My First Million Live Event With Andrew Wilkinson (Austin Texas)
Near-Misses, Knife Fights, and $10 Million Mistakes - May 12, 2023 (almost 2 years ago) • 17:32
Transcript:
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Nick Gray | Keep standing! Put your hands together for **Webby Award-winning** Sean Purry, **Sam Parr**, and special guest **Andrew Wilkinson**. Come on out, you guys! Extra mics!
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Sam Parr | Alright, so we are backstage and we saw all the bands that have played here. It's like Franz Ferdinand and The Killers and all these cool things.
I heard the sound guys, and first of all, sound guys, I want to apologize. I heard them talking before this and they were like, "What the fuck is this? Is this like a rich guy's birthday party? What is this?"
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Shaan Puri | I think they thought it was a graduation happening | |
Sam Parr | so sound guys sorry but it is what it is | |
Shaan Puri | You always wanted to be a star. You wanted to walk out to a sold-out venue, and I guess this was one way to do it. Yeah, it's one way to do it. | |
Sam Parr | So, sound guy, it's going to be the lamest thing you're going to see this week. But maybe you'll learn something. I don't know, but this is awesome. What do you think?
*Fuck you, sound guys.*
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Shaan Puri | is this working | |
Andrew Wilkinson | come on guys | |
Shaan Puri | you can tell who the real podcasters are sure | |
Andrew Wilkinson | So, we did this huge event in Vancouver. We had like 1,200 people in this massive theater.
Sam sneaks out on the stage and I'm like, "What are you doing?" He's peering around the corner taking photos and he goes, "I'm posting this on Facebook."
I was like, "Who the heck uses Facebook? That's so weird." He replies, "All the people I went to high school with."
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Sam Parr | And so, we wanted to start off by saying we were laughing backstage. Right before we came on, we were like, "We gotta talk about Nick Gray." Does anyone here... has anyone here met Nick Gray? That was the guy who was just talking.
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Shaan Puri | I just met him for the first time last night. He is, I don't know if he's the most interesting man in the world, but he's like the most interesting man in Texas for sure. I'll give him that. I feel like on this show...
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Andrew Wilkinson | We always talk about billionaires, and there's a lot of money in billionaires. But Nick is a friend who is a billionaire.
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Shaan Puri | Yeah, last night we hosted a dinner with, like, I don't know, 15 people. Sam had set it all up; it was going to be perfect. He had this high-end restaurant table for 14. The time was locked in, and we got reminders. We showed up; it was supposed to be beautiful, you know, just a first-class dinner. Everything was taken care of, and we get there, and immediately the plan was blown up. It was raining outside.
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Sam Parr | raining like crazy and our seat was like half outside | |
Shaan Puri | Yeah, so we weren't going to be able to do it immediately. Nick Gray improvises. He's like, "Hold on, you six to the bar," and then he sprinted.
Because I pulled up, I saw him running and I was like, "Nick Gray, where are you going?" He was like, "I'm scoping out a venue," and I don't know where.
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Andrew Wilkinson | he went | |
Sam Parr | He runs into this place and he's like, "Hey, is this an event space?" | |
Shaan Puri | it's soaking wet | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, and the women look at each other and they're like, "What?" He goes, "What's the name of this place?" They go, "It's called Miss Kitty's." And he's like, "Are you guys in an event space? What do you do?" He goes, "We wax women." He goes...
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Shaan Puri | Oh, I got 15 dudes outside. Do you happen to be in bed space or not? But he did. He found us this like abandoned shack, almost this amazing place, and he got us.
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Sam Parr | it was really like a shed | |
Shaan Puri | It was an abandoned shed, but it was perfect. It was exactly what we needed. It was outside of the rain, we were all in there, it was quiet, and we could talk.
He hosts this thing because, so what Nick does is he has this book called "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party," and he's basically perfected the art of a 2-hour party. I got to see it firsthand. He takes out his harmonica to get everyone's attention, and then he has this way of getting everybody to open up, to talk, to sit in the right places, and to do the right things.
It was incredible. The best part, though, was he saved you.
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Andrew Wilkinson | So, Nick is looking around and he walks up to me. He goes, "Hey, are you all good? Everything good?"
I say, "Okay, I wanna go to the shed. I'm excited, but I'm a little bit cold. Is it gonna be heated?"
He goes, "Hold on, I'll be right back," and he runs outside.
Like Sam said, it's pouring rain. I don't know if you guys witnessed this yesterday, but it was insane. He comes back, soaking wet. He looks like that scene in *Glengarry Glen Ross* when the guy's at the doorstep.
Then he brings me this sweatshirt, which he had paid like $70 for. That's who Nick Gray is.
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Sam Parr | and the reason we're bringing this up is not because we like him it's | |
Shaan Puri | to be clear we like them | |
Sam Parr | to to be clear we like them | |
Shaan Puri | but that's not why | |
Sam Parr | We're bringing this up, but on our podcast, *My First Million*... By the way, is everyone here? Is there anyone who doesn't listen to MFM?
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Shaan Puri | who's here for the graduation yeah | |
Sam Parr | Okay, and who here actually listens to us regularly? Alright, that's good enough.
So, we bring up all these weird businesses that a lot of people haven't heard about, and this one is probably the weirdest one. He told me he was going to write this book about a cocktail party. I thought it was a horrible idea, and so far, he's sold 11,000 copies of this book, which is insane.
We had this dinner and met all these interesting people at this 14-person dinner. I think we had a guy there who sold a company that sold dog supplements, which is like the greatest business ever because who knows if it works, right? He sold his company for $650 million. It was insane! He was telling us the story about this.
We had another guy who sells dog ramps, so your old or small dog can go up on the couch. He does $18 million a year in sales. There was another guy there who has a website that is like a marketplace for renting tractors, and it's killing it.
We also had a person who owns a bunch of car washes that does tens of millions in profit. What else do we have? Anything else that was weird?
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Shaan Puri | It was crazy. It was different than San Francisco. If you go to San Francisco or New York, you get one type of entrepreneur. You get the, you know, AI and crypto in SF. In New York, you get something else.
In Austin, you get mustache, hat tilt, and like, "I sell tractors online" or "I'll sell your dog some vitamins." You know, you get a different type of entrepreneur. I bet in the crowd right now, we have some interesting businesses. Some, yeah.
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Andrew Wilkinson | who who here has a business let's get a get a sense of who's get a hand up | |
Shaan Puri | so keep | |
Andrew Wilkinson | your hand up if you own a business and if you do over a 100,000 | |
Shaan Puri | raise them high raise them up | |
Andrew Wilkinson | raise them up | |
Shaan Puri | you're proud | |
Sam Parr | if you | |
Andrew Wilkinson |
Do over $100,000? Keep it up. If you do $500,000, keep it up. $1,000,000? $5,000,000? Okay, we got a few. $20,000,000? Anybody? No? Okay, back to $5,000,000.
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Shaan Puri | no no no no we got we got them over here we got a couple | |
Andrew Wilkinson | k 20,000,000 20,000,000 and up | |
Shaan Puri | couple over we got one over here k 2 here | |
Andrew Wilkinson | Alright, in the back, any of those... any of them profitable? Okay, alright, Nick, we want to talk to these guys. I want to know what their businesses are. Put your...
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Nick Gray | Hands up! Hand is up. I'm coming over here. Alright, stand up please. Let's hear from you.
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Shaan Puri | what's your name and what's your business | |
Andrew Wilkinson | kelsey larrick 365 holdings we're an ecommerce roll up | |
Andrew Wilkinson | sorry can you say that one more time 360 membership please | |
Andrew Wilkinson | 365 holdings we roll up ecommerce businesses I wanna be andrew wilkinson when I grow up | |
Andrew Wilkinson | you don't trust me | |
Shaan Puri | he he's blushing up here | |
Andrew Wilkinson | it's very sad | |
Nick Gray | it sounds like a good | |
Sam Parr | deal okay great | |
Shaan Puri | who who's the guy next to you | |
Listener | justin turner traction capital our we have a business that sells equipment to fire departments | |
Andrew Wilkinson | what what do you mean | |
Shaan Puri | I love the way you said all that, but can I just try being you for a second?
Sean Puri, head of the house, changed diapers. Like you just said, an awesome thing, but with such... yeah, you probably read about me. That's the vibe I got.
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Listener | We sell like **$37,000,000** worth of equipment that fire departments and firemen use every day. This includes hoses, nozzles, and uniforms.
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Andrew Wilkinson | And why is that okay? So, what about competition? Is it just like you're the only one in town? There's only one place to buy them? Or do you have a moat of some kind?
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Listener | We have exclusive distribution relationships in 9 of the western states in the U.S.
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Sam Parr | how much profit on 37,000,000 in revenue | |
Listener | it's about 10% margin | |
Sam Parr | does it feel uncomfortable when I ask you these questions should I ask like what do you look like naked like what | |
Shaan Puri | was it | |
Sam Parr | like when you lost | |
Andrew Wilkinson | your virginity there's only | |
Andrew Wilkinson | one way to find out | |
Hubspot | this data is wrong every freaking time | |
Shaan Puri | have you | |
Listener | Heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.
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Hubspot | Woah! I can see the client's whole history: calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from three days ago that I totally missed.
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Listener | hubspot grow better | |
Sam Parr | alright what else and who else | |
Shaan Puri | who who's got a weirder story than that anybody got a weirder story than that yeah put your hand up if | |
Andrew Wilkinson | you've got a really weird | |
Shaan Puri | business okay that was was like weird | |
Andrew Wilkinson | yes yeah yeah nick | |
Nick Gray | hold on one second | |
Sam Parr | please hold on | |
Listener | Okay, so this is a paper koozie. But I own a 40,000 square foot printware shop warehouse, and we print real koozies. So, like, it's really niche and it's really random. | |
Shaan Puri | not these small boy koozies | |
Andrew Wilkinson | that we handed out | |
Sam Parr | well how | |
Andrew Wilkinson | long you've been running your business for | |
Listener | I've been in business for 8 years but we do a lot of different types of printing | |
Andrew Wilkinson | did you become a millionaire selling beer koozies | |
Listener | That was my first largest e-commerce store that I created. Yeah, selling koozies because I'm from the Midwest and we drink a lot of beer. And that's... you look.
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Sam Parr | like you're from the midwest | |
Shaan Puri | yeah I just grew up | |
Sam Parr | some you and I are | |
Listener | like I'm close to | |
Shaan Puri | saint louis actually is that your sister | |
Sam Parr | still with you on here yeah | |
Andrew Wilkinson | we can be cousins anyone else have a really really weird business | |
Shaan Puri | Like, dog ramp level weird business. Tell him to let the freak flag fly. Oh, here we go, guy with the Austin stash.
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Andrew Wilkinson | there it is the the | |
Sam Parr | the capital v neck shirt | |
Andrew Wilkinson | you just | |
Shaan Puri | grow those when you fly in as soon as you cross the the border the the mustache just pops up | |
Andrew Wilkinson | We make custom dog treats for hospitality businesses. So, like when the Ritz Carlton has guests come with dogs, we provide the dog treats that they give to their guests.
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Andrew Wilkinson | and why wouldn't they just use normal dog treats | |
Andrew Wilkinson | just because ours have their branding on them | |
Andrew Wilkinson | oh very smart | |
Sam Parr | how big is that | |
Andrew Wilkinson | we started 10 months ago and we've grown it to half a 1000000 in 10 months at runright | |
Sam Parr | wow that's cool | |
Shaan Puri | This is cool! We're going to hear more about business because a little bit later, we're going to do a "Shark Tank"-type of thing with a bunch of pitches.
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Sam Parr | yeah you're and we could put we could put the lights down | |
Shaan Puri | two times okay there we go | |
Sam Parr | So, the cool part about doing this stuff is we get to meet all these interesting people who are succeeding. Some are failing, which is actually just as interesting.
But speaking of a big success, Andrew over here took his company public, I thought.
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Shaan Puri | you're pointing at me | |
Sam Parr | no andrew over here just took his company public it's called tiny it's not that tiny | |
Shaan Puri | yeah that should be the tagline it's not that tiny | |
Sam Parr | And he was telling us a story that we had not heard about—almost selling the company. Like, six...
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Shaan Puri | years was a backstage story can we tell it I think we could yeah | |
Andrew Wilkinson | we can we can tell it so there's there's really 2 stories so one | |
Shaan Puri | by the way | |
Sam Parr | If you don't know, I gotta do the intro. Andrew started this thing called Metalab. It was an agency that made a bunch of tech stuff for big companies. Using the profits from that company, he then started buying and investing in other companies. That holding company, or holdco, was called Tiny. He recently took it public last week. It's now trading at 850 million Canadian dollars, which is only like $600 million in real money.
But it was a huge success. It all started because he had this agency called Metalab, where he was, you know, like I said, doing stuff for tech people. You were saying earlier how that was like the foundation for the success of everything else. But you almost did something crazy early on.
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Andrew Wilkinson | Yeah, so I almost wasn't sitting here. We were sitting at dinner the other night and talking about this. There are two stories.
One, I got very excited. You know, when you have a business, you always know how much it sucks and how hard it is to run. You always admire other people's businesses. I always wanted a SaaS business, a sexy business. So, I started one. I started this productivity business called Flow. It was like Asana, except we didn't raise any money. We had a great product, but it just didn't go anywhere.
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Sam Parr | like task management software | |
Andrew Wilkinson | task management | |
Shaan Puri | which is like one | |
Sam Parr | of the hardest things | |
Andrew Wilkinson | To do the hardest businesses in the world, I got so excited about it at one point that I was up at like 11 o'clock at night. I was feeling all manic; I'd probably had a couple of beers. I sent this email to the entire staff and I said, "Guys, we're shutting Metalab down. We're going all in on Flow."
Chris, my business partner, who's here somewhere—where's Chris? Chris is over there. Chris was the CFO at the time, and he looked at the numbers. He was like, "We will be out of business in three months."
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Sam Parr | how big was flow at that time | |
Andrew Wilkinson | was doing like 300 k of revenue it was metlab 2,000,000 or something like that and so chris | |
Sam Parr | how big was metalab when you when when you're | |
Andrew Wilkinson | 2,000,000 maybe at that. | |
Sam Parr | So 2,000,000 in revenue versus 300,000 | |
Andrew Wilkinson | 300k or something. I was just like, "Moment of insanity." Chris went around to all the employees quietly and was like, "Please don't leave. Please don't leave. We'll be bankrupt in like a week." He saved the day.
The second story was Chris and I... you know, running an agency is really stressful. We got this offer to sell the business for $15,000,000. This was about 8 or 9 years ago, almost 10 years ago.
We actually went through the whole process. You know, we spent 4 months going back and forth with this private equity firm. We signed the documents. My lawyer called me with a quivering hand, and I signed the documents. The wire was supposed to come in the next day.
So, I wake up, I go to my local bank branch, I go to the ATM, and I look at the balance. My balance is the same. I think, "Okay, it's probably gonna come in later." So I check later... nothing. The next day... nothing. The next day... nothing.
I call the guy at the private equity firm, and he goes, "Hey man, I'm really sorry, but we weren't able to finish closing our fund, so the deal is not done." So, I legally sold the business, and if the wire had come in, my business would be worth maybe nothing at this point.
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Andrew Wilkinson | Because this was the entire foundation of the business and we would be we would be tiny so we almost lost it all | |
Sam Parr | what do you think it's worth now metalab | |
Andrew Wilkinson | I don't know 100 of 1,000,000 for sure | |
Andrew Wilkinson | but I don't I don't know | |
Shaan Puri | it didn't show that it all could have just one decision actually you made the decision | |
Andrew Wilkinson | And it's... it was all driven by anxiety, right? It's panic. I'm sure every one of you that runs a business knows how miserable it is inside, right? You talk to people, you look at them on the outside, and you go, "They're an amazing operator; they have a great business." But on the inside, there's a great quote by Brent Bishore: "Every business is a slow-motion knife fight."
Right? You just wake up in the morning, you're sweating, and you're fighting to survive. We felt that way, and we pushed through.
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Shaan Puri | It was okay, but we almost gave in. Did you, before you sold the hustle to HubSpot, ever come close to selling before that?
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Sam Parr | So, when I was running the company, I was miserable most of the time. If you go on Facebook or Instagram and look at my pictures from 2017 and 2018, I was lumpy. I was pretty fat, and that was because I was eating all the time to make myself feel better.
Then, this one company emailed me; they showed interest in buying. So, I flew all the way out to New York, and I started talking to them. I got into their office, and it was empty. I was like, "Where is everyone?" They said, "Oh, they're doing stuff."
Then, they took me to a room to have the meeting. I looked in the windows of each office, and every employee was in a sexual harassment seminar because the CMO had just gone off the rails and did a bunch of bad stuff.
So, they got me in a room, sent me a term sheet, and said, "We'll buy your company for $10,000,000, but it's going to be all in stock." I was like, "Well, show me the financials and let me see what's going on with your business." I got a peek at it, and the company was Vice Media.
That means that deal I was so close to taking would be worth zero. I'd probably be in debt because Vice's valuation has just plummeted. I almost took that deal because I was so desperate to get out.
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Shaan Puri | the sexual harassment seminar almost saved you it it did yeah yes you're a survivor |