← Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Anti-MBA: How an 18-Year-Old Became a CEO in 3 Weeks w/ David Guttman & Anna Prudchenko
00:37:00
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- [00:01]
A
Do you still believe college is the best path for young entrepreneurs?
- [00:05]
B
Here's what I think about my Wharton mba.
- [00:10]
A
Welcome to another episode of conference.
- [00:13]
B
So I went to Brown undergrad at Wharton for my mba. In fact the name of our courses, she came up with the name. Actually the anti MBA went to Wharton Business School. Never taught me. But the reality is if I were born today, I'd have been starting businesses in middle school. I don't think I'd have even finished high school. Honestly.
- [00:28]
A
There is a real stigma with that statement. You gotta finish high school at least just because you know.
- [00:33]
B
So I'll tell you, I went, I got invited.
- [00:35]
A
But you can take a GD ged so.
- [00:37]
B
Yeah, exactly. So I'll tell you, I went to a Mastermind. I got invited. I was really flattered. I got invited to A Mastermind where I was 30 years older than the next youngest person. So the youngest, two youngest kids were 17 or a couple 17 year olds. A couple 18 year olds. There was a 29 year old was the oldest. And by the way, the 29 year old works for the 17 year old who's already running a seven figure business that he started when he was 15.
- [00:57]
A
What company was that?
- [00:59]
B
It's an AI agent company. So he basically does like AI sales agents. Brilliant kid. And honestly it's like, and don't get me wrong, I think they learned some stuff from me, but I think I learned as much from them as they learned from me. It was a blast.
- [01:11]
A
Where was that mastermind?
- [01:12]
B
It was in Costa Rica. So it was like a four or five day weekend in Costa Rica. They rented some mansion and it was a blast.
- [01:18]
A
That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So, so tell me about this project that you guys got going on right now.
- [01:24]
B
So the way it all came to be was I worked backwards on the outcome that I wanted, which is I knew I wanted to make. You know, I'm in the twilight of my career. I got another 15, 20 years is kind of what I'm thinking. And so I wanted to spend that in the, in the most interesting and entertaining way I could think of. And so I said the best thing for me to do is to be invested in eight, 10, maybe 12 companies where I have a board seat, some equity in the business and I'm mentoring the founders of the business. So I want to do that with people I like doing things I find interesting. So I'm like, well, what's the best way to do that? And I know that the most important thing in any entrepreneurial venture is the CEO. So I'm like, I need a way to evaluate. So you look at, think about how Y Combinator works or how Shark Tank works. You're making that investment up front. So what I decided to do is that I, what I really wanted was I wanted six months to evaluate each CEO and like, well, how am I going to filter that out? So I said, let me create a course. So we created a four and a half hour course called the Anti mba. And then anyone who finishes that course, I do a coaching call with. I evaluate them and their idea. If I like them and their idea, I invite them into an invitation only mastermind. 10 people total. That's it for six months. They have to commit to be mentored by me. At the end of that six months, I'll invest in no less than one, no more than three of those businesses. A quarter of a million to a half a million dollars for a board seat, some equity and ongoing mentorship. So that's how I want to spend the next 15 to 20 years. And that's why I created the course. So Anna was the daughter of a very close friend of mine. I'm an advisor in his company. Great guy, Ukrainian, moved here, barely spoke English, and now a successful entrepreneur. So he's like, hey, my daughter's looking for a summer internship. She's going to go to college in the fall. I needed someone to help me with some of the social media grunt work. I've interviewed her, she was super smart. I'm like, sure, why not? Three weeks into it, she's just crushing it. And I'm thinking, you know what would be really compelling is if I actually had Anna, if I actually used the course to launch a real business, get it up and running in 30 days, profitable within 90 with someone who's very smart, but no business background whatsoever, just finished high school. What better way to demonstrate the fact that if you have the right raw materials, you could be a successful entrepreneur? I pitched it to Anna. First I got her dad's permission, then I pitched it to Anna. She thought I was crazy, but that's how we started on this journey together.
- [03:38]
A
I like it, I like it. That's a cool journey. So Anna, you just graduated high school and instead of college you're launching a company. What do you think made you choose that path instead of college?
- [03:50]
C
I think it stemmed a lot from the environment that I was in and my parents. My dad is an entrepreneur, as David said. So I always had this vision for what I wanted my life to look like in the future. And I quickly realized that if I go to the normal path of going to college and then getting a job and then getting. Promoting myself over, like, in the career ladder, I won't get that same life that I really wanted. And I always knew that I had something in me to become an entrepreneur. I wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was, like, seven, I think. Yes, I was seven. And there was never a doubt in my mind that I would become one. So it was not an easy decision because obviously my mom really wanted me to go to college. She still wants me to go to college. It's her requirement. Get a degree, just get the paper, then you can do whatever you want. But I think overall, it's just a better way for me personally, and I've never been one to conform to the usual route. I always take the path less traveled. So this was kind of like a risky decision that I was just super excited to take.
- [04:58]
A
Yeah, she speaks with conviction. And as a young kid, impress you, the youngest person that'll be on the show. And, you know, I want my kids to go down the entrepreneurial. I'm stuck because I personally want my kids to go down the entrepreneurial path because I know that's, you know, that's what's going to ultimately, like, lead to success. I'm in Newport Beach. There's no doctors and lawyers on my street. There just isn't. Yeah, you can't buy a $7 million house as a doctor, you know, so everybody on my street is an entrepreneur. There are nobody. There's nobody. Unless they own the practice and a bunch of practices. They're not living in Newport in general, anywhere. Yeah, Maybe a condo. And that's the. I know some people in Newport because I'm Egyptian, and everyone in my community is a doctor. That's like how we. That's all we knew. Same with Jewish people, right? Yeah, yeah, they're all doctors. That's the path they started with. And then they started to understand Jewish people specifically. Entrepreneurship was a better route. They understood that in the 70s and 80s. We understood that now because we came in the 80s, you know, so we were like, we're gonna be doctors now. Their kids are like, we're gonna be entrepreneurs. Dad, you're dumb to be a doctor. You made no money. My dad still works like a dog. 76 years old. Still works every single day.
- [06:12]
But the caveat is, like, where I'm stuck is I want them to be entrepreneurs. I'm already having them become young entrepreneurs, you know, And I do that through Sports card trading. And I do that through like raising capital for, you know, whatever projects.
- [06:30]
But I still want them to be highly educated, you know, I still want them. Like one of my friend who had a company called Orgain, he exited a couple billion bucks. His dad told him, I don't care what you do as long as you get your medical degree. That's just college.
- [06:51]
B
Right.
- [06:51]
A
Become a doctor first.
- [06:53]
B
So a lot of school, that's a lot of school.
- [06:56]
A
And that's like you're out of school at like 26 now. Kids are multi millionaires at like 19, 17. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a path, you know, now. And I don't know what the future holds because six years down the road, education, college is going to be even, worth even more worthless.
- [07:11]
B
Agreed. But you know, it is like she made the comment that, you know, the safe route of taking an education. I actually argue it's the opposite. I think it's the less safe route, you know, like building up your talent stack, having real skills where you can build something like that you can take anywhere, you know, and so I feel like, you know, your, your gender studies degree, I mean, good luck.
- [07:30]
A
Yeah, especially people don't know what gender they are.
- [07:34]
B
Exactly.
- [07:37]
A
Yeah, yeah, you're right. And one thing I did, which I'm going to encourage all my kids to do, is I just took a test and exit exam at 16 and then I went to community college. At least finished that.
- [07:48]
B
Right.
- [07:48]
A
You know, like finish 16, high school, then go to college at, you know, from 16 to 18, you'll be done. I was, I was done with college at 19. All of college. I got my degree in bachelor's degree. Wow. So it's possible just you just got to get out of high school early.
- [08:03]
B
Well, think about it too. Like, you know, it was about a quarter of a million dollars, you know, all in for my daughter to go to, you know, middling school. And the reality is, think about how much coaching and mentorship and masterminds and stuff you could purchase for $250,000, the rooms you could get in. And it's like that to me is a way better ROI.
- [08:20]
A
Yeah, I've already taken my 11 year old to masterminds now.
- [08:24]
B
Smart.
- [08:24]
A
I'm already introducing her to think big.
- [08:27]
B
That's why I'm taking her on this podcast towards like, hey, part of what I want you to do, not just, you know, because she's also the daughter of my close, one of my very closest friends. It's like I want her to Be as successful as humanly possible. I want, I learned the hard way that I should have built my personal brand five years ago. And so I want her to learn from my mistakes. That's what I want all my mentors to do, is learn from my mistakes. And so the business will benefit from it, but she'll benefit from it from it too. I think to building a personal brand is sort of like the, the cheat code to life.
- [08:55]
A
Building a personal brand, and I talked to you about this earlier, is not a cheat code anymore. And it's, it's an absolute necessity for every entrepreneur. Yeah, it's a necessity just because we all want AI. Everyone wants the, you know, the AI to, to help them. But AI has no data without personal brand for people.
- [09:15]
B
Right.
- [09:15]
A
Data on every other thing. But for people to, if it's going to decipher, you need to build your personal brand.
- [09:22]
B
Yeah, people have, people, you know, look, people, you know, AI can hallucinate. I, you know, I, part of the reason I listen to Joe Rogan or whatever, it's like, hey, this guy never intentionally lies to me. This is a. People buy from people they like and trust.
- [09:35]
A
Yeah.
- [09:35]
B
You build a personal, of authenticity, of trustworthiness. You can, you can monetize that in an infinite number of ways. If monetization is your thing, if influence is your thing, again, you can influence the most people by building a personal brand and doing something that you're passionate about.
- [09:50]
A
Yeah, it's been for both of us, you know, obviously, game changing. Now, David, you tore up your MBA diploma publicly, which is so cool.
- [09:59]
B
Yeah.
- [09:59]
A
We're going to show that here on the clip as well. What was the real message behind that moment and what are you challenging in the current system?
- [10:08]
B
So, you know, as we were talking about off camera, you know, the dirty secret, if, you know, for people that go to get Ivy League degrees, go to Stanford, places like that is. And don't get me wrong, it's not that there's, you know, there's not anything interesting. I took a really interesting class on Chicago politics. Okay. When I was at Brown. Interesting. Nice class and all. It's not changing my life in any way. The reality is in terms of practical knowledge, you know, that I'm able to apply in my life, it wasn't particularly useful. And because everyone benefits from the fact that everybody else is so impressed that they went to those schools, the dirty secret is it didn't really change anything. The reason people like Michael Dell who dropped out of Harvard and Zuckerberg who dropped out of Harvard they're successful because they were able to get into Harvard, not because Harvard educated them in some way. And so the dirty secret is the people that benefited from that don't want to let the secret out. And I'm like, so that's why I tore it up. It's like, I'm old. I don't have anything to prove. And so it's like, you know, I wanted to. If I put your money where your mouth is, if I'm trying to say, look, I didn't want my kid to go to school, I'm encouraging her not to go to school.
- [11:14]
A
And that was five years ago. You don't want your kid to go.
- [11:16]
B
To school seven years ago.
- [11:18]
A
Now college is even worthless. Even more now.
- [11:20]
B
Even more now. And I was begging her then, and.
- [11:22]
A
I would argue, especially if the kids go away for college, that it's actually harmful for children because they're going to go to college and they're just going to party, they're going to drink, they're going to be exposed to all types of harmful situations. Yeah. For their life and for their livelihood. And it's going to add undue duress on the parent. Like, why did you send your kid to the other side of the country? He's a kid. You expect him not to fall into social temptation.
- [11:49]
B
I remember one time my daughter calls me up because she set her curtains on fire. You know, literally, they're in flames. I'm like, why are you calling me and not the fire department? I don't understand. What the hell am I supposed to do? It's like, fire department, dad. Yeah, exactly. Right. I'm like, hang up and call the fire department. Honestly, it's just. It's unfathomable that it. It's such an expensive way that the excuse is, hey, you're gonna spend a quarter of a million dollars, but they're gonna learn how to be an adult. Kind of sorta. Right.
- [12:17]
A
Because run a business, they'll learn to be an adult. Like that.
- [12:20]
B
Exactly. Right. Make payroll. Then you have to make payroll for your people. Then you're actually an adult. So I just think that it's. Again, I understand. It's just. It's brainwashing. It's societal programming that. That's the way it's supposed to be. And the reality is, I think it's a fool's errand.
- [12:37]
A
Yeah. I mean, what's your opinion on that anyways?
- [12:39]
C
Like, about college?
- [12:40]
A
Yeah.
- [12:42]
C
I think I went. I'm probably at the moment in my life that I will later referred to as the pivot point, because for the past four years, I've been working towards a college degree. I took nine APs. I was really going out.
- [12:56]
A
You have this. A few more classes. You got your aa.
- [12:59]
C
Exactly. That's what I'm doing right now. That's what I'm doing right now. That's what I'm doing. College, Community college, part, part time. You know, it's barely anything.
- [13:07]
B
Easy.
- [13:08]
C
And it's super easy. It's barely anything. And I'll get it done. And then if I want to, I can transfer. If I don't want to, I don't have to transfer. You know, it's. There's a plethora of opportunities there. Exactly. No, I have to be careful about what I say on camera because she's going to be watching. So, yeah, I will say that I am. Yes, I am going to get my degree. But yeah, I think that I was going towards this thing. I couldn't afford college, actually. I got accepted into a lot of colleges. I couldn't afford it. So that's why I'm going to community college. And I realized that, you know, what, what was I even working towards? Like, why did I want to go to college in the first place? It's kind of like a aha moment. Like, what it was. I. What was I doing? And I was going to college for networking. I thought the only reason to go to college was to meet people that you can network with and, like, do business later on. And then I realized that while meeting David and just going through his network and meeting the people that he's meeting, I'm going to get so much more connections and more networking than any college could give me here.
- [14:12]
A
Going around to these podcast events. This is where it happens.
- [14:14]
C
Exactly. Yeah.
- [14:15]
A
I mean, networking is like what you're gonna. Your college buddy 20 years down the road is gonna be doing what we're doing now.
- [14:21]
C
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
- [14:25]
A
If you somehow find him on whatever social media is out there and you're.
- [14:28]
B
Like, I remember that guy.
- [14:32]
A
So. So, Anna, you started as an intern for David, and within three weeks you became the CEO of a brand new company. What was going on through your mind when he offered you that role?
- [14:41]
C
I thought he was crazy and I thought that. But it was a good kind of crazy. And I also thought that, okay, Ana, come on, you wanted to be an entrepreneur since you were seven years old. Yes. You thought you were going to do it when you were like 21, 22. It's coming a bit early, but it's now or never. So I didn't even have to think about it for too long. I got offered this opportunity. I, I was like, yeah, I'm going to take it because, well, the risks, the risks, like the benefits way outweigh the risks in this scenario. Especially because I knew David just a little bit. He was friends with my dad, I trusted him. So, yeah, it was really a no brainer, to be honest.
- [15:22]
A
What are the traits that you saw in her that you realized this girl can do something much bigger than what she's doing here?
- [15:27]
B
Yeah, I wouldn't have proposed it. When I first met her, she was sharp. It was funny. We had, you know, my friend had, you know, said, hey, you know, I said, let me talk to your daughter. Have a. So I basically said, on Monday, review my social media. We'll talk on Friday and I want to hear your thoughts. She's 15 minutes into a 30 minute monologue about how broken it is and what I need to fix. And halfway through I'm like, all right, shut up, you're hired. But then we worked together for the next few weeks and what I, what I saw was she was super creative, she was super curious, she was very disciplined. She was also smart. But honestly, the smart wasn't even the big. That's a nice to have. That's not even a have to have in my experience. But she was also very open minded and she took direction really well. The other thing that surprised me was she didn't come to me with every little thing. Like a lot of people that are her age, they'll come to you with every last thing. She tried to solve everything on her own as much as she possibly could before she came to me. And, and so those really are the raw materials that I think you need to be successful. The other thing was she was having to coordinate with a lot of other people, all of whom are significantly older than her, and she handled it so well and she was able to kind of command the respect, even though just by her sheer presence. So it's like she had the raw materials and so, and I thought, you know, one, she's going to make me look like a genius. Right. So it's like I, like, I know I have a, I have a ringer, but everyone else doesn't know that because I know what, I know what to look for. I have a good eye for talent.
- [16:57]
A
Yeah. I mean, that's kind of my job. You know, I'm a talent scout at my position now. That's what I always look for. That's cool. That you're looking for that.
- [17:05]
B
Yeah. And with humble too humble was the other one. Humble.
- [17:08]
A
Humility is important. Yeah, humility is definitely important. So David, what did you. So what are you both, what are both of you trying to prove right now or maybe disprove with the launch, especially under the banner of the anti MBA campaign?
- [17:25]
B
I'll go first. You know, like I said, I believe that I can, in fact I know I can take an 18 year old with the right raw materials and between the course and a little bit of guidance from me, help her be a successful entrepreneur. The goal is going to be, I don't really care about.
- [17:44]
The exit value of the business. Like I think I mentioned before, we don't need to raise capital, but we're going to raise capital just to demonstrate how to raise capital because I think that's a really important skill to have, especially if you want to build something big and scale. But so we're going to take it. The goal is over the next 18 to 24 months to exit. I don't care how much we exit for. Maybe it'll only be very high, six low, seven figures, doesn't really matter. But I want to be able to take it all the way through the life cycle. Yeah. Because again, most people don't realize that due diligence, the main goal of due diligence is to lower the purchase price. What are all the things you can do to help mitigate those risks and to push back against that? One of the companies that I exited, eight figure exit, we exited in December of 2008 and every company I knew was getting their exit value. Huge haircuts, 25, 35, 50% haircuts in their valuation. And because of how we manage the exit, we got the exact asking price that we wanted. So there's a lot of things that. Because you can build a company up and exit wrong and destroy so much of the value you spent years building.
- [18:47]
A
Wow. Now.
- [18:50]
How often does one on one media reflect what you believe the future of learning, leadership and media should look like?
- [18:57]
B
Want to take that one or you want me to?
- [19:00]
C
You mean the company itself, the idea of company?
- [19:06]
I mean, I don't know if it's reflecting how learning is going to look like in the future necessarily. I mean one of one is a poster business. It's a side effect of it. You know, it's. The company was started in order to showcase all of the little details of how a usual, a regular business will function and some of the challenges that a usual business will go through. Right. But then the one of one, I mean it's all about, it's all about motivation. We're doing tech integration, we're doing AI features. It's like the poster is just one thing, but it also becomes a portal into your own self growth journey. So there's like a lot of different things. It's both novelty, but it's also a simple concept to brute force. In the beginning that we chose just because that was the best thing to show the course, like the contents of the course.
- [19:56]
B
I think too that for me I wanted to demonstrate that the best way to learn is by doing. Right. And it's like if you're not making mistakes, you're not making enough decisions. Right.
- [20:07]
A
I think you said something really profound here and people really need to hone in on this. The best way to learn is by doing. Because everybody just wants to sit there in class and just like receive information that doesn't do anything for you.
- [20:22]
B
You have to make decisions. And look, one of the big mistakes people make is they have analysis paralysis. They're afraid to make mistakes. You know, one of the things I was, I've been teaching Anna and I was really proud of her. I remember when we first came up with the logo or she came up with the logo. She hired a graphic designer, she had him do a logo. She showed me the logo. I could tell by the look on her face she didn't like it. But she's like, the logo isn't going to make the business successful, succeed or fail. And so let's just keep moving. And I was like, wow, like there's people in their 40s and 50s that don't realize that. Right. And so again, that's how I knew I.
- [20:50]
A
It doesn't matter.
- [20:51]
B
Yeah, that's how I knew I picked the right quarterback. But ultimately what I wanted to do is I wanted to show a couple things. One that you learn by doing. And the second thing was, and I know I always beat this drum pretty hard to the point that Anna probably hates hearing it now, but it's like, I'll take a mediocre idea really well executed over an amazing idea executed mediocre any day. And at the end of the day, while I think the one of one posters is a good idea, it wouldn't matter. It really doesn't matter. It's about, you know, people always talk about, oh, when Home Depot moves into a new city, all the mom and pop hardware stores got out of business. That's only mostly true. About 80% of them do the other 20% actually do better. Right. Because they're, you know, good luck trying to get someone at Home Depot to help you actually figure out which power tool to buy or whatever it might be. But the mom and pop, you know, hardware store that's run well will actually make more money.
- [21:38]
A
One of one, let's talk about that. Who are your competitors? I feel like you do that stuff on Amazon or Rite Aid or whatever.
- [21:46]
B
I would have thought so too. Like when I had the idea for the Michael Jordan Post poster, right. I like, I knew I wanted this quote. I knew I wanted the poster. There was nowhere I could buy it at any price. It wasn't possible. I looked, now there's an old company.
- [21:57]
A
A high quality one.
- [21:58]
B
Yeah. You know, and I wanted it, you know, really nicely printed, really nicely framed. And there just wasn't any way to do that. I couldn't even get the poster part done, you know, period. So I had to basically buy the high res image, you know, basically put it in a tool like PowerPoint, superimpose the text, you know, take a screen grab, have it printed high res. Then getting it framed, the whole thing took like two weeks. It was a huge pain in the ass, you know. And then I started giving them as gifts. And every person I gave it to said, best gift I've ever gotten. And so, because not only that, but it's sitting on their wall in a place of pride, you know, about, you know, either in their office or in their living room or in their bedroom. And every time they look at, they're thinking about me. And wow, that was a really thoughtful thing Dave did. Who wants something other than that? And you know, and think about the, think about the lifetime value of a customer. The perfect customer is someone, someone like you who like wants to get that Michael Jordan poster. Really well done. And you want to have it at the office and then you're like, oh, I really like that. Hey, maybe I'll start giving him his gifts. So you have some for yourself, you have some for the office. You start giving them his presents. Now the lifetime value of a customer is high hundreds low thousands of dollars over time. That's a really good business.
- [23:05]
A
In my business, the lifetime customer value is 13 to 14 mortgages.
- [23:10]
B
That's a lot of money.
- [23:12]
A
So every mortgage is six to ten grand.
- [23:14]
B
That's beautiful.
- [23:15]
A
So for these guys out here thinking lifetime value, they gotta deliver very nice closing gifts.
- [23:22]
B
Yeah, I bet.
- [23:22]
A
You know, and what, this would be.
- [23:24]
B
A great closing gift. In fact, it was funny. I probably should let the cat out of bag but actually, Anna's mom had this great idea that everyone we're having that we're doing these podcasts with, we should give them a one of one poster as a thank you for having us on their podcast. So I was talking to Dan yesterday when I was ripping up my diploma, and I was telling him about the. The fact that I did that Teddy Roosevelt, because he has the whole in the arena thing, events that he does. And, you know, and I said that I had David Goggins and in the arena, and I had that poster in my office. He's like, no way. He's like, I just hired David Goggins today to do an event. He's a huge Goggins fan. So guess who's getting an in the arena poster with David Goggins on it? Right. What better way to do that, you know? And every time he sees, he don't think of us.
- [24:05]
A
Dan's the sweetest guy, too.
- [24:06]
B
He's a great guy.
- [24:07]
A
He's a sweet. He's. He's the true, like, embodiment of a servant. His whole life is just. He does not care about money. I'm sure you got, like, 50 introductions after that.
- [24:19]
B
He's a machine. He's amazing.
- [24:21]
A
So that's just his mindset. He's been an inspiration for me and a huge help with just building my brand. That's all he's been trying to do, is just help me. So anytime I come across guests or something, I'm like, dan, Dan here.
- [24:33]
B
Yeah.
- [24:34]
A
And that's how he knows that God just blesses him like that.
- [24:36]
B
Yeah.
- [24:37]
A
So. So, Anna, you've gone from high school grad to company builder in a matter of weeks. What's one. What's something you've learned on the job that school never prepared you for?
- [24:48]
C
Everything. Like, everything. Because school does not teach you how to become an entrepreneur. School teaches you how to become a good employee. Right. It's how it teaches you how to follow directions. Teaches you the very technical skills that you need to know in order to do a specific kind of job. So everything that I've learned this summer, I have not learned at school. And even, like, the only overlap that I could talk that I could really think about is because I was heavily involved in leadership at school because I was always trying to do something of my own. I hate following directions from people that I don't aspire to. So I always tried to do something of my own. And that was the only place that I was like, okay, so I got some of the soft skills and I brought them here, but nothing else was taught here. I'm learning so much more. I'm learning all of everything from legal issues like how to set up an llc, how to set up what is C Corp versus S Corp, everything.
- [25:45]
A
What she's telling me right now, I wish my kids were here. You know, like, this is crazy. You know, it's like, I never thought that school just prepares you to be an employee.
- [25:56]
She's right out of school and she's like, yeah, I was just basically preparing myself to go, you know, just be a follower, you know, just be a really, kind of like a flunky, you know, in my opinion, 100. I'm just learning here just to take orders. I'm just an order taker. And that's, that's an unfortunate reality about our school system.
- [26:16]
B
Not only that, but think about it too. Like, people have this just bizarre illusion that the couple corporations they work for care about them. You know, it's like, look, I've been, you know, you probably know a little bit of my backstory, but I was misdiagnosed with cancer and told I had six months to live when I was 24. And that just pivoted me into being a servant leader. Before that, I really wasn't, I wasn't a bad guy. But. But I led and I, and I thought about leadership and, and, and everything in a very different way. And so for me, it's just such a happier way to travel through life is find people to invest in. Invest, you know, pour your heart into those people and it pays back, you know, in an infinite number of ways.
- [26:54]
A
Now, David, what would you tell other founders or executives about hiring people like Anna not for where they've been, but for who they are and where they're going?
- [27:05]
B
I think Elon Musk has made this, you know, this comment a couple times, and it's been my experience too, is I've made the mistake too often that I would hire based on talent or primarily on talent or specific domain expertise. Now, there are some rare exceptions where that's an absolutely necessary thing if you're building an AI company and, you know, you need some very specialized knowledge. But, but for me, it's like, now I hire on humility. I hire based on curiosity, creativity, discipline, and the fact that, and I guess I'd call it heart, for lack of a better way to say it. And, and when I do that, I've just seen that's what, that those people are the ones that are the game changers in the organization. The other thing That I learned is the only is that you have to learn how to fire fast because you'll make mistakes. I don't care how good you are at interviewing, how much you do reference checks won't matter. You'll make some hiring mistakes. One bad hire can. In the same way that a really good hire can help move the needle in a positive way, a bad hire goes the other way 100%. It's the only thing in my business career that's 100% true. Every time I have delayed, I had the thought to fire someone and I delayed it. I regretted it without a single exception in a 35 year career. Actually about a year and a half ago, thought I had that one exception and then actually ended up having to fire him. So you know, that's the thing. It's like look for the right raw materials and you can teach the skill set.
- [28:32]
A
Couple last questions. Now where do you both want one on one media to go? And what do you hope this this conversation inspires in the next generation of builders?
- [28:43]
C
I mean the one of one for my personal goals I want to learn as much as possible from building, scaling it and then exiting. So one of one is bound to have an exit for sure. We also want to teach how to raise capital and everything like that. This whole journey is kind of like a super transparent, no bullshit journey and like like documented journey where others can learn. Okay, you don't really have to go get an M. You don't really have to have a bachelor's in business in order to start a business. Here is what you need to know. Here is exactly what you need to know. And that is kind of what this is going to inspire in the future generations. Hopefully people are going to realize the value of just a single course or a single mastermind or multiple masterminds. Over a quarter million dollar education.
- [29:36]
B
For me I just want, I want the one of one to just be the template and its journey to be the template that I applied to other entrepreneurs. It's you know, to me I.
- [29:48]
Wish so much that this was available to me when I was, when I was her age. And so honestly just the idea that I can pour myself into, you know, 8, 10, 12 entrepreneurs that where their hearts are really in it. The idea of making all of them millionaires is thrilling to me. So that's the outcome I want. And yeah, I'll make some money as a side effect but it's not important to me.
- [30:12]
A
A couple last questions before we adjourn here. This is about goals. What's a personal Goal you guys can both share a family goal. You don't have a family yet, but you can also allude to it. And then a business goal, which we kind of tapped into.
- [30:25]
B
But family goal. I mean, look, I just. Right now, the big one part of the reason I moved out to Scottsdale, reason I moved out to Scottsdale. I have an older brother who's about three and a half years older than me. He's about to turn 63. He's my height and he was a little bit over 350 pounds when he started his journey. And I mean, he's the nicest guy and his life is not where it really should be, especially for someone who's just such a wonderful person. So I asked him, hey, if I moved out here, would you work with me? He's already dropped 25 pounds. He's got a long way to go, obviously. But that's my number one goal in a family is to be able to help him have the kind of life that I think he deserves. So I would say that's probably my primary family goal. And I would say on the business side.
- [31:17]
I have a few. I'm finishing my first book. It's a book on servant leadership called Lead like youe Give a Shit. And then I'm looking to try to do my first TEDx. I really want to do a TEDx about some of the. Some of the stuff I want to talk about on servant leadership. And obviously what we're doing with one of one and the anti MBA is super important to me because again, I feel like back when I was misdiagnosed and thought and I realized I wasn't going to die, I made a conscious decision that I was going to try to affect just the handful of people closest to me. But the Internet didn't exist back then. And so now that now I've expanded that scope and I'm like, I feel like I can cast a much wider net and have bigger ripple effect. So if I can create a dozen Annas, how much influence and impact those people can have. And so that's what I'm excited about.
- [32:08]
C
For me, a personal goal. I really value change. I've moved 14 times in my life. I've come to accept change as it comes. But also I only feel successful and satisfied in myself if I am not the same person when I end the year compared to when I started it. So a personal goal would be to continue growing, to continue changing. If I reflect back on the beginning of this journey and I'm like, yeah, I don't even know what I was doing back then. Like, I don't understand. Like, I made so many mistakes. I wouldn't want to do that again. That's what I want to be later on. That's a personal goal. As a. For a business goal, I think. Well, obviously, I want to bring one of one to success. I want to have a successful exit, but also because I'm young, because I'm very, very new to business, I want to build a lot of relationships and a lot of network, like a big, good network, so that I can start ideating and start launching my next business before I even exit this one. This is not going to be the end for me. This is only the beginning, and I need to start preparing for the next big thing already.
- [33:17]
A
This is definitely the beginning, Sweetheart.
- [33:19]
C
This is 18 years old. Like, literally, like, yeah, she's a beast.
- [33:23]
A
I'm excited to see what you do in your life, and I'm gonna have my kids interning for you.
- [33:29]
C
I love to.
- [33:31]
A
Last question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's gonna tell you?
- [33:39]
B
You know, my life has turned out different.
- [33:44]
And I was always fairly ambitious in what I wanted to accomplish in my life. My dad started a software company in his late 20s that eventually IPO'd. And so I always had pretty ambitious goals for myself. My life has turned out completely different in every possible way from what I had originally envisioned and better if I were to compare what my original plans were versus how they turned out. And I guess for me.
- [34:10]
All I really want to. All I want to think about, because someone once asked me the question on a podcast, you know, what would I want my daughter to say about me, you know, at the end of my life? And it was just that I was a good human being. It's really as simple as that. I think that if I. If I can get to the pearly gates and feel comfortable that, you know, that I. That I really was a good human being, and I touched as many people in a positive way as I possibly could and left them better than I found them. I feel pretty good about the journey.
- [34:37]
A
I feel almost bad asking a young lady that, but it's how the show goes.
- [34:41]
C
I was thinking about it. I was like, what would I. What would he say to me? And, I mean, obviously, I want to leave a lasting impact on the closest people that I have. I mean, the more people I can reach, the better, obviously. And that is a good answer, I think, in that regards. But I think, personally speaking, he's gonna be like, I gave you so many warnings. Why did you step into every single one of them? Like, why did you take all of these risks? And I will say, well, because that's life and I had a great life and I experienced so many things. So I think he's going to be a little upset with me, but he's going to be like, okay, whatever, come on in, come on in. Yeah, that's what I think.
- [35:24]
A
If people want to connect with you, how do they find you?
- [35:26]
B
So for me, you know, probably my YouTube channel, you know, official David Gutman, my link tree is there, all my socials, you can obviously find me on Instagram, it's daveargutman as my Instagram handle and I think that is all my link tree stuff too. But yeah, anyone, if there's any way I could be helpful to people, please reach out.
- [35:47]
I drive my wife crazy sometimes, but I love being helpful to other people and if I could be helpful on someone else's journey, I'm happy to to do so.
- [35:54]
A
How about you, Anna?
- [35:55]
C
Follow one of one official on Instagram. It's a very new account. We have 17 followers and we're gonna, I'm gonna document the whole journey. So this is what you will be following for. It's not like the business page, it's more like, okay, I'm building this business in public. Here's what I'm learning along the way. So if there's anyone who wants to learn how to build a business and they want to learn from my mistakes, then that's the the place to go. One of one official.
- [36:23]
A
To find your journey. A young 18 year old entrepreneur going from the very grassroots to an exit. Let's go.
- [36:32]
B
Yes.
- [36:32]
A
God bless you guys. Thank you for being on the show. Check them out guys. David R. Gutman on Instagram. One of one official make sure to follow. Thanks for tuning in.
- [36:45]
C
It.