals and he's a good friend and so I think like one of the one of the there's just one of the things no one recognizes is there's an insane amount of optionality and upside in just knowing great people both personally you know you make great friends but when you have a problem or you wanna build a business or you need investors being able to call a bunch of amazing people is the ultimate hack and so yeah that same thing happened with bill I went into that charity lunch you know actually looking at it as like a kind of a diligence thing I'd invested in his his company holding company pershing square holdings pershing yeah yeah and I don't do he's not a tech guy

Sam Parr

deal with this I mean he's

Andrew Wilkinson

Not... he's not a tech guy. Like, what? I had no... I honestly didn't really think of it as like, "Oh, this is super strategic." I was going, "Were you?" He's a really smart investor. This is in 2017, I think, or 2016.

Sam Parr

And so, how many years ago was that? That was 4 or 5... no, that was 5 years ago. So you were like, what, 30 or 31?

Andrew Wilkinson

yeah 31 or so

Sam Parr

$5,000,000, no matter what, is a lot of money. But at 31, that must have been a significant amount of your wealth.

Andrew Wilkinson

it is my largest investment outside of the tech businesses

Sam Parr

and you put it all in that in his fund

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, I saw it was basically like this: Bill had a series of challenging investments, and so his stock traded way down. When I looked at it, I thought, "Okay, I can buy a dollar of amazing stock." It's really simple. It's a holding company that owned about 10 stocks. If you looked at the stocks, it was like Lowe's, Howard Hughes Corp, which is a real estate business, Chipotle—really good blue-chip businesses. For every dollar of stock that was sitting in the holding company, you could buy it for $0.65 because the stock had traded down so much. It was like buying a dollar for $0.65. I didn't necessarily think Bill was a genius; I thought he was a very smart investor. I just thought it was a very cheap stock, so I bought it. Then, when I saw this charity lunch come up, I thought, "Oh sweet, I can grill this guy and see if I like him." The upside is $57, and the upside is that he's just a really smart investor, and maybe I can learn something from him. But he doesn't invest in tech, or at least I didn't know he did, so I didn't think I'd be doing business with him. It was like a "pinch me" moment when we ended up investing in stuff together.

Sam Parr

what happened to the the stock

Andrew Wilkinson

It went up a lot. It doubled or more, maybe even tripled, since I bought it. So, it's done really well.

Sam Parr

it's tripled so the 5,000,000 went to 15 in a matter of 6 years

Andrew Wilkinson

I think it might have been 2017 or 2018 when I had lunch there. Over the last few years, it traded way up. He's done amazingly well. I don't know if you saw, I think you guys talked about it on the pod, but he had a bet where he invested $25,000,000 and it turned into $2,700,000,000. That was in that holding company that I'm an investor in.

Sam Parr

oh my gosh that is so funny

Andrew Wilkinson

but so back to the networking stuff I

Sam Parr

got distracted

Andrew Wilkinson

The payoff is... that's so cool! I mean, obviously for business, it's great. You surround yourself with people. I really believe you're the sum of the 5 or 10 best friends or most interesting people around you. I think it influences you really positively. But the cool thing that has happened is now it compounds. I don't actually do cold emails very often. I don't really like consciously networking. I just naturally, every week or two, get introduced to someone really interesting. So now it's like I planted the garden, and now I'm enjoying the fruits from it.

Sam Parr

My issue is I don't really want to talk to people that much. Like, you and I text message, and I'm okay with text. I'll text like there's about 10 people who I'll text; you're one of them. Other than that, I really don't want to talk to anyone. It kind of actually stresses me out because, in one regard, it doesn't stress me out. I don't want to talk to people. I really only want a small group, and I only want to be with them. You're one of those people where I'll just text you and be like, "Hey, did you see the new 911 get released?" or we'll just bullshit, right? We don't talk about work; we just talk about personal stuff. Like, "I just bought this car. Does this check out? Check out this video; listen to it, it's cool." But then I feel left out because I'm like, Sean does this a lot. Sean networks with everyone, and he gets access to all this cool stuff. I want that access, but I don't want to spend the time talking to these people because I just get nervous.

Andrew Wilkinson

Well, you have the ultimate hack, though, which is you. You have this platform, right? I've started realizing this too. There's a reason I come on; I have a lot of fun talking to you guys. But at the same time, there are 10,000 people listening, and a whole bunch of them are super fascinating. They're going to email both of us and say, "Hey dude, I'd love to do something with you," or whatever. So we just bypassed... you know, the problem with networking is you do five boring calls and then one amazing one, right? You're constantly talking to people you don't necessarily want to talk to, where they don't turn out to be that interesting when you think they will be. But it's worth it because there's a diamond in the rough. I think podcasting is interesting because it lets you basically have like 10,000 people who kind of learn what you're about. They can either decide if they like you or not, and if they opt in and they like you, you've already pre-sold them almost. When I get on the phone with someone fresh, I actually tell a story about how I started, this is my company, and this is what we do. It's all kind of... it's all not a sales pitch, but it's really like, "Hey, here's who I am." You can just bypass all of that via podcast or something.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I hear you. What I usually do when I talk to people is say, "Hey, I don't want to be pretentious or anything, but do you know who I am?" Because I can save us time and I won't do the spiel. They're like, "Oh, I listen to the podcast." I'm like, "Sick! I'm not going to tell you anything." So, how are you? The other day, I had this guy named Michael Loeb. Do you know who Michael Loeb is?

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, he has an incubator, like a big, big incubator. His house is the house in *Billions*, the Hamptons house.

Sam Parr

yeah so I like this guy I I don't know him other than the few minutes that I just talked to him but I knew about him and I actually admire what I read about him he started this thing called synapse I think which he sold to meredith some or time magazine for $800,000,000 then with that money he started price line he started it with this guy named jay walker and I think they sold that for 1,000,000,000 of dollars and I think it was the fastest time anyone has ever made a $1,000,000,000 like from launch to like the sale or the the public markets it was like like a year or something like stupidly crazy he got made all of his money there bought this huge house in the hamptons which if you watch the tv show 1,000,000,000 axelrod bobby axelrod buys this house for like a $100,000,000 like something crazy and it's like the whole. Is it's supposed to be like the the representation of greed and and too much money and that's the house that he buys well that's michael loeb's house and a couple years ago he there was this party where a charity actually a charity event and they raised like $350,000 for this event but one of his sons has a friend over who gets drunk and says something smart to him so michael punches him in the face and gets arrested so he's got this if you Google michael loeb arrested you'll see his mugshot he's got like a white t shirt on like they clearly like pulled him out of bed and and so anyway so and they found out that you know michael loeb is like this rich guy so the dad of the son probably sued him yada yada yada well anyway he heard he didn't but one of his assistants someone must make a list of every young entrepreneur who sold the company and they send you this email from michael and it's like hey I'm michael loeb I'm such a fan and like I know this guy is like 60 something years old it does I'm like I don't think this is you but that's cool like it's your assistant and he goes hey let's talk so I talked to him and I could tell he doesn't know who I am and it's it's no big deal he was he did it wasn't like a disrespect or anything but I was honored that he even reached out or his people did and he's like so I'm thinking about hosting this event for entrepreneurs are you are you interested in coming I'm like dude I I'm not gonna be pretentious here I'm sorry if I come off that way but like you're talking to like the guy I host these things called hustle con I do this I got this podcast thing I've got this email thing like I've got your target demographic and he goes yeah well like I'm wanting to host an event at my house have you seen have you heard of my house and I go yeah I've heard of your house obviously I've heard of your house it's like the house and I've tried to convince him now to make me a cohost and I don't think he's gonna make me a cohost but I hope he'll invite me to come to his house in the hamptons where he wants to have like 50 or a 100 young entrepreneurs and I have a feeling what this guy does is he owns this thing called loeb enterprises and I think he owns 100% of it and it's very much like tiny where they invest a small sum of money into interesting ideas and they'll co own the business with the entrepreneur starting it or they'll own it wholly and give the entrepreneur a salary and they build up these companies and then they eventually sell them and they've had some great success they built up I think this thing called script relief did a 100,000,000 a year in profit they built up a bunch of interesting things but related to networking that that's my networking story and maybe I'll be hanging out with michael loeb and whoever he hangs out with I don't know who he hangs out with

Andrew Wilkinson

so cool I wanna invite to that event that sounds awesome

Sam Parr

I gotcha

Andrew Wilkinson

We got introduced to him when we were in New York last time. So, Chris and I go to his office, and he's like an old school.

Sam Parr

very old school

Andrew Wilkinson

Almost like a car salesman, right? We sit down and he's like, "Hi guys, I'm Michael Loeb," and he pulls out a slide deck. But it's not on a screen; it's literally a printed slide deck, and he goes...

Sam Parr

doesn't know as he

Andrew Wilkinson

This is my story. He has no idea who I am. He just goes through this slide deck and starts going line by line about it. I thought it was really charming, and he seemed like a cool guy. But it was crazy; he definitely has a shtick and a system for this stuff. It was really interesting because his house is like crazy, right? I haven't been to it, but I've seen photos and, you know, watched on *Billions*. You go to his office and you're like, "Oh, it's just like a New York office." I saw him in the back of the office; it's like chaos. There are weird desks everywhere.

Sam Parr

and like shitty chairs and disgusting carpet

Andrew Wilkinson

It's funny, like seeing, you know, these in New York. You can be the richest person in the world, but it's like you still have to ride the subway. You still have a cramped office and all this other stuff. It's funny.

Sam Parr

Yes, I saw he videoed me, and I could see in his office. It looked like all of his employees were at home except for his crew. He clearly had this very stereotypical... I didn't actually see this woman, but I could kind of tell that this person was in the background. This very typical, like, 50-year-old secretary who's had her job for like 30 years. I can just imagine her with her flats and dress on, handing him coffee. She's this nice lady. I just... everything about him fit the stereotype, and frankly, I loved it. I think this guy is incredibly interesting. Is it Loeb Enterprises? I think they're really legit. They've created a couple of really interesting things.

Andrew Wilkinson

Yeah, I mean, it's very legit. It's one of those things where you go in and he's like, "Oh, we've got this company, and this company, and this company." One of them sends wine via direct mail, and the other one does receipts. You take a photo of your receipt and send it. You're kind of going, "I don't know what the BS is versus what the big businesses are." They throw a lot of spaghetti against the wall and incubate a lot of businesses. Like you said, they have an amazing track record of making some of these big businesses. But yeah, he's a total character.

Sam Parr

Yes, that guy is crazy interesting. I'm so happy I got to talk to him. I have another meeting with those folks, and I'm looking forward to talking to him again. If I host that dinner, or even if I get to attend the dinner and he lets me invite people, I'm going to invite you. Inviting you and a few other people is how I'm going to look legit to this person super fast.