$1M By 19, $100M+ By 35 -- Here's How He Did It
Ringtones, Jewelry, and a Multi-Million Dollar Journey - January 26, 2022 (about 3 years ago) • 51:43
Transcript:
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Val Katayev | It was strange. I was pulling up to my university, or to the college, and I would pull up in a drop-top Lexus, like a $70,000 car. I was only 19, right?
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Sam Parr | Dude, so Val Sean, he's not making it today, but that's okay. Your thing went viral today! How many likes did you get? Like 3,300? 33,100?
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Val Katayev | I had to turn off my notifications. I can't do it. I don't know how you guys do it. I don't know how people manage while running full businesses, but I had to turn that off because I just can't concentrate. My phone was just blowing up all the time.
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Sam Parr | Day now, you know how I feel. It's crazy, right? It's crazy! So, you had 3,000 followers, and now you have like 9,000.
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Val Katayev | Something like that, yeah. I mean, it took me how many years to get up to like 27,100?
Yeah, now it's... I don't know, I didn't look to be honest with you, but I'm probably at like 8,000 or 9,000 at this point.
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Sam Parr | So, alright, the background here is I met you through my best friend, Joe. Joe told me about you. He goes, "This guy is crazy."
So, let me tell you what I know about you, and you tell me if it's right or wrong. Then I want to hear your story.
Basically, he goes, and I won't reveal too many numbers. I'll let you talk about any number that you want to discuss because I don't know if what I know is confidential or not. So, I'm not going to mention them.
But you, as a 19-year-old, came from Russia. You came from Russia.
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Val Katayev | I came from uzbekistan uzbekistan okay 11 | |
Sam Parr | And then you come here, you get a computer at like 16 or 17, and you start this affiliate marketing business. You're the only employee. By age 22 or 23, you've made something like $30,000,000 in profit from this one little business.
From there, you parlay that into a lyric website that was one of the biggest lyric websites in the world. This doesn't sound that impressive, but most people don't realize that lyric websites are some of the biggest websites in the world. That made another 8 figures in profit.
From there, you parlay that into an ad network that is now huge. You've now launched a jewelry business that apparently Joe has said is bigger than all your other companies, but I don't know if that's true or not.
Throughout all this, you've acquired, sold, and developed over $100,000,000 of real estate. Is all this accurate?
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Val Katayev | some of it okay so well actually my first | |
Sam Parr | And by the way, the reason I'm having you on here is because we've had a lot of really successful people on here doing interesting stuff. A lot of them are well-known, but you don't really fit that mold.
I basically begged you the other day to tweet something, and I helped you write this tweet. It took a few days, but we got it out there. Besides that, you've pretty much never done any press. You've never talked about this publicly.
When I met you, I was like, "This is a gold mine!" This guy has so many interesting stories. We gotta tell the story.
So anyway, what was wrong and what was right?
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Val Katayev |
So, okay... Well, actually, the funny part is that the first business I had was a PlayStation-like video game website. It wasn't huge, but you know, I was in high school and making like $5,000 a month. That actually taught me a lot of lessons about the search market and...
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Sam Parr |
You actually told me... I actually tweeted another thing about you where you said, "Hey, my 12-year-old son has a website that's making like $2K a day or something like that, and he needs an email service provider. Which one should he use?" I tweeted that screenshot and it went viral.
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Val Katayev |
That was anonymous... I guess it's not anonymous anymore. But he's... yeah, that was interesting. I saw you post that, and he still has a website. It's not doing as well, but not quite $2,000 a day anymore. He's working on coding this thing away, and he's figuring out all these things. It's actually amazing to see it, you know, at his age. He's 12 years old!
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Sam Parr | Where'd you get it? It's crazy that you and your family are just finding all these opportunities. Where did it start? So your first thing was a PlayStation website. What is that?
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Val Katayev | So, it was a site called PSX Extreme. I launched it in 1999, right before the dot-com bubble burst. I was about 8 months into the bubble, and it was doing really well. It was very easy to generate revenue.
Once I got the traffic, the site was all about anything related to PlayStation. So, you could get cheat codes, reviews, screenshots—whatever, right? It was a PlayStation fan website.
Then the dot-com bubble hit. My revenues disappeared by 90%. My traffic was still up there, but I had no revenues because all the ad revenue disappeared. It went from being $3 CPM down to 30¢ CPM, if you could be lucky enough to get that. | |
Sam Parr | how many people were going to this one | |
Val Katayev | It wasn't huge, but I had like 10,000 uniques a day, maybe 20,000.
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Sam Parr | in 90 in 99 and 98 that's gotta be a massive site | |
Val Katayev | Yeah, it was good. It was a good amount of traffic, and it was all free. So, it was an interesting experience because I had to quickly learn how to generate revenue. I had to go out there and sell advertising myself.
Once I figured out that I could sell advertising, I realized I didn't have enough traffic. So, I started going to other video game sites that had much more traffic than me. I said, "Hey, I have all these advertisers who would spend more if I had more traffic. Let me put ads on your sites."
I went to all these other video game sites and became a broker for advertising. That was kind of like my first experience making a decent amount of money. I was making $5 from the site, and I was probably making another $10 a month from being a broker. | |
Sam Parr | And then the thing that you tweeted today, or maybe last night, basically told the story about how when you were 19, after this PlayStation site, you built an affiliate ad site. It made, like, I forget the numbers, but in 2 or 3 years, it was over $30,000,000 in profit.
So what were you doing? You were selling stuff on behalf of Half.com or eBay? Who were you? Or was it the New York Times? You had, like, 800 ad accounts that sold different stuff. For example, a New York Times subscription sold for $100, but you were able to sell it for only $30, so you were able to keep the difference. Something like that.
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Val Katayev |
Yeah, so you know it's affiliate marketing, but I use paid search, which was very new back then. At the time, after the dotcom bubble burst, all the advertisers... all of a sudden, digital advertising stopped being interesting. You know, for a moment there, people and businesses thought the internet might be overhyped.
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Ben Wilson | too bad | |
Val Katayev | Right, yeah. So, all of a sudden, you see kind of all these budgets get pulled back, right? Especially all the brand advertising. But nobody really... so everybody had to still figure out how to get customers. They said, "Okay, you know what? We won't do brand advertising, but if somebody drives us customers, we'll pay per customer. Like, we can't lose in that," right?
So, performance marketing was around, and it was very accessible. At the same time, the media wasn't expensive, right? Because the supply was there, but the demand wasn't there. So, that's what I took advantage of. I started buying up a lot of the supply, mostly with search page search.
That's what made everything so profitable because I was just playing into those supply-demand dynamics that were working in my favor. But yes, what I would do is find an advertiser that had a product. I would test it on, at the time, you know, kind of like the modern-day Yahoo page search, or back then it was called GoTo.com, and then later Google came around.
So, I would test that ad. If it works, I expand that. If it doesn't work, I would figure out how to make it work, right? If there's a way to make it work. And yeah, just like that, you know, I was able to spend a dollar in generation... 3.
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Sam Parr | and what what things were you saying | |
Val Katayev | oh man everything everything | |
Sam Parr |
Yeah, and all of this was making like... many millions of dollars of sales for your little one-person operation every [year].
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Val Katayev | year yes | |
Sam Parr | that's crazy about | |
Ben Wilson | Yeah, tell us a little bit about what was going on in your life at the time. Did you try to go to college? Were you doing this while you were at college? Did you drop out? What were you doing with your life?
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Val Katayev |
So at 19, I already had the business, and I went... I got into... I love finance, so I was like, "Alright, I want to do business finance." I didn't really feel like I should be [doing it], but I only did it because... and I had no time for it.
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Sam Parr | you seem like you'd be awful at that | |
Val Katayev | I was awful. I was actually interested in the topics, especially those like law, finance, business, and accounting. All those subjects were just... I couldn't sit through biology. Even though they were interesting, I had no time to study, so I was terrible at tests. My GPA was horrible; I can't remember what it was, but it was just awful because I didn't care to prepare for the tests. I slept through half the class, just catching up on sleep because I would go to sleep at 4 o'clock in the morning.
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Sam Parr | don't you don't you still do that don't you go to sleep at 4 and get up at noon | |
Val Katayev |
Yeah, on average 4-5 [hours]. So if I go to sleep at... I think yesterday I went to sleep at 4. Today I woke up at 11, so I try to get a lot... try to get 7 hours of sleep. Doesn't happen all the time, you know. A lot of times I have to live on 5-6 hours, but...
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Sam Parr | do you do do you recognize that you're a weirdo | |
Val Katayev |
I'm used to it, you know? I'm a weirdo. I know I do everything in reverse. My wife keeps telling me, "You do everything backwards."
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Ben Wilson | So, you're studying finance, but you're not doing well because you're running these businesses.
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Val Katayev | Well, I'm in school just because I have a Jewish mother, and she wanted me to go to... oh.
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Ben Wilson | you gotta | |
Val Katayev | be in school you have to be in college right or you have to go | |
Sam Parr | but did they know that you're like hey mom like I bet you I'm making more money than you | |
Val Katayev | I think she kind of knew. I don't know if she knew, but what I was making... I don't remember. It was strange. I was pulling up to my university, or to college. I went to Baruch, New York City, Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business, majoring in Finance.
I would pull up in a drop-top Lexus, like a $70,000 car, and that was at 19, right? Or 18, whatever I was. I think it was 18 at that time. I don't think I even started the paid surgery business at this point.
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Sam Parr | So, this business is just like crushing it. A few years in, you mentioned in your tweet that it made over $30,000,000 in profits within 3, 4, or 5 years. So, it's gone really well. You're paying a crazy amount of taxes, you said.
You decided to move to the suburbs, a little bit outside of New York City, and you bought a cheap house in cash. So, things are going well, right? But you said, "I'm a little bored with this," or "I don't really want to go much further into this racket. I want to try something new."
Then, the next business was MobileFuse, which is still around today, right?
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Val Katayev |
So I actually launched around the same time... We launched two businesses. So, hold on. I launched... Let's call it the music content distribution company.
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Sam Parr | oh that's right sorry | |
Val Katayev | right so that so we didn't own I didn't own actually lyric sites what I did is I built a service I built a system that connects called ringtone matcher and what I realized was there was demand for ringtones and there was all this traffic for for all this music related traffic especially in lyrics and so what I did is I built a service and and the other thing I realized is that the traffic was very much international like 70% of a of a music site or a lyric site was non us and I noticed that some of the advertisers like ringtone advertisers were advertised they'll they'll do okay but they would have only they could only accept us customers and they could only accept like verizon customer or only t mobile customer so I build this thing called ringtone matcher and ringtone matcher basically integrated like 60 countries into one system so if you have a music site you could drive that those users to ringtone matcher and ringtone matcher will figure out based on geo like what country you're in right based on what carrier you use because it's carrier billing so it's important that you know I figure out like you have t mobile and to match you up to a ringtone service that actually is compatible with t mobile and then the third thing we look for that content is available so if you're clicking on hey get this get toxic by britney spears ringtone on your phone I need to make sure that that song is also available in their catalog because some some ringtone providers had like warner music and some of some of them maybe just had the emi there were like 4 major music companies at the time and you know these ringtone providers didn't have all those catalogs so they they might have 1 or 2 at a time so I would take all that data and put it into one simple link | |
Sam Parr | and and how big did that get how big did that business get | |
Val Katayev | I was in front of Ringtone Matcher, which had half a billion people a month. Yeah, half a billion! It was everywhere. I mean, it wasn't just lyric sites; I was on CBS Radio, AOL Radio, Yahoo Radio, Last.fm—pretty much every music site.
I remember even talking to Musical.ly, which is TikTok now, right? I remember even talking to those guys. We were also in discussions with WhatsApp in the early days, like when they were just two guys or something. We wanted to integrate because anytime somebody mentions music or a song, I want Ringtone Matcher to show up.
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Sam Parr | so and but but but when you're using the word we again it's not we | |
Val Katayev | No, this company was... actually, that company I started, Ringtone Matching, myself. Again, I was a one-man show at some point.
There was one little group of guys who were pretty good at dealing with advertisers and, or actually, ringtone providers. I felt like I needed help on that front, so I merged those guys in.
There were 5 guys that merged into my company to form Pelican.
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Sam Parr | when you say merge who bought who | |
Val Katayev | I was the majority owner of the company. The five guys had a third of the company, while I had two thirds.
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Sam Parr | how big was it when it was just you | |
Val Katayev |
It was just... I was going nuts. But I think, I believe the year we merged it was $10,000,000.
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Sam Parr |
Just again, just you... Yeah, $10,000,000,000 profit with just you. Do you... Why do you think so? This is the... We'll get to the rest in a minute, but why do you think that you find this weird stuff? And why don't you hire people? Two different questions, but how on earth do you find this type of stuff?
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Val Katayev | you know it's it's it's funny like I know I see how organized you are right like you make your goals you lay everything out on paper right you're you're very organized and you could think about it you ask people for feedback I'm totally opposite of that I just kind of go with where like I'd like to test things and I'm I guess I'm very curious and and I and I I could be very very focused but if I get distracted I get very easily distracted right so it could be like sometimes it's a curse but sometimes it's a blessing a lot of times it's a blessing and I come across these interesting things and my curiosity just takes it further so when I when I so the the way I actually came across this thing was because I felt that there was a. Of my life where I was seeing Google was just too dominant part of my business and I didn't like that because I didn't wanna rely on any one thing so I started looking outside of page search for supply and I came across these music sites and I actually started testing rhapsody on them because I had such a good deal with rhapsody I was like let me start marketing outside of search it did okay and I had these you know I started building these relationships with the music sites and then then I kind of tested a ringtone service and it just crushed like it was not even close like it did 3 times better and I'm like wow this thing is did 3 times better than rhapsody and that ringtone provider was just covering us just like 1 or 2 music labels and like 2 carriers out of 4 I think I had 4 there were 4 major carriers at the time I was like hold on a second if it's already doing 3 times as well what happens if I start integrating everything globally right so that's how ringtone matcher came about | |
Sam Parr | Was there when you launch stuff. What's your first version like? Junk? Do you get the idea and it's a lot of... in 12 hours?
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Val Katayev | It was a kiddie script I wrote. You know, a guy was kind of freelancing for me a little bit. I just... I didn't even want to tell him about the idea. He's actually the CTO of one of my companies now. He was like 15 or 16 years old, and I didn't want to tell him the idea.
So I said, "Hey, how do you script this? How do you script that?" I scripted it myself.
And so, yeah, it was pure junk. It was literally just a bunch of "if" and "then" statements on ASP. We were running Windows Server on ASP infrastructure. I had a bunch of redirects that were just doing a bunch of "if" and "then" statements and redirecting people based on certain parameters.
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Sam Parr |
When you're doing it, are you like... See, every time I've hung out with you, the reason I like hanging out with you and Joe... I consider Joe one of my best friends, and so I have like his attitude. You and Joe have the same attitude, which is like...
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Val Katayev | he's a little more laid back than me and you I think | |
Sam Parr | He is... I've never seen him lose his temper. He's very calm. I'm like, "Hey, this didn't work out for this reason." He goes, "Oh, that's okay." Like, he's super calm.
But you have that too. I think that... I think that what you have is like... I don't know if the right word is "chutzpah," but it's almost like things I've heard.
We're going to get to the rest of the stories because there's this jewelry business that you started, which seems like it could be even bigger than all the other things that you've done, potentially.
You do these things where I'm like, "Val, you don't know anything about that!" And you don't even have any employees. You don't know anything! But you're just like, "Yeah, but I... you know, whatever. I'll just go a little bit further and then we'll see what happens."
And then if it sucks, I'll bail. You know what I mean? You have this "aw shucks" attitude like, "Oh, you know, yeah, we'll see what happens." It's very interesting.
Whereas if I was doing what you were doing and I started seeing those results, I'd be like, "Is this illegal? Am I breaking the law? Am I going to go to jail? What is going on?"
It's almost like most people would have self-destructive tendencies when they see this going so well.
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Val Katayev | Yeah, look, I see that all the time. I feel like people tend to overthink things and spend a lot of time in analysis paralysis.
The reason I think a lot of people are successful, especially someone like me, is that while someone is thinking about perfecting one thing—which, by the way, will still have a 60% failure rate—I would rather test 10 things within that same time.
I will likely have a better accuracy or a better chance of hitting it out of the ballpark with one of those 10 things, or maybe even more than one of those things.
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Ben Wilson | yeah how did you get into the jewelry business to start with | |
Val Katayev | so after I sold those 2 music related companies which I took like 3 years off off you know I thought I retired I'll retire but it was anything but I just got start start getting like my my curiosity was just taking me into all different like I was on all these these boards and I was like you know investing into a bunch of things and and I realized after 3 years I need to build something again so I started looking at I knew that I wanted to do something where it's fixing or disrupting a fragmented space I didn't really wanna go after like corporate america I wanted to go after like mom and pops that when I say mom and pops it could be like you know I'm thinking like car dealerships right they do tens of 1,000,000 of dollars it doesn't mean they're tiny right so I wanted to go after something along those lines and I had some investments in the jewelry space I had some family in the jewelry space it's a pretty tight knit community I just happen to be had some family that too that that knows that that that business I actually worked as a teenager I worked every weekend I worked in a in a jewel in a jewelry store I knew how to fix like I knew how to fix jewelry I mean I would sit on a bench with a blowtorch at like 15 years old because my cousin taught me it was my it was a it was a family business my my my aunt and uncle's business they had a couple jewelry stores and they taught me how to fix jewelry and to you know so I knew the business a bit from the retailer's perspective it always seemed like a very weird way to do business I I always had questioned everything like they're doing and so so so the idea was hey like these retailers if we could integrate bullet platform and services and we could integrate into them and this is a $300,000,000,000 industry by the way globally which fragmented but controls is actually bigger independent's a bigger part of the business fine jewelry than the majors the chains so I knew that again if I could build distribution but I had to bring then then there's a lot of power there but I have to bring value and that's where my expertise in data and marketing digital all that came into to fruition you know so we basically put this thing together we integrate into stores and help them grow help them bring customers cut costs increase their revenue | |
Sam Parr | how much did you invest to start it | |
Val Katayev | To start it, I don't... I mean, to start it, I think we started off a couple of million.
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Sam Parr | so you put $2,000,000 of your own | |
Val Katayev | money | |
Sam Parr | how big is this but you've done more I think you put more in since how big is this gonna be | |
Val Katayev | I put in way more. I mean, at this point, I put in 8 figures into this business. I think it's a multibillion-dollar company in the future.
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Sam Parr | for real you think it's a multibillion dollar company like to sell | |
Val Katayev | Yeah, market cap. I believe that... I don't know if there's anybody big enough to buy my company or this company. We actually have a lot of people at Semoran. It's no longer just Val; we have a lot of employees.
I believe this company will be successful. If we can do what we need to do, we could really help all these retailers step up their game. I don't think that there's really a company in that space that would be big enough to acquire us. So, like the...
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Sam Parr |
But are you the CEO of that company? Is that smart? I mean, that doesn't seem like... You're just... You get up at 11 AM and like you go to bed at 4 AM. How are you the CEO of a company that could be a billion-dollar company?
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Val Katayev | Yeah, no, good question. Look, we have a great team that is able to execute. | |
Sam Parr | how many people | |
Val Katayev |
It's hard to say. We became pretty global, but you know, our offices outside of the US are mostly not employees. So, if I had to talk about factories, our tech teams, our marketing teams... we're probably talking about 70 people at this [point].
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Sam Parr | Wow and who's like you're not running the day to day of a business right | |
Val Katayev | hell yeah yeah 95% of the time goes into this business | |
Sam Parr | so then are you like talking with the employees and things like that I mean you're like running all hands meetings and things like that | |
Val Katayev | Yeah, I'm not big on meetings, to be honest with you. But I'm very accessible to all my team. I mean, everybody on my team has access to me.
I go into the office in the city. We actually had to be in the office in June 2020. I mean, we had COVID, and it was a ghost town in the city. We had to figure out how to be in the office because it's not just a digital ad business that I could operate from home.
We had to have people in the offices, and we did all kinds of things. We got cars to pull people into the office. But anyway, yeah, I'm there. I'm in the weeds. | |
Sam Parr | But it's not like you're kind of downplaying it. I invested in one of your properties. We bought a 6-plex in Greenpoint. I think I forget.
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Val Katayev |
Well, we essentially bought land. We bought a house, but it's going to be knocked down. We're going to build a brand new... we're going to do ground-up construction. It's going to be like a nice condo building.
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Sam Parr |
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I mean, but I didn't even look at the details. I was just like, "Anything that Val does, I'm part of." But it's way bigger than you're just saying... like it's a project. I mean, I think you've bought like $100,000,000 worth of real estate, right?
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Val Katayev |
No, I haven't. I haven't bought $100,000,000 [worth of property]. We have six projects:
- A couple of them are already completed
- The third one is just about to be completed
- Actually, the first two were completed and completely sold out
- The third one is about to be completed and go on the market
- Then we have three other projects
They are getting bigger and bigger. The combined sale value of those projects would be $100,000,000.
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Sam Parr |
So, what are you tinkering on now? What excites you now? And someone asked a good question, which is: "What is the equivalent of ringtones today?"
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Val Katayev | what's the equivalence of | |
Sam Parr |
It's just crazy that you're kind of like this *digital cowboy*. You're just like this one guy in the wild west doing this shit with no rules. I just think it's hilarious that you are just a pirate who's taking it to the extreme. Where are the digital pirates at right now?
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Val Katayev | it has to be like tiktok | |
Sam Parr | what do you mean it's | |
Val Katayev | You know, you look for those spaces that haven't been touched, right? I guess people ask me, I think what you're saying is, "What can be marketed these days and how to get that kind of scale?"
It's hard because what I've seen over my career is that the windows of opportunity, those white spaces, right? Those windows are becoming shorter and shorter with every iteration.
There was paid search, which probably lasted a good 6 years. After that, or around that same time, there was display advertising that probably lasted a little less. Then there was social media, and that window probably... you know, the arbitrage window, I would say.
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Sam Parr | yeah | |
Val Katayev | Yeah, that probably lasted 2 to 3 years at best. Now, you talk, you know, now you have Instagram and TikTok, and you got the Instagram Reels. I mean, those are probably also 1-year windows of opportunity. If you could kind of catch that lightning and build on it, then you got something. But your window...
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Sam Parr | And it's all rooted in distribution, which is how do you get distribution quickly. You're saying that you think that's TikTok. Do you think that window is still open?
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Val Katayev | I think if you have a knack for understanding how to get virality or create content, then you have your own distribution. If you don't have that knack, you have to figure out how to work with people who have that access.
So, there's one company that could work with all the Sam Pars, right? All the podcasters. How much is that worth? Like, we're using a platform here right now that is smart. They're doing the right thing; they're focusing on guys like you who have all this access, but they're not selling anything. They're just selling you a platform.
If somebody could figure out how to sell a product across a number of podcasts, that's worth a lot. You could move a lot of product. And by the way, it doesn't have to be podcasts. What about all the TikTokers who are doing all those dances?
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Sam Parr | know | |
Val Katayev | I know, like for one company, they scaled to **$80,000,000** in sales a few years ago. I'm not going to mention the name of it, but they scaled to **$80,000,000** in sales just on the back of YouTube influencers.
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Sam Parr | what was the product | |
Val Katayev | it was cosmetics like product and they just cosmetics what was that | |
Sam Parr | cosmetics it was just like makeup or something or lotion | |
Val Katayev | Yeah, the numbers were just insane. It was just a long pay. It wasn't just the big influencers; even the thousands of mediocre influencers or the smaller ones drove it.
So, stuff like that—latch on to something that is big, especially if you can latch on to the long tail of it. Not a lot of people look at the long tail part of it.
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Sam Parr | sure | |
Ben Wilson | Businesses, well, one thing I wonder... you know, like this thing that Val talks about of testing out 10 different things before the other guy can put his pants on, right?
Like, you're building your perfect thing that's going to take you 6 months before you even get to market. Great! I'm going to test 10 things in that time. That sounds really nice, but also, I guess I'll actually ask Sam first, then I'll ask you, Val.
What do you think it is about Val? What do you think it is about either his skill set or his personality that allows him to do that much testing, where other people just can't figure that out, apparently?
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Sam Parr | I think that this is a common thread that I've seen. My buddy Joe is just like this.
There's this thing, particularly among immigrants or children of immigrants, and maybe it's because they've experienced some type of hardship. They're like, "Dude, I've experienced some crazy stuff," or "My family has experienced crazy stuff."
I have zero fear in looking like a fool. If the worst that’s going to happen is that I’m going to look stupid or lose a tiny amount of money, I’m okay with that.
So, I don’t have any fear about that. That’s what I think I’ve noticed; that’s the trend I’ve noticed among people like Val.
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Val Katayev | look I I think there's a I think that's I think there's a huge that's a huge factor and one of the things I look at like I'm raising kids now right how do I make sure that they kind of because they're not gonna grow up the same way I grew up right they're not gonna come out the the resources they have the access they have it's very different from what I grew up with so what I think I realized is the pow it's the power is in resourcefulness okay I was able to make a lot or do a lot I should say whether it's money or whatever it is right it doesn't have to be just money it could be whatever whatever excites you right but I was able to do a lot with very little but it's because I had no choice and I had very little like we weren't poor like I don't get I didn't come from poverty or anything like that but but again my parents couldn't afford a computer for me for the 1st 6 years of my life here right so I got to think like how do I recreate that and you can't really recreate that for your kids but I figured okay I'm not you know I'm not gonna give my kids everything on a silver platter so so you I mean you just talked about my son like he is he he he's his dna is very like my like mine like he he's way ahead of me because he has all these tools like you know he has a computer way before me I didn't buy him a computer I made him save up the money I don't care how he does it birthdays work whatever during that time he researched all parts and everything I think at the age of like 7 or 8 he built a computer bought the parts by himself he built a computer from scratch by himself I didn't even help him that's crazy so he now built 2 computers like and he taught himself how to code and so I I suppress resources for my kids systematically not like I I don't feed them like they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're doing just fine like they're they're doing | |
Sam Parr | just fine like they're they're doing | |
Ben Wilson | that's good to hear | |
Val Katayev | School and everything, they live in a nice neighborhood. But I systematically make sure that they're not given all the resources because that's how you naturally learn to become resourceful.
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Sam Parr | what do you think it is | |
Ben Wilson | yeah fundamentally it's about doing more with less essentially you're saying | |
Val Katayev | yeah yeah but but it has to start from day 1 | |
Sam Parr | are you driven by money | |
Val Katayev | Yes and no. I say yes because it's kind of like a score, right? I don't see money; it's just a number in a bank account. It's not like back in the days where you could look at it. You know, it's not like we're Scrooge McDuck, jumping through a vault of cash, right? I would watch that as a kid and think, "Wow, I want to be that guy one day."
But no, I think what drives me really is just winning. There is a bit of a sense in me that I'm one step from losing it all. | |
Sam Parr | you still feel that way | |
Val Katayev | I feel like it's still possible. I think it's, like, an immigrant thing, probably.
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Sam Parr | By the way, I feel exactly the same way. I was in bed last night telling my wife, "I need to go to a therapist or something. I'm freaking out. We're going to lose everything. Is this all going away?"
I feel the exact same way. For a long time, I had a plan on where I would go if I was homeless. I believe that that's all going away.
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Val Katayev | In some ways, in a weird way, it kind of excites you. I don't know about being homeless, but you get a chance to figure it out from scratch again.
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Sam Parr | It does kind of make me... because when you have nothing, it's kind of fun to play games. It's just easier to bet. Sometimes you can't bet as much, but it's kind of exciting to be like just a hood rat with nothing, which I was.
It is kind of exciting, but I get the fear and anxiety of losing everything. I have so many spreadsheets that map out, like, "Alright, when the money gets to this number, then I gotta go and panic and get a job and start Ubering." I have a plan for that.
The reason why I had you on, Ben, is that I wanted to show you this guy. Now, he's hard to explain, but I wanted people to understand that he is a truly unique and original thinker. I don't... you know, you're going to have to come on again, but do you understand what I'm saying, Ben? It's very original thinking. | |
Ben Wilson | Yeah, and you can see that just in the way that you have tackled a different set of problems than anyone else I've ever talked to.
I've never talked to someone who's like, "Yeah, I tackled ringtones, and then ad networks, and then peer-to-peer lending, and then the jewelry business." I just think that kind of belies how your mind functions differently than other people.
Do you feel that way? Do you feel that you just have a unique perspective? Have you met anyone that looks at...? | |
Sam Parr |
The world the way you do... and if you acknowledge that it's weird, and you're saying that you didn't actually realize it was weird until I talked about you in the podcast like half a year ago. Which is weird because, how old are you? Like 39, 38? And you're now just realizing that you're... you're an oddball?
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Val Katayev |
Yeah, so I didn't see myself that way until you did the whole exposé with that show on that one episode that you didn't tell me about... but after our lunch...
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Sam Parr | I know, but yeah, when you said... I told Joe, I was like, "Dude, I'd never do that." I almost always ask for permission before I talk about it, but I just was too excited and I forgot.
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Val Katayev | I have a show. I have a story, but I'm going to tell you that later.
So, to me, when you said, "Oh, this guy goes from this industry to that industry. He's jumping all over the place and he's just, you know, kind of successful or successful at doing it," I thought, "This is crazy." I never thought of myself that way, but it did make sense.
I don't know why I keep jumping into different categories. I guess my curiosity just kicks in, and I go after it instead of just thinking, "What if?" I just kind of pursue it.
But until now, I really haven't realized how odd that is. Thank you for letting me know that I'm really strange.
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Sam Parr | I just think that there are a bunch of unique things about you, and I think it's so cool. When I say "weird" and "odd," that's a really good compliment, by the way.
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Val Katayev | Yeah, I listen, I know you well enough now to know that's a compliment.
So, the funny story about this: before you, I was pretty under the radar. Right? Like, yeah, you could find stuff on me, but you had to really look. Nobody really put it out there.
Then Joe tells me, "Did you do the podcast?" I didn't tell my wife. Then the podcast comes out, and I'm like, "Hey Sarah, this guy did a podcast on me." She's like, "And who cares? What, a podcast?" She's like, "You know, but he's gonna talk about me." I'm like, "Apparently this guy has like a million people listening." She's like, "Oh great. Did he ask you permission?" I was like, "Not really, so I don't really know what he's gonna talk about."
So, the thing comes out. We're listening to it, and you keep saying "Val." You keep saying "Val, Val, Val." You never say my last name. Then you and Sean go into this tangent talking about the red pill and blue pill or whatever.
So she's like, "Okay, it wasn't so bad. He never mentioned your last name. Who's gonna figure out who Val is?" Then after you went off on your tangent about the pills, you're like, "Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention his full name. Let me spell it out for you." And you literally spelled my last name.
So she's like, "I'm going to kill this guy."
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Sam Parr | oh she was bad no | |
Val Katayev | she wasn't bad she's she's very she's very she's very nice to | |
Sam Parr |
Her everything? I thought that everything we said you could find publicly, and we didn't reveal anything crazy. I try to only... I just read your LinkedIn. That's basically all I did.
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Val Katayev | yeah it doesn't I mean | |
Sam Parr | you could | |
Val Katayev |
Find stuff a bit, but it's, you know, it's one thing for information to be out there and for somebody to look for it. But it's another thing when you're on full blast, right? And it's being discovered by audiences. So that's all new to me.
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Sam Parr | I know, I felt like an asshole when that happened. I'm normally always good about that. So, like, if we're out with friends and people are talking about stuff, I'm like, "Hey, is this private or not?" They have to make sure they say it's private around me. Yeah, I get it.
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Val Katayev | It's... you're a nice guy, so I'll let it slide.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, I blew up your spot. And yeah, that's something I remember the day that happened. I was like, "Oh my God, Joe!" I didn't even realize it because sometimes when Sean and I were recording, I forget that it's a podcast. It's just like friends.
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Val Katayev | talking yeah | |
Sam Parr | To one of the... and I forget. I'm like, "Oh my God, I forgot that was... I just said that on air. I can't believe that!" So that was one of those examples. But dude, this was awesome! What do you think, Ben? This is pretty badass.
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Ben Wilson | This is great! It's got me fired up to go. I know you're doing your Airbnbs this year, Sam. That's kind of your thing, but it's got me fired up.
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Sam Parr |
To do it though... Right before this podcast, he said, "Don't do it."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah, I think I'm gonna do it anyway."
But he... I told him these two ideas that I might work on, and he basically said, "Dude..." I was like, "Should I work on going hard on content? Should I work on this job board idea or this Airbnb thing?" And he goes, "Do content." And I was like, "Ugh, that's what I don't wanna do."
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Val Katayev | I said don't do it now | |
Sam Parr |
Well, I didn't actually... He literally sent me his response like 3 minutes before the podcast, so I didn't entirely read... I haven't read his whole reply. But he's like, "The layup thing, that's just gonna bog you down." That's what he said.
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Val Katayev | yeah I think I I I think so I I think something you could do in the future but not now | |
Ben Wilson | I do feel inspired after hearing from Val. I need to be trying more things, like just taking more swings and putting more experiments out there to see what lands. I like that.
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Val Katayev | Yeah, listen. Throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. What's the worst attempt?
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Sam Parr | But when you throw... when most people throw stuff against the wall, it's a half-ass attempt. When you throw stuff against the wall, like you spend money or you... you said that when you didn't have much, you spent like $6,000 or $7,000 on ads to see if this "X" thing could work. Whereas most people will be like, "Ugh, that's... I'll lose a couple hundred dollars. I don't want to do that." It's like you actually try.
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Val Katayev | But that was an accident. Like, in that thread, that was an accident. There were no budget caps back then. So, I turned it on, I go to sleep, and I woke up to a $6,000 spend.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, but you still did it. I mean, I get it. Just like most people, they just don't. Your attempts are good. So...
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Val Katayev | When I was going to all these music sites, you know how I would get their attention? I would go to a site and, through Alexa or whatever, I kind of knew how much traffic they had. I knew these guys were outside the country, and to get their attention, I would literally email them and say, "Hey, I'll give you $100,000. I'll give you $50,000. I'll give you $20,000 prepaid. I'll wire it tomorrow just so you could test my ringtone matcher link for 7 days. If you don't like it and it doesn't make you enough money, take the link off. We never talk again if you want. If you like how much it generates, we'll sign a contract."
Everybody signed a contract because those two text links were generating like five times what someone who was making, you know, top sites were making. Like, a site making $100,000 a month, I would pay them $400,000 a month on top of that.
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Sam Parr | And how many people actually took you up and said, "Alright, fine, I'll give you the money," and then I'll put yours? They all wanted the money first.
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Val Katayev | Oh, the money! My success rate on that email was just... I mean, who the heck's gonna take money like upfront?
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Sam Parr | I would be like, "You know what? I don't need you to do it upfront. I'll give it a try just because you're serious and you actually told the story on Pam's podcast."
You were bold, but you have high integrity. I think there was a guy who you owed a lot of money to because they were a customer of yours or a vendor. You had a bill that you needed to pay them, and they changed their address or something.
You were like, "Dude, I can't find you. I owe you $60,000." You held on to the $60,000 for a long time, and you were seeking them out everywhere, saying, "Hey, where'd you go? I need to pay you your money."
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Val Katayev | Yeah, it pays off. We had so many international people in the music business when the Great Recession hit. They were in all these countries where their banks were located in weird areas, like Cyprus.
They would literally tell us, "Hey, stop wiring us money. We don't trust the bank we're working with. I gotta get a new bank account."
We held their money for them. I mean, we had $1,000,000 in our bank account that didn't belong to us. All these clients basically told me I was kind of like their bank for a while because they didn't want to get paid, and they didn't trust the bank.
It was phenomenal to me. I couldn't understand that they trusted us—trusted me—with their money for, I think in some cases, up to a year. We were holding their money because they had nowhere to send it. That's crazy.
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Sam Parr | dude this is a good conversation I'm happy you came on | |
Val Katayev | This is awesome! You listen, you're doing... I told you before, I love your podcast. It's very... it's very like layman's terms, right? It actually takes a lot of intellect, in my opinion, to dumb things down.
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Sam Parr | Well, thank you! I appreciate that. It helps.
Yeah, oftentimes I wonder... like, all of my friends are English as a second language speakers. I’m always amazed. Can you imagine coming to another country where you don’t speak the language at like 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16, and then just crushing it? I did, so I think that’s just amazing.
I've got a bunch of friends who are ESLs, and they'll ask for my help to write stuff because they're just a little rough. I'm like, "Dude, how are you so badass?" I’m just amazed at some of these people. And you're one of those people.
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Val Katayev | Yeah, well, whether you're a cell... I like my English is pretty good now, but I still can't put my thoughts together in a way that makes it interesting for people to understand. You know how to break that down.
So, you helped me with some of my pieces on that. So, that's power. Well, thank you.
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Sam Parr | I appreciate you coming on this is badass | |
Val Katayev | listen I appreciate you guys having me on |