87. Lessons from a $2 Million Business Journey with Maxwell Nee

Summary

Built Online Podcast – Episode 87 Summary: Lessons from a $2 Million Business Journey with Maxwell Nee

Release Date: February 3, 2025

In Episode 87 of Built Online, host Cody McGuffie engages in an insightful conversation with Maxwell Nee, an accomplished entrepreneur and investor. Maxwell shares his journey from struggling through the initial phases of his business to scaling it to a $2 million annual revenue. Throughout the episode, Maxwell imparts valuable lessons, discusses the challenges of personal branding, the importance of building sustainable business assets, and his perspectives on investing and entrepreneurship.

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1. Overcoming the Initial Learning Curve

Maxwell kicks off the discussion by highlighting the significant challenges faced in the early stages of entrepreneurship.

Maxwell [00:00]: "It doesn't matter how smart you are, how much money you have, if you're doing something new, there's always a learning curve... that was the dumbest way to go through a learning curve."

Maxwell candidly shares that during the first 12 to 18 months, his business barely made any profit. Despite previously earning a substantial salary of $100,000, his venture only generated about $28,000, resulting in a loss. This period was fraught with financial strain and personal burnout, serving as a harsh introduction to the realities of starting a new business.

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2. Building a $2 Million Business in Under Two Years

Transitioning from the struggles of the initial phase, Maxwell recounts the rapid growth of his business.

Maxwell [02:29]: "I built a two million dollar year, which we got that to that point in less than two years. So that was very fast growth."

Maxwell achieved remarkable growth by selling high-ticket courses priced between $1,500 and $10,000. By the end of the two-year period, he had over a thousand clients and conducted more than 2,000 sales calls personally. His hands-on approach extended beyond sales to managing advertisements, operations, hiring and firing over 50 employees, and handling various other facets of the business.

Maxwell [02:55]: "You know, so I did everything, I ran the ads, did the operations, hired and fired more than 50 people."

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3. Transitioning from Services to Courses

Maxwell explains his strategic shift from offering digital marketing agency services to creating and selling courses.

Maxwell [05:03]: "I started selling services, digital marketing agency services... which told me what I need to know to then build the course."

Initially, Maxwell launched a digital marketing agency, providing services such as Facebook ads and email marketing. This hands-on experience and client base informed the development of his course offerings. By packaging his services into educational content, he was able to scale his business more efficiently, leveraging higher profit margins inherent to digital products.

Cody McGuffey [07:12]: "You had a face, your Facebook ads?... you grew this thing to 2 million a year."

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4. The Challenges of Personal Branding and Scaling

A significant theme of the conversation centers around the difficulties Maxwell faced due to the intertwining of his personal brand with his business.

Maxwell [08:18]: "When people just love your brand so much and they're buying your brand because of you... it's very hard to detach yourself from the business."

Maxwell highlights that as his personal brand became a cornerstone of his business's success, scaling became increasingly problematic. Delegating sales roles led to a drastic drop in conversion rates from 80% to 40%, underscoring the unique influence his personal presence had on sales efficacy.

Maxwell [10:35]: "If you're a bit of a superstar in your business, there's not going to be another superstar."

This dependency on his persona limited the scalability and sustainability of the business model, ultimately leading Maxwell to conclude that he would approach entrepreneurial ventures differently in the future.

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5. Building Sustainable Business Assets

Reflecting on his experiences, Maxwell emphasizes the importance of creating business assets that work independently of the founder.

Maxwell [17:48]: "If I was to do it all over again, I would focus on building assets that outwork me rather than building a sales machine."

Maxwell advises aspiring entrepreneurs to develop assets such as books, which can serve as authoritative and credible tools to educate potential customers. By creating a comprehensive guide or informational product, businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders without relying solely on personal branding.

Maxwell [20:04]: "A book creates authority. Book creates credibility."

He contrasts this approach with traditional sales and advertising methods, illustrating how books can generate leads more cost-effectively and build a sustainable pipeline of qualified prospects.

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6. The Role of Books in Business Strategy

Maxwell delves deeper into the strategic use of books as business tools rather than mere revenue generators.

Maxwell [29:54]: "A book is the ultimate relationship building tool... it transpires living, breathing, dead time, space."

He argues that books should be designed to promote the author's personal brand and business offerings, rather than being sold independently as standalone products. This perspective aligns with his broader strategy of using content as a means to establish authority and drive business growth.

Cody McGuffey [31:09]: "It doesn't go all the way around the circle."

Maxwell likens the creation and use of books to running a podcast—both serve as platforms to provide free value, build trust, and indirectly promote the business's core offerings.

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7. Investment Strategies and Preferences

Shifting focus to investments, Maxwell shares his philosophy and criteria for selecting investment opportunities.

Maxwell [35:03]: "I look at three things at any investment... the team, the revenue model, the uniqueness."

He prioritizes investments in companies with strong, aligned teams composed entirely of "A players." Additionally, he favors revenue models that are recurring and sticky, ensuring long-term sustainability and potential for retirement funding. The uniqueness or competitive advantage of the technology is the final critical factor, ensuring that the company can maintain a durable market position.

Maxwell [37:17]: "Yeah, the Moat Beautiful."

Maxwell outlines his preference for "boring" businesses—those that offer essential, non-trendy products with consistent demand. Examples include pest control for restaurants and simple, indispensable consumer products. He believes that such businesses provide stability and lower risk compared to more volatile, trend-dependent ventures.

Maxwell [40:15]: "If you're in business to make money instead of expressing yourself creatively, like the best is to have both."

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8. Embracing Boring Businesses

Maxwell champions the idea of focusing on "boring" businesses that fulfill fundamental needs over flashy, trend-driven enterprises.

Maxwell [43:24]: "So the button on that need on that urgency button is just glowing. You just gotta press it."

He cites industries like waste management and HVAC as prime examples of sectors that offer consistent demand without the volatility associated with consumer trends. Maxwell underscores that while these businesses may lack the glamour of B2C brands, they provide reliable income and lower operational risks.

Cody McGuffey [43:50]: "But it's certainly a need that you serve with the market."

Maxwell's preference for these sectors is rooted in their stability and the minimal need for constant innovation, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on efficiency and scaling rather than chasing fleeting market trends.

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9. Self-Awareness in Entrepreneurship

A recurring theme in Maxwell's advice is the importance of self-awareness and aligning business endeavors with personal strengths and preferences.

Maxwell [47:25]: "Know yourself... build your business around yours."

He differentiates between "worker bees" who thrive on consistency and incremental improvements and entrepreneurs like himself who prefer short, intense sprints. Recognizing one's natural inclinations allows for building businesses that align with personal working styles, ultimately leading to greater satisfaction and success.

Maxwell [51:10]: "Know yourself is the key to that."

Maxwell encourages entrepreneurs to assess their strengths and weaknesses and to design their business strategies accordingly. Whether one is more disciplined and systematic or prefers dynamic, high-energy projects will significantly influence the types of businesses that are best suited to their personalities.

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10. Maximizing Learning and Mentorship

Maxwell shares poignant advice on navigating the entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the value of mentorship and early failure.

Maxwell [54:00]: "If I had the luxury of learning from a really good entrepreneur for three months, I would have gone through the same learning curve."

He advocates for aspiring entrepreneurs to seek out mentorship roles, such as becoming an executive assistant to a seasoned entrepreneur. This approach allows for gaining invaluable insights and practical experience without the financial risks associated with failing early on.

Maxwell [57:26]: "Failure early, failing faster, failing cheap."

Drawing parallels to successful figures like Jeff Bezos, Maxwell underscores the importance of long-term, data-driven decision-making and persistence. He encourages entrepreneurs to adopt a decade-long vision, understanding that sustained focus and accumulated knowledge will yield significant advantages over competitors.

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11. Rapid Fire: Personal Insights

In the episode's rapid-fire segment, Maxwell shares quick insights into his personal preferences and philosophies:

• Favorite Business Books: Over Subscribed (written by his business partner) and Outsiders by William Thorndike.

Maxwell [51:43]: "It's about... studying CEOs who didn't fit the typical CEO mold and outperformed others by significant margins."

• One Thing He Wishes He Knew Before Starting: The inevitability of a learning curve and the importance of strategically navigating it.

Maxwell [52:48]: "There are three ways to go through a learning curve... invest, apprentice, or find another method."

• Definition of a Creator: Someone who creates value in any form, whether through content, products, or services, and takes control of their own narrative.

Maxwell [59:40]: "A creator is someone that's taking the steering wheel of life into their own hands."

• Should Everyone Be a Business Owner? Maxwell believes that while anyone can pursue entrepreneurship, it requires a specific skill set and passion for business operations. Not everyone is suited to be a "gold medalist entrepreneur."

Maxwell [60:15]: "If you have no interest in business... then you're not going to be a gold medalist entrepreneur."

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12. Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Maxwell concludes the episode by reiterating the significance of strategic planning and aligning business ventures with personal strengths. He encourages listeners to embrace both creative and practical aspects of entrepreneurship to achieve lasting success.

For those interested in connecting with Maxwell or exploring his ventures, he is available on LinkedIn under the name Maxwell Nee.

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Key Takeaways

1. Navigating the Learning Curve: Entrepreneurship involves inevitable challenges and financial strains during the initial phases. Proper planning and strategic decision-making are crucial to overcoming these hurdles.

2. Personal Branding vs. Scalability: While personal branding can drive significant growth, it can also limit scalability if the business becomes overly dependent on the founder’s persona.

3. Building Sustainable Assets: Developing business assets like books can establish authority and generate leads without relying solely on direct sales efforts.

4. Investment Philosophy: Prioritize investments in stable, essential sectors with recurring revenue models and strong, aligned teams to ensure long-term sustainability.

5. Embracing Boring Businesses: Focusing on fundamental, non-trendy industries can provide reliable income and lower operational risks compared to volatile, trend-driven markets.

6. Self-Awareness and Alignment: Understanding one’s strengths and aligning business strategies accordingly can lead to greater satisfaction and success in entrepreneurial endeavors.

7. Value of Mentorship: Seeking mentorship and learning from seasoned entrepreneurs can provide invaluable insights and help navigate the complexities of business growth.

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Notable Quotes:

Maxwell [00:00]: "It doesn't matter how smart you are, how much money you have, if you're doing something new, there's always a learning curve."

Maxwell [04:25]: "Capex, meaning capital expenditures."

Maxwell [09:11]: "We've all had that feeling, right?"

Maxwell [17:48]: "I would focus on building assets that outwork me rather than building a sales machine."

Maxwell [24:25]: "What's the best tool to educate people? A book."

Maxwell [35:03]: "I look at three things at any investment: the team, the revenue model, the uniqueness."

Maxwell [47:25]: "Know yourself is the key to that."

Maxwell [59:40]: "A creator is someone that's taking the steering wheel of life into their own hands."

This episode is a treasure trove of entrepreneurial wisdom, offering listeners a candid look into the highs and lows of building a successful online business. Maxwell Nee's experiences and insights provide a roadmap for aspiring entrepreneurs aiming to navigate their own business journeys with foresight and strategic planning.

Transcript

[Maxwell]

It doesn't matter how smart you are, how much money you have, if you're doing something new, there's always a learning curve, you know. So my learning curve originally was 12 to 18 months. First 12, 18 months didn't make a dollar, you know, made 28,000 or whatever that amount was, but I used to earn 100,000, so basically didn't make a dollar. Right. And that was the dumbest way to go through a learning curve. I realized there's three ways to go through a learning curve.

[Cody McGuffey]

Welcome back to Built Online, the podcast where we dive into everything online business. Here we explore the minds of of creators who are building online businesses to power their dream lives and ultimately transform economies. I'm your host, Cody McGuffey, and if you're new here, I'm the founder and CEO of Ever Be, a creator commerce platform where we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to pursue their passions and to live life on their own terms. We're on a mission to make creator commerce accessible to everyone throughout the world, no matter where they are, and to make a positive impact in our families and our communities.

[Maxwell]

And.

[Cody McGuffey]

And we believe that everyone that truly commits to a vision and pursues it with an undeniable force of will, that they will ultimately succeed. I'm really excited about today's show. Thank you for sharing your time with us. Before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to ask a quick favor for anyone that's listened to the show before. If you haven't already, please let us know if these episodes and these conversations are are helpful or not. Share your feedback in the comments and review it if you if you would. It truly helps the podcast, it helps our team, it helps me personally understand what types guests that we should have on the podcast that really just helps us improve the show to make it better. We need your feedback. We would not be able to operate without your feedback. So be sure to follow the podcast, subscribe to the channel wherever you're watching this. So you really never really miss out on that. That one nugget that can really change your business and change your life. Enough of that. Really excited to have you here. Let's jump into today's show. Maxwell, what's going on, man?

[Maxwell]

Hey, Cody, thank you so much for having me.

[Cody McGuffey]

We're here. Super happy to have you here, man. You have an interesting background. We were chatting a little bit before we hit record and kind of all the things that you've touched in the online business space and I'm excited to just dive in deep and let's figure out how, what kind of value it can bring to all of our listeners today.

[Maxwell]

Yes, me too.

[Cody McGuffey]

Awesome. Would you mind sharing a little bit about maybe some high level stuff? You've done a lot of stuff in your career, but what are some of like the big rocks that you feel like you're just most proud of in your business life?

[Maxwell]

Yeah. So I built a two million dollar year, which we got that to that point in less than two years. So that was very fast growth. Crazy. A lot of sales, a lot of leads where we would sell courses between 1:5 and $10,000. We had over a thousand clients by the end of it and I did more than 2,000 sales calls myself.

[Cody McGuffey]

Wow.

[Maxwell]

You know, so I did everything, I ran the ads, did the operations, hired and fired more than 50 people. Hired people, you know, virtual assistants in the Philippines to sales people in the US in Tampa, to writing copy, to writing the ads, to building the websites, did everything.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's amazing. Typical solopreneur, right. Trying to figure it out and then eventually you scale and probably have a team, a small team that helps you. I think there's a lot of people that listen to this and they, they hear course and they don't really know where to start with, with a course. And it's interesting to hear you. Like I think you mentioned this, that you, you did this, you grew this thing to 2 million a year, but then you said you wouldn't do it again. Is that, is that right?

[Maxwell]

Yeah, yeah. So I, I'll, I'll walk you through the journey. So I would never recommend starting with a course, you know, cold because a course takes a lot of time. You know, we had prerecorded videos, we had a whole YouTube channel, we had coaching sessions, group coaching, one to one homework, worksheets, kajabi, you know, everything. Right. A lot of setup, a lot of capex, which isn't a lot compared to if you're going to open a coffee shop and pay three months of rent and all that type of stuff. But in the online world it's a lot of capex.

[Cody McGuffey]

Capex, meaning so if anybody doesn't know what that is, capital expenditures, Right. Just upfront cash, like what's coming out of pocket before you're really even in.

[Maxwell]

Business, before you can make a dollar. Yeah, exactly. As an entrepreneur starting off, I didn't have any cash, I didn't plan to be an entrepreneur. I totally burnt out my job. I said, you know what, I'm ready to try now. Right. So I didn't What I'm saying is I didn't have a backup plan. I didn't have savings, didn't have, you know, a car to sell, didn't have a house to sell, just dumped two feet in and said, let's see how it goes. So I had to make money. And when you have to make money, you think, what can you sell? So I started selling services, digital marketing agency services.

[Cody McGuffey]

This is before the course.

[Maxwell]

Before the course. Selling business. Yeah. And then the digital marketing agency selling services told me what I need to know to then build the course. And I also had a bit of a client base. And also I basically packaged up my services into. Into courses. So a lot of people find courses sexy and alluring because it's like pure profit margin. You're selling information or whatever. But I love being really, really pragmatic. So I would rather take three steps with very little risk, systematically, strategically, instead of try to shoot for 10 steps in the same time period with 50. Risk.

[Cody McGuffey]

I see.

[Maxwell]

Right.

[Cody McGuffey]

I want to break that down further. But before I do that sounds like the story is, I'm just going to try to put the puzzle pieces together. You have no money. You want to sound like you wanted to be an entrepreneur, whether you knew it, what the name was or not. You started an agency business. Sounds like a, Like a, what do you call it? Services business, online services business to me. And that I hear probably some sort of agency meaning like, hey, I'll give Facebook ads. Right? I'll run your Facebook ads for you.

[Maxwell]

Emails.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, beautiful. I'll run your email marketing for you. Beautiful. Which I love. I love hearing that because a lot of creators, their first time go, they ask me, hey, what kind of business should I start online? That's. That could be one of the first ones that I would recommend because everyone, everyone has that problem and everyone is willing to pay a specific amount, a pretty good amount of money to solve that problem. Uh, now you do have to get good at, at the Facebook ads or the email marketing to provide a good service. Of course, that's the barrier. But the point was, is there's a lot of people out there that. A lot of companies out there that need that. So it's beautiful. You did that. Then you get to learn on the job and you get really good at this. For example, Facebook ads for you. And pretty soon you can now package up a course to sell that information more at scale rather than have clients. Is that what you did? You had a face, your Facebook ads?

[Maxwell]

Course, it wasn't Facebook ads by that point But I started with Facebook ads. It would just went into general business coaching, which was all about building a brand, acquiring clients, doing sales calls, direct messaging, making content.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, beautiful. And so I'm hearing is you have this course on business coaching, which is a beautiful niche to be in because you're probably passionate about business at this point. You probably. You've cut your. You've cut your teeth, you've made. You made a lot of money probably in business. So you've gotten pretty damn good at this. You understand what problems there are in the market. And pretty soon you're selling courses for 1,000, 3,000 and 5,000 ticket ticket prices.

[Maxwell]

Yeah, 15 and 10.

[Cody McGuffey]

15 and 10. I want to go in more there. But how was that feeling? I mean, how was that feeling from going this process of agency? Now all of a sudden you're coaching these people and coaching people, and you're charging 1,000, $5,010,000 for this. It's a pretty big amount of money. There are a lot of trust that you have to build up in order to charge for that. That amount.

[Maxwell]

Yeah. You know, it almost felt like we had to break people's arms to get them to trust us, to. To pay us, you know, so we had to really be transparent. You know, it's. I really believe it's a little things that count, you know, like, for example, my Instagram page was open, transparent, had pictures of my mom on there. Like, real pictures, real photos, Facebook profile. Like, my digital footprint was like a real dude. So I really wanted to communicate. I'm a real dude, right? And then the same dude shows up on the sales calls. Same dude shows up on the YouTube videos, right? So it's like I'm not just some guy that you transfer money to. And I sound different when I talk to you one to one. And you know, you got this dark, itchy feeling in the back of your head. Is this guy going to disappear?

[Cody McGuffey]

We've all had that feeling.

[Maxwell]

We've all had that feeling, right?

[Cody McGuffey]

I've purchased those courses. I've purchased those things before. And I'm like, wow, I feel like I got bitten, swished on me, you know? And it still. I still remember those times. And I don't think there are bad horses either. I've talked about some of this stuff on the podcast before. I don't think they were bad people. I don't think they're. It wasn't even a bad experience. I actually learned a lot from the course, but I felt. I didn't feel great when it happened. And I still feel that feeling. So it's interesting, it's cool that you have this like in your heart feeling of what is right and what feels right and what doesn't. Interesting.

[Maxwell]

Yeah. And so it was a double edged sword. So when, when that started to work, like what, what I'm basically saying is my genuine authentic personality, what people would buy into and it was right. So the way I showed up through answer questions I swore, when I swore, I laughed at the jokes I laughed at in coaching sessions. Right. You know, like just totally transparent. So it was like my personal brand. But it's a double edged sword because when people just love your brand so much and they're buying your brand because of you or whatever, it's very hard to detach yourself from the business. Which is, which is what I found out, which is why I would never do it again.

[Cody McGuffey]

Because you wouldn't feel comfortable by hiring some, another sales team and do all that stuff. You wouldn't feel authentic anymore.

[Maxwell]

We could and I tried and we did. But for example, if my conversion rate was 80% at most, theirs would drop to half of that. It dropped to 40%. So, you know, you got to budget that in and you got to work that in and you got to understand that if you're a bit of a superstar in your business, there's not going to be another superstar. You know, like if people are buying because of the superstar factor, you, you can't train superstar factor into your teammates. Right? So they'll have to be an element. It's a bit like Bruno Mars, you know, Bruno Mars wants to make money. He has to show up at a concert. He can't outsource that. It doesn't matter how much money he has, he can't outsource that. If he, if he doesn't show up Saturday night, he's gonna pay for Saturday night. You know, it's just, there's just no other way. So I learned that the hard way, you know, put all this working like 17 hour days. Three, four, you know, three, four years, five years by the end of it. Yeah, yeah, mate. Made a lot of money. Had 81 profit margin. Because we're selling courses, right? Really, really cool and fun.

[Cody McGuffey]

But also at this point, you're making million. You've had millions at that, at that point, right? You've, you've literally tried things. You guys are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the, at that point, profit margins too, right? And I know you have this cost and all this stuff, but the point was like, you've done this for years. You had a good run. It was, it was a solid run at this point.

[Maxwell]

Yeah, yeah. You know, bought some real estate, invested in wine and whiskey, crypto, you know, all that, all that stuff that everyone did, travel the world. But you know, the business took because it was so intertwined in my personal brand, my business partner's personal brand. It wasn't just me. I had business partners. We, I couldn't retire from it, you know. So for me, in my mind, it wasn't like a real business. I couldn't sell it, couldn't retire from it. It was a glorified, super high paying job as like a mini famous person that I accidentally created for myself.

[Cody McGuffey]

You know, Maxwell, this is, it's interesting to have this conversation because this is the reality. I think this is the reality at least. I have a lot of friends that are very, very successful coaches and they really, really enjoy what they do and love what they do. They're probably not five years into their journey yet. They're, they're less. So maybe they haven't really come to that conclusion yet. But the way I see, that's why when I, when we were building Ever Be Everbee, didn't, I didn't want it to be. We've had so many opportunities to be like a coaching type of thing. And we've had, we've offered some courses and stuff, but it was never, we were always a tech company first. Not because I didn't enjoy coaching people and helping people. I love doing that. As soon as you make it your job, it is, it is your job. And you have to, you're on this kind of, this, this hamster wheel of like you have to show up, you know, you have to actually be that person. Otherwise you start to dilute like your brand and your authenticity and nobody really talks about, hey, do you sell the course? Like can you sell the con? Can you sell the company, the course, the course company one day? Or can you sell that personal brand and it's like, no, I don't believe so. Right, Maxwell? I mean, you tell me. But I don't, I don't. Logically, I don't think that I can go and sell Cody McGuffey's personal brand that sells course that Cody McGuffey teaches. Tell me though.

[Maxwell]

No, you can't, right? And, and, or whoever buys it won't buy it for a lot because they can't, they can't work the machine. You know, like when you sell someone a car, they can put the key and they can drive the same way you drove. They can't drive that car the same. You know, it's missing wheels when you, when you move out from it. Right.

[Cody McGuffey]

So they could, they would maybe buy the entry, maybe by the email. They basically buy the parts of the car rather than the entire car.

[Maxwell]

Well, they can't get the whole car. They can't go as fast.

[Cody McGuffey]

So what did you do? I love this because you could be, we could be literally helping somebody avoid making this mistake or decide, hey, sounds like Maxwell did pretty damn good for himself for a while too. I'm gonna do this for a while too. And that's okay. I'll just have some sort of plan after that. Either way is probably a good outcome. Probably, right?

[Maxwell]

Yeah. You just wanna, I just would love people to go in, eyes open, right? So when I coach people, people want to do what I did, right? So I was coaching this, this one woman, super successful coach United clients like Aston Martin, you know, like top shelf clients, had coach, Microsoft, had coach Apple teams. And I asked her a question. I said, what's your plan to retire? Because I never asked myself that, but now that's my litmus test. And she said, I don't have a plan. Said, I'm having so much fun making so much money, you know, work for myself. I worked in corporate before. You know, all the, all the freedom boxes are ticked. I'm not even thinking about slowing down. I'm like, you should think about what if you had to slow down? How would you do that? What would it cost? Because it hit me like a brick wall because one day I was like, I'm tired. I'm really, really tired. Like, yeah, like the money's cool. And I could, I could keep running, sprinting on this treadmill every single month and bring this, you know, mid five figure amount into my bank account after tax. But I'm not happy, you know, so it's not worth it anymore. And, and it hits you like that, right? And, and I was in the worst position because you don't want to be thinking about selling or exiting your business when you're tired. Because then you, you make quick, rash decisions, right? I was very lucky that I had two other business partners and they wanted to continue. So I said, pay me this amount of money and you can have it all. So I, I had like a succession plan type of exit. Not like a big cash exit, a bit of cash, but succession plan type of thing. But most people don't have that luxury. So you have to really, really plan, you know, hey, getting in hey, getting out. Just like how a pilot would think, right? So a pilot doesn't take off unless they know where they're landing. So you have to know where you're landing to maximize it. Otherwise I promise you, you'll be like, man, why did I think of this sooner?

[Cody McGuffey]

For the people that do, they're like, okay, Maxwell, I get it, I get that, you know, you got tired. But like I want that luxury, I want that problem, you know, I want to be successful in doing this.

[Maxwell]

I would have said the same thing.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yep. And I want to help, I want to sell this course. And maybe I don't even know the course yet. I just know that I want to make, have that outcome of like the 2 million dollar per year business and successful and feel like you have this personal brand that people are asking you, looking to you as a thought leader for the people that are still interested in doing this and can figure out the other stuff later on. What would you recommend those people do to get started in this?

[Maxwell]

Yeah, good, good question. So if I was to do it all over again, I thought about this as well, boss. To do it all over again, I would focus on building assets that outwork me rather than building a sales machine. So we had a sales machine, we ran ads, we generate leads, we had six people on the sales team. I coached them three days a week. I coached them in between one to one and, and I managed to get that sales team to like be the Chicago Bulls. Like they would dialed in high performing animals that love, love being there culturally earning the most money they've ever earned type of thing. But that takes a lot, you know, because it takes a lot to make the Chicago Bulls.

[Cody McGuffey]

So when you say assets that work for you or more than you, what do you mean by this? For example, like, let's break it down to like the person that's never even sold anything like a course online. What does assets mean?

[Maxwell]

This? Yeah, a book. So I'm holding up a book, right. So if I was to do all over again and I had a coaching, I wanted to make a coaching business or coaching sell digital products or whatever, the first thing that I would acknowledge is that I'm selling a product takes a lot of education, you know, education. Why you should listen to Cody, why Cody's the best, why his method is the best for you, why he's the best price, why his support is the best, you know, that's all educational. It's not just like you're buying a Tesla, you have a red Tesla that drives into garage Oh, I pick red or blue. You know, you there takes education as to why they should buy from you. They should prioritize you and everything else. So what's the best tool to educate people? A book, right? Yeah, a book. A book creates authority. Book creates credibility. And you know, the book written in the right way is basically a webinar, 35,000 words. A sales webinar, 35,000 words, right? Yeah. It's got to be value in there, but it'll do the same job as a webinar in 35,000 words.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah. How many times? We've all read a book and then after the book we basically do whatever the book tells us.

[Maxwell]

You bought the products, right?

[Cody McGuffey]

I'll buy the product. I'll buy the stuff. I'll buy the, I'll buy the stuff. It comes in a weird a, it comes in a very intangible way. Like I'll google it and then I'll do this, I'll try to find it online. But it's, it's nice. Yeah, it works. Yes.

[Maxwell]

I'll give you the perfect example. Right. So we had a competitor in our same niche and they, you know, we were doing about 250k a month with about a thousand leads a month, right. And we had to pay Google for those. We, we were paying 20, $30,000 a month to generate these leads to then make 250k. Right. Plus play sales commissions or whatever. So a big engine to make a dollar net profit. And then we had a competitor that went after the same audience the same way, charge more than us. And, but he had a book, right? And his book was selling 2,000 copies a month. Right. And the cost of his book was 40 USD. So 2000 times 40 US dollars, that's $80,000 a month, a million dollars a year. So he's getting paid a million dollars a year to generate 2000 leads a month and we were paying quarter of a million a year to generate half that. So he's getting paid for leads, we're paying for leads.

[Cody McGuffey]

Let's break that down. Why, why is that? Okay, so let's see the guy with the book. In this case, people are buying the book. So he's still paying for the leads. But the difference is these leads are going through a very, very indoctrinating sales pitch, education and sales pitch into the next upsell for him. Is that correct?

[Maxwell]

Yeah. Well, if you want qualified leads, they either need to give up time, money or both, right? So our leads, they opted into a free B or whatever, free event so they up, they gave up time, his leads gave up time and money. So they were ultra, ultra qualified. Right. Plus, even if he was running ads to sell these books, he's recouping 80 of it back because the books, you pay money for a book, right? You get a bit of, bit of Amazon revenue from selling a book. So it's a no brainer. Right? And yeah, your first book might not hit out of the park, your second book might not hit out the park. Might need to do a revised version. You have to do that anyway with a webinar, you know, and because we were paying $20,000 a month to Mark Zuckerberg, I looked into it. I could have paid the first month, I could have spent 10 grand on buying leads, another 10 grand on hiring a ghostwriter, gave them my ideas, and they could have written the book for me. I could have written two books a month. Right? And one of them will hit.

[Cody McGuffey]

Wow. Can we, can we talk about that for a minute? A book is on my list of things to do. I like to write probably lots of books. Just like all most entrepreneurs, most people listening to this right now, like it's on their list one day to probably like leave a legacy, like writing a book for their kids to read, grandkids to read, great grandkids to read. And also just give our, our way to pay it forward of like what we've learned and what we know is true and what is not true. Um, I think probably most of us can probably agree to that, probably listening to this. And we also probably would agree that at least in my, my experience like writing a book, I give it a lot, a tremendous amount of respect because it just, I can barely even sit down and write an email, you know, and like be excited about it, you know, so, so me writing a book is like, oh my, it sounds like such a daunting task. And. But then I see all these people do it, of course, that are a lot of times very, very qualified. And sometimes they are not qualified, you know, but the point is they're doing it and I respect that. And the question is, okay, if I were to do write a book, I want it to be mine. I want to be my information in my head, my unique position in my, my unique perspective on the world. But I really don't, I'm not a great writer. I don't enjoy writing. Is it possible for me to write a book given that?

[Maxwell]

Yeah.

[Cody McGuffey]

And then how does it look? Like you mentioned ghostwriter? What is the best way to write a book? If you if you do have a.

[Maxwell]

Lot to share, look, there's. So I have friends that write their own books. I have friends at high ghost writers. I have friends that do a little bit in between. And, you know, what it comes down to is what's your appetite? You know, like. Like the people that write their own books, they enjoy it. They love the process. They. They love thinking about new ideas. It's a creative outlet for them. Right. So they've learned to love the climb. You know, they're the guy at the gym that loves feeling sore. Some people hate feeling sore. And if you hate feeling sore, that's fine, but you're not going to. You're not going to magically love being sore just because I say so. So work out what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, and just find a solution for them. Just like anything else in entrepreneurship, you know, like, yeah, I wish I could close more deals if I was taller and better looking, you know, whatever that stupid thing, hurdle you put in front of yourself.

[Cody McGuffey]

Right, so in that case, you'd hire somebody taller and better looking and, and basically sync with him and make sure that's the right thing.

[Maxwell]

Yeah, exactly.

[Cody McGuffey]

Right. Okay, got it. So now can you do that? And it's interesting the way that we. When I was talking about it, of course the answer is yes. But my fear in my head, and I'm. I think a lot of people listening to this right now too, would have the same fear of, okay, I hire this ghost writer. How does this work? Because I really want this to be authentically me. And so are ghostwriters just that, like they. Depending on the person, like, they can be that good actually to take your ideas in your head, extract them, put them in your words just like you would put them, but they just do it better.

[Maxwell]

Well, let me ask this question another way. A large portion of the successful people, you know, and the books that you read were ghost rid.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's it.

[Maxwell]

In some way.

[Cody McGuffey]

Tell me more. Why?

[Maxwell]

Why is that true?

[Cody McGuffey]

How is that true?

[Maxwell]

Because I've met ghost writers that have really big businesses and I'm like, this is like a dark art, you know, like, because I didn't know how I felt about the time and, and I was, I was talking to them, getting to know them more, and they said this industry is huge, you know, like, at least the first manuscript is. Is like it, you know, I don't want to use someone's name, but.

[Cody McGuffey]

I know, me neither. But I do want to like, call out somebody famous. Right?

[Maxwell]

Yeah. Yeah, well, but so, so let's call it Tony Robbins. Right.

[Cody McGuffey]

Tony Robbins is bigger than. Bigger than.

[Maxwell]

I was just thinking about Tony Robbins.

[Cody McGuffey]

Right. So like, so do you think Tony Robbins is writing his own book?

[Maxwell]

Books?

[Cody McGuffey]

I don't think so. I can't imagine him writing all of his own books anymore.

[Maxwell]

I think he did definitely. But I think he's, you know, he systematize a machine, you know. And I'll give you an example. I think his book, the book on health, I think Force, Life Force, that book is just an amalgamation. It's an amalgamation of interviews of health experts. You know what I mean? So it's not, it's not like a well thought story told, you know, personal anecdote thing. It's just facts. It's a dictionary. It's just facts. Sticky tape together. Right. And, and there's a few books like that, like seven Habits of High Successful People. Atomic Habits. Like those are all packages books, but they're basically 400 deep Instagram posts pontificated and stuck together.

[Cody McGuffey]

Wow. But if they've done it in a very thoughtful and very methodical way. That sounds really nice. Yeah.

[Maxwell]

And who do you think does the first sticking it together? Right. It doesn't need to be the, the actual writer, but yeah, there's a writer. Go through and publish it and whatever. But that first manuscript, the hardest part, you know, is you can give yourself a head start for the hardest part.

[Cody McGuffey]

Wow, that's very interesting. How do you feel about Ghost Riders now that you're in this game longer? You've been around this world enough, you obviously written your own book. It looks like you held that up. By the way, what is that book?

[Maxwell]

This isn't mine. This book is called Scorecard Marketing. It's a, it's a book that goes into the strategy of one of the businesses I'm in, which is called Score App, where we help you to generate highly qualified leads. So if you want a copy of this, I can, I can share this with your audience. Go to scoreapp.com forward slash book. You get a PDF if not a physical copy. If we have some extra where you live.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. And we will link to that in the description below. Um, okay, got it. Have you written a book yet?

[Maxwell]

So I've been sitting on my book like having it 95% written for a long time now. Long time is in a few years. It changed shapes a few times and where I'm a little bit stuck, I'm undecided is, you know what I, what I think doesn't make any sense is to Write a book and then to go out there and try and sell it. You know what makes a lot of sense is to write a book which is like a, a promotion tool for Cody. A promotion tool for Max that sells Max, that sells Cody. Right. So you don't write a book to go out and sell it. You write a book that sells you.

[Cody McGuffey]

Why?

[Maxwell]

Because a book is the ultimate relationship building tool. You know, like for example, how to Win Friends and Influence People was written almost 100 years ago now. Right. Dale Carnegie is dead, beyond dead. But people are still reading that book for the first time thinking he's amazing long after he's dead. That's relationship building leverage, relationship building on steroids that transcends living, breathing, dead time, space.

[Cody McGuffey]

It's amazing thing, especially if you're thinking about legacy and things we talked about earlier. So in this case, Dale Carnegie writes this book called how do we have Friends and influence People. And are you suggesting that he shouldn't sell, go out and do the book tours and sell kind of the book, promote the book?

[Maxwell]

No, he should, he should. But, but sometimes people like for example, the book that I wouldn't write is. I wouldn't write like a non fiction novel because then you got to go out and sell that book. Right. I would only use a book, write a book as a business tool. Tell me.

[Cody McGuffey]

Because it doesn't power back to you, you or your business or some, something else that you really care about. Like it doesn't push power back. Right. It doesn't reciprocate.

[Maxwell]

Yeah.

[Cody McGuffey]

It doesn't go all the way around the circle.

[Maxwell]

Yeah. I don't want to create a full job for my, a full time job for myself selling my Harry Potter book. Right. Like J.K. rowling had to do. I want my book to work full time selling me my personal brand and the next thing I'm working on.

[Cody McGuffey]

So you'd go out and write a book called XYZ and then you'd go promote it of course. Do the little whatever, whatever you wanted to do. Your promotion strategy, probably run Facebook ads to it and get a whole bunch of people to buy it. And the whole thing about it is helping a lot of people provide a whole bunch of value. You're, you establish as a credible as like the trustworthy person in the room. Like you're the only person they're paying attention to for like literally weeks. And then somehow it has some sort of callback to action, to something else that you can provide value to them for and they kind of, it goes full circle.

[Maxwell]

Is that how you see it, identical to a podcast? Yeah, it is. You know, podcast is putting up free value. You're putting. We're putting time, effort, energy into this. I spent $500 on microphone, so did you. Right. So that we could give our free value in the market, you know, a level up. And a book's just another level up.

[Cody McGuffey]

You know, Maxwell, I've never thought of it that way. That's really true. The podcast is exactly like that in Books don't generate really any. Well, I've heard this. You could tell me. I've heard that books are not a money making activity. It doesn't not. You don't make a whole bunch of money from selling books. Like, you make revenue because you. But it basically cut pace for itself. Is that true for most people?

[Maxwell]

Just like a podcast, you know, you don't, you know, podcasters don't make a wild living selling advertising space on the podcast. You know, they make a wild living because after 20 episodes, someone's like, hey, Cody, I got a business idea. I want to talk to you about it. I only want to talk to you about it because I've. Because I've spun everything up.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's a really interesting point. I completely agree. I mean, I've never talked about this before, but the, this podcast, right? Who probably 40,000 people listen to it every single month. We generate zero dollars in revenue from this. From this podcast. Like zero. We don't take advertisements. We've gotten offered by like, sponsorships and stuff and to do this and that. But it's never really been the right time. We didn't really care about it. We didn't view it that way. It's not like a revenue producing activity for, for me personally, because then I also feel like I have to do it all of a sudden. And I do this because I enjoy having a new conversation about books and course selling and why you shouldn't continue your course sells after making $2 million a year. Like, that's an interesting conversation for me. And then fortunately for us, just like the book is, it pushes people typically back to ever be in a very authentic and in a great way. So we educate them, we provide value free, and it probably will push back to ever be, which is our tech company, software company that helps build businesses. So it's like this nice, beautiful thing that I just enjoy and love doing. And I imagine that's, for me, that's like the ideal.

[Maxwell]

And that's. That's a secret sauce, right?

[Cody McGuffey]

For me it is, yeah. Because it's Also people listen. I don't have to stop. Yeah. Do you have a podcast?

[Maxwell]

No, I don't, I don't. You know, I have a, my version of a podcast is I have a WhatsApp group with a hundred, you know, eight, nine figure investors and we share investments and that's sort of how I build my authority, credibility, audience in, in the investment space, which is what's important to me.

[Cody McGuffey]

So is your main thing. I wouldn't talk about that a lot. Sounds like you're probably an investor. It's like one of the most important things that you do with your, your break it down.

[Maxwell]

I would describe myself as a entrepreneur first, investor second. So I would never invest in anything that I, that I can't roll my sleeves up and get involved in. So I have investment to supercharge my entrepreneurial ventures.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. When, what type of investments do you typically invest in? What kind of companies, what industries, all that stuff?

[Maxwell]

Yeah, a whole range of things, you know, so I obviously invested in score apps. I was an angel investor in score app, did two follow up investments and that was just like a perfect fit. You know, I knew the founder. So you look at three things right in. I look at three things at any investment. The first thing is the team. You know, are they all A players? Is there a single B player in the team? Because a B player will, will kill an A player team, you know, a single B player, it'll, it'll, he'll drag down his position, her position, they will frustrate two others and slow down the rest. Right. So the whole thing operates average at a B level. So is everyone in A player, Is everyone aligned, incentivized? Are they all going, they all want to go to the same place. You know, if the goal is a billion dollar exit, if a single one person on there says no, I just want, you know, a $10 million exit that's gonna rip the business apart from the inside, you know, very slowly. It's a very slow cancer, but it's a cancer because I've seen it before. And then there is the revenue model, you know, is the revenue model set up to create more enterprise value? Is a revenue model set up that someone could retire from this business? You know, is it recurring revenue? Is it just, is it lumpy? Is it, is it sticky? You know, recurring sticky, not lumpy. That's all the sexy stuff. And the last thing is the hardest thing because this isn't my background, but it's like the tech, the uniqueness, the competitive advantage, the moats. Yeah, the Moat Beautiful.

[Cody McGuffey]

So it sounds like you're mostly describing probably the majority of those companies are tech companies. Software space.

[Maxwell]

Yeah. Or software enabled. You know, it could. It could be an agricultural company. But there's got to be something in there.

[Cody McGuffey]

Recurring element to it.

[Maxwell]

Yeah, just, just, you know, because. Because what's the point of getting into something that doesn't have some type of edge? Whether it's a personality, brand, a connection, a relationship, you know, everything moves to being a commodity anyway. So you don't start at least as far away as possible from being commoditized. Then you. Then you're going to just fall down that, that slide, that slippery slide, you know, to be commodity all that much more faster.

[Cody McGuffey]

How many investments have you made so far?

[Maxwell]

A lot know, like not. Not quite a hundred but like fifty or so.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's a significant amount. I mean that's fair to say. I would say that's like a. Seems like almost like a full time angel. How long have you been doing it now altogether?

[Maxwell]

Probably like 10 years. But. But some of that includes real estate, you know, which I think everyone should count as investment. You know, you shouldn't forget that that's an investment. Yeah.

[Cody McGuffey]

Cool. Okay. I. I asked this stuff because I'm very curious about lots of things, but specifically we've made some angel investments too. When I say we, my wife and I and we've also invested in real estate, much less now. But the angels is a fun thing, but we've never systematized it. I would like to one day. I think I'm just too heads down and ever be right now to even think about doing that right now. But it's a fun thing when you get to like help build somebody's fund, somebody's dream and you get to be. You get to help them kind of go along that ride.

[Maxwell]

Yeah.

[Cody McGuffey]

Financially and then also with just strategic advice. Just being a sound member for them. A soundboard for them.

[Maxwell]

Yeah. 100. You know what's really interesting to me? People ask me, you know, what I like to invest in or whatever. And the best things to invest in are the boringness, you know, which I'm sure is very true in E Commerce as well. You know, I'm sure like everyone wants to own their own version of gymshark. You know, I'm a gym junkie and I would. I've thought about it a million times. I've almost bought samples half a million times. But in deep my heart I just knew it's not a good idea because I'm competing against so Many other things. So many things could be a fad, you know, it's, it's quick in, quick out. You have to pay for advertising, pay for marketing. And what I've really learned is if, if you're in business to make money instead of expressing yourself creatively, like the best is to have both. Like you make money and you get to express yourself. So you're like an artist that gets paid to, to paint whatever they want to paint instead of what they're being paid to paint. You know what I mean?

[Cody McGuffey]

I do.

[Maxwell]

Because you know, they go out there, they express themselves and they get paid a whole bunch of money. It's like win, win, win. You know, it's like, it's like Usain Bolt getting paid to, to just run, which is what he does, right? It's, it's, it's, it's perfect alignment. But what I've really learned is if you want to take care of the money first in your life, then it's the boring, unsexy thing that you can be really practical about that can tick that box real quick, you know. So in the e commerce space, as an example, like power adapters, I heard sell really well and they sell forever, right? You know, and, or like clothesline hangers that, that, that don't stretch a shirt, you know, like really, really simple, stupid, non artistic things often do the best business. And that's really what I'm attracted to now. So, you know, one of my dream businesses to own and get into is like waste management. Like I just want trucks that pick up waste every single day and I just want to own 1% of that business, of that hundred million dollar business. And I'll just know forever and ever in my life that I'll have that income security because that's not going anywhere, you know, so, so I've really learned to start thinking like that.

[Cody McGuffey]

It's interesting. Yeah. The boring businesses, it's, it's a perfect example like waste management, I think of another one is like H Vac industry, right? Heating, heating and air. Like everyone always gets cold and everyone always gets hot. And at least in the US H Vac industry is huge and it's not going up anywhere. And so it's a, it's a boring business. Now there's, there's aspects of that business, it's not recurring probably all this stuff. But the point was, is like that's an example of it's a boring business. What's another example?

[Maxwell]

So, you know, I live in Asia and food is like culture, food is like life, right? Like you, it's actually quite easy to eat out in some places than it is to cook at home. So just restaurants opening up everywhere and whatever. And temptation is real to open up a restaurant because everyone wants to go to their own restaurant, you know, got their own take on a menu. They think. Everyone thinks that they're a marketer. Everyone's got an opinion of this and, you know, but if I just resist that temptation, I think, okay, all these restaurants opening up and closing constantly, what do they need that's common? And I'm like, pest control, right? Like, every restaurant to stays sanitary, every hotel to stay sanitary, needs a guy to go in there, spray the cockroaches, the rats, the termites at least once a month. And you don't negotiate that because you need to get it done, otherwise you lose your business. So, like, the need is just. So the. The button on that need on that urgency button is just glowing. You just gotta press it.

[Cody McGuffey]

And that's an example. It's a perfect example of. It is not sexy. This is not a sexy business. Right. You're not going to be like, raise your hand and like, say that I'm like the, you know, like this legendary entrepreneur.

[Maxwell]

What do you want to be when you grow up?

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, right.

[Maxwell]

I want to be the pest control guy. Right.

[Cody McGuffey]

But maybe not everybody wants that. Not everybody needs to, like, have that sort of validation. And that's. That's the cool part of that is. But it's certainly a need that you serve with the market. I. I completely agree with that.

[Maxwell]

Yeah. And. And so, you know, bringing that back to, like, ever be and online business. Online.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah.

[Maxwell]

You know, how could you. How could you think more about selling shovels rather than digging for gold? Like, digging for gold's more exciting and it's fun. And there's potentially huge upside if you're digging for gold. And. And you never know what you might hit. But if you. I would always pick. Now that I'm over the excitement phase of being entrepreneur, I would always pick the boring. Selling shovels. How could I just sell shovels? You know, I won't make as much money, but I could then move on to the next thing.

[Cody McGuffey]

There's a lot of good examples of this too, but it takes a little bit of practice to think about it, I would say certainly ever be being a data analytics tool first. That's when we first launched. That's what we did is we. We identified profitable products. And it was part of me, like the. The shiny thing syndrome, part of Cody's brain says, oh my gosh, look at this niche. Like, wow, we can, we could set up a brand right now and just go and like, launch a brand into that and knowing what we know and like, we could dominate that niche. Um, takes a little double discipline to say, no. That's. That's more digging for gold in the sense I'm going to keep on just providing the shovels and I'll just kind of like, that's what everybody's always focused on. It's like, how do we just help other people strike more gold? And the cool thing about it, there's a layer up. And I think this is layers now. You could say that, like selling, I think about real estate marketing templates, right? Selling those things online. This is another example of digging for gold. But you're actually providing shovels, right? So because you're selling real estate templates, real estate, digital marketing products, and you're, you're not, you could be out selling real estate, right? Like, you could be the real estate agent, but instead you decided, no, I'm going to help the real estate agents sell more real estate. I'm going to provide the shovels to the real estate agents. And that's another example of providing shovels via E Commerce. That's the one that came to my mind at least. I'm curious if that sparks anything. Any thoughts in your head?

[Maxwell]

Yeah. You know, what I hear in real estate agents compared to selling houses is B2B over B2C. So that's another lens that I have. Right. Like, yeah, everyone would love to have a B2C brand. B2C brands are fun, exciting, and when you get them right, you get them really, really right. And the numbers are really big, but they're so hard to get right, you know, like, it's so hard to create the hat brand that you're wearing that everyone wants to buy, or the shoes, the shoelaces, or the, you know, the, the insulated water bottle that everyone has. Like, it's so hard to make that brand. So much money goes into that when, you know, you could just sell, I don't know, the bath mat that sucks up all the water from your feet. Right. And everyone needs to replace their bath mat once or twice a year.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's a really interesting point. Because trends, they move so fast. Like this hat. Yeah. It's like this has melon. Is. And by the way, no affiliation with them at all. But they. Who knows what will be the next hat. That's cool. Next year I probably won't replace this More than. Unless they do a really great job of keeping up with the trend and like providing a new product and like all this stuff, then I will. But the point is they have to do that versus and how much money.

[Maxwell]

They spend on that and energy and stuff. But so a lot of this as well, I think is just knowing yourself, which is probably what I would love to end on, you know. So what I've really learned about myself is that there's different types of entrepreneurs. There's a very disciplined, systematic entrepreneur who's like a worker be they want to go up to work, they want incremental improvements, they want improvements every day and they want to do the same thing. And like consistency and security is what they, what they crave, right? So that they're like a worker be. I'm not a worker be, you know, I'm like, I'm like a lion. So I like short sprints. But when I sprint, you know, I can take, take down an elephant task right on my own. And I only sprint within a key period of the day. So I only really work 120% productivity between the hours of 7 to 12. And then I'm useless, you know, so I'm like a short sprint, early in the morning, morning, golden window type of guy. And it took me a long time to make peace of that because, you know, you see worker bees and you see them work so diligently every single day, you think, why can't I be like that? It's like, hold on, you know, like everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and as soon as you know yours, you could then start to build your business around yours. Because what I've learned is that if like some businesses require more creative energy, some businesses cry, require more monotonous, repetitive energy. Like for example, if you're an accountant, like that's not the right business to start if you're, you know, have a creative itch, right? But if you have a creative itch, then yeah, get into fashion, get into E commerce. But what do you get into in E commerce? You know, I'll give you a perfect example. I've got a friend who opened a seven figure e commerce business. Their first one totally hit out of the park. She's a mom, she's a single mom. She sells like these little bowls that have suction cups on the bottom so when the kid eats and he puts it on the table, it doesn't get knocked over because she was constantly cleaning up after a, after a son, right? And she has a few others, like a light that's motion sensor that has cool, like, you know, like there's a, there's a bear and there's a pig, you know, and she actually had a private equity group reach out to her and say, we've looked at your numbers on Amazon. We'd like to offer you $3 million to just buy that one product, the, the scent, the light sensor product. And she said no. And I was like, why did you say no? You know that that's. You'd have to sell. This thing only costs like $10. Like how many units would you need to sell to make that amount of money, you know, and how long is that going to take? And she said to me, max, I'm not in business to, to make money. I'm actually not in business to make this type of money. I, I just love building my products and seeing people use them. So. So she's all about the creative itch, you know, she just happened to make a lot of money and she turned down a lot of money. When someone else is like, no, give me the roadmap, give me the steps. I want to follow the steps to a three million dollar exit like yesterday.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's true. And both, both, by the way, both are totally okay, depending on where. As long as you know yourself is the key. Right to that.

[Maxwell]

And, and be okay with that, you know, and, and I said to her, wow, you know, like, I wouldn't have not gone for that, but I respect that you, you stuck to your guns, you know, like you're here to hold on to your brand. Scratch that creative itch. And that means more to you, the money.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, I get that. Let's wrap up with Perfect. Time for some rapid fire questions. You ready?

[Maxwell]

Perfect.

[Cody McGuffey]

All right. What's your favorite business book?

[Maxwell]

Either over subscribed, written by my business partner, or Outsiders.

[Cody McGuffey]

I don't think I've written, written, or read any of those books. Outsiders. Who's Outsiders by?

[Maxwell]

I can't remember the name of the author, but it's about. He basically studies, I think, seven CEOs who didn't fit the typical CEO box of like an MBA from Harvard or Stanford or whatever. And they outperformed Jack Welch at GE by 15 times. As a minimum, up to like 60, 120 times.

[Cody McGuffey]

William Thorndike.

[Maxwell]

Yeah. Yeah. And what was interesting about all these people is that they were all engineers, pretty much, or mathematicians. Like, they weren't business people, they weren't economists, they weren't financiers, they weren't accountants. They were just solving math problems in big Businesses.

[Cody McGuffey]

Wow. Interesting. What's the one thing that you wish that you knew before starting your business?

[Maxwell]

I wish I knew that it doesn't matter how smart you are, how much money you have, if you're doing something new, there's always a learning curve, you know. So my learning curve originally was 12 to 18 months. First 12 to 18 months didn't make a dollar. You know, made 28,000 or whatever that amount was. But I used to earn 100,000, so basically didn't make a dollar. Right. And that was the dumbest way to go through a learning curve. I realized there's three ways to go through a learning curve. The first way is you're not making any money and you have to invest to pay for your own learning curve. That's the worst place to be. That's what I do. Because you get hit twice because you're not making any money. Plus you're spending money to try to learn. And you're on a time limit because you've only got so much money. The next option is you go work for a really good entrepreneur as an apprentice for free. You're like, I want to learn from you. Just, I'll clean, I'll sweep the dishes. You know, like, I'll do anything. Just. Just let me learn from you, but I'll do it for free. And the best case scenario is a really good entrepreneur actually pays you something, so you're getting paid to learn a really valuable learning curve.

[Cody McGuffey]

What's an example of that one?

[Maxwell]

Most people wouldn't do this, but I think about doing it a lot. Find the best entrepreneur you could find and go be their executive assistant. Go be the ea. Go be the ea. Arrange their calendar, you know, pick up the phone in between them, respond to their emails, and you'll get to see the. You'll be the closest fruit to the tree.

[Cody McGuffey]

You know what? That's so true. I wish that more people would take that advice. I don't even think I would. I don't think I would even take that advice either. But I think that people should, you know, like. Like our ever be is where I would. I consider us very small still, but compared to where I wanted to be three years ago when we started the company. You know, we're. We're massive. Right. So we have 40 employees across the world.

[Maxwell]

Wow.

[Cody McGuffey]

And, you know, hundreds of thousands of users and customers. And if I could, I try to tell my. Like, I don't know if I tell them. That's. That's the best part, probably. But my nephew, for example who's like 17 years old, I'm like, if you just interned here, you know, if you.

[Maxwell]

Just like, it's a no brainer, like in hindsight, it's a no brainer.

[Cody McGuffey]

It's a no brainer. In hindsight. Yeah, it is. It's a no brainer. Now, I don't know if I would do it either, but I think that, I think people should, I think we should do it. I agree with you. Like imagine if you just, someone was just, hey, Maxwell, you're doing all this stuff, you're investing in all these companies, you have so much experience, you have so much wisdom to share with me. Can I just, how can I be of value? And maybe even instead of asking that, probably go to ChatGPT and say, how can I be of value to Maxwell? And it'll probably give you a bunch of ideas that you just bring the idea straight to Maxwell and say, hey, Maxwell, here's what I want to do for you for free, no charge. Like, I just want to learn from you. I'm, I'm here to learn, not to earn. And you probably have a hard time saying no to that. You do something for that person, probably, you know, assuming, yeah, you do something.

[Maxwell]

And, and, and the joke is that look, if you look at two examples, right? So when I went through the painful learning curve, spent all this money, didn't make a dollar for 18 months. If I had the luxury of learning from a really good entrepreneur for three months, I would have gone through the same learning curve because I'm obsessed. I was hungry, all the right motivation, but I just didn't have that leadership, that mentor, that framework, that whatever. That's one example. Another example is every entrepreneur that I look up to, that's ahead of me, so to speak. You know, I got into entrepreneurship game when I was like 25. They got into it when they were 17, you know, so just, just time failing early, failing faster, failing cheap. Because the world is cheap when you're 17 is less cheap when you're 25, right? The world is less cheap when you're 35. And just push yourself through that, you know, worlds apart. You know, one of my friends that started his first business when he was 17, when I said I want a corporate job was I want something to fall back on. You know, he's worth 60 million bucks now because he's had three exits, right? His first exit was when he was 25. So just that, you know, that little course correct, that little one degree of course correct just can land you on the moon.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, I love that. Completely agree. The way that I think the bet, one of the best advice that I received, and it wasn't even to me directly, I think I just heard in a podcast just like this was like, just plan on 10 years. Just plan on your business taking 10 years. You're pretty damn good. After 10 years of talking about the same problem, talking about the same customers, talking about the same type of person, you're going to understand how they think, you understand what their pains are, their fears are. You're going to understand all the products out there in the market, you're going to understand the competitors, you're going to think about a million ideas to help serve that customer. So if you could just think about the same type of customer for 10 years, you're going to have a massive advantage over everyone else just because you just have so much ingrained knowledge. As long as obviously you have to check the boxes of working hard and being innovative and all that other stuff. The point was, yeah, 10 years. Just stop thinking about one year and six months.

[Maxwell]

Well, that's the Jeff Bezos model, right? Do boring, systematic, data driven decisions for 10 years in a boring industry. Logistics. That, that's Jeff Bezos, you know, brick by brick, build the pyramid.

[Cody McGuffey]

Love that. How would you define a creator? Who is a creator in your terms?

[Maxwell]

Well, I think that anyone can be a creator. I think that creating is an enormous opportunity. I wish I did it more. I think everyone wishes that they could do it more. But, you know, the creators that stand out are the ones to, you know, have conversations like this. You know, like, I've thrown out some pretty controversial views, but I don't give a. And these are mine. And I've created these based on my experiences. They could be right, they could be wrong. You might not like them, but they're authentic to me and I'm sticking by them. So I think that's creating.

[Cody McGuffey]

Do you think the creator is. When you, when you think of creator right now, is it somebody that's creating content, creating podcasts like this, or is it creating a business or is it creating art?

[Maxwell]

I think it's just creating, creating value, you know, so like, are you, are you writing books, you're doing, are you making posts, are you making TikTok videos and making YouTube videos? Or are you making lemonade? A lemonade stand? You know, like, like a creator is someone that's taking, taking the steering wheel of life into their own hands. They're like, I'm gonna do this and I'm not gonna Wait for anyone else. That's, that's cool.

[Cody McGuffey]

I love that definition. Do you think that everyone should be a business owner?

[Maxwell]

No, no, no, no. I think that. No way. Actually, let me give a bit more complex answer to that. I think that everyone can do it. I think that there's limits in how far people go and you just got a plan for that. So, for example, anyone could be a consultant and just scale a consulting business where you're basically just trading time for money, for expertise. Right? You're basically reselling knowledge a bit like a doctor, but just doing it for yourself. So anyone can do that. But if you have no interest in business, no interest in learning accounting and learning marketing and learning people management and learning like HR and hiring people and, and having confronted conversations on how to fire someone and that doesn't geek you out like mastering all those skills, then you're not going to be a gold medal, a gold medalist entrepreneur at best. You might be like the local club tennis player level entrepreneur, which is fine, but you just have to be aware that you're going to hit that ceiling. And yeah, as a local club tennis player entrepreneur, you might earn half a million dollars a year. That might be enough. That's happy. I'm happy for you. Go for it.

[Cody McGuffey]

Love it. Maxwell. Where can people find you, learn more about you, follow you.

[Maxwell]

Yes, I'm addicted to LinkedIn, so just hit me up on LinkedIn. Maxwell. Knee only one on there.

[Cody McGuffey]

LinkedIn. Okay, love that. Thank you for your time, man. I really appreciate it. This is fun conversation. It didn't go the where where expected in a great way. I know. That's why I love this, this podcast because you can kind of dive into so many different.

[Maxwell]

Yeah, me too.

[Cody McGuffey]

Avenues. But I really appreciate it. I know there's a lot of value in here for everybody here.

[Maxwell]

Cheers. Thanks, Cody.

[Cody McGuffey]

Thanks, Maxwell.