Probably my favorite three words that someone can ever tell me is I got it because I know that it's super, super powerful.
And if you're in an organization right now and you feel like you want that recognition, say, hey, partner, manager, boss, whatever, I got it.
And then deliver on the, I got it. That is the fastest way to kind of building that trust with your team.
The fastest way to become the person that you want is to surround yourself with people who give you no choice but to become them.
And so I think Layla and I are very proud to announce that we're bringing in, for the first time ever in our career, a partner. into our business at acquisition.com, which is the man, the myth, the legend, the Michael Jordan of the real estate industry, Sharan Srivatsa.
I'm so excited to be here. This is so fun.
I'm so excited. I can't believe it's finally here.
I've been... Over a year? Yeah. Over a year that we've been talking about it now.
You remember we were doing the light cord session in Alex's office and we were like talking about the whole plan.
We planned the whole thing out. And it's like the countdown began.
Alex had a little timer on his phone. Yeah, I did.
And every, like for days and weeks, I would just be like, 78 days left 54 days left until we could finally announce this i think that it would be helpful for everyone to know kind of like the thought process behind the decision and kind of our relationship and how it's evolved to even deciding to do this.
You know, getting into a partnership, you know, you've heard our content before.
It's I mean, it's like getting married. It's a huge it's a huge decision.
I think we were all equally terrified. Yeah.
Not willing to fuck anything up. Yeah, and we've been... So what a lot of people might not know is that we've been friends for six or seven years now, and, like, very good friends, so...
To give you some context, and we'll walk through some of the timelines, because I think it'll be relevant.
But when we were selling the company, I was talking to Sharron every morning.
Like, hey, what do you think about this?
And what do you think of this deal term?
And even before that, I got introduced to him from a mutual friend of ours.
We had a Zoom call at like, I don't know, like four or five o'clock at night.
And I don't really take calls in the afternoon.
It was like, this is so weird. And I was like, I don't know, but this guy seems awesome from what...
This guy had said because he'd already sold a company for $3.4 billion.
I was like, I want to talk to somebody who's doing this.
It's for sure a scam. Yeah. Like no one has sold a coffee.
Yeah. And so anyways, we hopped on and then we ended up talking for like three and a half hours. which never happens.
And so I think that's pretty much how it kicked off.
And we very quickly became very good friends.
Well, I remember what happened was like Alex went on the Zoom call, right?
And then I made dinner, all the stuff. He comes back at like 8.30 and then I was like, how was the call mom?
And he was like, you need to meet this guy.
Like, you'd really like him. And I was like, most of the time when you introduce me to somebody, I'd be like, listen, there's something that smells wrong about you.
And then I remember I was so hesitant, but I was like, okay, he would not be like, you need to meet him if he didn't think so.
He's like, no, I think that you would get along really well with him.
And I was like, okay. He's only said that about like two or three people ever.
I've been right every time. Correct. Do you remember the first call though?
All we did was Alex was on the call. Yeah.
And we just drew processes out on an iPad.
Yeah, I do remember. Because I remember being blown away.
I was like, how do you know all this stuff?
And then I was like, can I pay you money?
I don't know what to do. And you were just friends.
And I understand, but this is where I just need your help.
And you were like, no. And I was like, yes.
I was like, please help. And so I would say Sharon was the original kind of first trusted confidant for our money. so like we had you know good amount of money prior to the sale and then obviously after the sale there was even more and so the game of making money versus the game of making your money make money are two completely different games.
There is crossover where one makes you better at the other and the other makes you better at the first.
But there's still a ton or for me, there was a huge amount of ignorance that of, you I mean, even around tax law of like, oh, wait, hold on.
These I'm getting this distribution, but I'm getting taxed on this, too.
I was like, but I paid tax on the money first. and then like wait you can have other things they can appreciate and then there's blends for cash flow and and all of the stuff and then it's like oh there's There's buckets that you can put your investments into so that you can optimize towards different outcomes.
And all of this stuff was stuff that we didn't know.
And we ended up creating our money rules list.
So I think three, four years ago, you guys might have seen a video of mine where it's like, these are the money rules, these are the money algorithms.
A lot of those stem from Chirac. Yeah. And you know what's funny, too, is I think when we first met, I had no idea because you were like, no, I'm an operator.
But it was like at that time you were not doing anything for it.
And when we met you and I and so it's funny because the first time I met you, everything was all the investing.
I saw you as an investor. And that was all I asked you about.
And then once you stepped into real and you made that decision, And then I was like, oh my gosh, he's also not.
And that was when I was like, oh my gosh, you're an operator too.
Like, it's so cool because like you're, you're really great at marketing and brand.
You're really great at investing and you're really good at operating.
And it's like, every time I've seen one area, it's just like the depths of knowledge in each area too.
It's like, it's not like you're shallow and all.
It's like you are deep knowledge in each of those areas.
I think that's when we really started talking a lot more because it was like, okay, we're talking about all the shit because we're doing the same shit.
And that was really fun for me. I remember when... when the time between after the sale, after I sold, we had sold Telus and I was just doing investing private equity stuff.
I would just talk to both of you saying, man, I don't know what my next thing is.
And the crazy part is, I think a lot of people don't know this, but you were the first people that I talked to about the real opportunity, right?
And I said, hey, I have this. This is super interesting.
Small public company, $200 million in revenue.
And you're like, you get to go work. Go do that.
Yes. Huff! It's funny to like sit back and think about it all because I think, as you, I was like thinking through before we sat out here, I was like, how did this conversation even start around us all working together?
I had obviously talked about Alex years before.
We'd have talked about it with you because I was... And it was more of like a...
I was like, oh, guys, there's some way we could bring Sharon on the board or, like, bring him in as, like, how do we involve him somewhat in Apet?
And it was just, like, something I didn't know how to do.
And it's, like, normal if I remember telling you.
I would ask Geron about this, but I can't ask him about it because it's him.
And then I'm trying to think about, do you guys remember how we started having a conversation?
I know exactly what happened. So we were at dinner and then I said, man, I think I've hit all the big goals.
We went from 200 million valuation to a billion dollar valuation.
And I said, I'm done. I think I'm just going to retire.
And Alex just laughed. He's like, you would be so bored being retired again.
Yeah, you should just come work with us.
We could do it for a long time. And I was like, ah, you don't want that.
And that was the... It was like... No, I do want that.
You should totally do that. And so I'll give you a little bit of backstory.
Well, Quentin Tarantino, this will put the pieces together.
But Charon came here as an immigrant, as the only child.
His parents... sold their belongings to get him a one-way ticket so that he could be here.
And then immediately you met a mentor who took interest in you with your very thick Indian accent, which you can't hear anymore because he worked on getting rid of it.
And then did you get accepted into a program?
What was the gap there that got you into that software company?
So how it all happened was for my senior paper in college, I wrote the senior paper in computer science, and I pitched it at a programming contest. at Berkeley and one of the judges said to me after I put you saying, hey, kid, you're not going to win.
I was like, thanks a lot. But that was a good idea.
I just funded a couple of the guys. I think what you are sharing would be perfect for them.
And that was my first foray into having a startup.
And so I actually lived in my aunt's basement.
I had no money and we were building a startup down Sand Hill Road, raising cash.
And this was during the boom. So we raised 20 plus million dollars and then sold that business overall.
So it was all by chance when I was of my senior paper pitching at a programming contest.
And so he, so you got the exit money from that deal and learned a bunch of stuff about deal making in that process, which we'll get to another time.
And then you took off for like six years, five years to play professional tennis.
And so plays professional. He's like, oh, great.
I'm done. I don't need money anymore. I'm going to play tennis for the next five years.
Can you imagine Alex explaining this story to me after you had told... I was like... This guy's a tennis player and he's an Indian and he's a billionaire.
It's awesome. I was like, And so after that, though, you're like, you know, I need to get back to work.
So then you went to get your MBA? Yeah. Yeah, so went to Vanderbilt.
So he's a fellow Commodore. For those of you who don't know, I also went to Vanderbilt.
Community college. Yep. Community college.
Way stern. That's what the kids call it.
Anyways. So goes to Vanderbilt for the NBA and then goes from Vanderbilt into Goldman Sachs on the credit side.
And then calling all these business owners to talk about financial products and investing, things like that.
Is that how you found TELUS? Yeah, so one of my clients was also an investor, had invested in this real estate company.
And he said, hey- I invest in this real estate company.
Can you come take a look at it? And that's how the Telus process started.
And so Telus was how many years? Five. So in five years, Sharon went in, bought a huge chunk of the company, and then took it, what was the total, the revenue volume you were saying you were doing in terms of real estate?
Gross volume was 300 million? Yeah. So we went from 300 million in gross volume to 3.4 billion in five years.
And then they sold that company and then that got integrated into Douglas.
Douglas Hellman. Yeah. And so after that sale, he then was like, okay, I'm going to do another five or six year stint of the Charon.
What do I do with my life? Investment. game i have i have so much money what do i do dude i remember the first time when we hung out with you during that stint too like you were like you guys want to go to breakfast at like nine or yeah We were so stressed.
We were like, breakfast? It's like in the middle of my day.
So an ongoing joke that you don't know is that we were like, Sean's the only person you do breakfast with.
Literally, I say no to every single. No, I eat.
Oh, there you go. It's like you eat from like 9 to like 11, 15.
And it's like, well, there's my entire mortgage.
I'm sorry. We also drank like 14 cups of decaf.
So it actually starts hitting you like calf when you drink that much of it.
But anyway, so you did that. And that's, I mean, I say that jokingly, but Cirillo Capital got started.
And then that was really the family office component of it, where you did private equity and venture side investments, and then a bunch of real estate stuff as well, obviously, because that's the background that you come from.
And so you had a huge mix of doing that.
And then that kind of got us to the reel situation where reel was doing, you know, 200 million or has had a $200 million market cap.
And it was at 36 months. Yeah, so less than three years went to 1.2 billion, so 6x in less than three years when Charon came in.
That is the Michael Jordan of the real estate industry.
Not only doing a billion dollar company once, but twice.
So he's 100% on his real estate portfolio. companies getting to a billion.
And so we're just, honestly, we're, I would just say like, I'm beyond thrilled to have Sharron in here because It was so natural because all of the major business decisions and strategic direction stuff that I would end up calling Sharron about anyways,
Like I feel like you, I was shadow, I was getting you as a shadow de facto partner.
And so the integration has been almost like we just get to hang out more than we did before.
Yeah, it's really interesting because I also think during that time where you started and you were doing all the investments yourself, we kind of took your structure and neared it for us.
And that's when we learned about private equity, when we learned about investing, we then, a lot of people don't know, we did, I wanna say it was seven, we found seven real estate partners And the only one that ever ended up working out was for me.
Well, I'll say the ones that worked out well.
Yeah. Worked out well. Yeah. Okay. Sorry.
Anybody else? but velvety impressive returns and deals were at review um them and you went into Rio, we went into acquisition.com.
It was almost like, not the same time, but like around, you know, you have very similar time frame.
And then that's when I think we started talking more and more about we shifted from investing to business.
And then as acquisition.com start taking off, and then you had, like, I don't know what the next step is, then it was like, it just felt like it made so much sense.
And I think we were all so worried, like, is it like, how's it going to be?
And. It's funny because I remember the first your first day, like when we sat down in a meeting together, it was like I was so nervous.
I don't know why it wasn't even my meeting.
I was just shadowing. And then it was like after 45 minutes and then we're like by the end of the day, it felt like this has always been how it has been.
Does that make sense? Yeah. And like now it's like I can't imagine the fact that we didn't work together before for all those years.
It's crazy. Well, we kind of did. I was just not on the official Slack channel.
That's fair. Not on the org chart. Told me about this.
I'm like, I know. I think my favorite... kind of part of the story is I got to see Jim launch and sale.
I got to see the early idea of acquisition.com.
Yeah. I got to see acquisition.com version one, the building and the growth of headquarters acquisition.com version two, and then all the stuff we're planning for the future.
And so it feels like I've had a chance to see and be a part of it in the From the outside looking in, but the inside looking in is even cooler, which is the best part.
Yeah, it's just super fun. I think for anybody watching too, you know, as we're talking about this, I think a good lesson to take away is like, I think one thing that was really apparent to me early on at least is like, why did Alex say like, oh, you'd like this guy?
Right. He said that because most of the people that he would, you know, we we talked to and I'm sure you have the same thing.
It's like they just want money. it's like they're in business i think it's like there's people who are in business to make money and then people who are love business and love making cool and then make money back once once And when I met you, it was clear that you were the type of person that you like building.
You like being excellent and building great business and money comes as a consequence of that. right when he comes to the confluence of the fact that you actually really love people and that you're a really great person and that you have values that you all you can't and like There's just so few people who have that where I think for me, especially like it's so important to me that anybody that we work with doesn't just have this one area, like they know how to make money, but they also can build a great business.
They're great to their team. They're great to their clients.
They have great reputation. They have a great family life.
They take care of themselves personally.
And it's like, when I met you, it was so clear that you have all those.
You weren't just like one area and sacrificing all the rest.
Because... I think there's a difference between building a great business and making money.
We all know that. And so I think that's why also just very early on and throughout the process of us being friends, I think the reason it's so easy to be friends is we have shared values.
Well, I'll tell you this one thing, and I learned this from both of you, which is you can't just be good at one thing.
And to win in life, I'm sorry, you have to win at everything.
And sometimes you have seasons of life where one takes precedence, like Alex will say, have the season of now, or you say, I'm working on my health.
That's great. But you have to win at everything.
There is no other choice. And I bet people are thinking, well, how did this you know, how did they negotiate, how to do the financials of the deal?
And I want to tell people about this, right?
The the depth of the relationship allowed for the deal terms to be really easy and, um, for everyone watching, Alex and Layla said, hey, just write us an email with what you're thinking.
So I wrote an email and then they hit reply all, added counsel and say, please draft this.
That's all it was. That was the whole negotiation, which would have been months and years for most people arguing over terms, et cetera.
We had none of that. I've been through a lot of these in my life, and I will tell you, it was the most gracious, the kindest, and nothing reaffirmed wanting to do this personally for me when all that y'all did was hit reply all and say, just paper this. does literally the same.
It was, and it reminded me of like, even just like in any great partnership, right?
It's like, you're just, everything's been done ahead of time.
So then it makes the hard stuff easy because you already worked on the hard stuff.
Yeah. And that's, I think, a good lesson for everybody, which is if you're getting to the point where stuff's breaking down on, a final deal term means something else was majorly wrong before.
And so if you can get all of that in alignment, the deal points are Very simple.
I want to hit on something because I think it's important.
So I said it very casually at the beginning, but Layla and I have never had a partner that we've basically brought into our kind of like the holding company.
I've spent the last five years from a content perspective and the last 13 plus from a reputation perspective, building reputation.
And so bringing someone in at that level, was a serious you know decision and if you're thinking like okay well then why why would why would they do something like that like couldn't couldn't you just try and find somebody you could just hire or something like that.
There come certain levels of skill and experience that are unhirable.
You know what I mean? Like there's the deal that OpenAI did with John Ivey, where we're like, he's now just basically a co-founder status of OpenAI because he brings such a depth experience and a network and a skill set and and and and that to replicate that it would be both impractical and and likely, I don't wanna say impossible, but the effort to replicate it would detract from the whole overall.
It's like you would have to have like two companies to replicate what Charon can do.
And so the vision for where we're trying to go, if anything, is that this is just expanded or brought the future closer of what we have always wanted to do with acquisition.com and tried to pay down ignorance as fast as possible. with somebody who has, I mean, I mean more experience than anyone on on the deal side, on the real estate side, the private equity side, like he has so much there, but then obviously from a scale perspective in the trenches,
Loading $2 billion companies all within five-year periods.
I mean, I'm very upfront about the things that I will always reinvest in our ability to do more.
And this was a serious call. And I mean, you think about it for me, it's like you're going to associate someone really heavily with your brand.
It's a huge bet. You know, there's risk.
But Tron felt very much worth the risk because I think What we're going to do together is going to be really big.
That's funny. As you're saying that, you know, one thing I realized through the whole process is not one time did I have a doubt.
Yeah. Like not one death. Like I like never, I never felt bad about it.
I never had any like hesitation. I just worried that I was going to fuck it up somehow.
And I still, to this day, I think we both have that.
Like, I'm hinged on that. Like, what am I going to do to fuck it up?
I have a door. It's just us. It's just us.
I sleep fine. There's more. I know. I just take it all for both of us. every deal we've done every that like i always am the one doubting and hesitating and i like literally never Like it always felt good.
Like it felt really good for me the whole time.
I think part of it too, for like people that are listening is like, that's the logic side of it.
I think there's another side, which is like, none of us have to do this.
And because of that, I look at it as like, what's the biggest risk to any of us not achieving our dreams?
Ducks? acquisition.com, like all of it is that we stop.
And why would we stop? Not because we can't do it, but because we don't want to do it anymore.
Because we don't like it. Because we don't like it.
And so, like, I think about it, and I told Alex, I was like, I'm getting to the point where it's like, I just want to do stuff I love with people I love.
And so it's like you bring in people and you become partners with people that you feel like I will have a higher quality of life within my business and enjoy myself more if I get to work with these people.
I think that's really important. And so I think for anybody watching, too, that's a huge piece of it because people come to me all the time.
They're like, I'm going to hire this person.
I'm going to bring in this partner. And I'm like, do you like having dinner with them?
And it's like, no, I don't like having dinner with them.
And I'm like, well, why are you bringing them in and giving them a happier business?
You know what I mean? And so I think that's a huge point that people need to think about and consider when it comes to that stuff.
I would say that the second piece, too, is that At some point in the business, like, a lot of people might be watching this and thinking, like, maybe I need to find a partner now.
But I think you have to consider the size that you're at and...
Because at some point, you're not looking to hire people anymore.
Multiple people at similar levels are looking to partner because at some point, it's like one plus one equals 11.
That's the way I think about it. Except it'd be like 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals, I don't know, 30.
111. Well, can you talk about that, though?
You made a great video about it, but... the early discussions for us revolved around this metaphor of the barrel.
And I I think you broke it down really well.
I'd love for you to maybe share the idea of the ammo, the resources around it.
Yeah, it's at some point, I think we get into this pattern when we're bringing people into the business, bringing resources in.
It's almost like they're bullets, like you need to give them give the resources to somebody who's capable of building something from nothing.
And at some point you have to bring in a bearer.
And when you think of a bearer, you think of somebody like you who can create something of nothing, who can be as effective as you at the things that you're doing.
And at that point, it's like, If I'm gonna bring in somebody that has the same skillset as me, then that's a different type of, you're not gonna hire that into your business.
Right. And if you did, maybe you hire somebody in 10 years there at that level, but not, you know, and and sometimes never.
And so at that point, you have to say, I need a barrel, which is something I can give ammunition to.
And they can just go shoot it and they can hit the target.
And so I think like, you know, Alex and I are each a barrel and Sharon's a bear.
So now we have, you have two new barrels and we have one new barrel.
Well, Alex talked about it when he first shared it with me.
He goes, hey, most founders are single-barreled.
And they've got to get to a point. And maybe you can articulate this better, which is like, all right, now I get to a point and now I've got to go raise money or create something to artificially create a a second opportunity for myself to get the barrel bigger.
And what a lot of people don't realize is The first time I met both of you, the first time I talked to Alex, I go, man, he can just make something out of nothing.
Like he can make things up. It is amazing Alex's ability to make things up and just make things up that can drive brand, create businesses, etc., I was like, that's who's going to make it happen.
And so when, then when I chatted with him, I was like, okay, well, you got the make thing up and make thing happen.
And I think there's a, that's why it's worked really well for both of you.
Right. And so. Alex can make anything up and Layla can make anything happen.
And that's a really powerful combination.
And so my question for you, Alex, is, If someone is thinking about that in their business, is that the diagnostic or would you think about a different diagnostic? everything comes down to return on time, right?
Like I think if we boil everything down for the entrepreneurs, like you only have so much time and you have to get returns on your time.
And so we trade, we try and get other people who have high leverage time, which is like not only can I get somebody who can do something, But they're also bringing in 10 years that I don't have to learn to get that skill to then do this other thing.
And so with the rate limiter, which is the whole concept of barrels is like, you can only ship things so quickly and there's only so many opportunities that you can pursue.
Like, and I'm a big advocate of focus, you know, aggressive advocate. of focus.
But you really never over expand, you just under talent.
And I think the vast and that under talent is just this not enough barrels, right?
You have 20 great ideas. You've got one life and there's one you.
Now, if you had 20 barrels, you could do all 20.
You've got Elon. He's got... six big crazy opportunities, his highest leverage is his ability to attract barrels, probably more than anything else.
But with, I want to circle back to what you said with me and Layla.
So I got to somewhere in the neighborhood of between $2 and $3 million a year.
I can't remember the exact financials, but between $2 and $3 million a year when Layla and I met.
That was about where I had kind of like capped as an entrepreneur.
And that was for, I chased too many rabbits.
I was too spread thin and I had six different businesses.
I had all these different things going on.
And then when Layla came into my life, she got me to focus on one opportunity.
And then she was able to basically make all these things happen.
And also at the same time, push back and be like, great idea next year.
And that, from an order of magnitude perspective, that went from, I mean, you think about where we were there, two or $3 million a year as a solo entrepreneur, to adding one other barrel then took us to nine figures plus, right?
And it's like, okay, and that's why our, Le Chiron, it's like, okay, well, there's two.
And this is why Le was saying that, you know, one plus one doesn't equal two or three.
It can equal, you know, 11. It can be a huge increase in throughput.
And I think that having a third barrel makes it I mean, we're excited about, you know, we've been we've been talking for a year.
It's Redwood who's, you know, curious. It's not like, hey, Sharon's coming in because we're just going to, like, keep doing what we're doing.
Very big plans that we've been honestly laying since we started talking a year ago that have been in the works that you guys will find out about.
I think that's fundamentally what we saw for us.
Like with the highest leverage thing is just like not having to live Sharon's life in order to to do that we can just bring sharon in and then get the aggregate benefit of all my life and my experience your life and your experiences and then yours together and that's where the the skills stack and compound.
So there's this framework that I like sharing a lot, which is like, If you think about, or I believe that the potential of a business is based on the aggregate skill set of the people contained within it.
And if you are the person who has done every job in the business, then it means that literally only one brain has is the max capacity of the business.
And so if you were to imagine this as like a little triangle, it's like all of a sudden, if you just add a second brain, how much higher the peak gets just from adding two kind of rate limiters or capacitors in the business.
And when you add a third, the peak goes way higher in terms of the capacity for the business.
And so that's where this gets really exciting.
And there's a third kind of alpha for everyone, which is What are the opportunities that get unlocked that none of us could pursue on our own, but that we could only do in aggregator together?
And I think that's where we get these... more sophisticated, and yet simpler.
It's more complex to execute simpler in concept. outcomes that everyone can agree like, man, if we could just do this one thing, it could change everything.
It's like, yeah. And that's where I'm like, yeah, we could change everything.
And you guys are like, it will take more stuff.
But I think it's really powerful, though, for the person listening and watching to kind of decode a little bit of what Alex and Layla just shared, is that we've experienced this, and I really...
One of my favorite things about being an acquisition.com is this, where we could have a chat about something and then Layla will say, I got it.
And then that's it. You don't have to worry because Layla got it, right?
Or we'll be talking about something and say, I got it.
The conversation is over. And the more people that can say, I got it, is insanely powerful for an organization.
You say I got it very often, and I really appreciate that.
I always never got it. We sometimes have to text you under the table.
This is your time to say, I got it right now.
No, I actually think you made a video about this.
You said, how do you get scale? You get scale when you ensure that the...
The leverage that is transferred gets transferred without a change in the performance in some way, right? which is insane.
And so probably my favorite three words that someone can ever tell me is I got it because I know that, and if they actually got it, it's super, super powerful.
And when you have someone like that in your organization, I would... support them, get out of their way, reduce fiction, get them support, make sure whatever they want is taken care of.
Not that you need a partner per se, but anybody that is... that has that level of competence and that has that level of care, I would highly take care of them.
And if you're in an organization right now and you feel like you want that recognition, say it. hey, partner, manager, boss, whatever, I got it.
And then deliver on the, I got it. That is the fastest way to kind of building that trust with your team.
Hey guys, first off, I want to say thank you.
There's one person who has been sharing this more than anyone, and that is you.
The only reason this podcast continues to grow is because you guys are sharing it.
And my only ask is that if this has provided value to you or you think it would provide value to somebody else more importantly, If you could DM it to them, if you could Slack it to them, if you could text them, a screenshot or a link to this podcast is the only way it grows.
That's what fills the hole inside of my heart for the approval of others so that I can go to sleep at night.
And that's why I really do this. Anyways, enjoy the rest of the pod.
No, it's really good. You say, I got it all the time.
And it's just like, if someone says it to me, I'm just like, I will ask no more questions.
Because I also think that the other thing it does for the person saying I got it, which what a lot of people don't realize is when you say I got it, there's an insane belief system and a responsibility that you put on yourself.
Because the reason I say I got it is I can't let Layla down.
And so I will work super hard because I put those three words together. in front of Layla.
And the next time I say it, if I did not get it, then she's gonna be like, what the heck, you know?
So there is a, there has to be a 100% say-do ratio on how I got it.
You cannot score any time. And if you do, you're like, I'm so sorry, this is what happened, let me go fix it, right?
So the number of I got it's that can happen in an organization, will move the business so much faster.
It's really good analogy. I'm thinking about it.
I'm like, who says I got it most? I can think of the top two people that say it to me the most.
And I'm like, oh, I always appreciate it so much.
Like, oh, I can't. I'll throw this in like I think bringing a partner on I think you know This has been awesome for us, but trying to explain right way to feel, wrong way to feel, I think just from a pattern recognition perspective might be helpful.
One, we've been working for, you know, not working, but like we've been talking about this.
So we've laid a lot of groundwork for this so that we can hit the ground running. but Sharon has given me and especially Layla attention back.
And so it's like, and I don't like using soft language, but I'll use it here and then I'll explain it.
But like, It makes like charade is making everything feel lighter.
And so I see that as, okay, I only have so much time and so much bandwidth, which is even less than the time that I have in terms of like mental acuity.
And all of a sudden having two thirds of the things that I was formerly working on now just gone. and being done at the same level or arguably higher because Toronto is more experienced with these things.
So we're paying down ignorance debt as we're kind of learning the edge cases of what is the nine-figure to 10-figure marketing playbook look like?
What is the 9-figure to 10-figure sales playbook look like?
What is the 9-figure to 10-figure product playbook look like?
We're trying to pay down this ignorance set as fast as we can. across all these functions but it's like well sharon already did this on the public level you know in a public company and before that in intel is at a multi-billion dollar level It's like, well, some of these legal infrastructure pieces, it's like, okay, well, we can and we'll learn it, or we can just not have to pay the scar that I know or the interest that is going to come due. later because we just pay that debt down now.
I think that that habit of trying, being willing to sacrifice some today to not get destroyed tomorrow has served us really well.
But from a feeling perspective, which I don't really tap into very much, it just things feel lighter.
And I think that if somebody comes into your organization, obviously it works at any level, but if someone comes into the organization and it feels heavier, that person is not helping you.
They're not putting attention back on your plate so that you can then eat up the problems that you're uniquely qualified to solve at the higher level than you're currently solving on it.
No, I think that's really valid. I also think even in that case, like when you're bringing someone to make it feel lighter, Whatever that may be.
I think like for me, it's definitely very mental.
It's also from a work standpoint, but like the mental like knowing that even just like talking things through with you, it's just like I just... value that so much and I'm so grateful for it just to talk through things that I didn't have anybody in the organization to talk to about before.
You know what I mean? It's like, of course, but we don't even work on the same things in the conference.
No, we don't. Which has just been like a sigh of relief of like... me being like, this is shit, right?
And you're like, that's shit. We're like, this is amazing, right?
And you're like, that's amazing. I'm like, okay.
Like it's nice validation. And then also like be able to run things by you and learn things that I didn't know.
You know, when we told the team that you were coming on, like the the way that I brought it up to everyone is like, guess who hasn't taken a company to a billion dollars before?
And I was like, so I would like to bring on somebody who has.
And I think a big... Learning for me was that, and of course I didn't talk to you about it because you were very busy at the time, but I was so nervous to tell everybody.
So nervous. So I've talked to... one of my coaches, I talked to like two of my coaches about, I'm like, how do I do this in a way that positions it really well?
And they're like, well, what's the truth about this?
And I was like, all these, everything that we just said here, right?
And then I go, just tell the truth. And it's so funny because I told the whole team and that was exactly the frame I used, which was just like, I haven't done this, Labor.
Charon has. We've been friends for this long.
We've been talking to him behind the scenes for this long.
Like, these are all things. And not one person had an adverse response.
And it still has not. Like it has gone insanely well.
So what I will say is that if you are bringing in somebody to help, you don't want to skimp out on how you bring them in, how you talk about it with your team. um even like onboarding like it was fast and crazy but like i built out everything and then you were like you're like i will do some of that but it you know it's like you just never know Right?
It's like you don't know. We should talk about how Chiron onboarded because I think that would be super helpful for people who are bringing in high-level executives, directors, partners.
Do you want to hit on that? I mean, we can.
It wasn't even as planned because I ended up...
No, but I love what you did. I mean, so, you know, the first thing is Sharon did, which a lot of, so this is, I think this is kudos to Sharon because he has zero ego, which is why he is as successful as he is.
But a lot of, you know, partners, execs, even directors, depending, like leaders, I'll just say, might come into a company and just be like, all right, what's my 30, 60, 90.
And there's nothing wrong with that. That's fine.
But Tron just was like, okay, I'm going to meet every single person who works at acquisition.com. from like the bottom of the org chart all the way up.
And he was like, this gives me so much rapid context and I'll have rapport and, and, and.
And he basically onboarded himself within 10 days and talked to, you know, 100 plus people in that period of time and was like, he came back, he was like, I understand what's going on now.
Which is better than like you trying to write a 16 page document that trying from because the thing is, is it's always going to be one person's perspective.
Whereas if you get a hundred different perspectives, you actually get such a three-dimensional view of the company rather than 2D kind of paper version.
I'll also say that from a speed of growth perspective, if we think about the speed of a business can be derived from the speed of their ability to make decisions. right well it's like then what what speeds up uh decision making ability so one part is data uh well actually data is going to be the biggest one but when you don't have in the absence of data you have patterns right you have basically past data that you can extrapolate in the future And so to your point, Layla, it's like we might say, hey, based on reasoning, there's some logic and what we know about the world, we believe this is a good direction or a good decision.
And having someone who has that pattern that's already recognized be like, yeah, already did that.
Like that's the right call or yes. And add this piece because this will come up later. it has compressed what would be maybe multiple hour, two hour long discussions to then being finally like, all right, let's just do it.
But that whole process might take two weeks or four weeks to make that call, which then can now be done in 30 minutes, but then tomorrow we have another 30 minute decision.
And the day after we have another 30 minute decision, but each one of those would have been two to four weeks, two to four weeks, two to four weeks.
And like that's where you can see why a company can grow at 10 times the rate, 100 times the rate of others because minutes versus months is a massive difference when we look at timescales for growth.
And I think that's one of the other massive unlocks that. that, I mean, I'm excited that you've already given us, but, you know, even more in the future.
You mean just how we make decisions? Yeah.
Yeah, I think part of that too is like we're so... We're usually like this.
And I feel like you have the unique... Like you've done... a lot of things like by having both the sets of skills.
So like you can flex on either side. And so like you bring a really like rounding middle ground well thank you but the I think the interesting part about the onboarding which people need to know is the thoughtful like Layla wrote me a like a 16 to 20 page onboarding plan, which was amazing because that allowed me to say, all right, let me read through that.
And the interesting part about that was not the plan itself. was seeing Leila's thought process on how the world works.
And I think that most people will just say, okay, cool.
Hey, let's do a press release and bring this person on board.
And hey, for the first few months, just meet people.
I'm like, no. You want 90 days of ramping up?
That's crazy. You need to make impact today.
And so... Alex hit the nail on the head where if the organization is somewhat larger, especially if there is a hybrid component to it, you can't wait for rapport. you need rapport and patterns very quickly.
And so if you're talking to people and five of them say, this is what they love about the company, that reinforces what that is.
And if three of them say, this is the same issue, that reinforces what that is.
And you learn it very quickly and you learn it from natural patterns.
And that also allows for rapport. So if you're new or in a company, I would... suggest focusing on rapport and patterns.
That would be very, very helpful. And the second is to be super... impactful, you have to find the most granular thing that happens in the business.
So for us, it was me going through every single line item in our P&L.
And so you know everything because where the money goes is where the business invests.
And once you know that, you know where everything is at.
So if you're in a marketing organization, you should know every single metric, every single channel, and that allows you to kind of figure out that is the pattern in a lot of ways.
So people think about learning top down.
You want to learn bottom up because that allows you to know what the culture of decision making happens.
That's what's manifested in the bottom up numbers.
And if you do bottom up, you can get perspective very quickly.
If you do top down, it takes a lot of time.
I think that's what I was most impressed with is I totally saw the bottom approach there.
Just like already being able to recall so many of the details.
I was like, wow, like just so fast. I don't even have anything insightful to say.
It was really impressive. Well, I think the pattern for me is that, you know, if we... bring leaders in, in general.
I mean, I think we've tended to, we talk about this publicly anyways, but it was just further reinforcing of the framework that like, A players don't usually need a long time to immediately start providing value.
And when we hear someone who might say like, I'm going to need a quarter just to like get my bearings, it's like, probably not the guy or the gal, right?
Like every single life player that I could name off the top of my head in this business, like immediately, I mean, within the first five days, you know, first work week was like, I got it.
I can already understand this chunk. I'm going to start eating this and I'm going to understand these, but they hit the ground running.
And every time that I've probably been like, you know what we'll give them much it's like it's never really worked out long term or it's just been an also ran it's been like a they're all right like they somewhat solved the problem and they're not a screaming hot pain right now i'll deal with it later But every A player hits the ground running.
And this is obviously no exception. I would love both of your perspectives on this because hopefully this is helpful for folks watching as they're bringing people on or you're coming onto an organization is you want to deliver artifacts as soon as possible.
And it's not just, oh, I had impact. You want to deliver something real, tangible, artifact, something as soon as possible.
And when you start producing People around you are like, wait a minute.
He showed up, he tried. He showed up, he wrote a memo.
He showed up, he made a video. He showed up, he set up a process.
He showed up, he talked to a vendor. And so the email is not the artifact.
The artifact is the artifact. And the more artifacts that you can ship early on, the more confidence you get and the more feedback you get.
And you start to realize if you're coming in new to an organization, the more artifacts you can ship, the better.
Say artifacts to me like organizational wins.
Correct. Yeah. Hey, we read this memo. Here's a video.
Here's how we're thinking about this. I always think about it as, what do you have to show for it?
Right? Yeah. Which is a great Doge question, but you have to ask yourself, what do you have to show for it?
And if you have nothing to show for it and you...
It's okay you made a decision, but early on, you have to have something to show for that decision.
Otherwise, you don't get cultural buy-in on that.
One piece that people discount a lot, which is like, I explain to people, I'm like, listen, I can know what you're doing, but if the team doesn't see wins from you, they're not going to like assimilate you into the organization.
They're not going to know, why should I listen to this person?
Because you're like, oh, well, no, ask Layla.
I'm doing all this for eight weeks behind the scenes.
They're like, okay, whatever. And don't be behind the scenes.
Don't be behind the scenes. The two biggest pieces of advice I give to everyone that asks me, because we have so many new people.
They're like, what can I do? And I'm like, one, don't tell people what to do when you're new.
Like don't go around telling people that something they do is wrong.
Like, that doesn't make you smart, doesn't make you cool, that's not why you're here.
Like, just watch. Just watch. I was like, the second thing is offer to help everybody.
I'm like, just offer. Just like, hey, is there anything I can do to help you?
Is there anything I can do to support you?
Like, if you do those two things, it's like...
And one thing I've noticed with you is you're like, how can I support?
How can I help? Is there anything I can do for you?
Like constantly asking those things. And it's like, even if someone doesn't need something, it's like they feel like, Molly.
They ask that they can do something for me and they're brand new.
You know what I mean? And you always gain rapport from kind of the servant frame, right?
It's like, it's not telling them what to do.
It's asking them what you can do. Just a small pivot.
And by doing that, though, then it's like now I've got one reward cycle with this person and one, especially if you come in from the position of above.
If they know you have the authority, you flipping and being like, hey, how can I help you?
I think that's the authority hijack, right?
The thing that you could do that ultimately will gain you real influence rather than title-based authority in the business.
The one thing I will offer is the thing that made me feel the most welcome and secure was Layla's document.
Because it showed me that she cared enough to spend all that time preparing for me.
And I don't think most... I'm just going to say most onboarding managers do that where imagine the anxiety of a new person coming on board anywhere in the organization.
They want to show up, they want to be successful, they want to do a good job, you know, but it is the first two to four weeks are actually the manager's responsibility, not the person's responsibility.
And us putting in a little bit of effort upfront, showing them that you're saying, hey, this is the plan, here's the onboarding plan, shows that you care so much about the person coming onboard.
As opposed to, oh yeah, we'll just introduce you around and watch your... No, you don't want to do that.
And so my... I publicly want to thank you.
I know how much effort went into that, but that allowed me to see your thinking and also feel your care which we have a bunch of new leaders coming on board that are going to work with us directly and that You set the bar for me to think about them coming on that way and almost to guarantee their success.
And so I want to take... I want to, my effort needs to guarantee their success because at the end of the day, we just want guaranteed success.
And so I want to do the effort and you showed me how to do that.
That was super cool. Oh, I appreciate that.
It's funny you say that because that is when I remember when I walked into a new job and they had a whole document packet and like basket for me.
And the way I felt was like, I never had a job do that.
And they had like two days where they spent so much time with me and it was all structured and I wanted to give more to them. because of what I got there.
And that was when it clicked for me of like, okay, when I build an organization, like the first impression of just like how much effort they're willing to put in, I didn't need half of it, right?
And I didn't end up using half of it, but, like, that they were willing to made such a difference in just, like, feeling welcome because you're, you know, you're nervous and stuff.
And so... I'm glad it was helpful. I know the documentary was definitely overblown, and I did it out of complete anxiety of not wanting it all to fail, but it was awesome.
I was like, if this fails, it's my fault for sure.
But that is the responsibility that the leader should take, right?
That is the responsibility because you spend all this time hiring going through the process, making the person feel special, come on board.
And then you're like, welcome. You know, I think a lot of people don't talk about I, I prepared so much for issues with bringing like telling people that you were coming in of like people being like well Layla I want to work with you on this or I'm gonna like this or like who's this person like What's going on?
Like, how are we going to make decisions?
Like, I was completely prepared for all of that because that's what so many people told me, like, happens.
And I was like, even though we have such a great culture and organization, like, I just need to prepare for it.
And I think a lot of people, that's actually where I spent even probably just as much time. which was having the conversations with people one-on-one, talking to people, what does it mean, what does it not mean, what's changing, what's not changing, for individuals and then for the company.
And I think that alone is where a lot of people fail is that they don't do the work when they're bringing in a new leader or a new partner to position them well, to step into the organization and be welcome.
Because a lot of times they do a couple things.
One, they say it's going to be better with this person.
I don't say any expectations because I'm like, it's going to be different.
Good job. Thank you for making it. It's going to be different.
I saw the worst was like three years ago when a leader would like replace themselves.
They're going to be so much better with this.
I was like, you can't, I knew for us, you can't say that because it's, It's going to at first feel so different.
They're not going to think, well, you said it was going to be better.
It's day two. Why is it not better? It's like, well, they're new.
What do you expect? It's like, well, you said.
And so that's the first one was like, just don't set any of those expectations.
Just say it's going to be different. It's going to be a change.
Here's what the change is going to look like.
And I think the second piece to it is explain how it like the highly impacted individuals.
How is it what's going to happen and what's not going to happen?
Like what changes and what doesn't change?
And I think that those are also really important to explain to people because a lot of people bring in someone like you and they're like, am I getting fired?
Is this still happening? Like what's changed?
There's all sorts of things that can go through your brain.
So I always just try to come up with like, what are the things that, What are the obstacles I anticipate ahead of time that I can just overcome before they even bring them to me?
And I think that in itself... Paired with what you just said, like if you do those two things, like you address the communication plan for how you're going to communicate to the organization.
And then there's a plan for when you bring the person in.
I think that. It's how you set someone up for success.
So when they walk in, people are excited for them to be there, not scared or not annoyed or frustrated or worried.
I'm just excited for her. Real quick guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast.
Layla and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our scaling roadmap.
It's breaking scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business.
You've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you've got customer success, you've got IT, you've got recruiting, you've got HR, you've got finance.
We show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level.
It's all free and you can get it personalized to you.
So it's about 30-ish pages for each of the stages.
Once you answer the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow.
14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes.
And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com forward slash roadmap.
ROADMAP. ROADMAP. That was your idea. It is the natural progression.
I think that's a lot of stuff that people are going to start seeing us moving towards and when we allude to the big moves we made, that comes with acquisition.com 3.0?
I mean, I see it like as a progression of...
I would say 1.0 was us helping ourselves directly.
I'd say 2.0 was us helping ourselves directly and helping everyone else indirectly.
So it's like, if you document all these things, we show what we're doing.
That's going to help a lot of business owners indirectly.
We're not the one actually like setting up, you know, like taking calls for them.
We're like, but hey, here's how we do it.
And here's how we do our marketing. Here's how we do our sales.
Here's how we do these things in the business so we can help you grow and hopefully hit your goals. and i'll say you know acquisition 3.0 is how can we help ourselves directly and help you directly and so i see that as kind of the vectors which is kind of the natural progression But in order to do that, you know, from the first time we met until now, the size of the quote indirect audience uh, went from, you know, a few thousand to now, you know, tens of millions, uh, that have, you know, directly been in our wherever versus the people were even in our interested, uh, demographic.
And so in order to do it and do it right and maintain our reputation, which is what we've worked such a long time to do, we want to make sure I'll try not to be crude, but that it's fucking awesome and it's fucking done right.
And if we can do that, then I think that we can get close to the kind of impact that i think all three of us want to have because you said this earlier but like it's hard for people to comprehend it's like Sharron really doesn't need to do anything and we really don't need to work at all.
We can just like live off the dividends from the buildings and the businesses that we own and like just work out of it.
Like when I see the best entrepreneurs of all time, it's like they're able to kind of like flip their selfish interest inside out so that It just kind of pulls the world.
And I think that that's, I think it's something that all of us have wanted to do.
And it just takes more than one or two people to do it and do it right.
I just think at the end of the day, when I think about what we're building here and how it started and such, I think it's because You know, at the end of gym launch, for example, like, you know, we got partners and then we were out, right?
We never brought partners into the business to keep growing the business in a way that didn't feel right. completely exhausting because at some point, this isn't about the work that you do in the business.
It's about the decisions, the judgment, the leadership. the experience and that's you know it's not like i'm like oh sharon's gonna come and do so much work like it's like i know you are because it's who you are But it's like the judgment you bring, the decision-making, the expertise, like your thinking, your brain, right?
And I think at some point... especially like when we sold gym walks, like I was definitely at a point where like it had just run off the two of us.
And I do think that I was at a point where I was like, I was okay for a minute in that brief moment of thinking smaller because I was like, oh my God, I'm so tired. later it was just like I'm tired like I've been up since 4 a.m.
I was going to bed at 8 p.m. and I'm a freaking grandma and like it would be nice to just have something a little more a little less demanding of me right And it's funny because I look back and I'm like, it was just a skill deficiency, which is like I didn't have the skill of doing a couple of things.
It's like building a team that allowed for me not to feel that way every day.
And building a team where I actually, like being tired at the end of the day was worth it because I had so much fun working with them.
As well as then, OK, maybe you shouldn't be the one making decisions all day.
Like if I'm making 35 decisions a day, is that really a good thing to be doing?
And I knew it was. Well, I think that goes to Alex's point of having the under-talented, right?
And the crazy part is how many times have we all experienced this where we this doesn't mean to be a part of it, but you hired one person and that person did so good.
You're like, man, everything is so much better because Michael's here.
That happened, right? And when that happens, imagine that over and over and over and over again.
And that's when you get to do so many powerful things.
It's permanent I got it's, which then you have an organization of I got it's, I got it's, I got it's, I got it's.
And then all of a sudden you create the space to then say, well, I still got some stuff.
Like I can still go get stuff. But then all those I got it's lets you go get.
And I think that's what allows you to build the future because So many entrepreneurs like have this.
Their dream is really just a dream and never meets reality because they never have the opportunity to pursue it. because they're still stuck under talented in the business because they're constantly feeling like they have to play whack-a-mole because they don't fully complete the cycle like they get a three-quarter solution but you still kind of like leave parts of yourself behind because you know that someone hasn't fully got it.
I think that's the one thing I feel like, like the one thing, I think it's probably my, what I feel most proud of this team is just like, we just have such great individuals. you know it's like everyone's so strong and I think I used to be able to count on one hand how many strong people I had in an organization and now it's like I would have to count on one hand how many weren't and I wouldn't have any on my hand right now.
You know what I mean? Which is like, I remember dreaming of that.
And so I think at that point, then you're just like, When we talk about the barrels, you know, I think to a degree, it's like when you have the skills to build something amazing and excellent, you just realize at some point you just need to... help with other barrels so that you guys can help.
You know, it's what I talk about a lot, which is like, you want a vision so big for something that you build that everyone's vision can sit inside of it.
I think right now we see the vision for acquisition.com 3.0 specifically, and we all see how our visions for ourselves, our dreams fit inside of that vision.
And that's, that's when the magic happens. and I think it's, and I'll say this with jumping on the piggyback on the talent piece, which is that And I think that whether you like it or not, like, I mean, I talk to business owners that every day they're like, I want to help a million people lose weight.
And I'm like, well, you have one brick and mortar store that has a hundred customers. like the gap between their I think it's not even it's not even a realistic dream it's something that they say that other people say that's amazing and so that's why they keep saying it more so then they actually want to do it because if they actually wanted to do it, they would behave differently.
And so they have like their thing they say and then what they actually believe is possible.
And I think that when you get these other barrels in and you get more high quality talent, your scope, your realm of believability expands.
And so it's great to say, hey, we want to do this thing.
But like, you know, on some level, like what is reasonable or what is feasible with our existing capacity?
And so we still on some level still extrapolate forward or project forward based on what we already have.
And so when you bring those other people in, all of a sudden, like your ability to see further, you're like, oh, I would never have considered that, but now that we have John, or we have so-and-so, like, oh, they can, we could actually connect these dots in a way that I never would have originally imagined because I would have thought, I can't do that.
And I don't know anyone else who can. But then when you meet that person, you're like, oh my God, all these other huge, chunky things now enter the realm of possibility.
And that creates all these new connections that then expands the realistic vision rather than the someday that'll never happen vision.
It's totally fair. The one quote that Alex actually probably would say it better than me is this really hit me hard.
And I was, I'm born a very driven person and in my twenties, I really believed that it was about the destination.
In my 30s, I realized that it was about the journey.
And then finally, in my older 40s, I finally realized that it's about the company.
And it is the people that you're with, the people that you build with, the people that you grow with, the people that you can see more and farther with.
It's doing it with great people is what makes you have the ability to outwork everyone else.
Because if you think about the destination all the time, you're like, man, that's what the grind is.
I feel like I'm grinding and I feel tired and resentful.
That's what happens because you don't have the company.
Or then you go through this period of growth and everything is painful.
At some point, you're like, I don't need to do this anymore.
But when you have great company, you're like, well, wait a minute.
If I don't know how to do this, I can ask for help.
Can someone else do it? I got it. And then you realize that the the growing and the joyfulness become so much more multiply.
The reason someone asked me this the other day, I said, the reason why I finally believe that it's about the company is because of this one thing.
It allows me to work harder. Because there is no working smarter.
It's like you realize you have the company so you can work harder.
And that's what's super, super powerful.
I feel that so hard. Well, the vision also expands because the timeline you think on it also expands.
Because if you're miserable, then you want the mystery to end on some level.
And so you're like, well, I can only really think this far out because I don't want to do this for longer than this amount of period of time.
So then it creates this rush and this pressure to get it all done as fast as possible, which is very like pushing energy.
Like you're like, I have to just keep driving even though I don't want to.
On the flip side, if you're like, I'm enjoying the company on this process it's like well in 20 years we can build whatever we want and so then it just it creates a lot more fun and you can dream bigger if you have enough i got it's And with those, I got it to enjoy those people.
Then it's like, well, what do we want to do?
Like, let's like, let's fuck shit up. Like, let's have, let's have fun.
I think that's why I've, like, had zero feeling of rush with acquisition.com.
It's just, like... It's like if there's one thing, it's like do what you love with people you love.
And it's like find people that like you would want to be around even if they didn't work in your company. which is a big one.
I'm like, that has just been such a huge frame shift.
You know what I mean? I do want to ask you something, though.
Of course. I bet you people are wondering, especially people who follow you, how's your content been a change?
So far, the content has always been a very niche category king type content.
And the crazy part is we've had a chance to build you know, a 1.5 million TAM audience and build a billion dollar business from it.
And Alex, you talk about this, right? You go niche, you can actually create a lot of revenue from it.
But I remember being at brunch with both of you and with my son, Neil, and the idea of making content about what you're working on.
That is the thing that I'm truly excited about.
I read this quote, which was like, To write the book, you have to first live the book.
If you have to write the book, you have to live the book.
What I'm really excited about is starting to just look at my calendar and just talk about what we are talking about, like what you and I are... planning on launching is talking about what we are doing day to day.
And I think that is the thing that people are missing.
They don't see that. They see a lot of the how-to stuff, which is cool. but they don't see the, what did you do to help your business grow?
So I'm looking forward to living the book and writing the book simultaneously.
Yeah, I'm excited too. And I think also just like for everyone that follows you, like, you know, it has been like niche, niche content, but like, And if you take the word real estate out of any piece of your content, like so many people come to our events and they're like,
Somebody's saying, oh, I follow Sharron.
Like, are you in real estate? They're like, well, no, but he's got good shit.
And I'm like, you're smart. Because that's what happened with Alex.
It's like... The early days of gym lunch, I had a lawyer stop me and he's like, hey, I listen to your podcast.
I was like, the Gym Secrets podcast? And they were like, yeah, it all applies.
And I was like, well, yeah, but I say gym and membership rather than contract and services.
And they're like, yeah, you just swap the words like duh.
And I was like, huh, well, that's great.
But, but I mean, Tron, I'll just, one of the things that also made Tron unique for this situation was that He also had, he understood content.
He understood personal brand, which is how do you take, like when you talk about unicorns, it's like, okay, you find somebody who's you know, the Michael Jordan at real estate, which is a massive market, but then also has the upside of running the businesses that capitalize on this opportunity, which is pure private equity you know like how do we you know increase enterprise value within the business and the ops itself of the people the hiring the recruiting marketing sales all of those components But then there's also the like, oh yeah, and one of those companies was also a public company.
And so then there's the public securities, public market, which also he happened to have this experience at Goldman Sachs, for years before that.
So he has kind of like the bottom up approach of like what it's like on the floor of the of kind of like the businesses that deal with the markets and then also being the target of those products and services that are sold.
So it's like this 360 view from a business perspective, but then in terms of, okay, That's all amazing, but maybe if Sharon were 80, he wouldn't be able to come into this, you know, our current context and understand the... the dynamic nature of how business is continually changing and evolving, especially with where attention is going and just how acquisition works in general right now.
And so, you know, Real was built largely, or at least in recent, you know, on the back of a lot of Sharon's speaking engagements and his personal brand that brought in a lot of people to the company, right?
And so being able to marry all of these ideas and then appropriately value each of them so that we could mix those things into the most viable thing for an entire audience or consumer base is just, it's like, how do you recreate that?
It's like, oh, I just need another person who's an immigrant, who isn't afraid to work, came here, uh you know was dumpster diving in the beginning and then also was able to go to one of the you know best schools in the us and then go to the best bank or what is considered the best investment bank in the world and then also do the private growth two times to a billion dollar level and do it publicly it's just like and also have the personal brand and also be someone that we like really get along with and share the values it's like Yeah, let's just wait for the next Charon before we try and work somebody in to do what we want to do.
And so... It's like you don't find another Charon, and if you do get the opportunity to find another Charon, call me and don't bring them in.
But no, we're just super pumped to have you.
Like just genuinely, uh, I think, you know, not going too much on my own, but like, it's just been so fun, even though it's, I know it's hard and there's a lot of shit.
It's still been fun. I remember it was like your fourth day.
One of the members of our facilities teams messaged me and he was like, I just want to say you seem lighter.
Like, you just seem like you're smiling more and you seem brighter.
Like, is this because Sharon's here now?
And I was like, oh, my gosh, I think it is.
I was like, I'm just excited. It's awesome.
That's awesome. That makes me happy. Yeah.
I'm excited to build acquisition.com 3.0.
3.0. Real quick guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast.
Layla and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our scaling roadmap.
It's breaking scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business.
You've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you've got customer success, you've got IT, you've got recruiting, you've got HR, you've got finance.
And we show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level.
It's all free and you can get it personalized to you.
So it's about 30 ish pages for each of the stages.
Once you answer the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow.
14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes.
And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com forward slash roadmap, R-O-A-D map, roadmap.
