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- [00:00]
Hampton Founder
This is for the folks out there who have a business that does at least $3 million a year in revenue. Because around this point, that's when you're able to look up after being heads down for years building your company, and you realize two things. One, you've done something great, but you're still a long way from your final destination. And two, you look around and you realize, I am all alone. I've outrun my peers. Which means you're now making $10 million decisions alone, by yourself. And that is when mediocrity can creep in. My company, Hampton, we solved this problem by giving you a room of vetted peers of other entrepreneurs who are going to hold you accountable, call you out on your nonsense, and help show you the way. Because the fact is, is that there's only a tiny number of people in your town who know what you're going through and who have been there. And they're hard to find. And if you can find them, it's hard to have this explicit time, this explicit place where you sit down where the rules are clear that we are here to help each other and to be one another's board of directors. The biggest risk is not failing. You have a company and it's working. You're gonna be fine. But the biggest risk is waking up 10 years from now and saying, shit, I barely grew in business and in life. And for people like you who are ambitious, wasted potential and regret is what we want to help you to avoid. We have made so many of these groups and we have a thousand plus members. And I know this stuff actually works, whether you work with Hampton or you get your own group on your own, but having a group like this, a group of people who you meet with in real life once a month, and it can change your life. It changed mine. And I know it will change yours. So check it out. Join Hampton.com he's only 23 years old
- [01:33]
Daniel Burke
and started his own ad agency that now does millions of dollars. Some months he takes up to $150,000 plus in personal distribution and he spends $3,000 a month on Ubers. He has a six figure cash cushion just because he's terrified of losing his money. And this is his story. It's a super interesting one. I hope you like it. Welcome back to another episode of Money Wise. I'm Daniel Burke and today we have Josh Suggs on the podcast. We're very excited to chat with him and I really wanted to start kind of with the. The story of, of who he is, how he Grew up. Josh, I know you grew up in Connecticut. Westport. Right. I was curious if you could kind of walk us through, you know, what your house looked like, your family, your lifestyle. Tell me about, like, what money meant to you growing up and we'll start there.
- [02:18]
Josh Suggs
Love it. Awesome. From Westport, Connecticut. Daniel, thanks so much for having me on. Obviously, big fan of the show. Really excited to be here. Throw it out there. But yeah, so honestly, I grew up for you. For people listening to this that know Westport, they'll know it's a super affluent town, very wealthy town. Sampar actually lived in Westport for some time before he came back to New York City. And it is a town of very successful parents, 100%. And they raised very successful kids, very driven kids, hard working kids, ambitious kids. And that was the culture that I grew up in. I think I was extremely fortunate to be around that environment. My friends were all significantly wealthier than me. Like, my, my mom made not millions of dollars. Like, I didn't know her exact income, but grew up in A4 affluent. We were definitely upper middle class, 100% compared to being in Westport. I did not feel well off at all. We didn't have a pool.
- [03:12]
Daniel Burke
Okay.
- [03:12]
Josh Suggs
We had two cars. Like, my dad never worked. My dad actually never really had an income my entire childhood. And my dad so this day really never made income. My mom was the breadwinner and my mom would take the subway or not. So the like the metro north to the city every single day to work. She was psychologist for like financial firms. So she was like a consultant and would hire my mom to come in and be like a fractional, like chief people officer. I kind of was like, what her role was. But she only started doing well and making, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars a year when I was in high school. But before that she wasn't doing as well and she was. I had like one off, like coaching calls and stuff like that in like on. On Zoom and in person in Connecticut. And it really didn't feel like we were up in the middle class now to like, to America and to the world 100%. We were. You know, I never worry about going out for dinner on a weekend. We would go on vacations a couple of times a year. Like she would pay the mortgage. Like that stuff was 100%. But I grew up in extreme, extreme wealth all around me with people at pools, people like tennis courts, People had nice cars. Like, we didn't even have like leather seats in our cars. Right. They were like the Cloth seats, everyone else in the town like leather seats in the car. So like I definite not feel wealthy. But looking back, living in New York now, I understand that I grew up wealthy.
- [04:23]
Daniel Burke
How do you think being around that type of wealth so early on affected the way that you think about money and think about building a business and really just think entrepreneurially.
- [04:32]
Josh Suggs
It made me think really big. So my dad did not make any money. My mom worked to the like a dog every single day my entire childhood to keep us in the nicest town and that she possibly could. And I saw how hard she was working to keep, to put us in this town. For me to be surrounded by successful people, by successful men, by successful kids so that you know, you're the, some of the five people you surrounded stuff with so that I'd be surrounded by it and hopefully I'd go up and be successful and drove me like my mom missed so many family dinners, right? My mom was stressed. 20. My mom was stressed about money. Like I cannot even explain. It was the, it was the biggest pressure on her was to keep that house in West Point.
- [05:16]
Daniel Burke
Why do you think that was? If, if, if you were pretty well off, why do you think there was so much stress around money?
- [05:20]
Josh Suggs
Cuz she was, she. It's, it's an expensive town, right, to put two kids through college to do. Like my dad didn't work. Like I'll say this on, on air, I don't care. Like my dad was, my dad was in a pre, extremely obese, in a depression and didn't work and would go out and spend money and he never really made a dollar. Um, my, my dad never made more than $60,000 a year his entire life. His highest earning year was $60,000 a year. That was the most money he's ever made his entire life in one year. We grew up in Westport, Connecticut, a very affluent town. So why was my mom so stressed financially? Because she had to put my dad spending on the credit card. I'm going out, I'm a, I have a twin sister. We have to go through college and she's not making, you know, $1 million a year. She's not even making $500,000 a year. And you're paying taxes and she's trying to save for retirement. So after all those things, right, you're not well off. And like granted, like people listening to this, if you're from Utah, you're like, oh, you're crushing it. I promise you we did not feel like we were crushing it. And it's why I worked so hard is why I dropped out of college to go run around New York City and hustle harder than any of my friends that I know or average 35,000 steps every single day for over a year in New York City sleeping on a couch. So if I grew up affluent and if I grew up well, and if I grew up, like, I felt like I had a silver spoon, I would have stayed in college and partied and had a blast.
- [06:32]
Daniel Burke
So with the. With the way you grew up and the way you're talking about how finances kind of affected your life early on, you were just around wealth and some of how that led even, which we'll get to, you know, dropping out of college. You've been really vocal on X and social around adhd. And so I wanted to ask you, how do you think ADHD played into the school system? Even how you thought about family and friends growing up and like, how did that affect you over time?
- [06:56]
Josh Suggs
I love that question. I think it is 100% of the reason why I was able to be successful. I actually said this to AJ Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee's brother, yesterday. I was at Vayner yesterday morning and we were talking about, you know, how Gary couldn't read, didn't respond to emails. If someone said Gary long email, Gary would respond. Adding an AJ don't read. That was very much me. I was in special ed and all throughout middle school, high school, okay, I was in the lowest math class as an algebra 1B, the lowest math class my school offered. I had a 2.1 GPA. And then my junior and senior year, I didn't go to class so much and couldn't pay attention, never did piece of homework that I wasn't even allowed a free period. So I think I've double special ed. And my twin sister was a. She finished every single advanced class AP class at her high school. By her sophomore year, she got a perfect SAT score on her first time. I got her full ride to the University of Chicago where. Where she became a triple major and graduated second in her class. So that was my twin sister, the most academically brilliant person in our school, second academically brilliant person in our school. And there was me who was in special ed, who couldn't read or write till they're in really in middle school and who couldn't sit down if you paid them. I'm coming on here to be as authentic as humanly possible. Yeah, I had a. I had a really broken family system. So my dad, as I said, was Very depressed, very overweight, never made more, never made any money, never work, and never saw him have any work ethic. My mom, you could say she, if she was a single woman by herself, she was doing well to put the whole family to grow up in Westport, Connecticut, to pay for everything, pay for college, and to save for her retirement. She did not feel like she was doing well at all and was very financially stressed. And I felt that whether she was or wasn't, I felt that.
- [08:37]
Daniel Burke
How did that affect you?
- [08:38]
Josh Suggs
It made me so ambitious. I started my first business at 13 years old.
- [08:42]
Daniel Burke
Tell me about what you did at 13. What was the business?
- [08:45]
Josh Suggs
My very first business, I was a magician. So I would go, you're a magician? Yes, I was a magician. So I would go to. I would do birthday parties. So every town. And this is the same business model that took me to my next business, which was a tennis coach. And this is the exact same business model of how I scaled street talk for first $2 million in revenue. So I'll break this down for you. Every town had what's called a front porch, right? So it was a Westport front porch, Fairfield front porch. It's like a mom's Facebook group. And in our town, there's like thousand d parents in this Facebook group. So I went, I've had one person ask me to do a birthday party for them. And I was doing card tricks. I was a fan. I was fantastic at card trick. You got Sam after this. I did a card trick for him at dinner, and it was. And he loved it. But I haven't done them in years. But anyway, I became obsessed with magic when I was 12. 12 years old. Yeah. Beginning of 12. 12 and 13, seventh, eighth grade.
- [09:37]
Daniel Burke
What about that obsession made you think, this is. This is a business opportunity. I should monetize this.
- [09:42]
Josh Suggs
Someone asked me to give me $40 to come over and dinner at a town in Connecticut.
- [09:47]
Daniel Burke
So you just kind of fell into the.
- [09:48]
Josh Suggs
Yeah.
- [09:50]
Daniel Burke
Of monetizing your skill set.
- [09:52]
Josh Suggs
Yes. And they're like, will be 40 bucks you come do it to take this dinner. And I was like, yeah, I'll go do this for his dinner.
- [09:57]
Daniel Burke
I mean, of course, you're probably doing your own friends birthday parties at 13 years old. It's like, shoot, I'll do. This is like, this is my best friend. I'll just do his birthday party.
- [10:06]
Josh Suggs
Then they posted it on the Westport front porch, and I got booked up and I had dozens of people. We'll give you $300, $4, $500 to come and do it for a dinner for us, my kid's birthday party or like the firemen in our town, they had like a anniversary they saw and they wanted me to come. And before I knew it, two, three days a week I'm going to different houses in different places, doing card tricks, making hundreds of dollars and for a hit in middle school, hundred dollars.
- [10:34]
Daniel Burke
You're a, oh, you're hustling. You're like, that's like the modern day way to like go pick up recycled cans from a baseball field. Go get 10 cents a pot. You know it. It's amazing. That's, that's great.
- [10:45]
Josh Suggs
100%.
- [10:46]
Daniel Burke
Walk me through the transition from 13 years old to you continue to launch businesses and then eventually street talk comes into the game. Tell me, kind of the journey from, from this 13 year old magician to now running a company worth millions of dollars.
- [10:59]
Josh Suggs
It's honestly, it's a very similar model and looking back, like hindsights 2020 and like putting the pieces together, I'll break it down for you. So the business after that was a barbershop and I would go out and take before and after photos of customers coming in before their haircut, after they leave, after their haircut. And I would do their Instagram and I got paid $1,000 a week to do that for one barber shop. And then I did for two barber shops and three barbershops. And I, I did that, my soft.
- [11:24]
Daniel Burke
That idea because that's, that's a very unique idea. I mean, where did that even come from?
- [11:29]
Josh Suggs
I wanted free haircuts and I asked if I could do their social media for haircuts and I was like, what kind of content wasn't even a thing then, right? Video content, Instagram wasn't even a thing. Sure, what can I be posting? And I came up with the idea and they wanted it. They gave me a thousand bucks a week as a 15 year old.
- [11:41]
Daniel Burke
That's great.
- [11:42]
Josh Suggs
So that's where I started, like really, really loving it. Fast forward 18 years old, our friend Oliver Bricado, I don't know if you know Tabs Chocolate, he asked me to move to Miami with him, be his head of content for a brand called Tabs Chocolate. Tabs ended up becoming one of those viral brands in E commerce and on the Internet and he scaled it to UGC content before UGC was really even a thing. That was a full lock of. I knew him from when I was doing Photoshop at that barbershop. He was a town over for me and we got introduced to A mutual friend. He was the only other, like, hustler, entrepreneur that I kn. And we just stayed friends. Like, we didn't. We didn't, like, hang out, go out for dinners and stuff like that, but we just, like, would call each other every few months and kind of catch up. And he just randomly called me after my freshman year of college to move to Miami with him. Then at the same time, my parents were going through a really nasty divorce. My mom never divorced my dad while I was in middle school or high school. That's, you know, we don't have to get into family therapy, but my dad would live in the house. But they, you know, their relationship was, Was. Was never really good. Like, I don't. I don't remember the last time I ever had a family dinner. I was probably, I don't know, before middle school, honestly, is the last time our whole family had a family dinner together. So it was a really broken family system. And having. Going back to your last question, having add, I was really social, I was really outgoing. I had more family dinners and spent more time growing up at my friend's houses than in my own house. Jake, who actually shares his office with me, I actually lived with him in high school because I was just closer with his family than I was actually my own family. So having ADD and being really outgoing and being really social and vulnerable, I was really good at building relationships and really building connections with people. And I've had more family dinners, family trips, honestly, with my close friend, growing up in Westport families than my own family. So it really taught me how to be outgoing, be social, ADD value, and how to keep relationships.
- [13:24]
Daniel Burke
I wrote something recently about how being surrounded by other successful people but also being willing to introduce yourself to strangers is basically the delineation between someone who's not successful and someone who will 10x success. If you can just shake someone's hand and be someone's friend and be nice over long periods of time, success will eventually come to you. And it sounds like your story very much resonates with that.
- [13:46]
Josh Suggs
A hundred percent. That was the name of the game. And I learned. I mean, I had friends dads teach me how to shave. I had friends dads teach me how to shake someone's hand. I had friends, dads I used to walk because I was surrounded by such successful people. And I like, for back. For lack of better terms, like, I didn't really idolize my dad, right? My dad wasn't someone that I looked up to, wanted to be. I didn't want him to be a role model. But I was in such an affluent and wealthy town. I was friends with kids that their dads were people that I really looked up to and respected. They're good husbands or good fathers or successful. They're in shape, they're happy, they're excited about life.
- [14:15]
Hampton Founder
Real quick pause. Because this is important. If you're running a company, you already understand leverage. You apply it everywhere in your business. Most founders, they treat health like it's a rounding air, inconsistent training, reactive eating, good weeks, bad weeks, start, stop, repeat. That was me. I didn't need motivation because I had plenty of that. What I needed was structure. I needed systems, better energy, lower body fat, more muscle, something that actually stuck and not some 12 week sprint that I would abandon when things got busy. And so I hired a coach and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Training built around my schedule. Nutrition that survives travel, clear targets, clear metrics, daily accountability, no guesswork. And so today's sponsor is brought to you by Daily Body Coach. They are premium online coaching for entrepreneurs and executives who want their body keeping up with their business. It's run by an exited software founder who's already a Hampton member. And yes, a bunch of Hampton members already use it. Everything's personalized. They're coaches, they're available seven days a week. And the habits they help you build survive board meetings, late nights and back to back travel weeks. This isn't about looking good on the beach. It's about being strong and sharp in your 40s, 50s, and 60s. So if you're serious about it, go to dailybodycoach.com Hampton dailybodycoach.com Hampton I tried
- [15:29]
Josh Suggs
to emulate everything about them. How they walked in a room, how they talked, how they articulated their words, what they're thinking about. And I became obsessed with trying to become that person that I saw. And that's all the credit to my mom, who worked so hard to keep us in Westport when she could have probably taken her foot the gas, like, let's go a couple times over, way cheaper. I'm gonna be less stressed out and. But no, she kept us in Westport. That successful nature. And those dads, when I got on the COVID of the Wall Street Journal, those friends, dads text me at 5:38am and they were my first text. They're still my friends to this day. But being around success and being around those dads, having that North Star to look up to is 100% the reason why I was able to believe that I could be that's great.
- [16:08]
Daniel Burke
Actually, a good segue. You mentioned the Wall Street Journal. That Wall Street Journal reported about $218,000 a month of revenue at the time. Which, back of napkin math, comes out to 2.5, $2.6 million a year. But what I'm curious about is with street talk and you can tell us a little bit more about what the business does, but what do you actually take home out of that revenue? Like what. What amount of money actually hits your personal bank account every month?
- [16:32]
Josh Suggs
I can tell you I took a distribution last week of 160 weekly.
- [16:37]
Daniel Burke
160, 000. Is that going to be every week or is that a specific special?
- [16:40]
Josh Suggs
It's not. It's not every week. I don't really take distributions that often. I can take them whenever I want. I'll say. I'm not gonna say how much I'm taking out monthly. Right now I'm not taking stuff out every month. Last year I was taking home three months after because. So the business was extremely profitable since the day I started it because there was no overhead, right? There was no. There's no inventory to buy, there's no people to pay. I was the business, right? So month one, I did 34,000, I took home 28,000. Month two, I did 48,000 and I took home 41,000. Month three, 65,000, I took home 50, 58 and a half thousand. So I netted, right, about $150,000 my first three months in business as a 21 year old, 150,000 cash net into my bank account that year I ended up with $350,000 net. After starting the business in the middle of June of 2024. So 21 years old, right. Netting cash like out of this $350,000. Most people, right, that's about $700,000, I guess run rate because it's only six months. That was 2024 as a 21 year old. And you know, most 21 year olds, if you're giving them 50, 60, $70,000 a month, they'd be going out and leasing Lambos. I was still sleeping on a couch at that point.
- [17:55]
Daniel Burke
And why was that? I mean, where was the money going? Were you throwing it into investments or were you saving it?
- [17:59]
Josh Suggs
I was terrified of losing.
- [18:00]
Daniel Burke
What were you spending the money on?
- [18:02]
Josh Suggs
I was terrified of losing. I was terrified of losing.
- [18:04]
Daniel Burke
You were terrified. So then did you just keep it in. In cash? In cash, savings accounts or. Yeah, no investment.
- [18:11]
Josh Suggs
Yeah, I still keep a lot of my money in cash. I Have multiple six figures of cash in my checking account right now.
- [18:17]
Daniel Burke
And that's just because of fear of losing it.
- [18:19]
Josh Suggs
It's under the fear of you losing it. I dollar cost average into the market. So I'll put about 20,000amonth into the S and P Spy. I probably should be doing more, but I haven't been. And then I started, I started buying bitcoin actually When I was 14 years old, my freshman year of high school. So I've got about $49,000 in Bitcoin right now. Unfortunately it should be a lot more, but I only started. Yeah, yeah. Which I. It should be a lot more.
- [18:44]
Daniel Burke
Were you buying pizza with it? When you first, when you first invested, you're buying, you know, domino's and stuff.
- [18:49]
Josh Suggs
I only had hundreds of dollars. I didn't have tens of thousands of dollars. And I boug time. I bought like in 2017, it got up to like 20,000 a coin. Like that's when I bought and then went back down to 11. I bought every time I bought. Bitcoin's been the worst time. But I've always very much been into investing. But when I didn't have money, I was like, oh, you need to invest. And you invest like my, my thousand dollars that I was making every week doing the barbershop. Like I was investing like 700 of those. I was investing then. And over the last year and a half, right. I've made, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands, almost about a million dollars over the last year. And I haven't been investing that money. And it really just sitting all there and I definitely need to be investing it, but I just haven't thought about it, honestly.
- [19:30]
Daniel Burke
So mostly index funds then is what it sounds like.
- [19:32]
Josh Suggs
I mean you're talking S&PQQ and spy. That's it.
- [19:35]
Daniel Burke
Okay, Spy. So you're not sleeping on a couch anymore? I assume so. What does the monthly spend look like from your distributions? Are you renting a apartment? Do you, do you sleep on a couch? I mean, maybe you don't. I mean, I assume you don't, but I mean, what does that monthly spend look like? Where does the actual cash go that you distribute other than the investments?
- [19:52]
Josh Suggs
Currently right now, my rent, I have one roommate and the rent's total is $7,950. We have a two bedroom, two bath and financial district Manhattan. So my rent's half of that spend about nine to eleven thousand dollars a month on my amex and that's. I spend three thousand dollars a month on Uber. I Spend.
- [20:13]
Daniel Burke
Really?
- [20:14]
Josh Suggs
Yeah. I spent three hours.
- [20:16]
Daniel Burke
Pause there for a second. Why are you spending 3k on Uber? I mean, where are you going?
- [20:21]
Josh Suggs
So I Uber.
- [20:21]
Daniel Burke
Are you taking the helicopters?
- [20:23]
Josh Suggs
I mean, I'm not taking the helicopter.
- [20:25]
Daniel Burke
No.
- [20:25]
Josh Suggs
I spent $2800 last month on Uber. Where am I going? I mean, my favorite thing about making money is I have a couple of things about making money. One, I love going out to dinner and ordering anything I want.
- [20:35]
Daniel Burke
Sure.
- [20:36]
Josh Suggs
That's. I love doing that. And I love not taking the subway. I love ubering. I love wherever I am. Yeah. Calling a car picks me up. I live in Fideye, my office on Madison Avenue in New York City. That's about a 25 minute drive. Uber back and forth every single day. You can do the math there. It's about 30 uber each way. It's $60. And then I go out on weekends, I Uber. It will be significant. It would be significantly less. I'd probably save 1500amonth. I didn't live in Fidai and work on Madison and work in Nomad. I Uber back and forth every day. And also it's a full. I write off my business, so I don't pay for it personally.
- [21:10]
Daniel Burke
Yeah. But, yeah, I took, I took an Uber from Lower east side to laguardia instead of the very easy and very quick subway. And so what is it? $120 during rush hour. So it takes like five times as long and it's expensive, but I just, I just don't want to take the subway. So that's. Yeah, that's a good reason. Yeah, that's a great reason.
- [21:27]
Josh Suggs
And then I spend a thousand to two thousand a month on shopping, buying stuff. I. I went to Todd Schneider yesterday. I got a jacket. Yeah. I probably spend close to 15,000amonth total with rent.
- [21:37]
Daniel Burke
Cool. Okay. And when you think of money in terms of how much you can spend, how much you do spend in money wise, we call the threshold number. I'm curious, like, at what point do you think you will have made enough money where you're like, I'm good. I'm set. I don't need to make anymore. And also, just for the listeners, you're 23 years old, right? I mean, that's the.
- [21:57]
Josh Suggs
If you're 21 years old.
- [21:58]
Daniel Burke
20, 24. Okay.
- [22:00]
Josh Suggs
Yeah, 23 years old. About. Yeah.
- [22:02]
Daniel Burke
What is the, the number that you're. You're, you're trying to get to before you're like, all right, I have made it. I can retire. I can, you know, just sit back and Relax or whatever that looks like. Once you've hit that number, what is that number for you?
- [22:14]
Josh Suggs
So, two things. I love that question. I think the answer when I ask, like people that are really rich, right? Like people that have 50 million, 100 million in my head, they always say, you need 10 million liquid in the SPY before you can pick your head up. Like, don't stop digging, don't stop digging. Don't you have 10 million post taxes, post everything in either a Treasury account or SPY or $10 million liquid sitting there. Don't breathe until you get that. That's what everyone says. I think I'm going to have hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm 23 years old, you know, I'll make like our business, you know, does millions of dollars a year. I have a lot of money saved. And if I don't be an idiot, you know, I'll have over $10 million by the time I'm 30. Right. That's $20 million by the time I'm 37. $40 million at 45, $80 million at 5. 55. Right. That's if I just don't work.
- [23:02]
Daniel Burke
That's if you don't do anything.
- [23:03]
Josh Suggs
Yeah, I mean, that's if I don't
- [23:04]
Daniel Burke
do anything, you can basically stop doing everything now and that'll be the case.
- [23:07]
Josh Suggs
Right?
- [23:08]
Daniel Burke
What do you. You said hundreds of millions. How'd you come to that number? And I mean, are you talking 100 million, you're talking 900 million? I mean, those are two very different numbers. And what does that break down to? I mean, in a perfect world, is that liquid or is it, you know, put, put up in assets and other things?
- [23:24]
Josh Suggs
I think it's between liquid and cash flow. So, like, you can live. Like right now I have a ton of cash flow and I'm very liquid. And every month I'm making tons of cash so I can live right. This better than someone that has $5 million saved already or $8 million saved that has no cash flow, right. If you have 5 million or $7 million, but you're not, you know, you have no income and it's just sitting there. And the market corrects 20%, the market pullbacks, you're going to start freaking out. So it's less. So about how much actually you have, like, say, invested. It's how much cash was coming in. Every single month. I think about wealth in a couple ways. I have always been driven financially. I've always wanted to be wealthy as humanly possible. I was, you know, as I said, in special ed? No, like 2.2 GPA, college dropout. And I've always felt like, really felt like I wanted to prove everyone wrong in that sense. I look at money as more of like a scoreboard of like this is what someone can do that couldn't read until they're 12 or this is someone, this is what someone can do that was in the lowest possible math class that the school offered. I always felt like I was a goldfish trying to climb a tree. And the money is really just a scoreboard at the end of day. Success means to me being a phenomenal husband and a phenomenal father. I want to have so many kids. I want to instill an incredible work ethic and have them dream bigger than they can even think possible at the time. And I want to have. Be surrounded by people that love me and that I love. And I want to do something every single day that stimulates my brain, whether that's a business, whatever that is, that is when I look at the pillars of life and success, that is what brings happiness, success. It's not money. I make more money than most people in your life will ever make. Especially more than almost any 23 year old, right. Like how many 23 year olds are making millions of dollars? Not too many of income. Every single, you know, with pure cash, right. So there's people that maybe have it on paper. I'm making cash flow every single month. Money to me. I don't think about it. I don't think about going out to a dinner, spending $500. I don't think about taking a girl on a date, ordering anything I want at Bond Street. I don't. Ordering her an Uber Black. I don't think about that at all. So past that point of, of not being able to go out in New York and do anything you want, buy really anything you want, not think about rent. It kind of becomes irrelevant and it's more so like, are you happy? And I think for me, and I'm. I feel more blessed to say this than I am about how much money I could spend a month is that I could not be happier because I'm surrounded by such great friends called the media mafia that they stimulate me and they make me excited about life and they make me, they make me happy. I remember being in college and all my friends are talking about bong hits in the sports game and I was unhappy then. I was unhappy because I was surrounded by people that weren't stimulating me. And I have a business that I love doing that I've built from zero from an idea in my head to making millions of dollars doing that in less than two years. So it stimulates the absolute hell out of me. And I'm excited for life. I could not be happier and more excited for the future. So all those things are what in my head makes success and what makes me happy. The money is fantastic. Once you can go out to dinner and Uber both ways back into the office and take a girl on a $500 date at 23, there's not too much else to do. I don't need.
- [26:23]
Daniel Burke
What else is there?
- [26:24]
Josh Suggs
Yeah, yeah. Like what? Like what else do you want? Like what else you want?
- [26:28]
Daniel Burke
Yeah, that's right. That's right. No, it's, I mean that's a great framework to, to live by. I'm curious. You mentioned how happy you are, which is great. And I respect and I'm really, I'm really glad that that's the case. Does money make you happy? And has money helped lead to a life of happiness? Or do you think they're two separate things?
- [26:47]
Josh Suggs
Two separate things, but absolutely making money has made me happy 100% is giving me a confidence, a self esteem and a pride in myself that I can put my mind to something and I can succeed and get validation from the outside world by coming up with an idea in my head. And now having 90 people in our payroll and making millions of dollars, that makes me happy as fucking shit, 100%. And anyone that tells you that making money didn't make them happy is they need to get a different frame shift. Because absolutely I am happier that I can go to any restaurant I want in New York City than I was two years ago sleeping on my friend's couch 100%. Now is it everything? No. I've got my heart broken, right? And I still made. I, I closed the deal. I'll say this right now. I closed a deal today. I paid all front $114,000 cash. Today, today, about an hour before this call, I just got114,000 wire that made me happy as absolute hell. I just ran around the office pumping my, my fist in the air. Now at the same time like before, I had these friends, right? The media mafia is a pretty new friend group that we kind of all became close to like September, October of last year when I was running two or three or I was running Street Talk in the early days I was really by myself. I was loyal. I had one or two friends in New York and I was still making 30, 40,000amonth as a 22 year old kid, right? You're still do, right? My rent back then was 2200amonth. So you can do the math where I'm still having plenty of disposable income every month to go do whatever I want. And I remember I was never sadder as ever miserable because about four or five months after dropping out of college, I missed all my best friends. I'm on Instagram and Snapchat every day. I'm watching them party, had a time of their life in college. And I'm walking 30,000 step, 3,000 steps a day around New York City uploading all my foot my content at an Apple store by myself, sleeping on a friend's couch. I didn't know that well and I was so lonely and I wasn't surrounded by great people, I wasn't surrounded by good friends. I was 21 years old going out to a bar, no girl would even talk to me because like as a 20 year old die like I'm going out to like bars and I'm competing against 27, 28, 29 year olds. I never had a problem talking to girls and going on dates. In college I was, I was in a great frat. I was a rush chair of the frat. You know, I was, I had the best social life and I almost didn't drop out of college. I loved college so much. Right. Most kids when they go to drop out of college.
- [28:58]
Daniel Burke
Why did you drop out? Actually I was going to ask that. I mean, tell me more about what with all that considered, why did you drop out of college?
- [29:04]
Josh Suggs
I loved college. I was in a frat, I had a great friend group, I had the time of my life. But I had lightning in a bottle. That summer, going to my senior year, started this company, made $150,000 running every single day around New York City with a broken microphone. Interviewed hundreds of people about hundreds of brands. I signed 86 brands that summer. My first three months in business I had lightning in a bottle.
- [29:24]
Daniel Burke
So why stay in college? Is that the.
- [29:26]
Josh Suggs
I mean I didn't stack my classes Monday and Tuesday I took my classes during my first semester my senior year, Tuesday night I flew to New York, slept on my friend's couch Tuesday to Sunday, Tuesday to Sunday, street interviewed every single day around New York City. Sunday night, flew back to college classes Monday, Tuesday fly New York Tuesday night. I did that every day or every week for the first two months of my senior year. After two months, every day I'm in class, new brands, dming me, paying me three grand, four grand, five grand for batch of videos. I'm like, why the absolute hell am I here? Why am I here? Yeah, what's the point? And I'm about to graduate. That degree meant nothing. I'm not gonna go get a corporate job. I just made $150,000. I could get a head start. I also have lightning in a bottle and also have momentum, Right? So the biggest thing about success is that you need to compound momentum the same way your money is compounding the stock market. Momentum, energy compounds. So the worst thing that I could have done at that time was stop the momentum. The best thing I could have done was put the foot on the gas and throw the fuel on it. So if I wanted to go be successful, you got to burn the boats. And I was like, and then I'm going to use this degree. No. So why am I getting it? So I decided to drop out, move to New York, move to my friend's couch, and build the world's biggest stream beyond agency, which we are.
- [30:36]
Daniel Burke
That's awesome. Do you think? So you've dealt with some adversity. You mentioned the divorce from parents, kind of in a strange relationship with the, you know, not all eating together for many years, adhd, special ed classes, dropping out of college. Like, do you think the chip on your shoulder you have from some of what you dealt with early on would still be there if, like you were born in Ohio or something without some of that adversity, like just, you know, a random guy, you know, in a regular neighborhood, not surrounded by success and wealth. Does that hypothetical Josh have the same chip on his shoulder and the same ambition?
- [31:13]
Josh Suggs
Not at all. I was surrounded by all this money. My mom was stressed so much about money. I felt less than I was embarrassed to walk anywhere with my dad growing. I didn't want my dad to come to like a school. I was just so, like, my dad was morally obese. My dad was super, super, super overweight. I was. And all the other dads in the town are jacked. They're in shape, they're running the hedge fund, they're getting to their horse. And I felt less than. I had a massive chip on my shoulder. All my other friends are getting A's in their classes. I'm in special ed, being taught how to, how to read. In middle school, I was embarrassed to the highest possible degree. So that's why I was okay with being embarrassed as a kid, was living in embarrassment because I develop a sense of confidence and a very high self esteem because I was very good at building relationships and making friends. The price of success is being able to look like an idiot. And I don't know any other founder that looked more like an idiot than me. Wearing a full branded mascot costume, running up and down Soho, sleeping on a couch, dropping out of college during his senior year, begging brands for a couple thousand dollars. I mean, nobody laughed at me more than all of my friends. And I didn't. I couldn't have looked like more of an idiot. But if you can sink in that and you can live in embarrassment, you can be okay with other people thinking and talking about you. You can be successful. That is the other, the biggest price of success. And that is just a matter of time. Finding arbitrage, finding alpha and iterating, entering, getting better every day.
- [32:30]
Daniel Burke
That's great. Back to your street talk company. You never raised right. It's completely bootstrapped. Tell me why you chose not to raise. Yeah, so why not? Why? I'm sure you've had investors approach you as everyone who built a successful company does on LinkedIn every five seconds. Why do you turn those down? Why are you choosing to stay bootstrapped?
- [32:48]
Josh Suggs
Fuck that. It's my company. Why would I want to give anyone any sense? I don't a. I get paid up front from every single client. So I never had to worry ever about inventory management or cash flow issues. I was cash flow positive my first day doing this. I get paid up front still to this day from every single one of our clients. So there's absolutely no reason to raise because I've been profitable every single month I've been running this business. And then it's just been a game of finding the best possible people to join me and giving up vested interests for the most talented people that could bring in either tons of clients or ton of experience. But at the end of the day, we have an office on Madison Avenue, we do millions and millions of dollars and we have some of the base clients in the world and base brands in the world and it's been bootstrapped every single day from a 21 year old kid pound payment by himself walking in Washington Square Park.
- [33:31]
Daniel Burke
Yeah, I mean that's, that's a great response I think when you don't have to raise money. And to your point, why would you kind of bringing this all together with the age 23 years old, I mean, obviously successful, particularly for how young you are, you're making, you know, anywhere between $150,000 plus every month of actual distribution. You're in Hampton with some stellar founders and Some of them have sold companies for 50 million, 100 million and more. When you sit in a room with people of that caliber, even back in Westport, you know, just the 100 millionaires and billionaires, do you still feel some version of imposter syndrome, or do you feel like you belong?
- [34:09]
Josh Suggs
It's a great question. I feel like I belonged. When I was 10, I really did. I was, I really believed in myself. I always, like, I have videos that I used to look at. I used to say to myself, when I was in middle school, when I was in high school, I used to make videos for every birthday. Then for my birthday, I make videos myself. I used to say myself, you're gonna be more successful than anyone you've ever met. You're gonna be more successful. I used to say it to myself in the mirror every day, starting since I, I don't even remember time. I didn't do this. I still do this to this day, every day. And I go for walks. I say to myself, you're gonna be more successful than ever you've anyone you've ever met. What if it works out better than you can imagine? I've always been delusional, optimist. I've always believed Josh Suggs will be. I've always believed I can do anything I set my mind to. And I've always had delusional self esteem, delusional confidence. Even when I was failing out of school in special ed and everyone around me thought I was an idiot. Even when I was dropping out of college, running around soho, the microphone and their street interview business wasn't nobody, there's this business didn't exist. I made it up. I prioritized myself. This business didn't exist, but I always had this delusional belief that I could do anything.
- [35:09]
Daniel Burke
Yeah, and I think that's probably why you are in the lifestyle life stage that you're in. So let's fast forward 10 years from now. You've built street talk. Who knows what happens between now and then? What does your life look like? How much money do you have 10 years from now? Do you have a family? Have you had kids? I mean, you mentioned wanting a lot of kids. Where is all this building to do, you know? I mean, at 23, I, I certainly didn't really know what I was doing. At 23, I got married. At 24, I had no idea. I mean, where, where is life in 10 years?
- [35:34]
Josh Suggs
I, to look at everything holistically, right? I look at life as pillars, okay, Pillars. And in my opinion, it's very crucial for every young person to pick the right North Star. So like what are you working towards? Because every day you're doing, you're taking actions, either a lack of actions or actions towards your North Star. So what can you be doing every day so that your actions compound and you're building leverage towards the life that you imagined and make sure that life that you imagine is a life that you actually will make you happy. So in my opinion what will make you happy is incredible relationships that are deep rooted, that you've, you know, you've been friends for a long time, that you guys really trust each other. Big family, big, big family. Financial freedom, a lack of financial stress and getting to do activities, whether that's business or hobbies that stimulate you and make you excited. So those are the pillars that I think of when I think of what I like to do every day. So what does that look like in 10 years? My parents had a horrible marriage and went through a really bad divorce and I lived with my friend in high school. I hope to like like what I I pray for more than financial success is an amazing wife that trusts me, loves me, supports me that I feel the exact same way with because at the end of the day that partner will make or break you. And I know people and I have friends are blessed to have grown up in a nice town where I looked at other people that had great marriages and they were never happier. I saw my parents and other people that had horrible marriages and they're never more miserable. To number one, an amazing life partner who we can be amazing parents to and raise the next generation to be as also as confident, also have a high of a self esteem and believe that they can go conquer the world. That's number one. Number two is I want to keep being an entrepreneur. I love starting businesses. I'm starting my own mini walking podcast series called Street Talk right now and I feel like the fire starting business again from zero. I always want to be an entrepreneur. I always want to be. Finding arbitrage is coming up with ideas, putting teams together, working with people, selling something that's never going to stop. No matter if I'm making a hundred thousand dollars a month or $10 million a month, I'm always going to be pushing and trying to be the best version of myself. And that has nothing to do with money. That has everything to do with wanting to strive to be the as I want to take Josh Suggs the highest possible levels.
- [37:41]
Daniel Burke
Yeah, that's great.
- [37:42]
Josh Suggs
And then number three, I have these amazing friends I get to share an office with. And I want to see them grow. I want to see them go be as successful as possible. I want to help them in every single way. And at the end of the day, if you can grow as a team and you have that life partner and you're running a business, I mean, that's what really matters. It's what you do every day and who you're doing it with. If you get those right, you're gonna have a successful life.
- [38:03]
Daniel Burke
Yeah. What I hear you saying throughout this episode is less about, I want to make as much money as possible and more about, I want my. My village to be successful with me.
- [38:12]
Josh Suggs
Yes.
- [38:13]
Daniel Burke
And money obviously helps you do that, as we've just heard for the last 45 minutes. But it's not about making more money. It's money, of course, helps to be happy, but for you, it's more about, let me. Let me take care of my village. My village has taken care of me and has helped me get here, and so now I really want to give back to them. Would you say that that's accurate?
- [38:32]
Josh Suggs
100,000%? Because at the end of the day, the amount of rich people that I know that are lonely, there's nothing worse. And I'd rather have less money and have a tribe and a village that loves and supports me, that I love and support and have a community than have a billion dollars and have no friends.
- [38:47]
Daniel Burke
That's awesome. That's deep. I appreciate you, Josh. This has been a great episode. I think it's a great place to wrap up. But thank you so much for joining us on.
- [38:54]
Josh Suggs
So much. Yeah, this is awesome.