How to Build Wealth — with Codie Sanchez

Summary

Podcast Title: The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Episode: How to Build Wealth — with Codie Sanchez
Release Date: December 5, 2024
Host: Scott Galloway
Guest: Codie Sanchez, Founder and CEO of Contrarian Thinking

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Introduction

In the 327th episode of The Prof G Pod, Scott Galloway welcomes Codie Sanchez, a former Wall Street investor and the founder and CEO of Contrarian Thinking. Codie brings her expertise in building wealth through acquiring ordinary, profitable small businesses—a strategy she elaborates on in her new book, Main Street Millionaire: How to Make Extraordinary Wealth Buying Ordinary Businesses. The conversation dives deep into the mechanics of building wealth outside the traditional startup ecosystem, emphasizing financial literacy and strategic acquisitions.

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Defining Wealth and the "Rich Method"

[19:38] Codie Sanchez:
"I think the biggest thing is that you kind of get to do what you want to do to some degree. And life still sucks. And it's hard in many ways, but it sucks a lot less when you have a bank account that allows you to kind of work where you want, live where you want, and build what you want to."

Codie defines being "rich" not just in terms of monetary value but as a state of freedom. This freedom allows individuals to live life on their own terms, reducing the stresses and limitations that come with financial insecurity.

She introduces the "Rich Method," a four-step approach outlined in her book:

1. Research:

   • Understanding the ten steps involved in buying a business.
   • Conducting due diligence to determine if a deal aligns with personal financial goals.

2. Invest:

   • Allocating time, expertise, or capital into a selected business.
   • Emphasizing that investment inherently involves some level of risk.

3. Command:

   • Gaining control and improving business operations.
   • Learning from initial investments to make better, more informed decisions.

4. Scale:

   • Expanding the business portfolio through acquisitions or scaling existing operations.
   • Building a holding company or integrating additional businesses to amplify wealth creation.

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The Opportunity in Main Street Businesses

[25:54] Codie Sanchez:
"Ownership leads to wealth most often if that ownership is sustainable."

Codie highlights the undervalued potential of Main Street businesses—plumbing, construction, cleaning, electrical services, and similar sectors. These businesses are often recession-resistant, have consistent cash flows, and are less susceptible to the volatility seen in tech startups or other high-risk ventures.

She points out the declining rate of small business ownership, noting that only about 6% of Americans currently own their own businesses compared to 80% in the 1800s. This decline presents a significant opportunity, especially with the impending "silver tsunami" where baby boomers retire, leaving many businesses up for sale without a clear successor.

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Identifying and Acquiring the Right Small Business

[29:52] Scott Galloway:
"There's not a real liquid market here. Is this market getting more liquid?"

The conversation shifts to identifying ideal small businesses for acquisition. Codie outlines key indicators of promising targets:

1. Profitability Over Potential:

   • Focus on existing profitable businesses rather than those with potential but uncertain futures.

2. Established Management:

   • Look for businesses with a capable managerial layer to ensure smooth transitions post-acquisition.

3. Recession-Resistant Industries:

   • Prioritize sectors that remain stable or even thrive during economic downturns.

4. Simplicity and Scalability:

   • Choose businesses that are straightforward to manage and have room for growth without excessive complexity.

[31:21] Codie Sanchez:
"I have two methodologies if you're going to buy a business. First thing is we buy realities and profits. We don't buy hopes and dreams."

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Overcoming Market Challenges and Financing Acquisitions

[34:02] Scott Galloway:
"Valuations have gone up, but you still feel there's a lot of opportunity."

Despite rising valuations in the small business market, Codie remains optimistic about opportunities. She emphasizes the importance of understanding financing options to mitigate risks:

1. SBA Loans:

   • The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers loans covering up to 90% of the purchase price, requiring only 10-20% down.

2. Seller Financing:

   • Negotiating terms where the seller finances part of the purchase, allowing payment over time based on future profits.

3. Apprenticeship Models:

   • Transitioning ownership gradually by apprenticeship, where the buyer takes over operational responsibilities while making royalty payments to the seller.

[34:18] Codie Sanchez:
"The interesting part about the business landscape is the credit is not your own. When you go to buy a house... you can't buy a business based on how much you earn. Your earned income is whatever the earned income of the business makes."

Codie stresses that financing a business acquisition relies heavily on the business's financial health rather than the buyer's personal credit or income, making due diligence crucial.

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Strategies for Casting a Wide Net and Deal Clarity

[37:34] Codie Sanchez:
"We call it deal clarity. So you gotta really make sure you know what you want in a business."

To effectively search for and acquire businesses, Codie recommends the following strategies:

1. Deal Clarity:

   • Define the ideal business profile based on personal skills, industry knowledge, and investment goals.

2. Satellite Acquisition Strategy:

   • Acquire businesses related to one’s existing skill set or industry for strategic growth.

3. Deal Box Framework:

   • Categorize investment criteria into 15 components, including desired returns, location, sector, and operational involvement.

4. 100 to 50 to 10 to 1 Rule:

   • Review 100 businesses to shortlist 50, narrow down to 10 for serious consideration, and finally select one for acquisition.

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Financing Options Revisited

[34:18] Codie Sanchez:
"There are three ways that we buy businesses that people don't think about..."

Codie elaborates on unconventional financing methods:

1. Diversified Investors through SBA:

   • Recently expanded SBA loans allow multiple investors to partake, reducing individual financial burdens.

2. Creative Financing:

   • Structuring deals where payment terms are flexible and aligned with future business performance.

3. Apprenticeship and Transition Models:

   • Gradual ownership transfer, ensuring continuity and reducing immediate financial strain.

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Operational Excellence and Talent Management

[46:57] Scott Galloway:
"There's a lot of research showing restaurants where the owner is there just do tangibly better."

Operational efficiency and effective talent management are pivotal for scaling small businesses. Codie emphasizes:

• Hiring Reliable Managers:

  • Seek individuals who are dedicated, require minimal supervision, and align with the company's culture.

• Simplifying Operations:

  • Focus on businesses with straightforward operations to minimize reliance on specialized talent.

• Retention Strategies:

  • Foster a positive work environment to retain competent managers over the long term.

[47:16] Codie Sanchez:
"The one good thing about a lot of these businesses is the word talent is so different here than it is for a media company."

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Selecting Profitable Sectors for Acquisition

[50:13] Codie Sanchez:
"I think rehab, individual rehab homes... there are all these small little rehab... subsidized by the federal government."

Codie identifies high-potential sectors for acquisition:

1. Rehabilitation Centers:

   • Addressing the growing addiction crisis with steady demand and government subsidies.

2. Clean Communities Services:

   • Services like landscaping and cleaning that maintain consistent demand regardless of economic fluctuations.

She notes that these sectors not only offer financial returns but also contribute positively to society.

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Personal Insights and Reflections on Education

[43:19] Codie Sanchez:
"If you want to be a business owner, the best business school is business and it pays you."

Codie shares her critical view of traditional MBA programs, asserting that hands-on business acquisition provides more practical knowledge and financial returns. She regrets the substantial investment in her MBA, emphasizing that real-world business operations offer more valuable insights and outcomes.

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Conclusion

Scott Galloway wraps up the episode by commending Codie Sanchez for her efforts in democratizing wealth-building through small business acquisitions. He underscores the societal importance of her work in providing alternative pathways to financial success beyond prestigious corporate careers.

[52:27] Scott Galloway:
"I think you're sort of destigmatizing it. I think you're actually playing not only an economically important role, but a kind of a... emotionally and psychologically important role."

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Key Takeaways

• Wealth Equals Freedom: True wealth provides the liberty to live life on one's own terms.
• Main Street Businesses are Goldmines: Profitable, recession-resistant small businesses offer substantial opportunities for wealth creation.
• Due Diligence is Crucial: Comprehensive research and understanding of business operations are essential before acquisition.
• Flexible Financing Options: Leveraging SBA loans, creative financing, and apprenticeship models can mitigate financial risks.
• Operational Efficiency Matters: Effective management and streamlined operations are critical for scaling and sustaining small businesses.
• Alternative Paths to Success: Practical business acquisition often outweighs traditional educational pathways like MBAs in building real wealth.

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Notable Quotes

• Codie Sanchez at [19:38]:
  "I kind of have the words rich and more free as synonymous."

• Codie Sanchez at [34:18]:
  "Your earned income is whatever the earned income of the business makes."

• Scott Galloway at [43:19]:
  "If you want to be a business owner, the best business school is business and it pays you."

• Codie Sanchez at [52:27]:
  "It's fun. I wish more people realized garbage men have good times."

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This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Caroline Chagrin, with Drew Burroughs as Technical Director. Thank you for listening to The Prof G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

Support for this episode comes from the Current. The Current podcast is back with an exciting new season featuring marketing executives from the world's most influential brands. Tune in to hear what's driving conversation in the fast moving world of digital advertising, with unique insights from brands as diverse as Hilton, Instacart, Moderna, Major League Soccer and more. And in this presidential election season, the Current explores what a national political advertiser like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a major CPG brand like Hershey can learn from each other. Listen in and subscribe subscribe to the [e-mail] or wherever you get your podcasts. Support for the show comes in the new season of Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. What is a Crucible Moment? It's a turning point where we face a tough decision and our response can shape the rest of our lives. These decisions happen in business too, and Sequoia Capital's podcast Crucible Moments gives you a behind the scenes look, asking founders of some of the world's most important tech companies, including YouTube, DoorDash, Reddit, and more, to reflect on those critical junctures that define who they are today. Tune into Season two of Crucible Moments today. You can also catch up on season one at cruciblemoments.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Cody Sanchez]

Think scaling AI is hard? Think again. With Watson X, you can deploy AI across any environment. Above the clouds, helping pilots navigate flights and on lots of clouds, helping employees automate tasks on prem so designers can access proprietary data and on the edge so remote bank tellers can assist customers. WatsonX works anywhere so you can scale AI everywhere. Learn more at IBM.com WatsonX IBM let's.

[Scott Galloway]

Create episode 327327 is the area code serving Arkansas. 1927, the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight was completed from New York to Paris. I love the new British Airways tagline Breakfast in London, dinner in New York, luggage in Tokyo.

[Cody Sanchez]

Go Go Go.

[Scott Galloway]

Welcome to the 327th episode of the Prop Teapot. In today's episode, we speak with Cody Sanchez, a former Wall street investor and the founder and CEO of Contrarian Thinking, a digital education company with over 7 million followers. We discussed with Cody her new book, Main Street Millionaire how to Make Extraordinary Wealth Buying Ordinary Businesses. We get into how to build wealth by buying small businesses, including what to look at when buying, ways to finance a purchase, and which sectors have the most potential right now. I really enjoy this conversation. She's a unique woman and I love kind of this financial literacy or investing approach. And that is instead of talking about Nvidia or AI all the time, what happens when you buy a dry cleaner or a carpet cleaning company? And I think there's a ton of potential. And if you think about. And we'll talk more about this, but in sum, there's this tidal wave of retirements from the boomers who have small businesses and their kids all want to be baristas or go to work for Google. And so there's going to be a lot of small businesses up for sale. It's an interesting overlooked part of the economy, a great way to build wealth. The millionaire next door probably owns car washes and doesn't work at Salesforce. Or maybe she does. Maybe she does. Anyways. But I really enjoyed this conversation and she's an impressive woman. All right, what's happening? Some news about the luxury autospace. Jaguar unveiled its all electric type 00. Hmm concept at Miami Art Week, marking the official start of the brand's new era. Miami Art Week. Does that mean Basel? I used to go to Basel. I have no interest in art, by the way. I think people who order expensive wine or expensive art are basically insecure people trying to flaunt their wealth. I have done neither. I bought a great. The only piece of art I own is a Grayson Perry. I think he's. I love that guy. I think he's super interesting. He talks, makes political art. Lives half his year as a woman, half as a man. Did that before it was co. And I just think he's such an interesting cat and I love. He does these politically charged pieces of art. That's the only piece of art I own. Someone who means a great deal to me took me to the exhibition of his in Istanbul, found something I liked and then bought it for me. And it's. It hangs in my living room and I just absolutely love it. Back to Jaguar. They released their type 00. The reveal follows week of controversy after Jaguar's rebrand campaign went viral. Critics including Elon Musk. Oh, fuck. I agree with Elon Musk. That sucks. Anyways, were clicked to kind of slam The Avant Garde 32nd AD, which featured models and a futuristic landscape, but failed to show a single car. Remember, this happened before Infiniti did this. This was the era brand in the 80s. Let me get kind of a brief history of economic history and brands. Brands didn't mean a whole hell of a lot. The strongest brand up until World War II was the Catholic Church. Name anything that engages in corruption, leveraging or exploiting the masses. And just institutionalized pedophilia and manages to be the most powerful institution in the world. They have the most powerful brand in the world and they are in fact the best brand builders. They understand distribution and place marketing. Let's build the most beautiful venues in the world, bring in the most talented artisans in the world because we want to fool people into believing that yeah, there's a decent job that God hangs out here. And then we'll have robes and clothes and candles and music. And it's highly orchestrated and ruled. I mean, these folks understood the Apple Store before Apple understood the Apple Store. Best branders in the world. World War II comes along and then you have American caterpillars left overseas rebuilding America. So yellow started to mean capitalism and rebuild building the US dollar, the strongest currency in history. That green. Hope, optimism, capitalism. Winners, losers. All of a sudden America caught on to the ability to take a shitty product, inject it with emotion and get unnatural margins. So the primary algorithm for building shareholder value in 1945-1995 was a mediocre shoe, salty snack or car. And then wrapped these amazing brand codes around it. Individualism, toughness, tough like a rock. European elegance. 30 cents of peanut butter paste gets turned into $3 of peanut butter. Why? Because choosing moms choose jif maternal love. Right? So, and in addition, we could, after developing these brand codes to inject into peanut butter paste, we could hammer these codes into people's brains using the most unbelievably inexpensive, cheap. Didn't realize what a great bargain it was called broadcast advertising, where 60, 80% of America every night tuned into one of three channels and you could raise awareness around a brand in a week. And if you want to talk about efficiency, the Academy Awards, a 32nd spot costs five times as much as it did 40 years ago and it reaches one third of the audience. So in sum, the ROI has gone down by 15 fold. You're literally getting 6% of the ROI you used to get 30 or 40 years ago on advertising. So that was the way to make money, that was the way to print money. And then came along the end of the brand era in the 80s and 90s was the introduction of Google. And that is weapons of mass diligence. Said, well, you don't know. You don't need to buy a Norelco or a Gillette hair clipper to shave your head because we now have blogs that if you type in best hair clipper in the world or best beard trimmer, they'll take you to this blog on shaving Your head. And there's some former factory in East Germany, out of East Germany, that makes the best clipper in the world. There's just, oh, okay. Four seasons of Mandarin Oriental data used to always defer to those brands and stay there. Why? One, because someone else was paying and did a lot of consulting around the world, a lot of speaking, and two, they were always a seven or an eight. And then I realized, oh, what do you know? What do you know? The Hotel du Cap is the best hotel in France and reeks of old European elegance. Oh, what do you know? The Soho House in Berlin has an incredible gym. Oh, what do you know? Daddy likes to roll at the Polo Lounge. That's where all the celebs are. Daddy likes to hang out with younger cool people. Maybe have some people over for a $54 Cobb salad at the veranda, the patio, whatever it's called. Next. I no longer need to defer to the brand. A brand is shorthand or due diligence when you don't have time. But now it's very easy to diligence. And the shorthand or the automatic deferential nod to a brand is no longer as obvious. Meaning that brand equity on top of a shitty product is no longer the algorithm to build shareholder value. It's brands that are built based on superior innovation, operations, distribution. Amazon's one of the strongest brands in the world. Google's one of the strongest brands in the world. What do these things have in common? What does any company have in common that has added over $100 billion in value in any single year? They spend almost no money on traditional branding. They spend it all on supply chain and innovation and actual 10x better product. Instagram is a 10x better product as is, or was Google. I'm not sure it's a 10x better product anymore. It hasn't changed in 10 years. But the stuff that breaks through is in fact either delivered differently through distribution, has better customer support, has more interesting people talking about the product, is scrappier around, building awareness, and first and foremost uses digital technologies to unlock some type of innovation. What are some of the assets you want in a brand, though? What are some of the things that really provide sustainable advantage? One of those things is visual metaphors. We have been learning from images or interpreting images for thousands of years. Thousands of years ago, people decided to educate their kids by painting stories on cave walls like, don't go over here, they will kill you. Or plant the crops at this time of the year, such that as a species, we could Leverage our core confidence as a species or our advantage, and that is communication and cooperation. And tell the next generation, help them learn such that communication and storytelling is basically takes instinct. So if you are blessed with a visual metaphor. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I mean literally, Darth Vader or Goofy or the Matterhorn or Snow White or the Seven Dwarves. I mean that shit. Those are really, really powerful metaphors. Visual metaphors, Objects, symbols, the color brown. If I'm driving and I see a big brown thing next to me, I'm like, oh, it's ups. Oh, they're nice people. They make good money, they work really hard. They're handsome, dreamy men. Sometimes they wear shorts, but they always wear brown. And their trucks are always really, really clean. Boom. I like that, right? I see a swoosh. I see a swoosh. I think you didn't win silver, you lost gold. I think of competitiveness, I think of Michael Jordan. You know, these things are just so powerful when you own one. And one is, what are they? What is probably the greatest visual metaphor in the history of automobiles, at least until a few years ago, was the Jaguar. I mean, look at this bitch of a. He's out, he's hunting, he's graceful, he's out there, he's got his partner, his spouse and his cubs at home. They're safe for a time being, but it's up to him to go out into the wilderness. And he's so strong, he's so sleek, he's so agile. He kills, he hunts, he brings back the meat.

[Cody Sanchez]

Why? He's a jungle cat.

[Scott Galloway]

That thing is so fucking beautiful. So beautiful on the front of a hood. I mean, it also helped that they built some of the most beautiful cars in the world. But that logo. Elegance, sleekness, strength, yet a certain feminine agility and gracefulness to it. Jesus Christ. And what do they do? What do they do? They went to fucking Mid Journey or some generative AI bullshit and said, give us a logo that feels like an AI software company. Oh, my God. I can't imagine anyone more deserving of being fired right now than whoever's in charge of design or marketing at Jaguar or Tata Motors. Oh, my God. Come on. What the fuck are you thinking? And it feels as if every CEO or CMO should do something or take something that doctors have to take. And that is a Hippocratic oath. And the first thing they say, and it's actually, it sounds simple, but it's really strong. Do no harm. And that is if you go in, if you change your doctors if you're having cancer treatment, it's sort of tempting for the new oncologist to say, well, thank God I'm here, you should be starting this chemo. But their commitment is do no harm. And so if you're on a current chemo and it seems to be working, they resist the temptation to pretend that they're here to save everything. And they say, okay, what is the easiest way to do no harm? What do I do here first off, to make sure that I'm not harming the patient? I think every CEO and CMO should take that oath. Because what I have found in my experience consulting to probably 34 of the 100 biggest companies in the world over the last 20 years, the CEO, the CMO, is that there's such a huge temptation when you're the new guy or gal to change everything. Thank God I'm here and fire the ad agency or change the strategy or whatever to put your mark on something and take credit for it when oftentimes the guy or gal before you was doing a pretty admirable job and there's a lot of good that you should hold on to. So why are they doing this? The type 00 of man in Jaguars 90 year history Jaguars Chief Creative Officer said in a statement, you will feel uncomfortable and that's okay. I'll smell you, you will feel uncomfortable and that's okay. Why the pivot. Jaguar is betting on a complete rebrand to survive in the luxury EV market. Beyond that, Jaguar wants a new identity. According to the company's managing director, the target market isn't the traditional middle aged banker anymore. It's a younger, more affluent, urban and independently minded demographic. Yeah, that's your target from an aspirational standpoint. But bas the majority of people still buying luxury cars are primarily old white people. The Type 00 is just a design vision for Jaguar's upcoming electric lineup. Does that mean it's not actually a car? The first production model will be a four door grand tour with a 478 mile range and a $127,000 price tag. It's supposed to hit the market in 2026. I'm looking at some pictures. I think it looks pretty cool, but I'd still like to see a big fucking jungle cat on the front of the hood. Anyways, the big question is, will Jaguar succeed in building a luxury EV brand? Oh God, this is a tough one. This is such a crowded market and quite frankly, I think the best run company in the world right now automobile company is Toyota, who bet Big on hybrids. It appears that the charging infrastructure isn't where it needs to be. People are still insecure about range, the cost. There's a bunch of things that appear to be greater headwinds. Growth in the EV market has dramatically slowed. And what has worked, Hybrids, which give you a little bit of this, a little bit of some chip and some salsa, right? Some peanut butter and some chocolate. There you go. One plus one equals three. Some nitro and some. Some glycerin. And Toyota's sales have bumped up pretty well. Teslas seem to be kind of flatlining. Is that fair? I know it's probably still up, but it appears that a lot of people have overinvested in the EV market and that the more measured Toyota was smart to bet on hybrid. And hybrid sales are booming. So I need to see this car. I'm looking at it. It looks pretty cool, but I don't know. How do we turn lemons and turn them into lemonade? How do we. Chicken salad. This chicken shit. Basically they should come out and say the over overwhelming affection and pushback we receive from customers, design experts and academics and podcasters around the value of the logo has told us that we should not. We were abrupt in our change. And while we have a fantastic new car, we're going to maintain this unbelievable metaphor that you've all expressed such incredible affection for. And here it is. And you planted on the fucking hood, right? They could turn a loss into a win here. But be clear, thus far, this is snatching defeat from the jaws of the jungle cat. We'll be right back for our conversation with Cody Sanchez. Support for profg comes from Mint Mobile. Missing out on something big can really hurt. Maybe your flight got canceled and you couldn't make it to your friend's wedding. Or your phone was on silent and you lost your chance at landing a new job. Missing out on a great deal on your wireless coverage isn't exactly like that, but hey, it's close enough. And Mint Mobile's latest offer is one you really won't want to miss. Right now, when you purchase a new three month phone plan with Mint Mobile, you'll pay just $15 a month. That's it. No strings attached. No sneaky fine print. Just a great deal. 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The all in one platform that supports small business growth, access seamless tools that help with benefits, payroll, HR and compliance with transparent pricing. Just Work runs payroll in 90 seconds or less and automates payments so you can set it and forget it. And according to Justworks, in 2023 alone they processed over 2025.6 billion entrusted payroll customers. You don't have to worry about paperwork piling up either. They can take care of payroll, tax documents and reporting to help you stay compliant. Justworks gets you access to big benefits for small businesses. You can attract and keep top talent with premium healthcare plans that cover more than just the basics. And for every how do I question? Just reach out to their expert staff. Visit justworks.com podcast to join the thousands of small businesses that trust Justworks to take care of payroll, benefits, compliance and more. That's justworks.com podcast. Support for the show comes from the new season of Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. Did you know that YouTube started as a dating site? Probably not because it didn't go well. So how did the company pivot from that failure to become the household name it is? Today on this season of Crucible Moments, they're going to give you an inside look at that story and more, offering an unvarnished history of some of tech's influential companies told by the founders themselves. You can Hear how losing $35 million led the founder of ServiceNow to start his own company, or how a Reddit founder ended up returning to the company just to save the site from itself. Hosted by Roulev Botha of Sequoia, Crucible Moments provides a behind the scenes look at some of the most tumultuous and defining milestones in tech history. He connects with the founders and they reflect on those pivotal inflection points and how sometimes those moments of turmoil become moments of triumph. Tune into season two of Crucible Moments. Now. You can also catch up on season one at cruciblemoments.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Cody Sanchez, a former Wall street investor and the founder and CEO of Contrarian Thinking. Cody, where does this podcast find you?

[Cody Sanchez]

Austin, Texas, actually.

[Scott Galloway]

Nice. Let's bust right into it. You have a book coming out in early December titled Main street how to Make Extraordinary Wealth Buying Ordinary Businesses. In your book, you share your journey to building a nine figure portfolio. So first, what is your definition of rich?

[Cody Sanchez]

Well, I think mostly rich I think of as freedom. So it's can you push back on the world and live the life you want to live? You know this all too well. But as you start making money, there's always a bigger number that sounds more interesting. But I think the biggest thing is that you kind of get to do what you want to do to some degree. And life still sucks. And it's hard in many ways, but it sucks a lot less when you have a bank account that allows you to kind of work where you want, live where you want to, and build what you want to. And so I kind of have the words rich and more free as synonymous.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, you introduced us something called the rich method. Can you break it down for us?

[Cody Sanchez]

Yeah. Well, the idea is basically four segments of the book. So first thing is research. So a lot of people, when they think about buying a business, they hear the idea, then they go think, well, I'll go buy a business. And I'm like, yeesh, you could actually really lose money buying a business or doing deals or investing if you do it wrong. And so the first part is, can you spend a little bit of time actually breaking down what it takes to buy a business? We think there are like 10 steps to buying a business. So that first rich is a big component of doing your due diligence and understanding what that even means to figuring out what a deal might be good for you, not just a good deal overall. And then, you know, next we like to break into, into the I, which is invest. So now that you kind of understand what you're doing, how can you start allocating a little bit of either risk so like your time, maybe your expertise or capital money in order to do a deal. So I also don't think you can spell rich without risk in some shape or form, whether it's your time or somebody else's. And then C is for command. So the idea is that your first deal probably will not be your best deal. In the same way that your first job is hopefully not your last job, you're going to get better at it. You're going to do bigger ones, you're going to understand what investing is good for you one way or the other. And then finally we want to take it to the next level, which is how can you actually scale in a significant way? Maybe that looks like a holding company, maybe that looks like you doing additional deals inside of your main business. You know, I saw when I was on Wall street, most of the money made by finance professionals is not actually coming up with brilliant startup ideas. You know this all too well. You know, 90% of them fail. But I think the other part we don't talk about is that the average income of an entrepreneur that did a startup is like 47 to $67,000 a year, three to four years in. So it's like you lose money, you pay for the right to lose money multiple years in a startup. And then most people don't really make more than you would if you were in a corporate job. And the very, very few make an absurd amount of money. But it's actually quite hard. And so I kind of obsess on this idea of what if we just focused on profitable businesses instead? And what if when we had our brilliant business idea, instead of just going out and starting it, unless we want to start the next, you know, Facebook, we can't sleep for the want of the company being in the world. Then I think instead we should probably start with a nice little profitable business and then maybe acquire a few others on top of it. And so we can actually buy other people's 10,000 hours as opposed to having to, to slave away for them for decades ourselves.

[Scott Galloway]

Doesn't a lot of it. So I'm that person that started a bunch of businesses because I didn't know how to buy a business. So I started a bunch. And you're right, it's just, it's just riskier. The upside. I think the few times or the couple times I got it right, I probably made more than someone who bought a similar business. But I also just took more risk and I had some zeros. And it's unlikely I would have gotten, you know, had zeros. If I just come into companies that are already working and bought them. Doesn't it come down to similar to the housing market? It's all about the price you buy at and that is buying a good business at a decent price. You make money. But if you, at some price, if the market Gets crazy and everyone reads your book and starts crawling all over the country for small businesses. As some private equity firms are doing that, it becomes too expensive. Don't you really need to kind of figure out, and this is, I guess, part of your r research, what you should be paying for this type of business?

[Cody Sanchez]

Yeah, I mean, I had a mentor of mine that told me a line I really liked that I've remembered for years, which is, you can have my price and your terms or your terms and my price, but you can't have both. And that pros want to actually control the terms, not the price. And so I think you're right at the. At the base level, which is it's really hard to work your way out of a bad deal done up front. But more than obsessing on price, I would obsess on the terms. Like, I could give you a million bucks for a business that only does $10,000 in annual revenue if I got to pay it over the next 40 years out of future profits, as long as I got to keep, I don't know, 5,000 bucks a month. So one of the things I'm hoping that we can teach people is like, real estate's funny because it's been so commoditized now. You can't do a lot of term changes to it. Right. You're not like, seller, finance me that house. That's pretty hard to talk to somebody into. You know, you're not going to ask them to change the mortgage terms to go out, you know, a crazy different amount. You're not going to say, well, if I find X, can I have a little bit of capital I can hold back in case we did the valuation wrong up front. You can't really do any of that in real estate anymore. I'm sure eventually businesses will be able to do less of it, but businesses just have so many levers that I think the real goal here is can you control the terms so that you know what you think you're buying? Like, base level? Yes. You need to know what a business valuation should be. But I think the real problem is you get into a business, you're like, hey, this guy's been running it for 30 years. I'm going to buy it for a million bucks. And I think the business makes enough money in order for it to be worth a million bucks. And you quickly realize you've never run a business before. And so you're probably not going to do as well as the guy immediately out the gate, and then you run out of cash. And so my biggest protection is always, how can we even pay a little bit more for something? I'm okay with the premium as long as it's over time and we decrease our risk by how we structure the deal.

[Scott Galloway]

One of the things we really enjoyed about your book is your focus on investing in what you call Main street businesses industries, including plumbing, construction, cleaning and electrical services. This is something we talk about a lot on the pod, how the skilled trades are often overlooked. What makes these unsexy businesses so reliable for wealth building?

[Cody Sanchez]

Yeah, well, that's when I really, like, wanted to reach out to you originally was because you have seen all sides of the trade. You've been a public market guy forever. You've also been inside the university system. You've also seen seen inside of even private entities or some companies. Maybe you want to take private from public. You've kind of seen the full gamut of what a company can do. And I've been sort of yelling at the Internet for the past four years about the fact that during the 1800s, American ownership was 80%. Most Americans owned their own business. This time around, we're happy if 10% of Americans own their own business. In fact, it's about 6% of Americans own their own business. And you know, how you know we're losing is that the Canadians have more ownership than we do. They have like 7.8% ownership. And so my theory here is that ownership leads to wealth most often if that ownership is sustainable. And I think we have this like, crisis where we have a bunch of young people today having 452 LLCs that make no money. And so we have a lot of like quote unquote company creation, especially since 2020, but they don't make any money. You know, 60% of all small businesses listed are single proprietorships with no employees. And so why I like Main street businesses are if you've been a landscaping company For 10 years, you've been in existence, you never got funding from somebody to run your business. You never got VC capital. That thing had to make money by itself year after year in order for you to fund your salary. And so these Main street businesses never benefited from this huge glut of capital that came from venture capital and even private equity firms. They take the company entirely. So if they value a company incorrectly, it doesn't hurt like the individual, it hurts their investors. And I think they've gotten a bad rap. But they also are the thing that builds local communities. And I'd way rather some corner coffee shops and local Landscaping than a Starbucks or a PE owned.

[Scott Galloway]

Roll up on the diary of a CEO. You listed three businesses that you really like right now. Senior care centers, businesses that are services based, that don't require a lot of upfron capital, including window cleaning, pressure washing and painting businesses. And the third being what you call gateway drug businesses. What did you mean by that?

[Cody Sanchez]

Yeah, so gateway drug businesses are the business that allows you to get a little taste of what the addictive game of business is, which is running a P and L, making money, being your own boss. It's awful, but it's also amazing once you've done it. And so gateway drug business would be a thing like what is typically called like a self serve car wash. So they're not super expensive, you don't have a ton of employees. It's not a complex business to understand and thus you might be able to start with something like that. Mine famously was a laundromat. That was my idea when I first started buying businesses. I was like, man, I've been a corporate junkie for so long, I don't know if I could run a business by myself. This one's pretty simple. I could probably run this one. It's like dirty clothes go into a machine, get clean, I take a quarter, I make money on it. That makes sense to me. There's not that many levers to the business. And so a lot of these are called people light or capital light businesses. So not that many employees, not that much operating expenses. These are the type of businesses that I think are interesting for people to get their hands a little bit dirty on the game of business to start. And the only caveat there is we've seen a huge increase in the multiple cost of these business since we've started talking about that. Both laundromats and car washes. So you know, keep your eye on the prize that you do pay the right price and terms.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, that makes sense. And then also you talk about, or I think it's in your book, but we talk a lot about here about this silver tsunami. And that is with so many baby boomers retiring, there's a huge opportunity for younger generations to acquire these businesses. What are some signs that a small business is ideal for acquisition? What are some rules of the road for what feels like a good business in your view?

[Cody Sanchez]

I have two methodologies if you're going to buy a business. First thing is we buy realities and profits. We don't buy hopes and dreams. So I think where you can go really wrong in buying a small business Is that you go and buy a business that's losing money today. And you go, the thing is, I can fix, fix it. And I always compare this to real estate. Like how many times have you redone a house and it's under budget and done quicker than you thought it was? The answer is like never. It's just physics or something. And so just make sure that you don't buy turnaround businesses. I think that's for pros. If you're a pro, you could do a turnaround. But you've done some of those publicly, man, they're brutal and litigious and so stay away from that. The second thing that makes a business really interesting to me, I think, is that you have an owner of the business who's been around for a long time. It has a managerial layer. So there's. It's not just a job, it's a business. There are other people running varying divisions of the business. It's profitable. The business is usually in a recession resistant sector. Like for instance, you know, it doesn't mean that it can't go down. But you might have a plumbing business, you might have a roofing business, you might have a landscaping business. You know, these aren't so luxurious of items that you're going to die during a recession, as opposed to like a custom framing business, which, you know, maybe is not the best business to get into with volatility. And then the last thing that I think is interesting for these small businesses is like, you really gotta make sure that you don't get in over your head. I say, so simple, grandma could do it. And if grandma doesn't understand your business model, then maybe that's not the right business for you.

[Scott Galloway]

People have been talking about this for a while, that there are a lot of mainstream businesses coming up for sale and there's a bit of a asymmetric or dislocation. What do I mean by that? That young people find these businesses is not sexy. And there's a lot of baby boomers whose kids don't want to inherit the business. They have a dad has a carpet cleaning business and makes good money. He wants to retire and he can't find anyone. And there's not a real liquid market here. Is this market getting more liquid? You referenced that. Valuations have gone up, but you still feel there's a lot of opportunity.

[Cody Sanchez]

Yeah. Well, now we have some unique data on this market. So we bought a website called Bizcout, which is a marketplace for buying and selling small businesses. Now we have 68,000 listings on that website. We've connected about 3,000 buyers and sellers over the past four weeks. And we're starting to get sort of our first realm of proprietary data, which is it's a real to get data in the small business space, you know, you can go to the sba, they won't really release any information from you. There's a couple behemoths in the industry, they don't really share third party data. And so what we found from the 58,000 businesses listed is most of them are highly incomplete. So we have this marketplace where it's the opposite of Zillow and Redfin. There's no public list, there's no historical listings of pricing, there's no uploaded QuickBooks or, you know, tax documentation to confirm what the listings have located there. Very little usage of data room. They say that less than 10% of all small businesses that are listed for sale run through a broker. So most of the businesses are kind of a carefully concealed series of disasters and they don't have a roadmap for you to actually see what you're buying. And so because of that, I could scream about this from the rooftops, but if people don't actually know how to get inside of a business, hold the hand of a business owner that's done paper invoices for seven years and move them into 21st century tech, they're probably not going to close that sale. And so I think we still have a lot of Runway to go there. Plus, this is such a. It's the perfect fragmented market. I mean, most of these small businesses are probably jobs, but guess who wants a job? Your 30 year olds who are making less than their parents were at 30. As you've talked about before, they'd be thrilled with a business where they could raise their prices more than inflation each year, where they could be their own boss and where they might actually be able to grow the business overall. And so, you know, businesses that are sub $10 million in revenue are numerous. I mean that would be businesses sub 10 million, but above 5 million are about 20% of the marketplace and the rest is below $5 million in annual revenue, which is a very, very small business.

[Scott Galloway]

Talk a little bit about financing. There's different ways to finance a small business. What I would think a lot of people don't consider us because they think I've got 20, 30, $50,000, name or no capital. What are different means of financing the acquisition of a small business?

[Cody Sanchez]

Yeah. Without trying to sound like a used car salesman saying that you could Buy a car with $0 down and no credit. The interesting part about the business landscape is the credit is not your own. I think a lot of people don't realize this. When you go to buy a house, you go, okay, I got $200,000 in earned income. They'll loan me whatever based on my earned income. And I can't buy a house. That's more than that. It's all based on how much I earn. You go to buy a small business, the small business, what the loan is on. Now, they also want to make sure that you are not going to fail and you're not going to sit as, like a liability on their balance sheet because you can't run the business. But they're really analyzing the business. So your earned income is whatever the earned income of the business makes, which is like a huge mindset for people to have to think about. Now, you know, we know the SBA will do loans up to 90% of the purchase price of a small business. So that means you're on the hook, probably 10% to 20% down for a small business. And then, you know, you want to have float, right? You want to have enough cash on hand to make sure you can handle operating costs for the business overall. But, you know, there's three ways that we buy businesses that people don't think about. One, Uncle Sam SBA gives you money to buy the business. This is just getting expanded. For the first time ever, they're allowing diversified investors. So you don't have to be the only one. You don't even have to put up the 10 or 20%. Now you can have other people invest alongside you, put up the capital and be on the loan with you. That's just enacted this year. The second way is seller financing or creative financing. I don't really like to say seller financing because it kind of sounds weird. If you go to the owner of business and say, like, you sell me your business using your future profits, which is what it is, I might say, instead, creative financing. In the book, we have, like a couple of graphs that I think help make this more reasonable as to why a seller would do this. But 60% of all small businesses are sold with some component of seller financing, which is a wild number now. Not 80%, but 30% at least. And then the third way that we see small businesses getting sold and we're seeing it like crazy in Japan, I think it's going to start happening more here in the US Is basically we're seeing apprenticeship begin again. A small business owner knows that they want to retire in the next five years. And because they want to retire in the next five years, they are starting to look for somebody to take over for their small business for them. And so it just happened with Jade, a member of our community. She went to her boss, this is a military contracting company, and said, I want to eventually take over your business. Would you be open to selling to me? And instead, he said, why don't we start transitioning from the business from me to you? And I'll continue to take a glorified salary, really like a royalty payment on what you make over the next 5, 10, or 15 years. But I don't even need you to actually buy the business from me. And so if we don't do this, my thought is that a bunch of these businesses go away and they die. And we've seen that happen. And so. So that is why I'm pushing people to say, yes, be careful of risk. But these businesses are available all around you to purchase. And baby boomers simply will not live forever. And if we don't buy them, then those businesses will go away entirely.

[Scott Galloway]

So say you're sold on this. What's the best way to try and cast a wide net and identify these businesses? I wouldn't even know where to start to try and find these businesses.

[Cody Sanchez]

Well, I think the first thing you gotta do is we call it deal clarity. So you gotta really make sure you know what you want in a business. I think a lot of reasons why people get overwhelmed in searching is because they're like, okay, I'm gonna buy a business. I guess Cody talked about laundromats. So I'm gonna buy a laundromat. And that's not actually right. We call it a perf perfect fit business. So imagine kind of like, you know, three circles of venn diagram. In the middle is the business that's perfect for you. What I usually tell people today is like, all everybody listening has some sort of skill set that that is unique to them. If you're an accountant, yes, you could go buy a landscaping company. And accountants actually are great for buying businesses because you know how to analyze the P and l. But you might be better off buying an accounting firm. You might be better off actually looking at your competitors and some of the others in your same or similar industry. So that's more strategic, I always think first, what is your, like, satellite acquisition strategy where either you already have a skill, you're an employee in that business, you just go buy a business that is similar. Number two would be what if you are an accountant but you don't want to stay in accounting, you want to do something else? Well, then you might want to run around and look for a business that necessitates somebody who has a strong financial acumen. And then third, we kind of go through this, it's called the deal box. You know this from investing, but it's, we have our investment thesis categorized by 15 different components that says how much money do you want to make? Where is the business located? Do you want to run the business or do you want to be an investor in the business? Do you want the business in which sectors? And once you fill out this deal box, I think, you know, bumper lanes actually make it easier to hit the pins. And so then you can start narrowing down your deal search. And we talk about the 100 to 50 to 10 to 1 rule, which is basically you're going to look at 100 different companies just like you'd look at 100 different houses. High level on business sites, high level publicly. And then you're probably going to, after you're perusing your Zillow of business, you're going to narrow down to like 50 that you might reach out. Most of them are never going to get back to you. Then you're going to go down to 10 that you get kind of serious with and you might go visit them, you might get to know the owner, maybe it's people you already know. You're going to get into their financials and then you get down to one business that you actually buy. And I'm not saying that's the right way to do it always, but it's a good rule of thumb.

[Scott Galloway]

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[Cody Sanchez]

I'm not the biggest proponent. I mean, here's, here's what I can say. I have a, an MBA from Georgetown. I went all credentials down the way. I, you know, started off at asu, Harvard of the west and, you know, didn't apply anywhere else. It was just where I got in for free. But then I was, you know, at Goldman, in State street, in Vanguard and First Trust. And I thought that in order to progress, you had to get an mba. That was my idea. And so I went and I spent whatever $100,000 plus getting the Georgetown MBA and added on a PhD to it. If I could go back right now and Instead take those two years back from my MBA and that $100,000 and instead buy a couple of these businesses, I would. And to be perfectly frank, I learned nothing related to running a business at my Georgetown mba. I learned a lot about international business, which is interesting at the time. And I learned a lot about how to make sure the government doesn't fuck with your business too much because I ran a pretty big international finance business at the time. I also am not in touch with anybody that I went to Georgetown with. Like they say, well, if you don't go for the knowledge, you go for the network. I don't know, I have a Better Network from YPO and EO, which cost me like 4k a year and maybe like 10k a year for Y IPO. So I have a little bit of a jaded view about MBAs in particular. I think it's awesome when you're like me. You want to climb a corporate ladder and you want a virtue signal or if you don't really know what you want out of life yet, and so you just want to see the full spectrum of jobs or opportunities available, then I like it. But if you want to, if you want to be a business owner, the best business school is business and it pays you.

[Scott Galloway]

You said you'd wish you had that hundred thousand bucks back to buy one or two businesses. What kind of business? Give us an example of a business that you or someone you know has been able to buy for 100 grand. The type of business, the cash flows, where it ultimately ends up in three or five years.

[Cody Sanchez]

Well, the. One of the first businesses I bought was a laundromat for 100k and it did about $67,000 a year in quote unquote profit. But that was also the operator's payment. And that business was perfect, kind of because I had a guy who knew how to run a laundromat. He was a real estate guy. Real estate guys are interesting to partner on some of these businesses because they have to fix a lot of stuff. They have handyman they usually know like local geomet. And so he knew that this area was pretty good. We also ended up buying the property that it was in. So that business didn't make me much money like I was in finance. $67,000 a year plus split with the guy, plus whatever extra expenses we have was basically not very much. But what we realized from doing that first deal is we could add three or four more to those and that business ended up getting pretty healthy. 300 $400,000 a year in both of our pockets, split between the two of us, but in in our pockets. And that's when I realized, oh, there's not that much difference between a smaller deal and a bigger deal. Just confidence at some degree. And then also once we did a couple of those, then we were like, huh, we need to add wash and fold to this. So then one of our laundromats, actually one located here in Texas, ended up doing $3 million a year in total revenue and then more like a 25% margin on just that one laundromat from a wash and fold add on. And so even a laundromat can scale up to a business that does a couple million dollars a year if you have a few of them one individually, no. And that's a laundromat is probably the worst business from a total return standpoint out there because you cannot scale it very high. And all these VC companies have died at the altar of trying to spend a bunch of money on laundromats and scale them up. But for a new person who didn't understand much, that's how I made my first couple hundred K outside of my nine to five.

[Scott Galloway]

There's a lot of research showing restaurants where the owner is there just do tangibly better. I mean isn't this about acquire, about being really on top of your business? And if you want to scale, it's about finding and retaining really talented managers. What kind of people do you look for in your business to bring on to manage these different businesses?

[Cody Sanchez]

Well, the one good thing about a lot of these businesses is the word talent is so different here than it is for a media company. Like the talent at my Media company, they're expensive, they leave all the time, they don't want to do all of the work. They have a lot of optionality. And you know, I'm lucky in that we screen for kind of the right culture fit for us. But that talent is really hard to manage. VC talent, really hard to manage, really hard to keep, really expensive. When I run these small businesses, I mean, God, Laura, one of my operators has been with me for years and is incredible like never ask for anything. Can run a business that does, let's call it almost just seven figures a year and probably will do it for decades for me and doesn't require this really sophisticated product knowledge or sophisticated talent set. I think, you know, we owned a mobile home park for instance and like do you know what the operator of a mobile home park makes a year?

[Scott Galloway]

It's funny, my father actually his fourth wife owned mobile home parks so I know a little bit about this. This is 20 years ago, but they made $28,000 plus they had their re paid for it. But that was 10 or 20 years ago.

[Cody Sanchez]

Well, that's. Yes. So I, when I first learned this, I was shocked. I was like, wait a second, we paid in my mobile home park, we paid like 300 or maybe 400 bucks a month to this, to the operator of the mobile home park. Plus they got their rent for free. Plus they got to screen everybody that came in. So they ended up picking their friends and like family members in order for them to come in as well. And that was the entire pay. And I remember when I asked originally to the guy at both the mobile home park, I'm like, why would somebody do this job for so little? And he said a couple different reasons. He said one, give them the friends and family perk they really like. They like self select their own community, you know, two, upgrade them, do whatever they want to their actual mobile home, like take care of everything for them and then, and then three, like that's it. Just make sure that they're sort of taken care of from that perspective. And so you know, she's like in her six, loved the job and ran a mobile home park that did, you know, God, I mean, one and a half, $1.7 million a year. I think we underestimate how much we have to pay people when we've been in these fancy industries. And then we ended up selling the mobile home park and then she got a little piece of it which was kind of cool at the end.

[Scott Galloway]

The thing that always pops out to me about something like this is that return on investment is inversely correlated to how sexy a business businesses. These are not sexy businesses. And, but what is sexy as you get older is being able to take care of your kids and your parents. And like you said, be rich, do it, do whatever you want. Is there any one sector right now that's propping up that you think represents more opportunity than others?

[Cody Sanchez]

I think rehab, individual rehab homes. Right now we're analyzing a bunch of them. I mean, we have an addiction crisis here in the US the likes of which really no country has ever seen before. And that's not going to get better in the near future. And we do not have enough beds, we do not have enough resources for these individuals. And originally when I looked at the sector, I thought, well, who has the money to like spin up a $10 million or a $50 million rehab center? That must be very aggressive. But actually there are all these grants for you to do it with single family homes. And so there are these small little rehab, I don't even know if you would call it centers, houses all around the country that are popping up. But you get subsidized by the federal government. You also get a bunch of tax breaks on top of it. You get to do something good for individuals. You also get some unique tax consequences because it's largely real estate driven. You get a landhold on the real estate overall and they're not cheap to stay in. And so this one is there's not very many home services businesses that I think can have like a real positive impact too. Besides that, clean communities, I think are good for society. But this is one where I think you could make a real impact. You can make some money and it's probably going to expand crazily and then we're going to eventually see a bunch of PE guys buying it out.

[Scott Galloway]

Cody Sanchez is a former Wall street investor and the founder and CEO of Contrarian Thinking, a digital education company with over 7 million followers. She's also the founder of Main Street Holdco, a small business holding company focused on bringing Main street businesses back to the limelight. And Contrarian Thinking Capital, a firm that invests money back into the companies that support small business growth. Cody, I think what you're doing is really important, not only because it's growing the economy and you're creating jobs, but I think there's an unfortunate zeitgeist that if a kid doesn't go to Dartmouth and end up at Google, that he or she is failed. And there's other pathways into the middle class and maybe Even to the an upper income home. And I think you're sort of destigmatizing it. I think you're actually playing not only an economically important role, but a kind of a. An emotionally and psychologically important role. Really, really appreciate your good work and you know. Right on sister. Well done.

[Cody Sanchez]

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It's. It's fun. I wish more people realized garbage men have good times.

[Scott Galloway]

There you go. Sanitation engineers. Thanks Cody. Algebra of happiness. My friend Adam gave me a piece of advice that always sort of resonated with me. He has two boys, you know, both doing well, both wonderful boys, but they've had like every other boy, they've had their issues at different times. And he said that the only thing that works, worked consistently was time. And that is eventually things worked out or got better. And it struck me. And even though I don't act this way, I know it's right, but I don't always act on it. My son is doing really well at school. Kind of, I don't want to say all of a sudden he's always done okay, even good, but all of a sudden he's just doing incredibly well. And when I try to reverse engineer it to our environment or what we've done for forum, here's the answer, here's what we did. Absolutely nothing. There's nothing we did. As a matter of fact, he wanted to take sports science and our friends who are all Ivy League or die in America said no, don't do that. He needs economics or businesses, colleges don't take sports science seriously. And so we had this big intervention, tried to talk him out of it and he pushed back on us, which I'm really proud of him for. And he kept sports science and he's getting commendations or whatever they call is the one of the top in his class in it. And it just struck me that so much of our stress around our kids is such unproductive stress. You know what you need to do? You need to love them unconditionally, you need to spend a lot of time with them. You need to try and instill a set of values in them. You need to model right. You give your kids the basics and then you realize that the only thing that works over the long term or doesn't is time. And you forgive yourself. You do your best, you work out, you learn about baseball, but once you've thrown the pitch, you know it's up to. It's up to the batter, your kid and God and the humidity in the air and the environment. So yeah, do you want to be a little bit stressed out? Sure. But at the end of the day when you look back, you're not going to be angry or upset about the bad things that happen to you or your kid. You're going to be angry and upset and how much pressure you placed on yourself and then injected into the relationship. Relationship with your kid. The only thing that reliably works out over time. Built on a base of love and support. And time is time. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Caroline Chagrin. Drew Burroughs is our Technical Director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for no Mercy, no Malice as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Profg Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday. Oh, we're sad again. We're sad. We're not sad. Oh sad. Not so sad. Artificial Intelligence Smart Houses Electric vehicles. We are living in the future future. So why not make 2024 the year you go fully electric with Chevy, the all electric 2025 Equinox EV. LT starts around $34,995. Equinox EV a vehicle you know, value you'd expect and a dealer right down the street go EV without changing a thing. Learn more at chevy.com equinoxev the manufacturers suggested retail price excludes tax, title, license, dealer fees and optional equipment dealer sets final price Marketing to Small Businesses With.

[Cody Sanchez]

Intuit SMB Media Labs, you can connect to millions of small businesses across new.

[Scott Galloway]

And established channels like Social Programmatic and ctv. With first party small business audiences, target by industry size, maturity, location and more and connect with the companies that need you most.

[Cody Sanchez]

Do more with tailored insights from Intuit SMB Media Labs.

[Scott Galloway]

Learn more at medialabs.

[Cody Sanchez]

Intuit.