#79 Wanna 10x? Be Unhinged. - BigDeal

Summary

BigDeal Podcast Episode Summary: "You’ll Never Learn This In Business School"

In the July 7, 2025 episode of BigDeal, host Codie Sanchez delves into the unorthodox yet essential lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs that traditional business schools often overlook. Titled "You’ll Never Learn This In Business School," the episode offers a candid exploration of building and scaling a business with insights drawn from Codie's diverse entrepreneurial journey.

1. Embracing Patience and Speed in Business Building

The episode opens with Codie addressing the delicate balance between moving quickly and allowing sufficient time for sustainable growth. She cites Warren Buffet’s analogy to emphasize the importance of patience:

“You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
— Codie Sanchez [00:45]

Codie underscores that while speed is crucial, maintaining a long enough runway is necessary for meaningful progress and innovation. She shares snippets of her own varied career—from being a Walmart model to a fund manager—to illustrate that building a successful business is a marathon, not a sprint.

2. The Power of Being "Unhinged" in the Early Stages

Codie advocates for a bold, unconventional approach when starting a business. She recounts her own "unhinged" tactics, such as:

Investing heavily in stickers and hats to promote her newsletter, Contrarian Thinking, despite initial setbacks like a stolen logo from Fiverr.

“If it was free, it was me. You can afford to look a little crazy right now.”
— Codie Sanchez [02:30]

Placing Contrarian Thinking logos throughout her home and even her Zoom background to create brand presence.

“It is okay in the beginning for you to do crazy things to get started.”
— Codie Sanchez [03:10]

These strategies, though not scalable, were cost-effective and effective in building her initial subscriber base. Codie emphasizes that early-stage entrepreneurs can afford to take risks and appear unconventional to gain traction.

3. Overcoming the Fear of Judgment

A significant portion of the discussion centers on overcoming the fear of what others think—a common pitfall for many entrepreneurs. Codie shares the story of a company, Cluli, which gained massive attention through a ludicrous video, illustrating that unconventional moves can yield extraordinary results.

“If you don't do crazy things, how can you expect to have crazy success?”
— Codie Sanchez [04:25]

She encourages entrepreneurs to leverage their youth and inexperience as assets, allowing them to experiment and innovate without the constraints often imposed by seasoned professionals.

4. Scaling Through Strategic Hiring

Transitioning from startup antics to scaling strategies, Codie highlights the critical role of hiring top talent as the foundation for exponential growth. She references Elon Musk’s insight on talent:

“The best people out there are not worth 2x others, they're worth 10x, and sometimes they're worth 1000x.”
— Codie Sanchez [05:50]

Using anecdotes about Steve Jobs at Atari and a high-performing engineer at Renaissance, Codie illustrates that exceptional talent can significantly outperform average teams. She introduces the Cheetah vs. House Cat matrix to differentiate between high-performing hires (cheetahs) and mediocre ones (house cats), stressing the need for hunters who drive the business forward.

5. The Four Cs to Attract Top Talent

Codie outlines a comprehensive four-step approach to securing and retaining top performers:

a. Curate

Start building relationships with potential hires before you need them. Codie shares her experience with Jacob, a writer she connected with a year before requiring his skills.

“This is the long game for you dudes out there. This is how you hire people.”
— Codie Sanchez [06:15]

b. Cultivate

Nurture these relationships by complimenting their work, asking insightful questions, and offering small consulting opportunities to evaluate fit.

“Brad helped as an interim leader or head of content because I had been in touch with Brad for years.”
— Codie Sanchez [07:05]

c. Close

When the time is right, make a compelling offer without hesitation. Codie recounts instantly promoting Mark to president after recognizing his potential in a single conversation.

“Matthew McConaughey says, if you're gonna do it, don't half ass it. Go all the way.”
— Codie Sanchez [08:10]

d. Continue

Maintain relationships with former top performers to cultivate a network of referrals and potential future hires.

"When top performers leave, they become your next referral source."
— Codie Sanchez [09:20]

6. Cultivating a Winning Company Culture

Codie concludes with a deep dive into the significance of company culture, asserting that it radiates from the top down. She stresses that if the team isn't meeting expectations, the fault likely lies in leadership.

“Culture doesn't drip down, it radiates out. It's like a cold. It spreads person to person.”
— Codie Sanchez [12:35]

Using the example of Bobby—a versatile and high-performing team member—she demonstrates how A-players drive the company's success and set positive precedents for the entire team.

“Steve Jobs says, a small team of A players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.”
— Codie Sanchez [14:00]

Codie emphasizes recognizing and celebrating such pivotal team members to foster an environment where excellence is the norm.

7. Final Thoughts and Community Engagement

While the latter part of the transcript touches on podcast promotion and community engagement, Codie’s primary focus remains on actionable business strategies. She encourages listeners to share their own unconventional tactics and lessons learned, fostering a community of like-minded entrepreneurs.

Key Takeaways:

Patience and Speed: Balance the need for rapid progress with the patience required for sustainable growth.
Bold Beginnings: Don’t fear appearing unhinged in the early stages; unconventional strategies can drive initial success.
Fearless Execution: Overcome the fear of judgment to unlock creative and impactful business moves.
Strategic Hiring: Prioritize hiring top performers using the Four Cs—Curate, Cultivate, Close, Continue—to scale effectively.
Culture is Leadership: Establish a positive company culture starting from the top, leveraging A-players to set the standard.

Notable Quotes:

“You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
— Codie Sanchez [00:45]
“If it was free, it was me. You can afford to look a little crazy right now.”
— Codie Sanchez [02:30]
“If you don't do crazy things, how can you expect to have crazy success?”
— Codie Sanchez [04:25]
“The best people out there are not worth 2x others, they're worth 10x, and sometimes they're worth 1000x.”
— Codie Sanchez [05:50]
“Culture doesn't drip down, it radiates out. It's like a cold. It spreads person to person.”
— Codie Sanchez [12:35]

Codie Sanchez’s "You’ll Never Learn This In Business School" serves as a treasure trove of pragmatic wisdom for entrepreneurs seeking to navigate the complexities of building and scaling a business. By blending personal anecdotes with actionable strategies, Codie delivers a compelling narrative that challenges conventional business paradigms and empowers listeners to forge their own paths to success.

Transcript

Cody Sanchez (0:00)

When you are starting a business, you gotta be kind of unpicked. And today on this podcast, I want to talk about how do we move fast but make sure that we give ourselves enough time? And then two, I want to nail the number one thing that most people get wrong when they're building a business. I think most people actually kill their business by caring too much about what other people think. Hi, and welcome back to the Big Deal podcast. I'm Cody Sanchez and today we're going to learn some things that you will never learn in business school. But you need to know if you want to make a lot of money. And I want to start, start out with this line from Warren Buffet, like one of the best investors and business builders of all time. He says, you can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. And this applies to almost every part of investing and building. Most people though, don't realize it, so they want, you know, six pack after one month at the gym. And I get it, speed is essential, but you gotta have time. You need a long enough Runway for the really interesting stuff to happen. So first let's talk about Runway and thinking about reasonableness when it comes to making money. So if you look at my resume, by the way, if you see me on social media, you might be like, she's always had a lot of money, she's always built businesses. But that's not actually how it was. You know, in the beginning, it started out, I was a Walmart model. Shocking. Not a Runway model. I was a reporter in Latin America, I was on Wall Street, I did private equity. I owned Laundromats. Now I'm a YouTuber, I'm a fund manager. When you zoom out, there's a common thread of ownership and actually investing throughout all of this. Even though it looks completely disjointed, that thread actually becomes a moat. My point here isn't for me to tell you my entire background. The point here is to say it's going to take a minute. So set that expectation. But here is how to make it way faster. When you are starting a business, you gotta be kind of unhinged. So let me tell you just a few of the absolutely unhinged things I did to grow my business. And hopefully you can steal some of these ideas. So to start, I didn't have a five year plan. I didn't have a five month plan. I didn't have a business plan. So one of the first things we did, we actually printed out these. There's about 5,000 stickers I think I spent like, I don't know, maybe a thousand bucks on that. And then I went to a newsletter conference that I was not invited to because this business, Contrarian thinking started as a newsletter. We covered the walls, bathrooms, hallway mirrors. We spent about $10,000 on hats because my plan was to put those everywhere. Small problem, it was a stolen logo because I did it on Fiverr. So that didn't work out great. I still have those hats to this day actually. Throw me that pink one over there, will you? Don't sue me. I think this company is called like Brain, Brain Dead or something like that. I ended up giving away those hats to a bunch of people in order to get newsletter subscribers. It worked out. We also taped like Contrarian thinking logos to every wall in my house. So in every zoom meeting me, even though it was just like me a ring light my dog. These billboards are kind of cool. So I did a little tradesies to get billboards that said shortstocks, buy laundromats. And I put them all over Miami. Like some of this stuff is not that scalable, right? But it worked because it was cheap and it was free. So if it was free, it was me. You can afford to look a little crazy right now. It is okay in the beginning for you to do crazy things to get started. Like Gates said, if everything you do needs to work on a three year time horizon, you're competing against a lot of people. But if you're willing to invest on a seven year time horizon, you're competing against a fraction. So like have long term plans but allow yourself to be scrappy in the beginning. Because I think most people actually kill their business by caring too much about what other people think. By the way, nobody ahead of you is going to care when you're young and dumb. You can be young and dumb. A perfect example of this is a company called Cluli, for example, that they did this video, which is the most ludicrous video I've ever seen and now it is all over. Twitter profile says you worked at bananazon.