How we scaled to $100M in under a year (ft. IM8 co-founder Danny Yeung)

$1M+ problems worth solving (90+ business ideas): https://clickhubspot.com/phfl Episode 859: Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talks to Danny Yeung ( https://x.com/DannyYeung_ ) about how he built a $200M business in 18 months. — Links: • IM8 - https://im8health.com/ — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton (joinhampton.com): My community for founders. Average member does $25m/year. Many of the guests are members. Get after it...apply: http://joinhampton.com/mfm — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Shaan uses Mercury across all of his companies. you can too: http://mercury.com/ Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N. A., Members FDIC • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out: beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We had a hundred million annual revenue run rate at eleven months. Bruins Daily in twenty-two months, right? And they were acquired for one point two billion. Age one took them ten years to hit a hundred million. We hit two hundred million run rate in eighteen months.

• 0:24Shaan Puri?

  All right, Danny, welcome to the show, man. Why don't we start off, why don't you give a little, little intro to yourself? So who are you? What do you do?

• 0:31Speaker 00

  Hey, Sean, thanks for having me. Quick background, myself, always been an entrepreneur. Started working at a very young age at fifteen. I was a telemarketer, so that's how I got started working. Age twenty-four, had my first business, was a restaurant, did that for three, four years. Then ventured in hotel furniture business, import, export from China into the U.S. Eventually worked on some big projects like the MGM City Center in Vegas. Did that also for the three, four years. Then in two thousand and ten, I took a leap of faith and moved to Hong Kong to launch an e-commerce company that was doing group buying. And then when group buying went international, they acquired fifty-one percent of my company. We became the largest e-commerce company in the region.

• 1:13Speaker 00

  I left in two thousand and fourteen, we're doing about two hundred million annual revenues. I had a good exit, that's where, you know, I made my first million, yeah, per se. More than a million. But, and then after e-commerce, I was like, hey, you know, what do I do next? Had a lot of options at my disposal. And I didn't just want to go back into e-commerce, even though that was the easy route for me. I ventured, then I actually, you know, got started in diagnostics and DNA testing. So founded Prinetics, which was a life sciences DNA testing company. Yeah, again, this was two thousand and fourteen, right? So very early, no one was really talking about this stuff. And then you'll see that in my entrepreneurial career, it wasn't the obvious choice.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  But everyone's like, now, looking back, it's obvious choice, right? I'm having to think about in two thousand and ten, no one was using e-commerce in Hong Kong. Yeah, everyone in fact told me to go back to U.S. They're like, Danny, just go back to U.S. This model's not gonna work in Hong Kong. We, but we made it the number one e-commerce company at the time. But going back to Prinetics, you know, started off as a life sciences company. When COVID hit, you know, we were prime position to take advantage of it. We worked very fast, in two weeks, we got our COVID testing kit. We then became Hong Kong's number one COVID PCR provider, as well as in the U.K. So those, yeah, three years, we, yeah, I would say we were like printing money, I would say, right?

• 2:40Shaan Puri?

  They exploded.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  At one point, we're doing forty thousand PCR tests a day. Right, we totaled twenty-eight million. This is laboratory PCR tests. Those three years, we did seven hundred million plus revenue. Um, in three years' time, we listed on the NASDAQ in two thousand and twenty-two, we're a household name. Everyone that arrived in Hong Kong at one point had a mandatory Prinetics PCR test. And then, of course, that led, goes into, you know, I am eight, which is kind of, you know, what happened after COVID? You know, we had a billion-dollar valuation during COVID in two thousand and twenty-two, because COVID was still going on. Eighteen months later, our market cap hit, I think it was like fifty million.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  Right, went from billion plus to fifty million, all a shit, right? You really know who your friends are at that point, right? Because at a billion.

• 3:34Shaan Puri?

  You got a lot of frie-, got a lot of friends at a billion.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  You got a lot of friends at a billion.

• 3:38Shaan Puri?

  When you're down ninety-five percent, uh, okay, the stock's down ninety-five percent. Were the friends also down ninety-five percent, or it wasn't so bad?

• 3:45Speaker 00

  No, I mean, the friends wasn't down ninety-five percent. But when you're, when you're going up, everyone wants to be involved, which is natural, to be fair, right? Everyone wants to be surrounded by winners. But very few want to be surrounded and associated when you're going down. Right, because I think the path to recover is significantly much harder. I mean, we had a few options, like, you know what? Why don't we just close the business? Because you have to think about the, the background, right? We, I think in two thousand and twenty-two, yeah, we did, you know, two hundred and seventy-two million revenue. Right, and basically forty thousand tests turned to nothing, right? So basically, you know, our revenue dropped by a ninety-five percent.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  And, and to be fair, I think the market, you know, realized that and was rightfully valued. So we started here, what do we do? You know, do we close up shop, just return capital to our shareholders? Do I do something else? I mean, of course, yeah, to be, I, I've been successful as a operator, as well as investor, right? So I love options still, but, you know, I knew that, you know, I still wanted to create something out of this. And also wanted to be very responsible to the shareholders from before. Coincidentally, at the same time, as we were thinking what to do, you know, I had the opportunity to meet with David Beckham. And this was right at the same time where I was thinking about getting into the supplement category.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  And when I met David, you know, it wasn't to like pitch him on, hey, let's get to the supplement category. We're just having a conversation about his background, what he's doing. And he was very intrigued about my consumer background, as well as my life sciences background. And he was telling me, you know, about his problem, him and Victoria's problem, about how even for where they are as individuals, and of course, you know, they have all these resources available to them, right? They even found the supplement category very overwhelming. Especially that when they're traveling, you know, they just can't maintain that routine of taking twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen pills in these capsules and et cetera.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  They just, yeah, don't do it, right? And then, yeah, me as entrepreneur, it's like, hey, I'm sure there's a better way for that. And, yeah, after, you know, three to four months, countless conversations, as I'm, I'm sure you can imagine. And someone with David's pedigree and background, if something went wrong, it's not, no one cares about Danny. It's always gonna be, hey, David, something blew up, right? So he had to take significant precaution. And I told David from day one, hey, David, I know, you know, for the last thirty years, there's been so many people wanting to do this category, and he's rejected. And I told David something that was surprising to him.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  I was like, David, if we do this together, yeah, I don't want you just as ambassador, I want you as a co-founder. But this brand has to live beyond you. I don't want this to be another celebrity brand.

• 6:51Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, so let's explain what I am eight is, right? Because that's the current business. So I am eight, if I go to the website, I see Beckham, I see Yanis, I see Lily Collins, I see a bunch of famous people, and they're drinking a little red drink. And, you know, so if you've seen, most of the, most of the supplement category is green, you guys are red. And, um, it's a, it's some sort of supplement drink, longevity drink, you got the Beckham stack on here. And can you explain, just in short, like, you know, just real quick, like, what, what actually is the product that you sell?

• 7:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, so we made the business model very simple. We came out with our daily ultimate essentials, and it's very simple, right? It has ninety ingredients, replaces sixteen different supplements in a powder sachet. You mix it with twelve ounces of water, you just drink it every single morning, and it takes care of your foundational nutritional needs. So what does that mean? All of your multivitamins, um, your CoQ10, MSM, probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics. And because normally you would have to take the equivalent of sixteen different supplements, that would easily cost you two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars on a monthly basis. Yeah, and for us, we're selling at ninety dollars on a monthly basis, this combination,

• 8:09Speaker 00

  which also tastes great and you can carry around with you everywhere.

• 8:12Shaan Puri?

  Right, and you guys have been, I mean, you're a public company, so you're public about your numbers, but you've talked about your numbers before.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:18Shaan Puri?

  Um, this, you're only about a year into this, to this product line, right?

• 8:23Speaker 00

  We're only twenty months in, we only launched December of twenty-four, right? And, you know, now we've been the fastest-growing supplement brand, you know, ever recorded.

• 8:32Shaan Puri?

  What does that mean? How fa-, how fast are you growing?

• 8:34Speaker 00

  We had a hundred million annual revenue run rate at eleven months. In this category, why, I mean, Bruins Daily in twenty-two months, right? And they were acquired for one point two billion after three years. Age one took them ten years to hit a hundred million. We hit two hundred million run rate in eighteen months.

• 8:53Shaan Puri?

  So you're at two hundred million a year. So there's two, two angles to this, right? I have my e-comm nerd hat, because I've been in e-commerce, and I can ask you about the funnel and the CAC and all that. Then there's just like high-level, you know, product market fit. When you hit a, when a product hits a nerve, and you've, you've nailed the positioning, the branding, you've nailed something in category and positioning. Can you talk to me about category and positioning? Because I think those are highly underrated, and most people are terrible at that. It's very hard to recover if you have category and positioning wrong. You can be the best at just trying to crank the, grind the funnel, but it just doesn't matter if you haven't gotten those, that, the first, first key decision right. Can you talk to me about category and positioning?

• 9:35Sam Parr?

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• 10:07Speaker 00

  Even before, you know, we got into this category, everyone told me not to do this. They're like, hey, supplement category, highly competitive, so many bad eggs. And, and to be fair, I mean, I can tell this story now, is that, you know, my whole board disagreed with me. Right, they're like, you, you don't know anything about supplements, Danny. I'm like, it's true, too, right? I haven't got to, I, I didn't do anything in this category before, right? Yeah, it was e-commerce, selling coupons, DNA testing, running the lab, all that stuff. Yeah, but also, to be fair, yeah, before any of that, I never had a background as well, too, right? Yeah, so, of course, still, yeah, the board was like, you know what? And then we have to make, of course, a commitment with David Beckham.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  There was, yeah, it was not a small commitment, correct? And then, so, they disagreed with me. But, you know, I knew that if we made a great product, and we've nailed the positioning and the brand right, and with the support of DB, you know, this would be a home run. So I had to really fight, you know, educate my board. And again, it's like, hey, you know what? If I'm wrong, I'm gonna resign, I'm gonna, you know, quit, right? That was, that was what, that was my position. Because it really, I needed to be convinced myself that was, this was the right move.

• 11:27Shaan Puri?

  But what made you think that this would be the right move? Cause it is true, supplement category is crowded, right? Like a lot of people have a celebrity, who cares, right?

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Correct. And a lot of celebrity brands fail, right? They're like, my board tell me, there's so many, there's actually more failures of celebrity brands. If you think about then actually success cases.

• 11:45Shaan Puri?

  Right, so what was your take?

• 11:46Speaker 00

  So my, my take was, number one, everything starts with the product. Alright, everything starts with a better product than what's available in the market. And I can, yeah, honestly say, yeah, we have the best product in the market. But like you fairly pointed out, consumers may not recognize that, right? And so this is where, you know, from day one, we spent more time also on the taste profile. Cause a lot of times people have the great product, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. But if it doesn't taste good, no one's gonna drink it. Alright, so I spent a week at the factories, just every single day, testing like, you know, twenty, thirty different flavors. Until we got that taste like, ah, you know what? This taste is good, alright? And that you will want to drink again.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  But those two things, those two also doesn't, you know, relate to success, right? So you mentioned the color, the brand, we wanted this to stand out. We didn't want to just create another greens powder, right? Then no one created a reds powder, right? And then so I didn't buy the fall. That was interesting to people.

• 12:44Shaan Puri?

  Is it red because it's like made of beets? Or it's red because you made it red? Like, well, you know what I mean? Like, did it need to be red or you chose to be red?

• 12:51Speaker 00

  It was a natural coincidence that when we created the formulation, there was like beets inside, you know, the formulation. And it was a natural red color. And then like, shit, let's just, let's just go hard on this color.

• 13:04Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  Which then made sense. And then our packaging, if you look at, is a very big red box, right? It's very premium, the positioning. So I didn't want it just to be another supplement brand. I want to, you know, have a really great unboxing experience. It's bold, the name, you know, easy to remember, the fonts, the colors.

• 13:26Shaan Puri?

  How'd you come up with the name? Cause you know, whenever I brainstorm company names, you get five hundred names. Each one you look at, you're like, ah, that could be it. And then, you know, so like if I had written down on my list of supplement names, I am and then the number eight. I might have, maybe it'll be like, oh, that kind of flows. But I would have, the courage it takes to pick such a weird name, where's that come from? Why, why, why that name?

• 13:48Speaker 00

  I'm very good at names. Right, I would say, I'm like really good at names. I mean, my, my e-commerce company is called you buy, I buy, right? Group buying, right? With the just number you. Then prenetics was half prevention and genetics. So you have prenetics, right? And then of course, I am eight, it came out, wanted something simple and easy to remember. Um, and then I am means I am. And then eight, if you flip it around, means infinity, infinite possibilities, alright? And I knew at one day we'll enter China and the number eight will also work in China, right? So there's definitely meaning.

• 14:24Shaan Puri?

  Lucky number of China, right?

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Number me, and it's like, I am, it's like, I am healthy, I am strong, I am powerful. So there's a great meaning behind it.

• 14:33Shaan Puri?

  Okay, and so you go into this category now, you get your formulation done. What's the zero to one? So what did that, what did that look like? You just fire up Facebook ads, Shopify store, did you do anything else? Like what, what did zero to one look like?

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Uh, zero to one, again, the formulation part, you know, I would say was a result of also getting an amazing scientific advisory board. Yeah, on, again, when I looked into this, it was like, okay, what are all the different challenges someone can, you know, go at us? And it's like, hey, just because we have David Beckham, it's not enough. And everyone knows David is not a scientist, right? I'm not a scientist, right? So we then, the next step was recruiting a world-class scientific advisory board. The likes of Dr. Don Musalem from Mayo Clinic, um, you know, James Green, the former chief science of NASA. Suzanne DeCoda, you know, the director of Michael Baum at Seder Sinai.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  So these individuals we brought along, they all took part in creating this formulation. And that wasn't enough.

• 15:34Shaan Puri?

  And how did you do that, by the way? That's, um, what, your cold emailing? Is there a, I, I actually know there's like a, there's like an agency, there's like a brokerage service. I don't know if you know this one, there's a brokerage service between doctors and supplement brands. That literally is like, get a doctor on your brand. I don't know if you've seen this.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  I haven't seen it.

• 15:50Shaan Puri?

  It's like a very niche agency some guy has. But what did you do? You, you cold called these people, you go fly out, meet them?

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I mean.

• 15:57Shaan Puri?

  What, what's happening?

• 15:58Speaker 00

  I, I knew the former chief science of NASA prior. Yeah, yeah, basically he was at NASA for two years. So that was easy because he knew me, right? And again, a lot of this relationships is built bound trust. And you know, for Dr. Don Musalem, you know, I contacted her on LinkedIn. We got on a call and again, the first time we had it, she was very skeptical. Cause so many supplement brands, you know, reach out to them. And again, especially as, if you're a practicing physician, yeah, it's also quite rare to work with a supplement brand. Especially if you're, let's say with Mayo Clinic, really, really rare. Right, because they have a lot of restrictions, et cetera, et cetera, right? So, but I think from day one, you know, even I told Don, again, we're, we're still working today very closely.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Is that we need to prove the science and evidence. And so that's why we embarked on a clinical trial before we launched the brand. We embarked on third-party testing by not just one organization, but by two. By Eurofins and NSF certification for sport. So that means if you're a professional athlete, you know it's free from two hundred eighty banned substances.

• 17:08Shaan Puri?

  So I have a lot of friends who are in the supplement game. And in, in general, when you're in e-commerce, it's easy to become very skeptical and very jaded.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 17:17Shaan Puri?

  Um, not because anybody means poorly, but just because it's very easy to get something up and running and put the, make, put all your effort into the packaging. Maybe even some into the taste, but ultimately, you know, you're not in the factory and, and you know, and also it's very easy to have something that might help, but is, is not scientifically proven, right? Scientifically proven is a very high bar. And so I would say there's almost two, two, two parts of the ledger. There's the first part, which is like, are these clean ingredients and is it made in a clean factory? That's kind of like trust test number one. Trust test number two is, what the hell is a postbiotic? What's a prebiotic? Does any of this stuff actually matter? If I drink this, does anything really change in my body?

• 17:59Shaan Puri?

  And I know, obviously, I'm asking, you know, the priest if religion is real. But I, I guess like, if I'm a highly logical, rational person, what would be your most convincing thing you could tell me? That would make me actually believe in supplements?

• 18:13Speaker 00

  A lot of supplements out there don't work. And that's the reality, right? And I think the best validation of our product is that it doesn't matter who we have, Beckham, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. Our business won't be in twenty months, can't be a twenty million, a two hundred million plus business without recurring subscriptions. And that means the product works as advertised, alright?

• 18:36Shaan Puri?

  How does someone know that the product work? How does a customer feel?

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Oh, you feel it, I mean, you'll feel it. And again, and the best way to.

• 18:42Shaan Puri?

  Like energy, what, what are you feeling?

• 18:44Speaker 00

  Better energy, recovery, yeah? Um, you sleep better, your gut, you know, everything is working better. Yeah, and of course, a lot of these individuals, these are CEOs, athletes. I think the best case I can show you, I mean, I, I was surprised by this email, right? Around last April or May of twenty twenty-five, right? I got an email from Irina Sabelinka's team, right? A co-email into me, right? They're like, hey, you know, Irina's been on your product for about three months now. Via a recommendation from her nutrition coach. When you're the world number one tennis player, every single thing they're measuring, your recovery, how you're feeling, three to four times on a daily basis. And they don't need to bullshit, right?

• 19:29Speaker 00

  I mean, she has so many options and resources. And she's like, hey, she's been feeling amazing from a recovery perspective. And she hasn't gotten sick while on the product, given that they're traveling, you know, different time zones every single week. Can we partner together, right? And then so that was a great validation of the product working at the highest level of sports. And the reality is also, every single ambassador that came after that was inbound to me.

• 19:59Shaan Puri?

  Hey, let me ask you a question. Is the market in China or India for that matter, like two big population places? Is there, is the supplement market the same? Is it just the same but ten years ago? Um, is it different or what's going on over there?

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Um, India, to be honest with you, I don't know. Um, I do know it's a much lower price point, yeah, category. Um, in China, they do have AG1, but it's not like, you know, from what I understand, it's not doing well.

• 20:27Shaan Puri?

  Hmm, why do you think that is? Is it, is it all just price point or is there another factor?

• 20:31Speaker 00

  I mean, again, it goes back, you know, to price point, education, branding, positioning. You know, there's like so much, right? And to be fair, ninety-nine percent of American companies going to China and think they can just succeed with the same business model. Um, and for China to operate successfully, you need a completely different business model, completely different team. Like, for example, my team can't do China, hundred percent. There's like no hell, they, no way they can do China, right? So for me to enter China, I would need to get a completely new team of every single individual.

• 21:09Shaan Puri?

  Hey, let's take a quick break. You know that feeling when strategy is done, the brief is written, everyone's aligned, and you realize someone still has to sit down and actually create all the content? That someone is usually you, and it's due tomorrow. Well, the Breeze Assistant from HubSpot can help. It works right inside HubSpot. You can draft a campaign copy, blog posts, emails, all in your brand voice, all using your actual customer data. So you don't create just content, you create content that converts. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Tell me about some of the operational excellence. So I want to know, what are some things that you're doing that I could look at that I could be inspired by? Oh, that, you know, the way they do that, that's really good. So now, I'll give you a couple of examples. So we had Chad from Groons on the podcast, and he was showing us their funnels, their Facebook ads.

• 21:53Shaan Puri?

  We're looking at his ad library together, and they were showing like, he's got like, you know, there's eight different sort of reasons to buy, right? Maybe you're on Ozempic and you want Ozempic support. Maybe you're looking for mood, and here's a mood thing. Maybe you're a woman and your hair, and your hair's falling out postpartum, whatever. I don't know what they're, I don't remember the exact angles. He's like, I've got like, the ad that goes to the landing page for that persona, for that problem, for that sales pitch, and I'm running all eight simultaneously, whereas most entrepreneurs are, you know, usually just get fixated on one, and they don't get, they don't get as much of the market. He would tell us that. Or Eric Ryan from Method Soap and Ollie Gummies came on, and he was, he's a master of packaging and positioning. And he said, I was looking in the vitamin aisle,

• 22:37Shaan Puri?

  and, you know, first thing I knew was that every container was round, and so we would be a rectangle. And he's like, it's as simple as that. I look for a sea of sameness. And everywhere in the aisle that I see a sea of sameness, I know there's an opportunity to come and do something different. That's what they did in Band-Aids and soap and vitamins.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would say, even right now, you know, to be fair, why is he on the ads and landing pages, personas, that's quite standard operating procedure right now, right? If you're a DCC brand doing 100 to 200 million dollars, I mean, you have to be doing that, correct? And for us, why is any one thing that we've done really well with scaling on Meta Ads? You know, right now, we have anywhere from, you know, 2,000 to 3,000 ads live at any given time. We're testing out, you know, 500 to 800 creators on a weekly basis. So it's that constant testing that is really, really important, right? And you have, and right now, the reality is, even with ad buying, I mean, you know, ad buying is like a commodity, right now, yeah? Before, a few years ago, you have to be really, really good at ad buying.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  But now Meta does all of that for you already, right? You don't need to do the targeting, you don't need to do all this stuff, right? All you need to really figure out is how do you get really good creatives? And really good creative diversity on the different personas, because now you need a creative to do the targeting.

• 23:54Shaan Puri?

  And so tell me about that creative machine. So you said two things. You said you have a couple thousand ads running at a time. So are those like statics or those videos?

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Statics and videos, I would say as well, you know, 55, 60% statics, and then the rest of videos.

• 24:08Shaan Puri?

  And you're doing that with what? A studio? You're doing that with AI? What is the machine that's building all that?

• 24:13Speaker 00

  A combination of everything. So we have our own ambassadors. Yeah, again, we have, of course, we have like, your top 10, so very famous ambassadors. Then we have another thousand or more or so ambassadors, affiliates, that are creating lots of content for us on a daily basis, right? And that feeds the engine, depending on whichever personas that we're going to. And a lot of times, you have your proven winners, and then it's like, how do we recreate all these proven winners? Because, you know, there's also creative fatigue that happens, right? So we've have our own creative fatigue score that we identify. So we know, okay, when a ad is potentially going to get in fatigue, which then ultimately will drop that ROAS, right?

• 24:57Speaker 00

  Again, 300,000 above on a daily basis on Meta, you know, which is quite high, given that we're only 20 months in, right? And we've been able to scale that. And then one key thing, again, public information, given we're a public company, is that if you look at what happened in Q2 versus Q1, Q1, our CAC was 305, right? Our average order value is about $230, right? So, and we doubled our marketing spend in Q2, right? We doubled it from about 17 to 33 million dollars in a quarter, right? Our CAC actually went down by $4, right, from 305 to 301? Because you would imagine, if you're doubling spend, your CAC's always going to go up, right?

• 25:43Speaker 00

  And then, so I think we've reached a point where, again, we got the engine running, the brand is also doing very well from a brand positioning. We've ran now 200-plus offline events. I think this is something that I haven't seen any other supplement brand do.

• 25:58Shaan Puri?

  Then why are you doing that? Because that creates content? Or because that creates loyalty, or both? What's the, what's the main reason to do 200 offline events?

• 26:05Speaker 00

  I mean, it's very important for us from day one, and it's about a business about a authentic product science. And, you know, when we have these events, we have our scientific advisory board members there. They're talking about the product, right? And again, this is not just a marketing aspect, it's, you know, a real science behind the brand. They get to meet our formulators and our scientists and doctors. Last week in New York, we did like, you know, seven events in seven days, right? As part of the US Open. I always say, these, the events are very difficult to scale, right?

• 26:39Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  But I think that's very, very important, especially in the age of AI. You don't know what's real, or you don't know what's, what's fake or whatever, right? And then, so I think having that offline presence is really important for us.

• 26:54Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, and I think that's pretty counter to where most brands are right now. I think it's so easy to sit, sit at your laptop, fire up ads, let, you know, tweak your landing page. And it's clearly, you get the scale, you get to measure it, you get every, you get the feedback loop right away. You don't have to like, go get faced rejection out in the real world. And it almost means that like, offline has this disproportionate premium, because it's simply like, less contested. And once you've had an in-person touchpoint, and then you go see an ad, right? It's going to be a completely different experience than if you've never, it's just a brand you've never heard of.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  And I attribute, you know, that CAC lowering when we double our spend. We're not talking, we're talking about like, a lot of, a lot of spend doubling, right? And even July, our CAC fell to $239, right?

• 27:40Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  You know, which is, you know, we're spending more than $10 million a month on marketing, right? And then, so it was continually lowering, but I do believe, again, I don't have quantifiable data to say this is all offline, but I'm going to continue to double down on offline events, because that's really important to the brand side of things.

• 27:58Shaan Puri?

  Tell me about some of the kind of early days of entrepreneurship, where maybe your entrepreneurial philosophy got, got formed? Or the core skills that are helping you today? But where were they first kind of originated? Where, where'd you cut your teeth doing it?

• 28:13Speaker 00

  I mean, so I dropped out of high school, right? So I was, you know, basically a bad kid, got kicked out of high school for fighting. So I had to really learn everything, you know, on the streets, I would say, right? As, as an entrepreneur, you're always faced with making decisions with very limited information. And I think, you know, for everyone that knows me, I do know me, I'm like, very street smart, right? I can figure things out by myself with very little information.

• 28:41Shaan Puri?

  Where, where were you going to high school?

• 28:42Speaker 00

  In San Francisco.

• 28:44Shaan Puri?

  Oh, you were in San Francisco. So you get kicked out. So why telemarketing? How did you stumble into telemarketing?

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Um, I mean, I think I didn't stumble, I think it was like, what do I do? You know, I'm not going to school, right? So, and then, as a telemarketer, you know, I was 15, I was good at it. I was good in, you know, kind of like, co-calling people.

• 29:02Shaan Puri?

  What were you selling?

• 29:03Speaker 00

  I was selling timeshares.

• 29:05Shaan Puri?

  Timeshares?

• 29:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. At the moment, timeshares is like, again, this is about 30 years ago, right? So those few years where I would say I was a very bad kid, actually formed a lot of my thinking as an entrepreneur, because I always had to reinvent myself, always had to go to a new school, make new friends, and get very comfortable. And yeah, I, I believe I can survive anywhere. You put me into Nigeria, Africa, whatever it is, I will figure it out.

• 29:33Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. The, yeah, the sort of more adversity you face, the more confidence you get when you survive. You know, there's, there's another guy, Craig, Craig Lemmons, who came on the podcast. Good friend, great guy. He's also an e-commerce monster. So his company, Golden Hippo, does hundreds of millions a year in sales, bootstrapped, him and his brothers. He also was in telemarketing. He was selling dating products when he was younger. And, you know, he was sharing, for him, one of the ways he got better at sales was he was going to these seminars, and he was reading books, and he was just looking for like, anything he could pull out, one line, one, one copywriting thing, one psychological sort of hook that he could pull on to. Did you do any of that, or were you just brute force numbers game?

• 30:15Speaker 00

  I mean, you have to like, communicate properly, right? I think you always have to be direct, and I think I've always kept that, right? So very transparent in terms of, hey, especially with, let's say, trying to meet someone for the first time, always telling the team, yes, don't, don't, you know, don't talk about BS, right? I think you just have to be direct and transparent, what's in it for them, what's in it for us. And again, for me, I've always, for each of my businesses, I'm always trying to deliver greater value first. I think that's very important. I never try to look at what's in it for me. I was like, what can I help this person with? How can I help my partner? How can I help their business? And that's been my philosophy from day one. I think if you have that type of philosophy going in,

• 30:56Speaker 00

  it doesn't matter if the other partner doesn't reciprocate, you move and you learn and move on.

• 31:03Shaan Puri?

  So you're telemarketing, you learn about the numbers game, you learn that you got to sort of figure it out. So you get street smart to figure out things to survive.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  And you, and you learn, it doesn't matter who you talk to, right? You can, I can go up to anyone, it's a space late, and the worst thing that happens is they reject me, right?

• 31:17Shaan Puri?

  How many people would you call in a day?

• 31:20Speaker 00

  It was like night shift at the time, while I was working. So it was like, you know, 6:30 to 10, I would say, 100, 200 people.

• 31:27Shaan Puri?

  And of that, what's the rejection rate?

• 31:29Speaker 00

  Still going to be like, 90, 95%, right?

• 31:37Shaan Puri?

  And so was that something, did you have to sort of, what did you tell yourself to be able to like kind of quickly bounce back from that?

• 31:44Speaker 00

  No, he just, I mean, again, it's a, it's a numbers game. He just fell, you know, but basically you just tell yourself, hey, you know, the next one is going to be more likely to be positive, right? So you have to just get through it. And I think, you know, to be fair, telemarketing taught me a lot. Yeah, you have to have a thick skin, even when you talk to investors, same thing, right? When you're early on, they's getting investment. I mean, you talk to a hundred investors, you know, only five maybe may invest in you. So there's nothing different about that. It's just, you're not getting rejected, like hanging up on you, but you're still faced with that, right? I mean, giving example of how that came to use, right? So I was doing my hotel furniture business. I was cold calling basically MGM, then I got a meeting. And then was able to get a meeting that I was able to, you know, deliver the value I was able to get.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  But without my cold calling days, I probably wouldn't have done that, right? Even when I did my e-commerce business, you buy, I buy, which was group buying. I remember I went to Hong Kong and I had to cold call all the merchants myself, right? Because again, you know, it is not like

• 32:43Shaan Puri?

  Starts off with nobody.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, it starts with nobody, right? So I remember one time I was calling a big restaurant group and then director of marketing, he hung up on me. And I was like, he hung up on me really like, you know, like was like hurting me. I was like, wow, this guy's like, he said some like very bad words and blah, blah, blah to me, right? And then normally it was like, oh shit, you're probably like, you know, that was thinking, wow, who's this guy's boss? I was thinking, right? And then I, then I like found who's this guy's boss is, he was director of marketing. And I cold called the office and it was Sandeep and he owned like 30 plus restaurants, this Indian entrepreneur. And I asked for Sandeep, called the front desk, he picked up the phone. And I'm like, hey, this is Danny. I just moved to Hong Kong. I moved here from the US.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, can I have five minutes of your time? Cause I have this interesting e-commerce idea and would love to see if I can partner with you. Right? And then he met with me the next day for 20 minutes and he told me, Danny, hey,

• 33:41Speaker 00

  Danny, I don't think your business is going to work in Hong Kong. Cause why would I give 50% off to customers and I only get 25% of the check? All right. But you know what? Because, you know, you called me after my director of marketing hung up on you and we're still here. I'm going to work with you and give you all of my dirty restaurants and sign you up. Um, and he did that because he knew, you know, I didn't give up and just was persistent, resilient. And that changed the trajectory of the business because he gave me 30 restaurants and I needed one deal a day. Right? So he gave me basically, my whole next 30 days was filled by one guy saying yes. And of course then I can continue, but he was a big restaurant group, right?

• 34:24Speaker 00

  It was very, and then I would then go to other restaurant groups because I got him because he was so famous. Hey, yeah, Sandeep, Donnie Khan, so I was working with us. Yeah. Can you partner too? Then, yeah. And once you, once you get, yeah, some traction, et cetera, then more and more people will work with you, right? But that's just reality. Someone has to give you a chance and you just always have to be on the hunt.

• 34:44Shaan Puri?

  My, my uncle Vinny was a door to door, when he came to the country, he came to this country, he was door to door salesman of like the Bible or I don't know what he was selling. And I asked him the same thing. I'm like, man, you were walking around in the heat in Georgia in the summers. You're walking house to house, knocking on door, like getting rejected even more than on the phone, like to your face, door slam. And same thing, 90 to 95% of people door slam us. He was the top sales guy and he had a thick Indian accent. I was like, how did you do that? And he goes, oh, I took rejection better than anyone else. I said, well, how did you take rejection better? He goes, I put a price on the word no. So he said, if, if a yes is worth a hundred dollars to me and it's going to take me, you know, for every 20 no's, I get one yes.

• 35:28Shaan Puri?

  Then he's like, then every no is worth $5 to me, right? And he's like, I just, so when they would say no, I would hear in my head, all right, that's five bucks in the bank. Let's keep going. And so he's like, I was adding up the no's. I was putting a price on it because I knew really like it's a numbers game. I have to keep knocking. And so I have to like sort of see each knock as a success, even though what I, my ears hear is, is a rejection. I got to change what I'm hearing. And that led him to be the number one sales guy in the country. He ended up training all the other sales guys. And I think there's a, I think there's something everybody should take from, from that, whether you're fundraising or whatever, whatever you're doing that like, you know, e-commerce, I think a good, like I, if I looked at our conversion rate right now, I think it's like 2. something percent. 2%, 2%, 2 and a half percent maybe.

• 36:13Shaan Puri?

  And you know, 97.5% of people come to our site and say, hell no. Now you don't feel it as much when it's e-commerce, but, but you, but you feel it when it's over there, you know? So, so it's all a numbers game.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:28Shaan Puri?

  What else? You, you mentioned MGM. What's, what's the story there? I didn't understand that one.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  When I started first working the hotel furniture business, I was doing hotels that were like 50 rooms, you know, 100 rooms, small hotels, right? And how small hotels changed, just doing all of their custom furniture.

• 36:43Shaan Puri?

  Sorry, can you go back? Why, why, why does Danny start selling hotel furniture? How does that happen?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  No, because I was doing my restaurant business at the time. I had a good friend that was an interior designer. And she was just telling me, hey, you know, she's a designer for these hotels and she was having difficulty sourcing furniture. And I was like, why don't you look in China? And she was like, she doesn't know how to. And I'm like, why don't I help you? And it's just like, okay, why don't you help me? Right? And I just did it for her. And then, but after a few of the hotels, I figured out, you know, it's the same process. If I make 50 chairs or 50 tables as if I make two to 3,000 chairs. Right? So I was like, who is making 2,000 hotel rooms right now? And at that time was like Vegas, right?

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Then I started cold calling the Vegas hotels and eventually I cold called MGM and she gave me a meeting. And then I went into the meeting and you know, one year later I got a, you know, $4 million contract with MGM.

• 37:40Shaan Puri?

  How did that feel? That first kind of big contract?

• 37:43Speaker 00

  I mean, it felt amazing, but of course ultimately, you know, I wanted to deliver. And that's, so that's why a lot of times even when we do an achievement or milestone, you know, I always tell the team, hey, you know, this is good, you know, but it's not the end, right? We're just getting started, right? And it's like, you know, even last month, we had 20 million in monthly revenue, right? But hey, this is good progress, great progress, I would say, but we have so much greater opportunity. So, but you know, I was of course happy that we're able to get such a big customer.

• 38:14Shaan Puri?

  When you were doing the COVID testing, you were kind of in the right place when COVID hit, where you could provide testing. You said a couple of interesting things. One, the ramp was crazy. You said you did like 700 million revenue in a couple of years, which is just a bonkers number. I'm sure there was a lot of free cash flow in that too, not just revenue.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, we made over a hundred million dollars net.

• 38:36Shaan Puri?

  Net, yeah, exactly. And you, the second thing was you said like in Hong Kong, like everybody who entered the country had that. Sounds like maybe you had like a kind of a really valuable key contract that you won or some sort of like, you know, pretty defensible position. So can you tell the, the story of that? And also during that, did you, did you think, did you know, well, this, the music's going to stop on this at some point and what happens after that? Or did you say, I don't know, let's just run and we'll figure it out when we, when, when that happens?

• 39:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I can tell you the backstory on this, right? So, um, I think this is in April, yeah, April of 2020. So COVID was getting very bad. I had a meeting with the chief executive of Hong Kong. I was like, hey, you know, we have a lab. You know, COVID seems to be getting, you know, worse and worse, you know, by the day. Yeah. Can we somehow provide support and make use of our laboratory? Yeah. To basically to provide COVID testing to the community, right?

• 39:37Speaker 00

  And then, you know, the chief executive said the same at the time, saying, you know what? You know, we have our own public health laboratory. We can do it all of ourselves. So that was that, right? And I'm like, okay, no, no worries. And because at the time wise, it was very difficult to get a COVID test in Hong Kong. You would have to go to the hospital and they were charging like $300 to $400 USD for a COVID test. And then I knew the cost of a COVID test is a fraction of that, right? And they were making so much money. At the time, you don't want to go to a hospital to do a COVID test because it means that you may get infected too, right? I was like, you know what? We'll just create our own at-home PCR tests. And then so we launched that within about a little bit more than two weeks.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  And every day we're just trying to help out the community. We're selling for a hundred dollars US when everyone wants selling it for $400. And even the hospitals would call me, it's like, why are you guys selling it for so cheap? And I was like, I was like, I just want to help the community, right? And that was, that was the core reason for getting into it. So every single day we'll be selling out. And then July, yeah, the government actually then again called me and was like, can we meet again? Cause it was getting out of control, right? You know, three months later and they're like, Danny, we need your help. Um, yeah. Can you help us service?

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Covid testing to the community, I'm like, yeah, we love to help. Like, yeah. What do you want us to do? They're like, we want you to test 300,000 restaurant workers across 18,000 restaurants in Hong Kong. And I'm like, how long of a time do you want this testing? They're like, yeah, we want you to do this in three weeks. So that was a crazy operations, right? I don't know why I even said yes to it. Again, we went from 100,000, 200 tests on a daily basis to now testing, you know, 300,000 people in about a month's time, which basically meant that we had to scale out from 200 tests to 10,000 tests on a daily basis.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  And myself, my executive team, where we're all in, the whole,

• 41:50Speaker 00

  and there were so many people without jobs at that time, right? And then basically we started mass hiring. Yeah, at one point we had like 2,000 to 3,000 people.

• 41:58Shaan Puri?

  What was the bottleneck? Was it the actual tests? The supply chain for the test? Or was it the people in the lab to read the tests? Cause you get the result at home, right?

• 42:08Speaker 00

  No, no, no, you get the result in the lab.

• 42:10Shaan Puri?

  Okay. So you would send it in?

• 42:11Speaker 00

  You have to send it in. This, this was before antigen tests were rolled out. Right? Because early on, you had to do the, you had to do a laboratory test, which is the PCR test. And then the antigen test, which is the quick ones, which are less accurate, only came into play, yeah, maybe one year after.

• 42:30Shaan Puri?

  I see, I see. Okay. So you said supply chain and hiring people.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  People, logistics, data, right? And then we're the first company contracted by the Hong Kong government to do mass community testing. And of course, yeah, six months later, we, there was like 14, 15 different laboratories that were also doing Covid testing. However, the thing that stood out from us is I think a lot of it has to do with my technology and e-commerce background and, and data and all that stuff. Yeah. Was, um, we're the only testing provider that never had a [BLEEP] up when it came to false positives and false negatives. And then so when all these other laboratories, they messed up.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  And then the government got a lot of, yeah, crap for it, right? Obviously, because if you get a positive during that time, you have to go to detention for like seven to 14 days, right? And then, so this is why at one point, every single individual that landed Hong Kong airport was mandated a pre-netics test because they wanted it to be the most secure and most accurate test.

• 43:35Shaan Puri?

  Did you have to do anything crazy to unlock the supply chain there?

• 43:39Speaker 00

  On a daily basis, you had to be fighting, you know, with so many different other laboratories around the world, right? You have to get all this supply chain. So it was like every single day we're fighting. And again, a lot of times you had to just outbid them. And we had volumes, right? So again, but it was a constant battle. Those were some crazy, two, three years of craziness.

• 43:59Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. When you, so I, my last question, you know, I had a few friends who were doing this. I had one friend who was doing mobile testing. He had like vans that were testing. I had another friend that was doing PPE when, when you couldn't get masks and, and other PPE to hospitals and whatnot. And people were making money hand over fist and doing this because there's so much, I mean, there's the strongest demand I've ever seen for anything ever, right?

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:22Shaan Puri?

  Life or death at global scale. But you know, some of those people, they kind of stashed away enough cash that it was still a success. And some people had overbuilt and then suddenly the music stopped and now it's like a lot of work for nothing.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  So give me an example, right? On, on that exact thing is that it was, it was right when we knew Covid was over, I let go of 2,000 people very, very fast. And that turned out to be a really, you know, good decision. And because again, during that time wise, and you had Q Health, you had, you know, Lucera, and these were at the time, there were listed companies. At one point, Q Health was $3 billion of market cap. They had a billion dollars in revenue in the U S, right? Lucera, they had another, like, I think there were $2 billion market cap. Yeah. They went bankrupt, you know, 18 months after Covid. Cause they overbuilt, they built their own manufacturing places. They bought into the at-home testing, which never panned out post-Covid.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  But I knew that for both sides, for a company to survive after this, we needed to take a drastic cut. And also for the individuals, right? That's what, what am I going to do? Why am I have 2,000 people if there's no testing? I'm just going like, yeah, I'll stand around, which is not good for them. Everyone has to move on, you know, with their life and livelihood. And yeah, that was a very difficult decision, of course, but ultimately it was the right decision for both sides.

• 45:47Shaan Puri?

  Today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury. They make the world's best banking product. I think you know this already. I use Mercury for all of my businesses. I think I have like maybe seven or eight businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase. I'm just all in on Mercury. Why? I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife. Very easy to spin up virtual cards. Uh, one click and I get savings yield. It just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fistfight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to mercury.com slash personal and learn more.

• 46:29Shaan Puri?

  Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and Column NA, members FDIC. If you were, I don't know if, you know, you meet a lot of entrepreneurs or you, you know, there's a lot of people that will come up to you that are excited by what you've done and they're trying to do something. They're pitching you an idea. What do you think most entrepreneurs just don't get? What's the one thing if you feel like you could just shake them and, and say, look, Ben, you just really don't get it. It's the gap between where you are and where you want to be is this. What do you think that gap looks like for most people?

• 47:01Speaker 00

  I think, I mean, again, about going back to number one, right? You know, I always believed that if you build the best product in the market, it just makes everything so much easier. Right? And I think if you look at, again, even, you know, when the Covid has, we had the best product in the market. So if you had the best product in the market, it's much easier to build foundation, branding, positioning, premium pricing over any of your competitors, right? And I also believe, you know, as entrepreneurs, et cetera, you have to get into the weeds of everything. I think some entrepreneurs, they don't like to, yeah, get involved in every part of the business. But at least from my perspective, you know, what's worked very well for me is I'm involved in every part of the business.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  Doesn't matter if we're a hundred million company, 200 million, we'll be a billion dollars, whatever. I guarantee I'll be involved in a lot of the key, all of the key decisions. Because I think that's what separates a founder from a higher CEO. Right? I think the founder, and that's why a lot of times these founders, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. They grow their business to 400, the higher CEO. Oftentimes the founder always comes back, right? Cause the CEO perspective, they're always much more conservative. And they're looking at this from a page where the founders are, were able to take risks that a CEO wouldn't be able to take. So for example, even when I started IM8, if it was a CEO, there was no way he would have been able to take that risk.

• 48:30Speaker 00

  Right? But because I'm the founder, you have so much at stake here. There's no one in the organization that to take a risk as much as me.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Right? To be able to make that move, let's get into the supplement category, right?

• 48:43Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. It's a, I don't know if you've read, have you read Founder Mode? The sort of Paul Graham blog post?

• 48:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I've read that. Yes. I think Founder Mode is very different, correct? It's like, yeah, we, we see things very, very uniquely different. And entrepreneurs, you know, really have to dive into that.

• 48:59Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. And you know, the first thing you said about product, you know, build the best product in the market. I mean, on one hand, that sounds obvious. Um, of like, oh, well, okay. Yeah. And I would say most people, everyone thinks they have a good product.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. But you have the realistic, right? It's like, it's like a big difference. I mean, I tell people, how do you know this? I was like, don't trust me. Just put it into Claude, put it in ChatGPT. What's better, IM8 or, you know, AG1, Doran Grunz, right? Let's see what it says on the similar product. Right?

• 49:27Shaan Puri?

  What does it say? Let's try it. It says, if I had to choose one today, I'd buy IM8 over AG1. So you, there you go. It says, it's not just 90 ingredients versus 75, because that's ingredient count is mostly marketing.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 49:39Shaan Puri?

  I think that it's currently doing a better job putting useful ingredients at disclosed, non-trivial doses in the same daily drink. And then it goes through the formula and it gives, gives a little bit of an answer. So at least according to ChatGPT right now, that, that is, that is correct, which I think is,

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Okay, I'm gonna cut that out of you. I'm gonna cut that segment out and use it as an ad. Okay? That's perfect.

• 50:00Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Give me my kickback and then you can do whatever you want.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Give me 10% back.

• 50:04Shaan Puri?

  I'll be one of your TikTok affiliates.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  Exactly. Affiliates. Yeah.

• 50:07Shaan Puri?

  You know, I sold my company to this guy, Mike, um, Mike Whitmire. And he was telling, he had built the number one ranked result for buying or selling gold online. So anybody who wants to buy gold, his company was, was the premier leader. And I was excited when we sold, because I was like, oh, you know so much about SEO. What are all the SEO hacks that we were not doing? I'm, I'm terrible at SEO. I never even tried that as a growth strategy. So I was like, tell me, tell me like, you know, what should we start doing? And after a few meetings, I was like, dude, when are you going to tell me like the hacks? And he's like, well, there's some practices. He's like, there's not really hacks. He's like, so I was like, what'd you do with the gold company? And he goes, I printed out like the page, the webpage for all of us.

• 50:51Shaan Puri?

  And I asked myself honestly, is there a reason that you should use us? Why should Google put us number one? Are we better? We actually better? Is it easier to use? Is it, is it easier to understand? Is it more friendly? Is it faster? Like, do we have, are we better in any way? And he's like, we had a cold, honest conversation with ourselves that, no, we were not better. And then we decided, well, we actually have to be better if Google's going to rank us higher. And slowly but surely, we did, you know, one brick by brick, we just made the actual experience better. Until we felt we actually deserved to be number one. And guess what? Like at that point, we didn't need any of the hacks. We actually were number one. And I just remember thinking like, oh, I feel like you just taught me like a very valuable,

• 51:33Shaan Puri?

  like, you know, a very valuable, obvious lesson that I needed to hear from someone like you. And I needed to hear from the guy who could shatter this myth in my head that the guys who rank number one are always just doing these clever tricks. And it's like, there's no trick. The trick was be the best. And if you're not willing to be the best, like, you know, there's no way around. You just got to go through this. And I, I needed to hear that at the time.

• 51:57Speaker 00

  Again, that's, it starts with the problem. And entrepreneurs, that's how to be realistic, right?

• 52:01Shaan Puri?

  Well, isn't it right that as a founder, you basically have to alternate between delusion and realism in a way that doesn't make any sense. One, in one moment, you're going to have to be delusional. You're going to have no evidence, but you're going to have to have the faith.

• 52:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 52:15Shaan Puri?

  And you're going to have to believe, even though you have no experience in this, the market tells you one thing, smart people tell you one thing, but you believe another. That's delusion. And you gotta be a little delulu. But then,

• 52:24Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 52:24Shaan Puri?

  Then you have to switch gears and be hyper realistic. And the guy, you know, somebody who's never delusional, they end up being an employee. And somebody who's only delusional ends up being a failed founder. It's the person who's able to shift gears between the two and know when you're, when you need to be in each mode. That's sort of the art of the whole thing.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then like, again, I had to be very, like you said, I had to be very delusional because I knew in my head, if we put all these pieces together, we will have a big success. Right? But again, going back, I didn't have any experience in this. So you had to build this with the limited information I knew at the time.

• 53:00Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Um, well, Danny, I appreciate you coming on, man. This is a, you have a fun story from telemarketing to now, uh, running one of the fastest growing supplement brands in the world. And, uh, thanks for coming on.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 53:23Shaan Puri?

  All right. Let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about Marketing School. It is a podcast that is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. And it is run by Neil Patel and Eric Su. And these guys are both marketers who are running businesses. And so if you want real world tactics from practitioners who are actually out there in the field doing it, this is the podcast for you. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.