← Build with Leila Hormozi
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So Alex and I met on Bumble because I've been on Tinder and I hated it. And so I got on Bumble where the girl had to message the guy first. I messaged him. I don't remember what I said, honestly. But then I know he immediately messaged me back and was like, let's get on the phone. And I was like, I like it because I like a guy who takes action. We don't have to do this bullshit back and forth on the app. I hate this shit. I'm too busy. He called me and he was like, let's basically have an expedited first date. And I was like, what? He said, yeah, let's do a 20 minute phone call. I can just ask you all the same questions I would normally ask on a first date. So then by the time we're on the first date, we already, like, kind of know each and it's not gonna be awkward. And I was like, I mean, I'm down for it. We talked for, like, 20 minutes. I thought he was really interesting. And they said, do you want to meet me for Froyo tomorrow? And I said, sure. What time? You know, five o'. Clock. Okay. And I got there first. And then I remember he walked up and he wasn't smiling. He was actually, like, super, like. I was like, ah. What? I found out later that he saw my tattoo on my back and was like, oh, no. Judge basically judging me for the tattoo, which I hate. And I got when I was like 18 and not sober. Then we proceeded to go in. We're standing in line for Froyo. He's still not smiling. I'm like, I'm grinning. I'm like, hi, I'm Layla. You know, how's it going? You know, I think he's cute, you know, and. And I'm like, I don't know why. He seems kind of cranky. So we get ice cream, we go outside, we start eating, and he like, downs his ice cream. And then I remember just like within two minutes, he was like, super nice. And I was like, oh, I think he was just hungry. I want to say, like 15 minutes into having the froyo, we just, like, really hit it off. Like, it started, like, flowing really well. We had a really good jive. And so then he's like, do you want to go on a walk? And so we ended up walking for, like four hours. And we had so much in common because we both really liked business. We also both really liked fitness. And I found out that we were both Persian or Both of our dads were from Iran. Then he actually had a dinner with two of his friends planned for that night that he was barbecuing. And I thought it was BS and he had another date, but they called him, and he had it on speaker, so I knew it was true. And he had to go pick up, like, stuff to grill. And I remember I was like, all right, cool. Like, go have fun at your dinner, and we'll talk later. So I got in my car, and I, like, called my roommate to tell her how the date went. And then, like, there was a knock on my window, and I looked, and it was him. He's like, do you want to go grocery shopping with me? Like, it's another, like, extra 20 minutes we can get together. And I was like, sure. And I thought it was really sweet, right? I was like, that's cute. And then that night, I was like, oh, I'm sure we'll talk tomorrow. And then I get a phone call at, like, you know, 10:30 at night. He's like, I just figured we could talk on the phone for a little bit longer. And we stayed up to, like, 2:00am talking. I just thought he was so interesting. Like, we had such similar ways in which we viewed the world, things that we were interested in. And that was our first date. And then after that, we had our second date and our third date. And he kind of said on the third date, he's like, you know, regardless if we keep dating, he's like, you know, because I don't know what you're looking for. And I just got out of a long relationship. He's like, you should work for me. And I was like, what? We kind of just kept dating. And then a few weeks in, he. I came back to his apartment, and there was literally, like, on his glass table in this condo in California, there's this huge book. And I opened it up, and it was a new llc. Jim launched Secrets, and he had formed it. Oh, you're serious. Like, you're starting a company. And he was like, yeah, are you gonna do it with me? And I was like. We ended up talking it through, and I was like, well, you know, it's a good amount of money, really good experience. It's really interesting to me. It was exciting. Honestly, it was super exciting. I let go of all my clients and everything I was doing. I flew out to Baltimore and we did our first gym launch together. Basically, what we would do is fill a gym by doing marketing for the GY and then selling for the gym. And so we were both doing it for one gym. So I had a little table in the gym. He had a little table in the gym. We would each have sales appointments all day, and then we're doing the marketing and the billing at night. What ended up going south was we were running all the payments out of a gym merchant account. And then we started charging people in all different locations and online. And so it was like, hey, you have this merchant account that's for a gym in California. And now I'm getting payments from New York, New Jersey, Canada. So this merchant flagged us, actually end up shutting us down, meaning we can't collect money. But we didn't know what to do because we have six sales guys, like, on site. And so Alex and I didn't tell anyone. And we just said, we're gonna have to float it until we can figure out how to collect money. And it got us down to, like, a thousand dollars. I think 1100. It was so terrible, but we're like, dude, we can't fire these people. And, like, we can't. Like, they've got bills to pay. They have one, two of them have new babies. Like, it sucks. And so just in, like, the nick of time, for the next month, we were able to get a merchant account up that would process $50,000. By coincidence, it can only process 50,001 month. And it was the end of the month that we got it. So we processed it one day, and then the next day was the next month, and we processed another $50,000. So we had enough to, like, pay our living expense and then pay all the guys. And so we were like, oh, we think we're out of the woods. We're like, all right, well, this business is, like, making a lot of revenue, but it's, like, no profit, right? There's so much overhead with, like, flights, hotels, like, marketing, all this crap. And it was super chaotic. One day I open the bank account because I'm doing something, reconciling something. And all of a sudden, I look, and there's like, minus 500, minus 500, minus 500. And I was like, why is all this money going out? And then I get a phone call. So I answer, and she's like, layla. She's like, matt just stood up on a chair and said, hey, refund Layla and go home. And I was like, what? And then I end up calling him. He wouldn't answer. Call him. He answers. He's basically like, you've put too many people in my gym. I can't handle this. It's I need to. The trainers can't do it. Blah, blah, blah. I'm sending them home. And so that was like, a gym that had launched and done, like, $60,000. And all of a sudden, minus $60,000 start coming in our bank account. Another gym comes through, and I see more. Minus 500. Minus 500, minus 5. So what they started doing was, like, we would go sell people into their gym, and they're like, huh? I could just tell these people to refund them. And then I'll say, hey, pay me half of what you paid them. And then I get all the money. And I was like, oh, my God. And Alex, like, do we need to change the business model like this? We can't keep up with this. And I was like, yeah, we can't keep doing this, because what if another gym does this? So Alex goes and he, like, calls the guys that have the gyms we're supposed to go to that next month, and he's going to tell them, like, hey, we can't do this anymore. The first guy he gets on the phone with, his name's Chris. Chris is like, dude, it's like, you can't leave me hanging. He's like, I want to, like, close my gym if you don't do this for me. He's like, what would I pay you to just. You tell me what to do. And Alex, like, eight grand. Done. You know, we hang up the phone. He's like, holy shit. Then we're like, call everyone else. Like, tell them, you know, but if anyone wants it, sure, yeah, we can, I guess, teach them how to do it. Calls the next Gym, same conversation, ten grand. Calls next to him, ten grand. Next gym, ten grand. The end of the day, we made $48,000 selling the thing that, like, within the last year and a half, we hadn't made that much profit. And we were like, holy crap. Like, we've been doing this wrong the whole time. That next day, like, I started building out, like, a Facebook group and customer support stuff, and Alex is, like, building out the course and, like, the logins and all this stuff. And that Monday, gave everyone their logins to the course. And then we just, like, waited to see what happens. We're like, here's how you do everything. And all of a sudden, within, like, six, five, six days, testimonials started coming in. It was like, made 30,000, 40,000, 50,000. And we were like, oh, my God, it works. Without running any ads, we got, like, 30 people that contacted me and were like, I need this thing. That just sold, my friend. And so I'm getting on the phone, I'm just selling. And Alex, like, charge 10 grand, whatever, right? I don't even have a way to charge at this point. We looked at each other, and it started really, like, gaining momentum. Like, at this point, I think we started onboarding, like, 25 gyms, 30 gyms a week, and then we'd raise the price to 16 grand within a couple months. You know, we looked at each other, and we were like, we're, like, dating. We're, like, running a real, actual, like, substantial business together now. And I remember, like, Alex, like, do we, like, getting married? And I was like, I don't know. He was like, I don't know. And I was like, I don't know either. We had a couple mentors at the time. Like, what do you guys think? They're like, well, I mean, everything makes sense that you guys would be getting married. And we're like, huh. It was really interesting because it was like, the entire story of us up to that point was just, like, we were dating, but, like, the main focus was the business, right? And so at that point, we took, like, two weeks to figure out, like, should we get married? His proposal was, hey, I think we should get married. What do you think? And I was like, yeah, that makes sense. Then we went and we were like, we should probably, like, go get a ring now then, huh? Because I didn't have a ring. And so we went to the store, and it's funny, we both liked the exact same ring, and we got that. And then we're like, I feel like if we wait too long, we're getting, like, freaked out, right? We're like, yeah, we'll definitely get freaked out. And we're like, we should just, like, not tell anyone. Just go, like, do it this week. We're like, yeah, let's do that. Because, you know, we're like, we understand how chaotic our lives are at that point. We're like, dude, this has been a crazy year. If we tell our family that we're getting married, they're gonna be like, you guys need to, like, settle for a. And I, like, knew really deep down that it would work out. Like, I was like, I think we should do this for sure. We called up a pastor at the local church. We're like, got time Wednesday? And he was like, sure, meet me in the back of the church. And that's when we got married. And that was literally how it happened.