← The Code To Winning
The Code To Winning
BUILT, SCALED, SOLD: TURNED GRIT INTO A MID-EIGHT-FIGURE EXIT || LUKE PETERS || EPISODE 073
00:45:21
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- [00:00]
A
Wasn't a great student, you know, barely made it through high school. Got excited in college, graduated and I was a hazardous waste scientist. Okay. After college, so it was a government job, you know, fancy title. A long drive from Huntington, driving out to Glendale.
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B
Okay.
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A
And I did, you know, I thought, you know, I followed the rules, went to college, did all that stuff.
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B
You've made over $600 million in sale. That was with New Air. What have you learned about the business to reach that level?
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A
So many things. I made a lot of mistakes. I didn't have like a business school education. I worked a lot as a kid. You know, I had to paper route and all those things. So we always had jobs. So mainly it was okay. So like the main things I would say is you have to be creative and open minded. I think most entrepreneurs obviously when they're successful, it's because they're creative.
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B
How do you get the right people to see the same vision that you have?
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A
Okay, well, I mean that's building a culture.
- [00:45]
B
The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today I actually have a very, very good interview and also great guest that's going to be talking a bit more about his channel journey, his entrepreneurial journey. So I'm going to give you a brief introduction. He started his business from a garage, so it was a garage startup founder and end up like selling his company about eight figure exit as well. Over $600 million in sales. And so if you are in the field where you want an exit as well, we're going to be talking about a gentleman who started New Air, selling it off and currently is teaching a bunch of CEOs how to get that 8 figure 8 mid exit as well. So without further ado, the man himself has joined us in the studio. We have Luke Peters. How you doing today, sir?
- [01:34]
A
Oh, that was awesome. Thanks kg.
- [01:35]
B
Awesome. No, no, I appreciate that. Yeah, we love, love, love getting guests talking just about their journey. I want to just talk a bit more as well. Just like where everything started for you. I know you started your company in a garage and stuff like that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Can you just talk a bit more about that?
- [01:51]
A
Yeah. Well, so just to paint the picture, I grew up in a big family, okay. 12. Okay. So we had anything we wanted, we had to go fight and get it. And went through. Wasn't a great student, you know, barely made it through high school. Got excited in college, graduated and I was a hazardous waste scientist.
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B
Okay.
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A
After college, so it was a government job, you know, fancy title. A long drive from Huntington, driving out to Glendale.
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B
Okay.
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A
And I did, you know, I thought, you know, I followed the rules, went to college, did all that stuff. My little brother never went to school and was selling stuff online, making a ton of money, driving a sports car and I'm driving a beat up Toyota truck, you know, across the 5 freeway out through LA to work. And he was making a lot of money and I wasn't. And I thought, wow, something's wrong with this picture. I mean, he never even went to school and he was selling stuff online. This is right around 22,000, right? About 2,000. Okay. And so I started looking into it and just, you know, one thing led to the next and I understood SEO and like, oh, wow, there's this. You know, obviously people buy electronics, but they may also want to buy H vac stuff and fans and thermostats and all these other products that are not so interesting, you know, but people still, for the ease of it, want to buy it online. And that's where it started.
- [03:06]
B
Really Awesome. I love that. And you were born and raised obviously in California, right? Yeah, love the state, Love it very much. I lived in the Bay for about like five years, San Francisco side. But no, that's amazing. And so one of the hardest things as well as starting a business, obviously with no investors, no funding, and the hardest thing as well is also no safety. Did you have a family at that point in time?
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A
Yeah, married, two kids. So I kept working. Okay. But burned the midnight oil, so to say. Right. So we're, you know, working late at night. My wife at that time, I think she had just left her job with a second child. And then. So she would answer calls during the day as they came in. I built the website at night. She ships stuff during the day. So we just kind of, you know, put a, put her teamwork together. And then after about six months, we were cash flowing so good that I could leave my job.
- [03:56]
B
Okay. Yeah, but that's, that's a big risk. And that was in the, in the 2000s, obviously when this started, right?
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A
Yes.
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B
Okay. And that was the, the dot com bubble, wasn't it called.
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A
It was right after the bubble.
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B
Okay.
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A
So it's actually a good time when you think about it. Right. It's like the bubble happened and that may have been even a better time if you think about it. But then there was a. Then there was a bust. Okay. So that vacuum allowed for opportunity in new startups.
- [04:22]
B
I love that. I think one of the. This one's not, not yet uploaded, matter of fact. It was just over the cell phone interview. When I did an internship in New York when I was still in college, I did it with both Bloomberg and I managed to meet Michael Bloomberg. And I spent about like 3:30 minutes with him. And one of the questions I asked him was obviously starting like the Bloomberg organization and stuff like that. But what shocked me spoke about what you spoke about. He often said in his situation, it's more luck than anything he said he was, he seized an opportunity at the right time and he was at the right place at the right time. And I think sometimes when we speak about this thing. Would you say your story was very similar in terms of starting this thing? Was it opportunistic or how would you like, define that moment for you?
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A
It was opportunist. But there's always opportunities is the way I look at it. Like now there's opportunities. Five years ago there was opportunities. There'll be opportunities in five years. But sometimes the opportunity matches your skillset for some people. Or you just have an open mind and be creative and you're gonna find opportunities everywhere.
- [05:28]
B
And so you've made over $600 million in sale. That was with New Air? Yep. Right. What have you learned about the business to reach that level? Like, what made you reach that level?
- [05:38]
A
Oh, geez. I mean, so many things. So we made. I made a lot of mistakes. I didn't have like a business school education. I. I worked a lot as a kid. You know, I had the paper route and all those things. So we always had jobs. So mainly it was okay. So like the main things I would say is you have to be creative and open minded. I think most entrepreneurs, obviously when they're successful, it's because they're creative. Okay. And then most people that don't get there, it's because they're not. I think creativity is like the most important. Okay. Because you're constantly having to solve problems. So you may have a great idea, but then that you have to iterate or after five or 10 years, that idea is not so good anymore. And then you got to go somewhere, another direction, right? So you got to be. You have to have that flexibility and thinking. And then the other thing I learned is hire the best people who have already done what you want to do. Okay. That took me a while to figure that one out because those people cost a lot of money. So. So but yeah, when you hire people who are experienced and they've already been there, you're going to learn from them. So you want to hire people that you know Smarter than you, elevate you. And, and, and if you look around all the big companies, you know, we're here in la, huge companies, they're all actually like, their number one thing is find the best talent. Just like a sport. You know, the Lakers across the street. So it's the same attitude. A lot of small businesses don't have that attitude because they want to save a few dollars.
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B
What would you say then was your. The greatest competitive advantage that your product had that others didn't have?
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A
Okay, yeah, well, what we did is, okay, so we're selling a product that is basically, it's. Many of them were refrigerators, ice makers, wine coolers. Really fun categories like that that, you know, like especially wine cigar humidors, you could top. You know, these things are products that people might. Hobbyists might be using or they want to talk about it. Early on we sold like portable air conditioners and thermostats. Not so interesting to talk about.
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B
Right.
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A
So it's good to get into a category that people want to talk about. Okay. Because then you can leverage it because what you want is you want other people talking about you or your product. If you're the one, talk like back in the early days, everybody wrote blogs and it was the brand saying, look at me, hear me, listen to me. But what you really want is you want other people saying, hey, hey, look at newair. Check out New Air. Look what they're doing. Look at this product, which everybody knows now with social media influencing, but they still don't utilize it as much. So we did, to answer your question, a competitive advantage. We were the only, you know, specialty appliance company using influencers. And we started this strategy, you know, eight, nine years ago. So, so that was good because you get. And then you learn from them and improve your product too, because you might have a builder, okay, you, you might have a designer. They're talking about your product and they're putting it in there. And then they give you feedback. So you get feedback, but you also get somebody else talking about your product. Not just Amazon. Reviews are great, product reviews are great, Blogs are great. But have somebody videoing talking about it. Lifestyle, that's what you want.
- [08:35]
B
Interesting. No, that's pretty awesome. And how much do you sell your company for?
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A
Right around 50.
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B
50 million.
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A
Yeah, that.
- [08:43]
B
Wow. The reason I'm asking this, I look at multiple different companies, especially like from the period of 2007 to about, like 2012. And I look at stuff like MySpace, I look at Blockbuster, I look at many companies that may even Nokia BlackBerry that may have had perfect exit opportunities and because of just latest innovation that fell short of that. You know, I know MySpace had an offer to get. To get bought out way before Facebook, as it was like a big thing. Then would you say you had the perfect exit or do you think you probably could have gotten more hedge? Just waited a long.
- [09:24]
A
No, I was. I was very fortunate. I was very fortunate.
- [09:28]
B
I love the honesty. What makes you say that?
- [09:31]
A
I mean, just with the ebb and flow of COVID and where the, you know, the economy in different areas and the demand in certain areas of consumer products has gone, I was. It worked out at a very good time for me.
- [09:42]
B
Yep, that's. And when did you sell it?
- [09:45]
A
That was in 2021.
- [09:46]
B
Okay, so just after Covid.
- [09:48]
A
Yeah, Literally just kind of almost in the middle of it. Right. But it was, yeah, Covid, I think was 2020. Right. So maybe 2019, 2020. And then we exited middle of 2021. So. Yeah, it's been, you know, five years, four years.
- [10:03]
B
Yeah, time's flying times. Really. Fine. What are the most important key indicators to try and upscale your business for those companies that are currently small business phase, where they're currently like plateauing?
- [10:16]
A
Yeah. Okay, so what happens? Okay, so I work with a lot of companies and what happens is the entrepreneur is usually the engine of the company. And then after. And they'll grow in scale, but then that entrepreneur kind of gets bogged down with a lot of other things. Okay. Running the business, systems, operations, finance. Sometimes finance is a total disaster. So I think a business needs, first of all, the. There has to be a focus on the product. And that product needs to have a competitive advantage on its offer. So whether it's a physical product, a service, whatever it is, you have to have a competitive advantage. Something that is so good, there's. You remove all friction and the buyer would. Will want yours versus the competition. So usually the entrepreneur has it at the beginning, and then some competitors come in and they get busy and they, you know, so their business tricks up, but then it kind of flattens out and they lose that edge. I'll say. So you gotta. You gotta keep your competitive advantage on your product. And then you have to express that, communicate that. And that's marketing and branding. Okay. And that's usually if companies just do those two things, right, they'll be successful, but the third pillar is gonna be on the sales side. Okay, how, you know, if you look at how a company is selling and how they're actually, you know, getting their offer out into the marketplace and trying to, you know, know, convert, change somebody's mind, like, to buy their service product or service versus another. Most companies, many get too reliant on just being what I would call farmers. Okay. They're kind of tending to the fields. You know, they're making sure the fields are nice and clean. What comes their way, they're happy with. Not enough are going out and being aggressively getting those sales, which you'd call hunters.
- [11:58]
B
Okay.
- [11:59]
A
So you got to get out and hunt would be the. The other thing is have. And when you put all that together, you can win. It gives you a few different ways to win. You can win because you've got the best offer. You can win because you're communicating that through branding and marketing. And you can also win because you got somebody every single day calling, talking, get in front of potential customers. So you want to be doing all of those. And a lot of times, you know, after a couple of years, you know, the entrepreneur is, like, overwhelmed, still doing everything himself or herself, and hasn't brought in leaders so that they can kind of scale.
- [12:31]
B
Spot on. One of the things you mentioned earlier on, you said you end up also hiring the right people. Yes. I look at just my different departments on my podcast, and I can say, often people ask, what's the hardest thing personally for us? And I love the interviews. I love, obviously, having a blueprint, but just like, I haven't even asked a single question. I probably just won out of the first five. But, like, just engaging and finding out the success of people, because I feel like that's what gets my viewers and gets me excited as well. But the hardest thing, it's not even, like, the numerous travels. It's getting those that see the same vision as you. Like, I want the reels and, like, the marketing side just to pop up. I want, like, the videos to be very unique rather than just every other podcast. But it takes. I think I had to go through about 25 editors to get the right person say, I don't care what your price is, man. I've seen enough of your work. My point to what I'm asking right now is how can you just create or how do you get the right people to see the same vision that you have?
- [13:36]
A
Okay, Well, I mean, that. That's building a culture. Okay? So when. When you build a culture and everybody has a culture, whether they know it or not, every company has a culture. Okay, so. But you want to. You want to dictate that culture in a positive way is you. What you want to Direct that culture as the leader of the organization. Okay? So having a culture. But the thing is, to your question, you also, I would say maybe, conversely, maybe a different way to look at it is you want someone to come in actually and challenge your vision also. So you do want the other side of it, okay. Because if it's just all your way, it's going to be hard to get the talent that's going to come in and say, hey, we can actually do it this way and it's 10 times better. And what you want is someone who's already done that, okay? Not someone who's just talking to talk. So you want someone who's kind of. So that, that's how I would look at it is higher. And it depends, you know, on, on, on the owner's personality. Like for me, you know, we had a very free flowing way of communication. People disagree with me all the time, but it was best idea wins. That, that, that was, that was the way it was. Best idea wins, okay? And so I wanted to hear those ideas. And then, and the thing is, most times the leaders and I made this mistake too early on. I wouldn't let those ideas flow, okay. Because I would maybe shut people down. So you have to learn, you know, Don'. Right. Because what you say is the leader matters way more than you think it matters. You know, you're thinking, oh no, that didn't matter what I said over there at the meeting. But the team hears everything that the leader of the organization says and they may pull back. And so you have to be kind of cognizant of that as well.
- [15:15]
B
And then just follow up to that. Then how do you earn loyalty? Obviously from your team? Not necessarily through fear, but on or perks, but actual through genuine belief. In other words, I don't want people out there just having the back of their head, like if I get something better, I could leave. But the vision is aligned and they actually believe in the mission.
- [15:36]
A
Yeah, well, I think what's going to see the thing is you're going to. What I think a lot of entrepreneurs do is they worry too much about. This is a human trait, okay? We worry too much of what other people think, okay? This is a human trait, okay? There's a lot of books written on this, by the way. Okay. So I think the quicker and earlier you, you don't. I mean that's an important thing because you need to be empathetic of others and understand others, but you can't make your decisions on what other people think of you. Okay? So the quicker people get to that point in their life, the better for everything in their life, not just business. Right. So when you're leading a business, I think it's a big mistake to sort of worry too much about how everybody thinks, you know, because you can't make everybody happy. So you have to set the vision you have, make sure it's good and bring your team in. Setting the vision, by the way. Okay, so when you're setting the culture, setting the vision, get everybody's kind of buy in. You can do that by, by knowing where you want to go. Let's say you're setting your. Let's say a company's been around for 10 years and they've never actually written out their company culture. They've never written out the vision. Instead of the CEO just going and doing it one weekend, the CEO would, could still say, hey, I actually want to go here. But they don't need to explicitly say that to their team. And they can say, hey, let's have a meeting. I want to know, you know, we need to define our culture, we need to define our future. And they can guide the team to go there, but have the team actually buy in and come up with the idea so that, that's the nuance that you want to do.
- [16:59]
B
Awesome. I'm just very passionate about this hiring and team thing because I feel like it. It's the foundation of a company and also sets the president of the direction and trajectory every like company would be heading as well. Which kind of still goes. Another question regarding that. When you were looking at hiring, did you necessarily look at those that were more talented or those that were more hungrier?
- [17:24]
A
Yeah. Okay, well, both. Okay, but depending on the position. But I would say the mistake is when companies don't hire the experience, that that's a mistake. You're always going to want to get, you know, maybe some new up and coming hungry people that really want. And you need those, and those are your great cult retrofits. But you need other. I would say this. Everybody can look around and say, how many leaders do I have at my company? How many people could. Can I take off for a month? And leaders are going to run not just systems, but there's leaders that can make decisions. The hardest thing to hire is somebody that can make a decision. Okay, so, so that would, so I would say that's what I learned later on. And there's a number of ways to do that. And you. And it's worth using executive recruiters in a lot of cases, by the way. And paying a lot for them to do it, because that's all they do. And they don't make as many mistakes as you might or I might.
- [18:19]
B
Yeah. Interesting. No, that's. That's awesome. Yeah. I think sometimes when you struggle with people that can't take initiative or actually make a decision and just like, do you think you ever. Do you think there's a problem right now with people and CEOs that are over micromanaging people right now?
- [18:41]
A
You know, there's a balance because there's a lot of problems with CEOs who don't know what's going on, too. So. So it goes both ways. It's the micromanage and then it's also. And. And I've been there. Everybody's been there. Right. So I'm not. I'm part of. I was part of that problem, too, but it's like I've been on both sides of it. So I think there's a balance. I think. I think what it is is you have to find a way to communicate to where you show you trust your team. Right. And then you can dig into things. You're not. You're not. You want to come from a place of, hey, let's understand this together and find the best problem, rather than let me dig into your work, because I don't trust what you're doing, you see? And that. So I do think it's important, actually. The CEOs is responsible for the organization. So the CEO needs to know all the lines on the pnl. The CEO needs to understand the operations and understand their customer. So they. And I. And I think most of the time when there's problems, the CEO doesn't go deep. Almost out of fear sometimes, you know, fear and also being overwhelmed. So, yeah, there's a lot to that.
- [19:42]
B
I love that. Which kind of segues perfectly. I want to talk about Apex CEO. All right. When did you start that?
- [19:48]
A
A couple of years ago. Really? Just about a year ago. I sold the business, took a little bit of time off, and then just started about a year ago.
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B
Okay. All right. And can you just talk a bit more about Apex or the mission, then we can go in detail with it as well.
- [20:01]
A
Sure, sure. Okay. So the mission is it's CEO one on one, working directly with CEOs on a performance basis to increase the profits of their business. But the differentiator here is that we are going to get them positioned for an exit. Okay. So I think most companies, I mean, you're young, but like, eventually most people, they want to get to an exit. Okay. But they may not even admit it because they secretly know they're not ready for an exit. There isn't a buyer for their company. Okay. But if there was a buyer at the right price, they, people would be happy to exit and move on to the next stage in their life. So there's, there's a lot of information on how to exit and what the numbers are. But you know, even back to my newer days, I think most problem solving is overcomplicated. Okay. I think if I, you know, when I get into a company, I think how I can help the CEOs is make things less complicated, not more complicated like a consultant does. So, so usually it's focusing on margins and focusing on their product and understanding why they can't get the margins, which usually means their product may have an issue or it's not differentiated or they're in like a red ocean, you know, with so much competition. And so they might need to make a little bit of a pivot. So, and then how they can kind of steer the company to the next chapter of growth to be positioned for an exit. And there's a lot of other things we work on as well, but that's sort of the different angle I'll take on it.
- [21:26]
B
And then when obviously people look at your resume and they can see, see the exit that you had in terms of getting, you know, 50 plus million dollars for your company. What about those that aren't even making that amount and want to try and get an exit like within the, like a more par for like the last 20 or plus years as well? Like what's your target market? Which CEOs do you help? Does it vary which company or industry they're currently in?
- [21:49]
A
You know, surprisingly it does because I, I actually ran a pool service business to pay for my college. So I know service, I know product. I pretty much can, you know, I'm not going to work in like the professional services, that, that's kind of out of my realm. But most service or technical service or product based businesses and anything in that area is, is something I can help them out. And, and then as far as size, I mean, I get calls from all different sizes. So I, you know, and sometimes it's a fit. Sometimes companies are too small. They don't need a, they don't, you know, they need to still figure out their product market fit is what I would say up until you get to a couple million, you know, you need to figure your product market fit. And then I can step in at that point.
- [22:29]
B
And so I think one of the things you also touch on is how people can survive 100% or 100 plus percent in tariffs as well.
- [22:36]
A
Right.
- [22:38]
B
Can you talk a bit more for those? Obviously there's many definitions, whether you're watching Fox Business, Bloomberg, whatever it may be, of what tariffs are. What's your understanding of tariffs and how is it affecting the day to day American business?
- [22:50]
A
Well, it's, it's a complicated subject. I mean a tariff is, is basically just, you know, the brand that's bringing the product in is going to pay a tax on, on the product at the port. So if, if you're, if it's a hundred dollars a unit and right now I think, actually I think it just got lowered by 10% today. So now that the Chinese tariff would, let's say it could be 45%. There's different things that are tariffed at different rates. It really depends. Right. So it could be, so your hundred dollars, your $100 product is now $145. There is a lot of reasoning behind this though, because there are some, you know, a lot of unfair trade practices. And so I think tariffs is like any other subject. It's very nuanced. You know those who just say, and just look at it one dimensionally and say it's dumb because we're doing this or it's perfect because we're doing this. There's so much nuance in here. Okay. There isn't free trade in the world, let's put it that way. I've been all over the world, there isn't free trade. So we, we might be saying everybody can trade here for free, but we can't trade elsewhere for free. And I think that's what brought up the tariffs. And then that's not political, I'm just saying on the business side of things. And so what happens is it does make it very hard because a lot of players don't play by the rules. That's the hardest part of tariffs. Okay. So you could have international companies who could, in my example, the original Invoice price was 100. They could just say, well now we released a new model and it's 50. Okay. And then they're going to be taxed on the 50. So there's easy ways for some of these, I would say mid size international companies, the big, big players, they're going to play by the rules. The public companies, the small American companies are going to play by the rules because they don't want to go to jail. So there's, and so it does, it is, it is honestly a big problem. I don't know if the, if the administration is tackling this, but the problem is with all that being said and understanding why there are tariffs, the problem is the US based companies who are small to mid size are getting hit hard in a bad way. Okay. They're paying the price. They don't have enough flexibility to come up with the creative ways to reduce the tariffs like maybe a large international would. They don't cheat or you know, go into the gray areas like some of the international companies that aren't US Based who now have an advantage over a small and medium sized U S based company who's going to pay 100 of the tariffs because they don't want to get in trouble. And they live here. And this, these and these other companies, they don't have people here. They just ship to a warehouse. They don't, they, they're not worried about. They just open up an LLC and bring it in. So that's that you know, there. And there's all different segments of the, of the tariffs that have been addressed. So, so some of the loopholes are being closed but this one I'm talking about is not. And maybe it will.
- [25:47]
B
Okay. And no, I like that you mentioned that. I also like talking as well. Obviously considering the fact of the, we know the financial crisis 207 to like 2009, the housing crisis, the great recession and also Covid that happened 2020 and we know those are the obviously the most two recent events where many businesses were impacted. Not necessarily like even like locally but also in a global stance as well. What are those key factors that could help businesses and companies build a recession proof business.
- [26:23]
A
So what are the key things? I would say diversify your revenue streams, diversify your customers. Okay. So a lot of times companies are too beholden to one large customer. So for example e commerce and all of your business goes through Amazon. That, that's, that's a risky proposition. So, so I think that was great when I ran my business. That would be an example, right? That, that was great when I ran my business. And now you know at the beginning you could have all D2C then it went from all of your own website it went to basically where Amazon dominated and it became 90% Amazon. And I think there's a trend now, hey, how do we diversify that? You know, maybe pull some more back to our direct to consumer, see what's going to happen with you know, different social media, TikTok shop and all these other smaller players and find other marketplaces and who knows, even open AI may have marketplace in the future because they're disrupting things. And so there could be opportunities there. But you want to diversify your revenue stream is the first place I'd start.
- [27:21]
B
Okay. And so let's say now I'm a, I'm a CEO of a bigger company. No, let's probably just say it's probably making about like $2 million a year. Sure, I'm trying to get an exit, but I also, I look at like stuff like the founder of YouTube and I look at Kevin straight on, the founder of Instagram. I'm like, I want to get a big payout because there could be future value in this. What are the steps that you're going to walk me through and how can we get the most out of like the company that I'm currently in?
- [27:50]
A
Okay. Yeah. So now the first thing is mindset. Okay, so 2 million, that's 1 thing. But let's say somebody had a little bit of a bigger business. The thing is, how much money do you really need? And I don't want to say this in a, it's like we all want that huge payout, but there's sort of a curve of, of in life where you know, this is maybe your standard working salary in the city and then you get an exit for like 5 or 10 million and your life improves so much and then Maybe you got 20, 30, 40 million and it improves, but at a, at it, you know what I mean? At a slower rate. So, so you. I think that, I think some people hold on too long and blow their opportunity. Okay. And some people think they, they all need 100 million dollar exits to be happy. And I think most would be just ecstatic if they just got an exit. Okay. And then they had financial freedom. And so, so how do we get there? So couple things you want to do. So you want it. So you have to understand the investor. So what does the investor want? Right. So too many times companies think about what's great about their, I mean even companies that make no money want to sell and say, well, I got a great brand. Well, if you had a great brand, you would be making money. Okay. So you know, this is what the market is deciding. It's not doing it for the market right now. So the first thing is what do investors want? They want to de risk a deal. That's the number one thing they want. So when they buy and they, they buy to multiple of your revenue. So we'll do in your, in your case, 2 million, let's say that was 2 million profit. Okay. So they will buy at a multiple of 2 million profit. 5 times that 2 million, 10 times that 2 million. So in 5 times that 2 million, it's a $10 million deal. But you know, the company says it's making 2 million, so they, they need to go through financial due diligence. Then they got to look at the risk. It's not just to believe your financials. They have to look forward a couple of years. What are the risks? What is public opinion on this company? What do the customers say about this company? So that's the first thing is you look at the ways to de risk.
- [29:50]
B
Your business and then where does Apex come into this? Are you the middleman that connects the buyer and the investor or are you the one that ends up consulting the seller?
- [30:01]
A
So where I come in actually is earlier. So I want to come in and get them ready and then I can hand them off to someone who would manage their transaction. Okay, so I want to come in and say, say they're making a million and get them to 2 million, but get them in a way where, get the business tightened up to where everything is buttoned up, where an investor is going to come in and not see risk. Oh, the financials are in order. They have customer diversification, their product market fit is incredible, and more importantly, they have momentum. Right. So the, the, the, the investor doesn't want to come in at the end of their company's rolling over. They want there to be some upside. So you have to build another, some storyline there for your upside and where the company's going to be going in the future. But a lot of it is nuts and bolts of running a better business really is what it is.
- [30:52]
B
I like that and I think I'm glad you touched on that because obviously earlier on I gave a few examples. I gave the Blockbuster, Nokia, BlackBerry, how that went down in my space. And then obviously I gave the YouTube and I gave the Instagram and those looking today are some of the best investments that were made because it's just been a trajectory stock market, it's over tenfold, just increase in terms of valuation and like it's just expanded way bigger than what the actual founders visioned or even envisioned like previously as well. So, so, and so what's the, what's the process like? Is it like a few months of consulting? Do you work with, with the CEOs? How does the actual process also work like on, on that end?
- [31:38]
A
I mean Every case is different. I mean, a recent case was a short term one. Went in, cut a million dollars of expenses, and then flipped the forecast from a big loss to a nice profit. And that, that was a shorter stint. Okay. Sometimes it's, it's month to month coaching to grow a business to the next level because they want me along for a longer period of time. So it can, it can work in both ways. And I'm also doing a mastermind as well. But, but yeah, sometimes it could be a very specific project or it could be to evaluate a company and the owner is maybe an absentee owner. They have somebody running it and they want to know, hey, you know what? There, there's. Can you evaluate the problem at my company? Okay, I'm not getting the full picture. And they want me to kind of dive in and, and, and let them know, you know, an honest picture of where I think they should go.
- [32:28]
B
Now, obviously, you've exited for about six, seven years right now. What do you miss the most? Like, do you miss the chaos of the climb up or the, the purpose behind it?
- [32:39]
A
I mean, I, I miss the people the most, I would say. So. We, we, we, we, we had softball teams, we had basketball teams. You know, we were doing all those things. But I have a lot of hobbies, so some owners, when they sell, they have like, nothing planned in their life. Some of that's why they don't want to sell sometimes. Okay? Literally, like, they don't have anything.
- [32:57]
B
It's their baby.
- [32:57]
A
It's their baby. No, but I mean, outside of work, you need to have a life, you know, so, so. Yeah, and I have a family. So for me, it wasn't, it wasn't like a, a personal crisis or anything where I didn't know what to do. You know, I just, I was able to surf every morning, so. So that was nice. So. But I miss, it's funny because after I sold, I never slept better. Okay. You can imagine, you know, your stress is gone, so that's a huge improvement. But then after you do that for too long, you're kind of like, okay, I need to make myself useful again. Right. So.
- [33:34]
B
And I'm glad, you know, you touched on that. Which kind of goes. I mean, you sold, I mean, you started your company from a garage, you know, you're a garage founder. And fast forwarding all those years, selling it for $50 million. What's the thought process like the day after? Is it satisfaction? Is it emptiness? Like, what the hell just happened?
- [33:58]
A
Yeah, you know what? It's more honestly it's more relief because it's, you know, the process is going to close at that point. And by the way, this, this, these processes to take about a year, believe it or not, I take about a year. It's crazy.
- [34:10]
B
I can't do that. Patience. One year. How about you? Ven will meet 25 million first.
- [34:17]
A
I know, but here's why, here's why. It, it doesn't mean that you're interacting with the buyer for a year. Okay. It's sort of like a, like a, you know, first you decide you want to go to market. Then. And this is after. I would work with somebody, you know, this is, this is afterwards. They're now ready to sell. They decide they're going to go to market. Then they work with a banker and the banker kind of creates a marketing materials and understands the business and that can take a month or two. And then they go to market and they run what's called a process. And so that's sort of like you're sending it out to all these companies and maybe five or 10 or 15 come back with interest and then you go to the next stage. And so it's a, it goes on for a while. Now you might be six months into it before you kind of get engaged with your final buyer and then they can start their due diligence. Okay. So it's a process. And what happens is when it closes, you're more, it's, it's very, it's a very long hour process. Okay. Leading up to it, it's you know, 15, 16 hour days. You're working till 10, 11 o' clock at night every day because it's a lot of paperwork. It's lawyers back and forth, expensive lawyers back and forth. And so it's relief really when that's done, you know, you know it's coming. And also you don't get that whole check. So let, let's, let's just make sure everybody understands this.
- [35:37]
B
You don't get California, you don't get the whole check.
- [35:39]
A
You're paying taxes, you're paying your advisors which, which they've done a great job. You're giving bonuses to your team who has done an amazing job getting you that exit. Okay. And then you also with private equity usually there's a, a small reinvestment back into the new established company. You see, you do, you do very well. It's just you with taxes and everything else. So, so you're still feeling great afterwards and, but it's more a relief.
- [36:11]
B
Especially in California, the taxes are Extremely high and expensive. But it's, it's part of the, I mean, if you look at the oceans and buildings and the beauty of it, like, okay, it's kind of, kind of worth it.
- [36:20]
A
Well, it's probably not, I mean, if you can plan it, it's probably not worth it. But I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what. After, after we sold, we went all over the. I mean, I've been all over the country anyways, you know, meeting different customers and everything. But we went all over and you know, I like to serve. My, my wife, she and the family, they all love it where we live, down by the beach and everything. And I mean, Texas is beautiful, but it's hot, you know, and there's, you know, no taxes. Nevada, way too hot. Florida, I, we could do it because they have beautiful beaches. But there's nothing like California. That's the thing. There's nothing any. I, I don't think anywhere in the world. There's nothing like California. So it, it is a beautiful state.
- [37:01]
B
Fourth largest economy in the world as well. Only three other countries have got a higher economy than it. So that's crazy. What's the truth that you've learned about money and success now that you wish you knew in your 20s?
- [37:19]
A
Okay, so, and this is a well known one, but hire the best people around you. And that doesn't mean your team, just your team. That also means the best advisors, like the best tax accountants, the best tax strategists. Because it's not just about tax strategy. They're gonna, it's about financial strategy, what type of investments you should be making and how that's going to play out in your future. So I would say that one. And then I would also say you, you need a lot less money than you think. You need to be very, very happy and comfortable in your life. And now that doesn't mean you strive for less. It just means that you can get there quickly in life and then enjoy things. You don't need to grind it out to your 80. I believe we should always work. But it means that you can have flexibility to pursue your passion and what you want to do.
- [38:08]
B
No, that's, that's perfect. And then obviously after your exit, like, what do you miss the most? Is it the grind or is it just seeing people progress? And what's the, what's the one thing would you say you missed as a founder and a CEO?
- [38:22]
A
See, now I'm back to, I'm back to like a partial grind now. So, so I'M doing that so that the grind is good because it keeps us sharp. Okay. I'm, I'm. I just turned 52, so. So, you know, I mean, I don't think anybody should check out that early. Right? So you want to be sharp and use your mind. But I think the biggest thing is when you're with an organization, you have the camaraderie and the friends. And we still keep in touch, and I still keep in touch with a lot of team members from the company.
- [38:50]
B
But that changes now. Obviously, coaching CEOs right now is the blind spot or people that are plateauing within that 7 figure for the last 10 years or so, where they're just stuck.
- [39:05]
A
I mean, it really, it boils down to that they're not solving the right problem is what I see. Okay. So a lot of times, you know, every company, once they get to a couple million, like they're doing something great, you're not going to get to a couple million by. By just making mistakes, right? But usually there's. Okay, usually they start increasing the number of problems they're trying to solve. And that's just normal. They're not thinking. That's not what they're thinking. But what's happening is their business gets more complicated. So from at the beginning, they had one problem. How can I sell this service? Right. And they were very good at it because all their attention went into, how can I sell this service? Now they have 30 problems. I've got a, you know, operations person I got to deal with over here. I got HR issue over here. I got accounting finance, the bank, this. And so now all of their attention is diverted into like 20 different areas. Okay? So what they, what you got to do is you got to actually, you know, reposition yourself and say, what do I need to do? If let's say they're 2 million, they need to go to 3. What do I have to do to get to 3, to 4 and to 5? Okay. It's usually your offer and your product. Okay. And then it's the things we talked about earlier. You probably don't have that outbound sales. Is that. Do you have that outbound sales covered? And the communication of your product, the branding and marketing. Now a lot of times they were the outbound sales, okay? They were the sales leader. Now they're doing 20 things and they didn't hire another one of them. So there's nobody picking up the phones every day or getting in front of the customers every single day. So that, that's. And so often what I Find is actually very simple to solve. Some not, I didn't say easy because you have to, you actually have to execute. But the plan is actually pretty simple. It's usually simplifying. Hey, you know, we have to learn about the business or whatever. But then it's like really actually doing less things, but just keeping your focus on those things.
- [41:00]
B
And now looking back at that experience, obviously the exit was you felt like it was perfect timing. You felt like the value of the company was at the point where it's accumulated so much of revenue and that was what it was worth. What was one of the hardest moment in that journey as an entrepreneur that you look back back and you felt like shaped the trajectory of where you were when you exited the company.
- [41:23]
A
Oh, I mean there are so many of them. I, I, I think, well, the theme I would say is don't take anything for granted, okay. As we're going up to 10 million, 20 million, 30 million, 40 million and you know, and on and on and on. It's just never take it for granted. It's so hard to reach that point. Sometimes you get the 40 and you think, oh, you know, 20 is nothing. But that was, you have to remember, kind of what got you there. Okay. And then a big, we had a big issue in when we moved warehouses. This was, I would say we might have been mid 20 millions. I think it was about that big. And this is back in say 2014 or 15, we moved from 30,000 square feet to 85. And it was in a new beautiful building. The building wasn't new, but it was a new warehouse for us and had, you know, 10 dock doors. And, and because, you know, we're a big warehouse, distribution is part of our brand because we're shipping large products and our software. And I was just heading out on a family trip to Hawaii, okay. And our software was having issues because we had inventory in both warehouses and we're dealing with large customers, you know, Home Depot and all the big brands. And we were miss shipping their orders and some of the orders were not even shipping. So we're missing thousands of shipped orders to these large brands. And really that could have significantly damaged or even ended the business because you could lose contracts. Right? So that was, that was a big problem that we had to overcome. I mean, I had to cancel half of the trip and stay back. And then we just had to figure out and do a lot of things manually. You know, instead of the electronic, we're printing everything out and making sure we got all the labels for all of our orders and that we weren't miss shipping anything and that was a man major problem for the company.
- [43:07]
B
Oh, awesome. No, no, I, I appreciate obviously all the knowledge you shared. It's super exciting to see where you started, where you're ending and what you're currently still doing right now. 52, I thought you were like probably 41 or so. So appreciate that. That's what $50 million can do to make you like look as handsome and happy as you are right now. Right. I had a quick question. So obviously the, the podcast is called the Coach winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. After each episode we always ask towards the end the guest what the term winning means for them. So for Luke Peters, with all your experience, accomplishments and your success, what is your definition of winning?
- [43:47]
A
Well, you know I have, I have six kids so hopefully, I mean at the end the business, the money like all that's great and everything but hopefully, you know, I can be a good dad and, and in just you know, hopefully lead the kids the right way so that, that would be winning. So I think everybody can achieve it. You know, everybody's life is different and everybody has different circumstances and I think the other another definition would just be. And this is, I mean I try to teach the kids this too, but this is just, you know, whatever your God given skills are, you need to use those to the best of your ability. So, so we're not winning if we're just, you know, taking it too easy, you know, make a dent in the, in the universe, whatever that means to you. It doesn't mean you have to, you know, sell a hundred million dollar business. It could mean that you're, you become a good leader or you're a good parent or, or you build flexibility within your life. Okay. So that you're not sort of just beholden to a nine to five and a bank.
- [44:42]
B
Right.
- [44:43]
A
So you want to create that flexibility. But those are a few different ways I think to look at winning.
- [44:47]
B
I love that so much. If you could look at the camera there, let our viewers know where they could get a hold of you if they want to try and get consulting, if they want to get in contact with Apex CEO, social media website, whatever it may be. Can you let our viewers know?
- [45:00]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Really simple. Just head over to ApexCEO Co and we have a form there. You can just schedule a 15, 20 minute meeting with me and happy to talk about your business and help you out.
- [45:10]
B
The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Luke Peters, thank you very much, sir.
- [45:15]
A
Thanks for having me as a guest.