Yo, what are you up to right now?
I am currently DMing with Alex Ramosi right now to set up a pitch meeting which is absolutely crazy, by the way, because it was just two weeks ago that I had this idea and there's a chance that this might work out.
Basically for context, as soon as I realized that having Alex on the cap table would be huge for us, I knew we had to do something pretty crazy to get his attention because, like the dude is flooded in inbound DMs all the time.
And so, like two weeks ago, we came up with the idea to record a really viral TikTok in order to get his attention.
And we decided to actually just record the whole process.
So, like the last two weeks of scripting the idea, filming the idea, which was a trial in and of itself.
And then even actually posting the video and trying to get his attention which, like still, I'm kind of shook that it actually worked out.
And so my hope is that showing you guys, this process is going to inspire you with a bunch of creative ideas of how you can actually get your foot in the door with whoever you want to do business with and actually stand out from the pack.
So as of today, I've decided that I want to get Alex Ramosi on our cap table.
So for context, my name is Jay Huvi.
I'm the founder of StanStore.
We've scaled over the last two and a half years from zero to 30 million in annual recurring revenue, specifically helping any online entrepreneur build their own online storefront.
And Alex's mission of giving everyone the education of actually building a great business online, and our tool is kind of like a match made in heaven.
And so I really think with Alex's brand he can help take us from 30 million of ARR to 100 million of ARR.
But the problem is, Alex probably gets hundreds of DMs a day asking him for investment.
And so I've gotta figure out some sort of way to actually grab his attention, because a DM or an email isn't gonna be enough.
And that's when I remembered the old Dollar Shave Club watch video which, if you haven't seen, is really funny.
And I'm thinking maybe we do something actually kind of similar in order to grab his attention.
Are the blades any good?
No.
Our blades are great.
Each razor has, And so I want to do something just like this, where I'm like hey Alex, I'm the founder of Stan Store.
We're the Shopify for content creators, and we would love, I don't know, what do you say?
Like, we would love the opportunity to pitch you on investing in Stan.
That's like too long-winded.
It's like, and I think it's, and we would love to pitch you on investing in Stan.
And do you think your razor needs a vibrating handle, a flashlight, a back scratcher?
So I guess I've got to figure out how to get to a warehouse or something like this.
So just like walk around.
But there's got to be so many funny bits.
Like my brain is already racing with like, I'll wear like a suit and tie like this.
And then I'm thinking I rip it off.
And then like underneath, I've got the like stereotypical Alex from Izzy Tank.
I want to get like the nose strip and everything.
Like I think there's a lot of funny stuff we can do here, while also weaving into the video why we're actually a good investment.
So, like you know, 30 million recurring revenue, which we've grown from zero in two and a half years running profitably.
I'm gonna build a billion dollar business.
So I'm excited about doing this and I guess I need to start scripting.
All right, so I just finished scripting and I ended up ordering a couple of things for the video that I thought would be really funny to get in, and I just got here.
Both of his books and, just because I'm an overachiever, two more copies of his books and, last but not least, I'm gonna put on the first tank top of my life.
And as the final touch, I'm gonna put one of these on.
All right.
So now that I've got all of this, I'm gonna go find my producer Austin, and pitch him this script.
So setting the scene, basically, I'm gonna start with a student tie, and I'm gonna rip it off.
I'm literally gonna rip it, and then underneath, is gonna be this tank, right?
And I'm gonna grab this too from out of nowhere, put it on.
Just a hand when it comes in.
Oh, that would be sick.
Give it a hand, and then I'm gonna throw this on.
At the same time.
I'm gonna be like and so we're Stan and we're looking for your investment yep, okay.
So then, in order to talk about the product i want to be, i want to like walk out of the door just like in dollar shape, where he like hits the tissue paper, like yeah yeah yeah, and he's like with just the click of a button, you can set up an entire digital storefront.
I love, we should do the.
You know, the easy button yeah, i was thinking it is like you, we throw one in it.
You like catch that with just the click of a button, click the big old button, yeah.
And then i think we like have a banner of an actual stand store we can make one of, like Alex.
It's like you click the button, boom, it rolls down next to you.
You can have your own store to sell your digital products.
Yeah, it's like, I love that.
So like, oh, that's so good.
So I like snap it and then sweet.
That's sick.
I remember seeing the Staples ads back in the day.
And then it's like, okay, so scene change, different room, but why invest in us?
And then this is basically where we need to make the financial pitch.
So it's like over the last few years we've grown Stan from zero to 30 million in annual recurring revenue.
And then that's like the moment where I think you pull in a whiteboard at the same time while I'm talking.
And it's like like I'm pulling it and I'm like over the last three years, like over the last few years, I've grown Stan from zero to 30 million in annual recurring revenue.
Right.
And we like show the stats.
Exactly.
All the stats, all the numbers.
And then I think the funny part was because he has a profit threshold too.
Right.
And there's this like little like a cheap relay race thing.
And it says, and the line is, and we're over $10 million in EBITDA.
And so we'll do like a little like flag that says 10 million, and I'm just going to step over it like a little dinky step.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We like maybe go down and show that we're not on that.
Exactly, exactly.
And so one of his other values is that he only invests in founder-led companies.
And so, for us, we should be like, and the key part of our business is that we're founder-led by a creator themself.
Yeah, yeah, okay, cool.
And then we should.
I was thinking it'd be funny, because we probably can't get our customers there in the warehouse.
We can just do.
I'll ask our creators if we can just make big cardboard cutouts of them and I can walk by them and they'll be like cheesy thumbs up or whatever.
And then it's like, Alex, invest in Stan.
Like a speech bubble.
Yeah, exactly.
And I'll walk by a hallway of them.
Yeah, that's great.
Which would be really funny.
I mean, that could be funny.
You stop, as you say, talk about our customers.
I mean, just look how happy they are.
Yeah, just look how happy they are.
I didn't pay them all to say this.
And then, so the number, cause he's a big numbers guy.
Then you go in the best part is we just made a hundred million dollars made for creators on Stan.
Yeah.
And then the last part is selling him on why him for our business.
Right.
And this is kind of an emotional appeal where it's like we've learned a ton from you Alex, and we have so much respect for the way you've built your business and also your dream and your mission of helping anyone pursue building their own business.
That is our mission here at Stan.
And the way that you can unlock our business here at stand by investing is in the same way you've helped build school into this platform.
That's no doubt doing tens of millions of revenue.
Like you, could help take us from 31 recurring revenue to a hundred million dollars, plus recurring revenue.
Build this billion dollar outcome.
We'd love to make you that money.
Yeah.
So I feel like, cause that's more, we go more serious at that part of the thing.
Right.
But I feel like then we need to end with like a, I don't know, something crazy, right?
What would it be?
At some random point, we could have a little walk-in with a mascot.
She just joins you at the end.
Are we going to do a call to action at the end?
It's like, so Alex, that feels cheesy.
So Alex, we just need an hour of your time.
We'd love to pitch you Shark Tank style.
Yeah.
This is too aggressive.
We'd love an hour of your time or the mascot gets it.
All right, so what's next is we got to locate a warehouse so we can shoot this in.
We got to get all the scenery, all the cutouts.
A lot of props.
A lot of props.
Confetti.
We got one prop.
Yeah, the clothes.
I'm going to have to work out a ton in the next few weeks.
We're going to do a lot of bicep curls and a lot of creatine.
And then we shoot this in.
All right, so it's seven in the morning on a Saturday, and I'm here with Lo and Austin.
We are setting up for filming.
I'm gonna walk you guys through what we have planned, because I think it's gonna be really, really funny.
But it all starts actually with a scene right here in this hallway where I've got this acquisitioncom tank top.
Like this is the OG Alex Formosi tank top and basically I'm gonna have this on, but when the scene opens you're not gonna see that.
Instead, you're gonna see this shirt here that looks like a normal shirt and tie.
But what Austin did is he made the whole thing terrible.
So I'm literally gonna put this shirt on and then I'm gonna rip it off.
And so that's gonna be the open where I'm gonna be like hey Alex, I'm John and I'm the founder Stan.
I'm gonna take an acquisition.com hat, put it on, then grab a no strip from Lowe.
Like Lowe's gonna hand me a no strip from the side.
I'm gonna put that on.
And then we're gonna jump right into the video, into the first scene here, which is let me run over here to show you guys which is right here.
And if you can see, here we put up some purple tissue paper that I'm just going to ram my way through as I describe what Stan actually is.
And we have it on this really cool little whiteboard here.
Here, Austin, do you want to help me show folks?
All right, Austin, the grand reveal.
Ooh, Alex Hormozy's Stan store that we're pitching him.
And boom.
Alex Formos' StanStore link in the Instagram profile is basically what we're pitching him on.
And then we cut to this next scene, which I think is going to be really, really funny, because I'm in this chair and oh, that's heavy.
And I'm going to have a dumbbell in the tank top, basically like and this is what you should invest in, Stan.
And I get up and I walk through our revenue numbers, like why Alex should actually invest in Stan.
And then we have a really funny bit that you'll see in just a second, that we'll record that I just stepped over.
And then we have actually a cameo from our customers, some of our top customers, who are going to help us convince Alex to invest in Stan.
And then the last scene, we are here at this table.
Many of y'all recognize Alex's book here, but we have a heartfelt message to Alex as to why he should invest in Stan all the impact he can make if he works with us.
And so I think we're ready to film and we'll see how it goes.
All right, let's see the fit.
All right, how do I look?
I'm not going to lie.
I told you guys earlier, but I actually don't think I've ever worn a tank top in my like a muscle tank literally in my entire life.
So here we go.
And now we need to put this baby on.
Professional in the front.
Party in the back.
Looking good.
I think we're ready for a take.
All right.
Woo!
Let's go.
Oh, you know what we haven't done?
We need to hybrid.
Sorry for context, guys.
We always have a pre-filming routine, which is we play one specific Taylor Swift song which I don't even think we can play or mention because of copyright.
So we'll jam out to it real quick.
And you'll hear copyright-free music.
Hey Alex, I'm John and I'm the founder of StanStore.
And over the last three years we've helped creators and online entrepreneurs make over a hundred million dollars.
Okay, the shirt rip was good though.
The shirt rip was good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We got the motion down.
We just gotta nail the line.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was good.
That's a good start.
That's a good start.
Hey Alex, I'm John and I'm the founder of StanStore.
Oh no.
Oh no.
All right, we just did the final.
Lo shot money everywhere.
That's a wrap.
Yeah.
All right, we just packed everything up, fully wrapped.
Team did incredible.
Thank you, shout out Lo and Austin.
We're gonna go get this edited and I'm feeling pretty good about it, so we'll see how it looks.
Oh my God, I'm so nervous.
All right.
So it's now a couple of days later and I have here the final edited version of what we filmed the other day.
And I'm really feeling a little bit nervous right now because I just feel like I'm not really in touch anymore with short form content.
Like I haven't posted a video on TikTok. in over a year, so I'm just overthinking.
I just feel kind of like a boomer where I'm overthinking everything.
Where I'm like is the video length right?
It's just over a minute, but is that too long now for the TikTok algo versus the Instagram algo?
And I just don't feel super in touch with short-form content right now, knowing exactly what's gonna hit in the way that I used to when I was making short-form all the time.
And so I figured, let's watch this here.
I think it's funny but like now, I'm like overthinking it and I'm like maybe this is super cheesy and just really lame, but no matter what, we should watch this.
And then we've got to figure out a really hooky caption up front, like the text up front in that initial frame, to actually catch Alex's attention.
And hopefully as well like everyone else's attention, so that they can actually tag Alex on this and hopefully get him to see this and hopefully invest in my startup.
So let's watch this.
Hey Alex, I'm John and I'm the founder of StanStore.
And over the last three years we've helped make over a hundred million dollars for creators and online entrepreneurs.
But how exactly have we done that?
Well with Stan.
With just the click of a button, you can set up an entire online storefront to sell any product that you want, whether that be your courses, your community, or you can even build your email list, all directly from your link in bio.
But why invest in us?
Well.
Over the last three years, we've scaled from zero to 30 million in annual recurring revenue, all by helping creators make a living working for themselves.
Also, we're over your threshold.
And the best part of the business is that we are proudly made for creators by creators.
I mean, just look how happy our customers are.
So Alex, let me level with you.
We've learned a ton from your content and we have huge respect for the millions of entrepreneurs you've helped.
And we think you could be the key unlock to help us grow from 30 million revenue to a hundred million plus.
And so if you'd be down to chat sometime, I'd love to walk you through why we believe we're going to be the next billion dollar company, help millions of entrepreneurs pursue their dreams and generate you a huge.
So now we got to figure out what text we want to do in the beginning to just get it to hook.
I have two different ideas.
I'm trying to decide which one's hookier.
There's either one that's my pitch to get Alex Ramosi to invest in my company, which is a little long winded.
So like imagine that TikTok text.
Is that going to stop the scroll is the best way to think about it.
Or watch this if you're Alex Ramosi.
And I wonder if like that's too meta.
So that's kind of the hot take.
So I'm going to see what both of them look like and then we can decide.
Ah, that's hard.
My gut says my pitch to get Alex Formosi to invest in my startup.
Ah, but it's so long.
Is there any way you can shorten my pitch to get Alex Formosi to invest in my startup to something else?
Pitching Alex Formosi to invest in my startup?
I think that's about as good as I can get.
All right.
TikTok gods.
Post.
I pressed it.
Oh my God, I hit it.
I hit it.
Ah!
I don't know, dude, guys, it's pretty good.
Like the nose thing into the store.
I mean, yeah, that's as good as you get, dude.
We'll see if I have any TikTok relevance anymore.
Let's see how many views it has so far.
Two views, two views, let's go, dude.
All right, let's go on Instagram in the meantime.
All right, here we go.
Posting on Instagram.
Share.
Oh my God, I'm so nervous.
All right, I guess we'll let these videos cook and we'll see how things go.
All right, it is nine o'clock at night, the night of, and guess who responded?
Let's go!
All right, let me show you guys what Alex said.
What's up, man?
Saw your video, good ad.
Let's go!
Oh my God, this is the best feeling.
And also, I just wanna say thank you so much to all of you.
Like, from the bottom of my heart, the outpouring of love and support for this video.
Like, I'll throw the comments here.
Like, y'all, I just, I feel so blessed.
I feel like so many people are in my corner and Stan's corner.
And I just, I feel so blessed.
Like to have all of you guys support me.
Like the reason why Alex actually saw the video is because so many people are like, holy . let me send him a text and everyone started tagging like we what like all of our customers showed out like it was the best feeling to see like let me read you guys some of the comments it's amazing and then by the way i don't even know what to say back to alex like once a man saw your video get out like what do i say now hey like do you want to invest like i don't know what to say So anyways, we gotta play that cool.
But let me read you guys some of my favorite comments, because this is just amazing.
This is the best and boldest pitch I've ever seen.
Sam and Sklore are by far the best partnership.
Easy printer.
Sam plus at Hormozy would be the collab of a lifetime OMG.
At Hormozy, can't ignore the mascot making it rain.
Oh, okay.
This is so nice.
This is, so Dr. Rosie says, absolute rockstar founder and team.
I love at Sanford Creators and everything you stand for.
Two absolute legends, at J-Hubie plus at Hormozy.
Where's the podcast episode?
Like, thank you guys.
Like, this is just, this is just the nicest thing.
Like, it's just like, this is exactly why I love Stan.
Like, our customers, I'm literally going to cry.
I just feel so grateful, like, no matter where this goes.
And you know, I really hope this goes to like Alex investing in us getting to work together, because I think we could help a ton more people.
Like, he's just, like, this incredible creator, incredible distribution channel.
But, yeah, I'm just really grateful.
I'm in the tear up, but, like...
Man, it's just like, you feel so lonely doing this, you know?
Like, I was so scared to actually post that.
I was, you guys saw the nerves.
I was like overthinking everything and you worked so fucking hard for so long and shit like this happens man.
It feels fucking good.
So now we gotta figure out what to say.
So I'm gonna sleep on it probably and then text them back later.
So I'll see you guys later.
Have a good night.
Love you very much.
Bye.
What's the update?
It's the next morning and I am checking my DMs.
I have four DMs.
I think one of them is from him.
Nevermind.
He's active now.
He saw the message.
I said, thank you, sir.
The effort we put into it hopefully speaks for how much we appreciate you.
We'd love to come by Vegas and share our story and pitch you the vision.
And then I added a little tidbit just so he knows that I'm in the know.
I said, Catching up with Sam Ovens, who's the co-founder of his in school later this weekend.
I think there's a lot I can share to help you guys think through growth plus retention.
So we'll see a few response.
I just have DMs from a bunch of random people.
Damn it.
It's super funny because just a couple of days ago I was with Austin and we were laughing about how it was basically a sip, like waiting for Hormozy to respond back to me.
I kept checking my DMs, like has he responded back all day?
I felt like such a sip and I was like, Oh, he was active two hours ago.
He saw my message.
Like, is he actually going to respond?
But then he was really, really cool about it.
He was like, let's have a zoom combo.
Can you use my team to set up a time?
And we've got the time on the board now.
And so, in terms of next steps here, I'm going to do my homework and make sure that I understand all the metrics that Alex really cares about in terms of businesses that he invests in.
And so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on the journey.
And hopefully, knock on wood, the next time I see you will actually be with Alex.
