From Making $800 / Week To Buying A $30M+ Gulfstream Private Jet w/ Vick Tipnes

Summary

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Action Academy | Millionaire Mentorship for Your Life & Business

Episode: From Making $800/Week To Buying A $30M+ Gulfstream Private Jet w/ Vick Tipnes
Host: Brian Luebben
Guest: Vick Tipnes
Date: January 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Brian Luebben sits down with serial entrepreneur and Blackstone Medical Services CEO, Vick Tipnes, to unpack his extraordinary journey from modest beginnings—earning just $800/week—to becoming the owner of a $30M Gulfstream private jet and building a multi-national, industry-leading sleep testing company. Vick reveals the real story behind entrepreneurial success: overcoming business missteps, family betrayal, near-bankruptcy, and personal reinvention—offering detailed wisdom for anyone interested in business acquisition, scaling companies, and mental resilience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Significance of the Gulfstream Jet – A Symbol of Grit

• [00:59–04:33]

  • Vick discusses why the Gulfstream brand is revered in private aviation, emphasizing its military-grade engineering and luxury. His own Gulfstream seats 15—a testament to decades of hard work.
  • For Vick, the jet means more than status: “Every time I fly on that jet, it just represents 20 plus years of grinding, sacrifice, sleepless nights, pain. That's what it represents.” (Vick, 04:07)

• Mindset of Access

  • Brian and Vick riff on the privilege and responsibility that come with owning a jet: not everyone gets a seat—much like business mentorship, you have to “earn a ride.”

2. Early Exit: Big Sale, Small Payday—Lessons from a $9M Deal Gone Wrong

• [08:42–14:27]

  • Vick sold his first company for $9M but only took home $250K after debts, over-leverage, wrong investors, legal battles, and family lawsuits.
  • Advice to Sellers:
    • Avoid over-leveraging and signing personal guarantees.
    • Be selective with investors—align on experience, not just capital.
    • Memorable Quote: “You need to absolutely control what the fuck is going on. Like you need to have majority control all day long.” (Vick, 15:23)

• Impact of Family Betrayal

  • Despite his brothers suing him after their estrangement from the family, Vick refocused on the experience rather than becoming jaded: “I had the experience, I had the experience of everything I went through that I knew was gonna serve me in life… Very successful entrepreneurs think long-term.” (Vick, 14:04)

3. From Defeat to Multi-Millionaire: Building Blackstone

• [14:27–23:40]
  • Vick started anew, this time retaining full control and building systems that reflected lessons learned.
  • He emphasizes the importance of founder control, cautioning against letting non-operating investors have a hand in company direction.
  • Business Longevity Key Quote:
    • “Businesses don't run out of money… businesses go out of business because the owner fucking quit. It's not the cash—it's that they quit. And people quit from frustration.” (Vick, 16:54)

4. Surviving the “Valley of Death” – Years of Negative Cash Flow

• [17:48–19:46]
  • Vick describes a 6-year period of consecutive losses, near-bankruptcy, and relentless pressure before breakthrough, highlighting true entrepreneurial tenacity.
  • “I lost money… every year it was less, but I was losing… but I didn't quit. I figured [it] out. You want to do that for 6 years? Not too many.” (Vick, 17:48)

5. The Business of Sleep—Blackstone’s Unique Model

• [19:51–24:40]
  • Blackstone specializes in sleep diagnostics, using at-home ring devices and remote physician diagnosis.
  • Sleep apnea is a massive but under-diagnosed health issue: “A hundred million Americans undiagnosed, just in the US.” (Vick, 20:24)
  • Vick’s entry was opportunistic: “I got an email from a friend... I built the business around it. Originally I started, wasn’t even my device…I was knocking on doors, asking doctors to refer me patients.” (Vick, 23:48)

6. Scaling to 8 Figures and Beyond—Stages & Talent

• [24:43–30:46]
  • Vick breaks down U.S. revenue distribution: 80% of companies make $2.5–3.5M/year, less than 1% top $10M.
  • Critical Scaling Challenge: Recruiting a management team with the horsepower to grow beyond $10M—a key bottleneck many founders fail to overcome.
  • “The CEO or the executive that you need at $10M is very different at $25, $35, $45M. [You have to] never let the company outgrow you.” (Vick, 27:05)

7. Navigating Team Turnover & Growth Pain

• [30:43–34:14]
  • Natural team turnover is expected as company requirements outpace early team capacity; Vick cautions not to chase “kumbaya culture” at the expense of performance.
  • “It’s not a democracy—it’s Cuba, okay. Like, that’s how companies run. It’s not a democracy, it’s Cuba. Are you profitable? That's the only thing.” (Vick, 31:39)
  • Only exceptional founders make the leap from creator to large-scale CEO.

8. Bootstrapping, Cash Flow, and “Eating Glass”

• [34:14–37:09]
  • The most painful business phase: Growing profitably without external capital.
  • Even minor hiring mistakes can wipe out slim margins—a cycle only the most determined survive.
  • “Growing because you can't afford it yet is just fucking painful, man. It's painful... It’s a very painful exercise.” (Vick, 34:26)

9. Mental Resilience, Subconscious Programming, and Attack-First Strategy

• [37:09–45:25]
  • Vick credits his personal breakthroughs to “mental work”—harnessing the power of the subconscious (via The Power of Subconscious Mind and Dianetics), which helped him shed past trauma and distractions.
  • Stress Management Philosophy:
    • “I never defend—I attack. If I'm in the jungle and a lion's coming after me, I'm gonna run towards it… [when] somebody’s trying to get you and they're trying to push you around, always attack.” (Vick, 43:44–45:25)

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Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• On what the jet represents:
  “Every time I fly on that jet, it just represents 20 plus years of grinding, sacrifice, sleepless nights, pain.” (Vick Tipnes, 04:07)

• On business failure:
  “Businesses don't run out of money… they go out of business because the owner fucking quit.” (Vick Tipnes, 16:54)

• On founder control:
  “You need to absolutely control what the fuck is going on. Like you need to have majority control all day long.” (Vick Tipnes, 15:23)

• On scaling talent:
  “The CEO or the executive that you need at $10M is very different at $25, $35, $45M… never let the company outgrow you.” (Vick Tipnes, 27:05)

• On stress and attack:
  “I never defend—I attack. If I'm in the jungle and a lion's coming after me, I'm gonna run towards it... Always attack.” (Vick Tipnes, 43:44)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:59–04:33]—The meaning of the Gulfstream private jet
• [08:42–14:27]—How Vick lost most of his 1st company sale and his advice for sellers
• [14:27–17:48]—How and why you should retain founder control; how most businesses actually fail
• [17:48–19:46]—Six years of losses: the real, gritty journey to success
• [19:51–24:40]—How Vick built Blackstone and the massive sleep apnea market
• [24:43–30:46]—Stages of company growth, scaling hurdles, and the top 1%
• [30:43–34:14]—Management turnover, culture myths, and founder outgrowing the company
• [34:14–37:09]—Bootstrapping pain and profitable growth
• [37:09–45:25]—Mental resilience, subconscious programming, and proactive problem-solving

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Episode Tone & Style

Candid, unfiltered, and motivational—Vick is direct and practical, sharing both the ugly realities and triumphant highs. Brian keeps the tone conversational, digging into actionable business takeaways.

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Final Takeaways

• Success is a function of relentless learning, refusing to quit, and always betting on yourself.
• Control trumps capital; without it, you’ll lose the benefit of your grind.
• Scaling beyond the small business ceiling (>$10M+) is all about building and keeping the right executive team.
• Personal mental health and input control are as important as business strategy.
• “Attack, don’t defend” is Vick’s secret weapon against stress and challenge—be proactive, not reactive.

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Connect with Vick Tipnes

• @vicktipnes — Instagram & other platforms

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If you want to create cash flow and replace your job, Action Academy highlights real entrepreneurs who have been through the grind and share the blueprints for acquiring and scaling businesses to financial freedom.

Transcript

[A]

I'm excited to have you on, man. I want to start this journey here because you've built a hyper successful company from scratch. And you have this post on social media that I love, and I want to use it to paint the scene for the level of success that you have today and then also the type of man that at least perceive you to be. I want you to talk about this, man, but it was really cool you posted. You got the Gulf Stream private jet, which for people that aren't, maybe you could talk a little bit about the jet world and why the Gulf Stream is a big deal. But in the world of. In the world of PJs, like, when you're flying private, you got maybe the six seater, the eight seater, then you've got the big daddy. And you posted this picture on social media where you were celebrating a couple years back, two, three years back, about hitting this massive accomplishment. And you've got your family with you, you got your young kids with you. And I was like, this is a guy that's got some big success, and he's having his family along the way, which is rare. So can you talk about that moment, getting that jet, what all went into it, and having your family along the ride?

[B]

Yeah, sure. Gulfstream has always been a dream of mine. It's. It's the best. It's the best brand in the world. I don't care what anybody says. Everything is second to Gulfstream. The build, quality, interior, everything. But a lot of the Gulfstream engines were originally designed by Rolls Royce for the military. Because of the redundancies, Gulfstream in general has three layers of redundancy for every operational function in the plane. Think about that. Three levels of redundancy. And that's why the military and the DOJ and Hegseth and all these guys, they roll in Gulf Stream, man. They ain't flying no Bombardier shit. It's like they're. They're in the Gulf Stream. And there's a reason for that, is because it's the best quality in the world. And so for me, I always just was like, man, I really want a Gulf Stream, really want a Gulf Stream. And it was definitely a surreal moment. I never. I didn't even think about 10 years ago. I was making 800 a week, you know, so it wasn't even on my radar, man. It was like, I'm like, okay one day. But it wasn't like, oh, man, by the time I'm, you know, 47, 48 years old, I'm gonna. I'm gonna Have a Gulf Stream and it's a large jet. For people who don't know about jets, you have small, which are 4 to 6, medium, which is 6 to 6 to 9 and then anything above 10. I got a 15 passenger Gulf Stream and it's just, it just represents a lot of hard work and sacrifice, man.

[A]

I'm curious about that because I've been able, I've been blessed enough to fly private a couple of times and we've done a few charters now and for somebody listening, it's normally cost. Even for a smaller plane it costs about 30, $40,000 a one way charter and that can get up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so I was always wondering, I'm like, man, at what stage do you finally be like this is worth it for the commute. And I was curious about your thought process on that because I know a couple, a couple cats with some PJs and they, somebody said something very wise to me, which he said that it's not about the convenience as much as it's about who he puts on the plane with him. I thought that was very cool.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's both. I think the convenience is huge. Look, I primarily use the plane cause I have an office in South America. And so for me it's a necessity for business to use it because I'm able to get, it's a three hour flight. I'm able to get to South America very quickly and it's done. Take me a whole day to travel. Right. So I lose a day. So the efficiency for me and my team to get there and work is paramount. So that kind of comes first. And then the fact that it's a large jet allows me to take multiple people, allows me to take my family, et cetera. And I think that not only the time convenience, but then also, yeah, look, it's a privilege to be able to fly on a jet whether you're paying for a charter or you're invited on a jet. And I'm very picky about who flies with me. And I think most jet owners are also equally picky because you want to make sure that you're, you're bringing somebody on the plane that also deserves it. Like it's a reward. It's not a, hey, you're going that way anyway. And you'll hear about that. I hear about that from people that they're like, hey, you're, I'll hear from somebody around, hey, I heard Vic's going there. Can I, can. I had your ride and And I'm just like, no.

[A]

Was I seen a Forrest Gump? Seats taken? Yeah.

[B]

Because it's. You see, that comment is made by somebody that. That has never. That they have no. They have no earthly idea what it takes to fly a pri. To own a jet, much less pay for a jet. It's just this. It's unfathomable to them. So they're just like, oh, you're going that way anyway. Every time I fly on that jet, it just represents 20 plus years of grinding. 20 plus years of grinding sacrifice, sleepless nights, pain. That's what it represents. And so I had to go through that shit. There was nobody saying, hey, Vic, Tipnus, can you want to hop on my plane? I'm going to blah, blah, you want to ride? No, it doesn't work that way. So it's a real privilege. And I think that a lot of jet owners look at it in that way, too. I don't know about your friends that own a jet if they feel the same way, but I do. I just. I'm not bringing people on just because I'm heading in that direction.

[A]

I think it's a cool life lesson because it's about more than the jet, what you're talking about and what you're preaching here. Yeah. Because even in the mentorship conversation, it's. You're like, oh, you're heading in the right. You're heading in the same direction. Hey, can I come hitch with you? Can you come mentor me? Can you step out of your way and step away from your business to hop on a call with me? Can I pick your brain and to use that to piggyback, man, did you have anybody back in the day? I know everybody's got a list of probably like a handful, at least of people that threw the rope down to them. Did you have any mentors that kind of helped you along your way? And how did you enter their world? So how did you earn that seed on as a guest on these jets before you were able to be the one that was running it?

[B]

I never did. I never had those people. I never had those friends. I didn't know anybody that I knew. One person that did, and he bought me out of my last company, and I flew on his jet. And all it made me think of is, why isn't this my jet? Like, what does this person know that I don't know? That's all I could think about. What does this guy know that I don't know? Because it's not that I lack persistence or determination or Work ethic, I'm willing to do whatever it takes. So that, that wasn't it. So why was this person, why am I in this person's jet and they're not in my jet?

[A]

Yeah, why not me?

[B]

And that just consumed me, man. For years I was just like, I don't know what? I don't know. It just consumed me because I'm just like, this doesn't make any sense. I was a 29 year old kid. I'd sold my company for $9 million. I made 250 grand and make really any money after taxes. And I wasn't financially independent. So I ended up working for the private equity group that brought me out. And funny enough, one of the main principals was the guy that I was in the jet with. I was on his jet and him and I are still friends today. And funny enough, about six months ago, he was on my jet full circle. Twenty years later he was on my jet and he came down to Jing with me, him and his wife and they spent a couple of days with me and, and then they went back. But yeah, 20 years later he was just like, hey, I just remember like the last time you were on my jet and I'm thinking and I didn't get into the whole.

[A]

How'd it feel?

[B]

It felt good. It felt good. It felt good. I'm not the type of guy that's ever really satisfied and I don't think that's always a good thing. I'm always like, there's more. I'm never in that feeling of maybe for a little bit, but not period.

[A]

A period of this is okay.

[B]

Yeah, I'm not like, oh, I've made it. It's like I don't, I haven't felt that in my career yet. Maybe I will soon one day, but I haven't felt it yet.

[A]

Brother, you got a gulf stream. I think you're probably never going to feel it. I don't know if you're ever going to feel that feeling. I think you're always going to be hungry at this point.

[B]

Yeah, I think so too. At the end of the day too, it's being on the plane also, it just feeds the inspiration. Like every time I'm feeling a little down, I'm feeling a little low tone or whatever. It's like I just, I get on and I just, I come right up and I'm like, okay, this here's. Let's go. Who we got? Who we got to kill? Let's go.

[A]

Love it. So let's go back a Little bit to now I want to talk about the first business where you exited for $9 million, but only took home 250. That's a huge story that we want to hit on real really quickly because a lot of people on here are trying to be on the buy side of companies and we teach a lot and talk a lot about buying companies and I've bought companies as well. But you know, from you, from the sell side, a lot of people would hear, oh, you sold your for 9 million bucks, so that means that you took home $9 million. And that's not always the case. So can you talk about what went wrong there? You still had a successful exit, you still sold a private equity, so you could still put that under your belt. But then that's what led you to start building up the new successful company that you have today. So what if you could give advice on how did you structure the debt, the terms, the company, what happened for you to only pull 250 from that?

[B]

A lot of bad decisions. One is I over leveraged, I bought a lot of new equipment as opposed to really outsourcing it and getting used equipment. And, and then I signed a lot of personal guarantees and I brought in a lot of investors and partners and gave up equity and not really paying attention to who I was bringing in and what were their kind of intentions and what were they trying to accomplish and what was their level of experience as it related to mine. And it just created a really bad kind of situation for myself. I had investors that weren't healthcare people, weren't that savvy. They were just in a different, from a different area and they were bad people, but they just weren't savvy in that.

[A]

And so not speaking the same language.

[B]

Not speaking the same language, didn't have a healthcare background, didn't have experience in healthcare, didn't have contacts in healthcare. So not savvy there. Savvy in other areas potentially, but not savvy there. So I've handicapped myself in that now. I had these partners that just, you know, with all due respect, they just weren't the right people.

[A]

So.

[B]

And then I bought a lot of equipment that I should have bought, I should have bought most of it used. And next thing I'm like, I'm selling it for 9 million and I owe 8 or 7 and it's okay. And then you got the investors, you got the partners and they get, they're taking their portion of it. Then I was sued by my brothers because my dad, my father passed away at the Same time. And they went after his estate. Then they sued me, trying to grab a bag and. And then I'm okay. I had to settle that. So I walked away with. After five years of work, I walked away with very little. And it was deflating. It was a hard pill to swallow. Five, six years of your work and you're thinking that the end of the day you're going to come out here and you can come out here. It's very disheartening and discouraging. And most people probably would have said, I ain't doing that again. But I was kind of like, I licked my wounds. And I've always been able to just wake up the next day and say, all right, let's move on, let's just keep going forward. And Frank Sinatra said it best, right? The best revenge is massive success. So I just had that in my psyche. I'm coming back, man. I ain't going. This ain't my fucking last rodeo. And I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna come back bigger than ever. And that was what I focused on.

[A]

Yeah, that's why it's always bet on the jockey, not the horse.

[B]

Always.

[A]

You gotta bet on the guy or the girl with the grit. That's okay. Cool. I'm gonna get knocked down, but I'm gonna get right back up and I'm gonna find another horse. We're gonna figure it out, man. It's crazy. It's crazy that you say that you got sued by your father, dies, you get sued by your brothers. How are you able to go from that situation to trusting anyone in any situation ever again after that?

[B]

Good question. Look, I think you don't want to become so jaded in life that. And think that, you know, that you can't trust people. Right? There are people that are worthy of trust and there are some that are not. And you've got to be smart enough to know who you can trust and who you can't. Right? Unfortunately, I was a 29 year old kid that had two older brothers that were, you know, look, I'm not trying to be critical, but they were greedy for money. They wanted money, they didn't care. They never thought, oh, man, I've never worked in that company, I've never invested an hour of my time, and yet I want money from this. And. And all of a sudden they developed a relationship with their father that was as far as we were all concerned. They were estranged to him and convinced him in his kind of last moments, hey, give me whatever you own of Part of Vic's companies.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And they did and they, they figured that out and they got it done. And the next thing I was business owners with them. Imagine you wake up one morning and you're, you're business partners with two people that never did anything, never contributed anything, never put a dollar in the business, never worked an hour in the business. Nothing. It's a little wow. So I was like, look, I gotta get out of this situation. I'm like, this is just like suppressing me down. So I sold the thing. I was like, okay, I'm out. I was lucky. I was able to just get out where I didn't owe anybody any money, paid everything off that I owed and I walked away with kind of a clean slate. So that was an advantage to me. And then I had the experience, I had the experience of everything I went through that I knew was gonna serve me in life. And for them, they shortchanged themselves. It would've been better if they would've become my friend because, and develop the relationship because I would have served them better today and their families. But they didn't. They people think very short sightedly, what can I get now? And I think very successful entrepreneurs think long term and they think, okay, where's this going to go? Where can I be in 5, 10, 15 years?

[A]

Yeah. Thinking in decades, not days. Yeah, I love that. So talk to me about you go from this, you lick your wounds and you say, okay, cool. I'm going to take the lessons that I learned from my brothers coming in and taking over this portion of my business. I'm going to lick my wounds from bringing on investors in this cap table that didn't necessarily deserve to be there. They shouldn't have probably been there. How did you structure things different? What were the top lessons that you learned from that? That you were able to apply to this new company that you still run today, Blackstone, where you are able to have some protections there. Like how do you think about partnerships? And to use the analogy of the jet engine, what are the three, what are the three redundancies that you're using now with your partnerships?

[B]

I think for me the biggest thing is look, and I'll tell any entrepreneur this if you're the guy, because there's. I have friends that have partners and those partnerships work out for them and that's great. And. But if you're the guy and you've got investors coming in that are not going to be there day to day that don't have the same skin in the game as you and it's all on you. Meaning that if the business goes to hell, their life just goes on. They just lost whatever they invested, their livelihood doesn't change, their statuses don't change. Like nothing changes for them. If you're in that situation, you need to absolutely control what the fuck is going on. Like you need to have majority control all day long. Otherwise I would never even entertain going into a deal like that. If I'm the guy and I'm putting in everything I got, it may not be as much as the investors, but at the end of the day, if this thing doesn't work, I'm having to sell my house and I'm having to move and I'm having to change my lifestyle and all this type of stuff and all the risk is on you. You absolutely 100% need to be the final and only say. And if you've got a board and you've got a committee and you've got all this stuff that you got to report to, you're not going to make it. Because when times get tough, everybody's just watching out for their own ass. And most of the investors are. They just put money in. Doesn't change anything for them. It's like a stock. Oh, I bought a stock. Taking a bet, they're taking a bet. And if that person is now dictating the way you operate the business, you're going to find yourself very frustrated. And I highly don't recommend that people do that. It's really frustrating to do because businesses don't run out of money. This is fallacy that businesses go out of business because of cash. They don't go out of business because of cash. They go out of business because the owner fucking quit. They quit. It's not the cash, it's that they quit. And people quit from frustration. They're just overwhelmed with frustration. And they're like, you know what? Fuck this, I'm out. And they quit. It's not cash, it's never cash. They just quit.

[A]

So the difference between the ones that last and the ones that don't, it's just simply when the going gets tough, they're going to have the grit instead of the quit. Basically, yeah.

[B]

Look, dude, I was, I lost money. 20, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, part of 18, I was negative. I was losing money. Every year it was less, but I was losing. I wasn't like cash flow positive at all. Why didn't I go out of business? Because I didn't quit. I figured the out like every. If I had to figure it out every day. I had to figure. I had to figure out how to turn 80 cents into 80 grand. I had to figure it out. But it's like it is what it is. I had to figure it out. And yeah, but I could have chose to quit. I could have said, man, this is just too much. It's a lot of pressure for a long period of time. I'm talking six months, I'm talking six years of just every day you're waking up, you're negative, there's no money, there's never any money. You're just making payroll, barely sliding by trying to figure out which vendor you can put off for this and that and all this stuff. And you know, you want to do that for how many people you know are going to sign up for six years of that?

[A]

Yeah, not too many. As if this is the contract. If you're going to have everything you ever wanted down here, what contract are you willing to sign?

[B]

Six months. Yeah, because oh my God, I've been doing this for six months. Okay.

[A]

Yeah. It's funny because I always tell people the easiest way to stay humble, you get cocky. When you're the big guy in the room or you're the big girl in the room. It's real easy to stay humble when you're hanging out with people that are ten steps, a hundred steps, there's always the bigger fish. It's your job to be the person that finds them because otherwise you're going to get too big for it.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, man.

[A]

Yeah. I absolutely love that, man. So you stomached it and now you're able to have the jet, now you're able to have the success. What were some of the key shifts? So you go from somebody that has the unsuccessful exit to now you're, you're cash flow negative to now it's like you've got this wonderful business that's across multi multiple countries. You're one of the largest sleep app. It's sleep apnea. Correct. You do, you guys do sleep.

[B]

Sleep.

[A]

Sleep surveys. Yeah. So you guys are what? We test sleep testing.

[B]

We have a ring device that you wear and you pair it with your phone. We have a, an iPhone and an Android app and, and basically you sync it with your phone and you go to sleep and then you do that for two nights and then you send us the device back and then we have physicians, board certified sleep physicians that will diagnose you and tell you if you have sleep apnea or not.

[A]

And it's a way larger issue than people Realize. Correct.

[B]

Oh, it's huge, man. It's huge. A hundred million Americans undiagnosed, just in us.

[A]

So what's the. We'll put a. We'll put a bookmark real quick on. On kind of the takeaways and the HAAs. Let's talk about sleep for a second, man, because we all need sleep. I feel like I get sleep and I. Even if I sleep eight hours, nine hours, I feel like I'm not. I don't have enough sleep. Yeah. So let's talk about sleep for a second. Is the guy that figured sleep out, made millions of dollars from it. So let's talk about sleep for a second. What are some, like, what are the causes of this? And if somebody's listening to this and they're like, man, I'm. I feel like I'm sleeping, but I don't wake up rested, then it could be sleep apnea.

[B]

Because sleep apnea is essentially. It's a Greek word meaning. Apnea comes from the word, Greek word meaning without breath. So it's when you can't breathe for 10 seconds or more when you're in deep sleep. So your body's going in, trying to get into REM sleep, and your body's waking up. You're not consciously not waking up, but you're waking up. You don't remember usually that you're woken up trying to breathe again, and then you go back to bed, but now you've popped out of REM sleep. REM sleep is the most important sleep because that's where your body regenerates and your cells regenerate. So you could sleep eight, nine hours, but you don't get REM sleep. So you wake up tired. Okay. So if your feet, if you slept eight hours and you're not rested, you probably have sleep apnea. So it's just better to get tested. Because you get tested and you now know you have it. You can then get on a treatment so you're off of it so that you can sleep better, because otherwise you're not. You're never going to get REM sleep. That's why some people can sleep less. Some people can sleep. I slept six, I slept five hours last night. I was up at 4:00am But I got REM sleep. Like, I, I go into REM sleep pretty quickly. So I got REM sleep and I'm good. Like, I couldn't.

[A]

So what are the.

[B]

I could sleep more. I probably have more energy, but I naturally have a lot of energy anyway. But you couldn't tell that I only Slept five hours last night.

[A]

Yeah, sure. So what are the causes of this and what did, what have you done to be able to hop into and pop into REM sleep as fast as possible?

[B]

It usually happens because people are overweight or they're on some sort of, they have drug resistant hypertension or they have AFIB or they have some sort of other comorbidity, but usually it's obesity. Right. Sensitivity, thick neck, for example, when they go to bed, when the muscles relax, they put pressure on the airway and it collapses the airway. So when the airway collapses, the body says, oh shit, you gotta breathe. And it jolts the body so opens up the airway again. And that can happen, you know, dozens of times per night.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Dozens of times per night. Now in terms of my REM sleep, I don't know, dude.

[A]

Born different baby, man. But yeah, I didn't realize it was such a large issue. But when you think about it, global health concern, it's one of the, that checks out.

[B]

Global health concerns in the world. Yeah. Sleep apnea is huge. You see it right now all, all over YouTube with Lily, Eli Lilly with Ozefic with the GLP1s. It's just, it's all over the place. It's all over the place. There's billions of dollars being put into therapy solutions for sleep apnea because it's that big of a, of an issue.

[A]

So what got you in this space? Because people are thinking of a million different business ideas to start. What got you in the sleep space?

[B]

I got an email from a friend of mine back in 2010 about a home sleep testing device. And being a healthcare guy, I was like, it just clicked for me, man. I was just like, I can do something with this. And I called up a manufacturer and said, hey, can you send me one or two of your devices that test for sleep apnea? And I built the business around it. Originally I started wasn't even my device. I got contracts with an insurance company and said, hey, because obviously 97% of the population is insured, so you want to go through people's insurance. And that's how I started, man. And I literally was like knocking on doors, knocking on doctor's offices, asking them to refer me patients. And it started Coca Cola. It was like one patient a week type of thing and then just compounds.

[A]

And compounds over time. And then all of a sudden it becomes something big and it's a 10 year overnight success, right?

[B]

Yeah, we've tested over a million patients already.

[A]

Wow, that's a lot of Door knocking. A lot of door knocking. Let's talk about the different stages, man. Because a lot of people, we try to buy companies in the couple of million dollar revenue range right beneath private equity. So they've got three to 10 employees, they're doing a couple million bucks a year. And now we've been able to just. That's top line. I'd say probably getting up to about a million or 2 million in EBITDA, because after that, private equity starts coming into play. And so it's a little bit more difficult to compete with those guys and girls up there. And now we've gone up to about. Yeah, we're into the low eight figure range in our company that we've built. So can you talk about the different kind stages of building and what are the different problems that people can expect from that? Like the 0 to 1, the 1 to 3, the 3 to 10, 10 to 30 and so forth. So on. Do you have any rules of thumb or battle scars or anything you can share?

[B]

Yeah. Do you know what percentage of companies in the country do over $10 million in revenue?

[A]

I actually don't.

[B]

So do you know how many companies are in the U.S. do not. Okay, so there's 33 million companies in the United States. 33 million. 80% of those companies do between two and a half and three and a half million dollars in revenue. Less than 1.

[A]

Yeah, 80%.

[B]

80%. Think about it. You're driving down the street in America, 80% of the businesses you're driving by, the McDonald's, the Chick Fil A's or this, maybe not Chick Fil A's, they make $25 million like every other business is making two and a half, three and a half million dollars a year. Mom and Pops, you know, this is. That's the average two and a half to three and a half, $4 million a year. And then you've got 7%, 7% that are doing, you know, three and a half to, let's say 7, 8 million bucks. But less than 1% of the companies in the United States do over 10 million. Less than 1. Wow. Out of 33 million companies, and then less than.0, 4% do more than 25 million. So what that tells you is your most difficult part of scaling is acquiring the talent that can operate at that level, because the vast majority of people are operating in this level. Right. And the company outgrows the person at some stage. So I always tell my team, I'm like, they'll never let the company outgrow you because the CEO or the executive that you need at 10 million is very different. At 25, 35, 45 million, it's a small percentage. So you're talking about you're in the 0.034%, 1/3 of 1% group of operating of all these companies. I mean, don't you think they're going to be thinking differently? Don't you think they're going to be strategizing differently? Don't you think they're going to handle problems differently? Probably going to strategize differently, probably have more specific goals about what they're trying to do as it relates to 99.95, 99.5%.

[A]

Of.

[B]

Of the population. So it gets a lot diff. It gets a lot more difficult and challenging to find those people.

[A]

But when you find them, it's like a economic unlock.

[B]

You hold onto them, man. Like my senior team, I hold on to them because it's taken me years to find them. Years. So the real value and so this, if you look buying companies and the private equity, what's more valuable than even the business sometimes is the management team.

[A]

Manager.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because otherwise it's now you're the manager.

[B]

So a management team is very important. It's probably one of the most important things that you need when you're trying to scale is you need a management team, you need a badass, you need great accounting person, great ops person, great cto, great legal guy, great production person. Like, you need those people to where you know you're good, you've got the best of the best, you know that you can go into any company and you can figure out at a really high level.

[A]

Yeah. From what I've heard and what we've been talking about, it's like that zero to one is just, let's just get product market fit. Let's just get people that want to buy the stuff.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then that one to three is how do we productize that, how do we systematize that, how do we put SOPs together? And then that 3 to 10 is just the right people. Right. Seats. Now the org chart's correct. And now you're able to take them and be like, okay, cool, you guys have been to 10 million before. Let's build that out. And now you guys can tell us what to build, what processes to build. And then from 10 onwards, it's just like you're saying, it's just all recruitment, it's all talent.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Even before that, in my opinion, like to get to 10, wow. Is mammoth. You gotta will the shit outta your company to get it to 10.

[A]

Wow. What level are you guys at today?

[B]

Oh, we're up there. I can't say on the podcast, but we're up there. We're in the.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

The Air center up there.

[A]

Yeah. You're up in the Gulf Stream. Yeah, we're cruising 35,000ft. Love that, man. So you'd say probably.

[B]

Actually, yeah.

[A]

42. Yeah. There's way thinner out there. Right.

[B]

Gulf stream flies at 42,000ft.

[A]

Yeah, you're catching that. You're catching that jet stream. Let's go. So you would say probably that 3 to 10 is probably the most difficult. You would say.

[B]

I'd say 5 to 10.

[A]

5 to 10 is the most difficult.

[B]

Most difficult, yeah.

[A]

Great. That explains all of the heartburn that I have.

[B]

That's the most pain that you go through. And then the 25 is painful.

[A]

It.

[B]

Just because you. You got. You don't.

[A]

Because you outgrew.

[B]

Yeah, you outgrow everybody. Think about it. Whoever's running your books at 10 million, can they handle $15 million more at 25? Double 200%. Not many people can do that. So don't be surprised if you're just. You got people dropping like flies. Like, we had people dropping, like, a lot. And I would have people coming up to me, man, during those days and they were like, dude, you're. You're doing something wrong. Everybody's leaving. Everybody's leaving. You're burning through accountants, you're burning through blah, blah, blah. And I would just. I would look at my numbers and I'd be like, I'm up 38%. Like, I'm up. Like, off. I'm up.

[A]

Yeah. When did he get some other people in on this?

[B]

Everybody's got a opinion that you got to sing Kumbaya or they've been watching too many Simon Sinek videos. Let's all have a conversation like, this isn't a democracy, it's a Cuba, okay? Like, that's how companies run. It's not a democracy, it's Cuba. So our. The reality is, are you profitable? That's the only thing. If I'm not. If I'm looking at my numbers and I'm not heading in the right direction, meaning my gross income is not double digits and my losses are going away and I'm paying off debt and I'm doing all that stuff. If I'm not heading in that direction, that's a different conversation. But if I'm heading in that direction and I'm still people are leaving. That's normal. Don't chase that rabbit. That's just a stupid rabbit to chase. Like, you gotta get everybody on board and sing Fumbaya. No, it's a natural progression in my opinion of business, that naturally people are gonna leave because like I said, most people are operating with the same rhythm that the 99% do. So if now you're trying to get higher altitude, isn't it normal to think that those people operating in that level just think differently, they act differently, their problem solving skills are better. It's just a reality. So I went through that whole period where I thought I was people trying to make me out to be this horrible person. There's a horrible. Everybody leaving, everybody's running. He's been here for two years.

[A]

Yeah. You're like, he ain't doing it no more, man. Yeah, I love that. It's a diff. It's a difficult process, man. It's a difficult process sometimes because you're like. Because you have some people where you're like, man, I want to take you the whole way I want to. But it's just. Yeah.

[B]

If you think about it, Brian, you have to think about. There's very few founders that can also be in the CEO through the growth. If you look at. It takes a very unique person to be able to do that. Bill Gates was able to do that. Elon Musk was able to do that. Like those Steve Ballmer.

[A]

Yeah, they're outliers, I feel.

[B]

Guys built it up, scaled it, still remained senior CEO. Google guys didn't do that.

[A]

Yeah, but they were. But they retained their board seats, though. They retained the. Yeah, I was thinking about that from.

[B]

A smart perspective because they were like, hey, we don't know how to do this. We're going to take ego out of it. Hire somebody that does. Best decision to ever make. There's very few people that can do both. Found it and then scale it and then never out outgrow it where the business outgrows them.

[A]

I never understood why startup companies, especially in tech and AI and everything, took on like all these million hundreds of millions of dollars of investor capital. But now I get it. It's because they're spending that to get that level of talent. Day one.

[B]

Yeah. And look, you have to also remember that the most difficult part of any company, which I equate to eating glass, is being profitable while you're growing. That is the most painful experience of mankind. Growing because you can't afford it yet. It's just fucking painful, man. It's painful. Trying to grow your business without taking on debt and being from cash flows and being in the black is a very painful exercise.

[A]

Very big say more on that for somebody that maybe kind of surface level understands it, but they don't fully understand it. Talk a little bit more about the process of bootstrapping.

[B]

So let's just simple math. Let's say that you're doing a million dollars a year in revenue and you want to grow and you've got payroll and your payroll is 40% or 50% of revenue. So 500 grand a month, okay. Out of the million. Then the other half a million is going towards regular expenses. Okay. So now and let's say you're at a hundred thousand dollar break even. You're a hundred thousand dollar profit on a million dollars. Right? 500,000 in payroll, 400,000 operating expenses, general administrative and you got a hundred grand leftover. So how do you grow? You got a hundred thousand dollar threshold. So you go hire more salespeople. If things cost more than they cost, you go hire a hundred. You go hire $100,000 in salespeople and say you're going to break even or even 75,000. You hire five.

[A]

Five don't work out.

[B]

Paid their payroll. Then your manager's coming to you, hey, I need three more to replace them. So now you're paying for eight people on payroll for a month and then they drop off and then you. So now that a hundred thousand is gone, now you're probably eating into negative by 50 grand. 75 grand. Oh, and then they need supplies. You gotta add em on your health insurance, 401ks. Oh and then you get a, you walk in the office tomorrow and you got a lawsuit from one of them. Cause, cause they think that they were fired for the wrong reason. And so now you gotta go give an attorney ten grand.

[A]

Fun, business fun. That's why people, that's why people ain't getting on the gulf stream.

[B]

Example.

[A]

Yeah, no, that's the game. So it's so painful at the end of the day. What are the things that made it worth it? What are the things that got you through? What are the things that pulled you forward?

[B]

For me a lot of it was just mental work. I worked a lot on my mental health in the beginning for me. You ever read that book the Power of Subconscious Mind by Justin Murphy?

[A]

Nope.

[B]

So anyway, he's got a book out that I read and it talked about power of subconscious mind. So I'm with this one cat that I remember from back in the day. And he was just like. He was like, don't say that. I'm like, what did I say? He said that you couldn't do it. I'm like, why? He says, because your subconscious mind is going to record what you said and it's going to operate off of that. So I was like, that's not good.

[A]

I should change that. Yeah. Was that the nlp, that Neuro Linguistics Programming?

[B]

No. So then I read. So then I read Dianetics. I read the Dianetics book by L. Ron Hubbard, and somebody turned me onto that. And he talked about the same thing. He was like, subconscious mind, but he called it reactive mind. He says, you got a reactive mind and you got a conscious mind. And the difference for me was when I read the other book, he was just like, yeah, you're fucked. You said some shit to yourself. Negative.

[A]

You're toast.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Because the guy was really clear. He said, look, everything is being recorded all the time. Which was kind of like alarming to me. He's. Everything is just. Joseph B. Murphy was this psychologist. Everything's recorded. It's all stored in your reactive mind. And it can come out at any time, good or bad. So I'm like, dude, I don't like those odds. So I remember, I. I've always been aware about my surroundings and stuff. And I would just remember I'd go to meetings sometimes and I would meet people and the way they'd look would set me off or it'd make me feel like little weird or setback. And I didn't like that because I wanted to be like, present in the meeting. But then I started thinking of some other shit. Like he looked like a dude that tried to fight me when I was eight or something.

[A]

Dude, you are not coming on the jet.

[B]

So I read the Dianetics book and he basically talked about how you can get rid of those kind of painful emotions, like ptsd. Like you. You can get rid of it without drugs or alcohol or being hypnotized. Hypnotized or whatever and all that stuff. And so I really. I hooked onto that, man, like 10 years ago, 12 years ago, right when I started Blackstone. And that helped me tremendously, man. Like, I. I did that and it. It really changed the game for me from a business perspective because I was able to get rid of these phobias and things that would turn on for me that were distracting me from what I needed to do. So I really doubled down on my personal improvement. And that was a game changer for me, me.

[A]

So what was the. What were the kind of the action items so that you didn't have to get therapy, you didn't have to get hypnosis, you didn't have drugs and alcohol. So what. What was it?

[B]

It's just count. It's counseling. Following this technology that he created. It's not. It's a very standardized thing. It's just counseling. And so. But it. It's following the steps of how to remove that stuff, the. That that's in your mind that's not helping you. Imagine if. If, like I had a dude that I got in a fight with when I was a little kid. Okay. And then I meet this other dude at a meeting. He looks just like that kid. I'm like, dude, you look like the kid that I got into a fight with. And. And so I made my mind like made that connection. And then meeting. I wasn't paying attention because I'm thinking about is this the dude that I.

[A]

Was just the guy. Just the guy we threw hands with.

[B]

And then I'm having all these memories about all that shit and it's like real like it, like. I'm sure it's happened to you many times.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All of a sudden you're like, you're back to where that thing happened. Maybe a dog bit you or something.

[A]

And I'm future. I'm always lost in the future. I'm always like, either things are going too good right now, what's about to happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or it's just like, what's coming to get me? It's like you're chilling and you're like, what's coming up? So you're always in that fight or flight and kind of in that state where you're like. And I have to tell myself a lot of the times that go back to what you said on the jet is just like, why isn't this not my jet? Like, why isn't me that Whenever things are going great, I'm like, what's going to go wrong? What if this goes wrong? What if this doesn't work out? And so a lot of the stuff we've been working on is what if it works out better than we ever anticipated? Right.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. So that. That helped me. That's. That I applied that in my life and it's. It was like that. Yeah. None of that stuff bothered me any. Any time after that.

[A]

Yeah. I've heard that's the hardest part. I had Dan Martell on the show and now he's become a friend and he was talk how he views problems and he Was just like, people who view problems and they think that when you make more revenue or make more income, that the problems go away, but they just look different. And so he said he views them like puzzles. He's. I'm paid money to solve problems. Like, this is what comes with this level of revenue or this level of income. So it's a puzzle for me to solve. I'm not going to stress about it like it's a problem. I'm going to solve it like it's a puzzle. So I'm curious, like, now that you're at this level, like, how do you view problems? How do you view stress?

[B]

I think stress is. For me, stress is really clearly defined. And it. When it's something that you're. Is something that happens that you can't do anything about, like, there's no reason to be stressed. For example, when you're stressed, if you really think about it, you're stressed. Why? Because you feel powerless. You feel like you can't do anything about it. Like, literally, like, you. You can't do anything about it. So then as a. So then as a byproduct of that, you're worried you're stressed because it's like you can't do anything about it. So to the degree that you can't do anything about it, the more stressed you are checks out that you flip it and you say, okay, hold on. How can I attack this thing? Everything changes, like, instantly. You haven't even done anything yet. You're just like, oh, I didn't think I can attack some. But the minute that you can attack something, I don't care what it is, you feel better. You feel, like, more causative over whatever's happening. And my philosophy is, I never defend. I never defend. I attack. Like, if I'm in the jungle and a lion's coming after me, I'm gonna run towards it. Now that may be really stupid, but I'm not gonna outrun it.

[A]

You might as well head towards it.

[B]

I'm gonna run towards that thing. And maybe by hell's chance, that line freaks out. Whoa. This running to me.

[A]

I haven't seen. Haven't ran into this one before.

[B]

Saw that before. Maybe he's like this.

[A]

I gotta get out of this guy.

[B]

Peace. And he's out.

[A]

I don't know, but this guy's well rested. This guy gets great REM sleep. Like, I can't take this guy on.

[B]

He got a studio. No, look, Chris would not. I. I always attack. And my. My last advice before I hop off is that like, never play defense, man. Never play defense. Like, I love that. Always attack because you're gonna get hit with so much. And I don't care who it is and where it's from. There's a difference between working problems out and all that stuff, which you should always do. But when somebody's trying to get you and they're trying to push you around and they're trying to do all that stuff, your best. My best advice is always attack. Don't let somebody push you around and all that stuff because you look, only mean people do that. Like, I don't push people around. I'm not a bully. Like, I'm not interested in doing that. But there's people out there that are. And when somebody's trying to be a bully and you're trying to get hit with the suppression and you can't fight back or feel you can't fight back, you gotta do something about it. I don't care what it is. It could be a small little thing. It could be writing a letter, it could be making a phone call. It could be some. Some action towards trying to be causative and attack the thing that's trying to attack you. And all of a sudden you feel.

[A]

Better, you're doing something, it's in your control.

[B]

You're going to do something instead of sitting around hoping that something changes. You know what I mean? That's what I'm teaching my kids. I don't want them to be like these Vic. I don't care what it is, man. A lot of lions running after you run after the lion.

[A]

I love that. My coach just told me that same thing and it actually helped me a lot. Is he's. Are you the hunter or are you the hunted?

[B]

I love that.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

He's got the same philosophy, man. Yeah, it works, man. If you look at, if you look at Trump, look, that's what Trump does. Trump ain't like sick. And all the time and I'm stressed out. He's, oh, you want to fight, let's fight. It's not like this genius thing. It's just. It's a philosophy of life. Like, you're either gonna be fucking be hunted or you're gonna hunt. It's just that simple.

[A]

You can't live a big life. You can't be big if you're trying to hide and you're trying to play defense all the time.

[B]

No, it doesn't work. I'm gonna play the safe game and I'm gonna be, no, dude, That's. That's for girls, dude.

[A]

Love it, brother. Cool. So it's time to go hunt instead of being the hunted man. So if people want to find out more about you, they want to partner with you, they want to learn from you, where can they go to find out more?

[B]

Look, I'm all over the Internet, Vic. Tipnus is my handle, and you can find me there. I'm on. On every platform. But I. Yeah, look, I appreciate you having me. I had a great conversation. We'll have to do it again.

[A]

Of course, man. Absolutely. Yeah, I'll come down to Tampa. I got to go down to Miami anyways. We'll pop over. But, man, this is.

[B]

In the studio here.

[A]

Beautiful. Yeah, it's been awesome, man. Yeah. Long time coming. And guys, go follow Vic. He's on Instagram. He's all over, everywhere. That's tip nes. You'll see everything in the show notes. We'll have the links to his handles. And if you guys enjoyed this show, please subscribe. Share it with everybod that you've ever met in your entire life, please and thank you. And if you share it with thousand people, then Vic may invite you on his jet. Just saying. So thanks, guys. Everybody have a great day. It's been Brian and Vic with the Action Academy podcast signing off.