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The Truth About Nine-Figure Exits with Jeffery Feldberg

Episode 68 · 1 April 2026 · 1 hr 8 min

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The Truth About a Nine-Figure Exit with Jeffrey Feldberg

A nine-figure exit is supposed to be the finish line. For Jeffrey Feldberg, founder of EmbaNet, it opened a dark chapter that changed how he defines abundance. He explains how he bootstrapped from his parents' attic, sold two weeks before the Great Recession, and why net profit beats growth.

What happens after you achieve the ultimate entrepreneurial dream? Jeffrey Feldberg, founder of EmbaNet, shares the raw reality of building a company from his parents' attic to a nine-figure exit just weeks before the 2007 Great Recession. This episode explores the "old-fashioned" business principles that allowed Jeffrey to maintain a 53% net profit margin while competitors with massive burn rates imploded. Beyond the spreadsheets, this is a story of internal transformation. Jeffrey discusses the ego and emptiness that came with massive wealth and the pivotal wake-up call from his daughter that forced him to redefine abundance. Whether you are bootstrapping a startup or preparing for an exit, this conversation offers a masterclass in "firing yourself" to scale, the danger of venture capital, and why true wealth is found in the Five F’s—Family, Fitness, Finance, Friends, and Fun.

Jeffrey Feldberg on EmbaNet, Bootstrapping vs Venture Capital, and How to Fire Yourself

What you'll discover:

  • Why Jeffrey turned down a seven-figure offer and survived the dot-com bust by staying profitable
  • Selling EmbaNet in 2007, two weeks before the Great Recession
  • The post-exit crisis, and the question from his daughter that changed everything
  • Bootstrapping vs. venture capital, and why VC could have killed the company
  • The founder trap: how to fire yourself, set the right KPIs, and accept that good is good enough
  • The 53% rule: why net profit is the metric that matters

Timestamps

  • [00:00] AI and the collapse of "terminal value" in the stock market
  • [03:10] Porter's five forces, the printing press and what AI disrupts
  • [05:06] A Bloomberg terminal in 15 minutes: what gets disrupted next
  • [07:53] More supply, shrinking demand: where do you invest?
  • [10:00] Hard assets vs. Bitcoin: how to protect your wealth
  • [11:17] Break — Sponsor: AG1
  • [12:00] Jeffrey Feldberg joins: the bumblebee story
  • [15:55] 1999: launching EmbaNet from his parents' attic
  • [17:50] A Fortune 10 joint venture and the seven-figure offer
  • [19:28] Surviving the dot-bomb: profitability vs. burn rate
  • [25:08] The nine-figure exit, two weeks before the Great Recession
  • [28:40] The post-exit crisis: ego, emptiness and the "dark night of the soul"
  • [32:27] The wake-up call: a daughter's question that changed everything
  • [34:12] What he'd tell his younger self
  • [39:14] "Easy for you to say": advice for founders just getting started
  • [40:54] The dot-com IPO that never happened
  • [43:10] Bootstrapping: frugality and keeping a backup to the money
  • [45:19] Why venture capital could have killed the company
  • [47:02] Would the same playbook work today? Start with a painful problem
  • [49:01] The founder trap: how to "fire yourself"
  • [51:00] Hired guns, the right KPIs and the right bonus system
  • [52:56] Good is good enough: why 70% as good can 10x your business
  • [56:50] Abdicate, delegate or eliminate, and always keep your finger on the cash
  • [58:50] Hiring for values: a culture-fit lesson
  • [1:03:23] EBITDA or free cash flow? The metric that matters
  • [1:06:03] The 53% rule: why net profit is the only metric that matters
  • [1:07:30] Wrap-up: where to find Jeffrey

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About Jeffrey Feldberg

Jeffrey Feldberg is the founder of EmbaNet, an online-learning company he started in his parents' attic and sold in a nine-figure exit. He now runs Deep Wealth, which helps business owners prepare for an exit, and hosts the Deep Wealth Podcast.

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:12] Abundance. Uh, John, take us into this article from Chimath. I can't say his last name from uh in this X article. — Yeah, I I love talking about AI and technology with you guys. I think you you have this great article, the collapse of terminal value and what happens if AI makes every moat temporary which is a little bit clickbaity and it talks about the collapse of terminal value and then it goes into you know how AI is going to have us repricing terminal value and and it's true I think it will have us replacing terminal value in some industries and then it goes like you know newspapers in one period and retail and Uber and energy and taxi medallions and the reality is that AI is going to have us repricing things. We're already seeing some of that in the market, but it's not going to repric everything all at once, you know, and I think that technology does disrupt things. And it's talking, this article makes it sound like we've never had technology disruption ever before in the history of mankind. But in the 1890s, the the head of the United States Trademark and Patent Office said, "We should shut the US uh PTO down because everything that ever could have been invented has already been invented. That was before planes, before the microwave, before space travel, before the internet, before AI. It might have been before toaster ovens, I don't know. But like [laughter] I I'm just it's it's a I mean, when we have these like all or nothing things that are in in the titles of these articles, it's a little clickbay for me. I think it's real that people should be thoughtful about terminal value and how you look at, you know, pricing technologies. I think it's smart to think about where disruption lives, but it's ridiculous to think that like the whole world is going to hell in a hand basket all at once because of two letters. Like, it's just it's fear-mongering in my world. It's not — I I agree with you that it's a little clickbaity because when you get to the end of the article, his actual conclusion is this isn't going to happen. But my take on this article was a little different than yours. Um, I have issue with it for a different reason than you. I I I took his main point is what impact is this going to have on the stock market, on the S&P, on the NASDAQ, right? Uh I mean one of his main things that he really digs into here and I think he does a really good job is he talks about how the market is a multiple not just of cash flow now but what do you expect over the next 25 years and the growth and that all of that is dependent upon a moat and what he's really saying is if AI takes over this market and it removes the moat how can you value companies at 25 years earnings right which I've always I think is too much anyway like I but you know to take his argument a step further what is the world going to look like in 25 years I don't know how to be I don't think anybody knows how to begin to answer that right — well that's stop that's not true Porter's five forces is the key of strategy in an industry and Porter has been talking about his five forces for decades now and it's like threat of substitution changes profitability of an industry buyer power changes profitability ility of an industry. Supplier power changes profitability in industry. Competitive rivalry changes profitability. Barriers to entry change like like this is not a new set of concepts. Anybody who's ever taken a strategy class has talked about Porter's five forces has talked about technologies impact in all five of these areas. So to say it like this is a new come on. Like that's just it's not intellectually honest.

[03:50] — Well, I'm not saying that we that this isn't going to disrupt people. I'm not saying that it's not going to have a negative impact in some places, but like the printing press wiped out everybody who was a scribe in the 1400s. Like we don't have a we don't have a a a job description today where you sit down with a pen and a quill and you copy books over and over and over again so that we have copies of books for libraries. Like the printing press wiped out that entire industry globally. Randy, to your point, I think 25 times, you know, uh, earnings is really expensive, but historically — Historically, it's more like seven to nine and 25 is on the really high end, — different periods of history. I love that. So, so you're I like your time better than mine. That's great. — But historically, seven to nine is is the norm, right? And so, and I think so to make Chamas's point, I haven't even got to where I disagree with it, but to make his point, if historically it's more like 7 to n times earnings and it's currently 25 times earnings, if you go back 50 years, it was a whole lot easier to predict 25 years in the future or 7 years or whatever the time frame is. now figuring out what's going to get disrupted. I mean, John, you just told me a few weeks ago you had a call and you go, "I just got off the phone with somebody and they made a Bloomberg terminal in 15 minutes with AI." Like, that wasn't an option 6 months or a year ago. By the way, I've heard that same story now from three different people, one on a podcast, two in person that said they recreated a Bloomberg terminal or did it and added something. Uh, you know, I've heard numerous people going like, well, do I use software or do I make my own CRM or have AI create my own CRM? Like these are this is happening at a really really fast pace. So, we're already the the market is overvalued if you look at it historically. And he's arguing that it probably shouldn't be even 7 to nine anymore. It probably should be 2 to five. and that the and so what he's saying is going to happen then is that if the market drops the money that will be invested into startups including AI and some of these other things will slow down and therefore AI actually won't scale as fast as we think it'll scale because the money will dry up and then it'll swing back the other way and it'll go back and forth is kind of what he's arguing where I disagree with him is he doesn't play this out right I'm I was thinking second, third, fourth level. Well, if AI really does all these things, right, and it makes it where a company you can't predict earnings 25 years in advance or even 5 years in advance, that means that the moat to creating all of these things has gone down and down and down. But that means way more abundance. That means that people can make whatever it is easier. And abundance comes from supply.

[06:56] it does not come from demand, right? And that if we can make more and it becomes easier to mine materials and it becomes easier to get energy and it becomes easier easier easier in every which way and we have humanoid robots and all these things, well, there isn't going to need to be as much money and everything will become cheaper. And yes, the the really rich people might watch their net worth drop and they won't need nearly as much net worth because everything is going to become cheap and abundant if this naturally play if if what he's saying plays out. It's exactly what Elon Musk has been predicting is talking about how money will become almost irrelevant. Right. So — that that's the part where I think we've talked about that with the industrial revolution. I just don't know if that I mean maybe that's a possibility. I think the likelihood is probably not as probable as people think. Uh and you know another thing just to be concerned about like we talk about AI and and the more availability of everything. The thing that's not getting as much airtime is you know a shrinking population. So shrinking demand. So if you both increase supply and you reduce demand, I — let's John, I know you don't necessarily buy into the concept and I don't fully either, but let's assume he's right and let's say the stock market drops from 25 times earnings. Doesn't matter if it's 257. That's a lot of wealth destruction, right? So how does somebody protect themselves? Like what is the answer of how they protect themselves?

[08:32] I I I know what I think it is, but I want to know what you guys think. — I am the same way. I I think hard assets, including real estate, I think you have to be disciplined in how you buy real estate. You know, we saw that that whole cycle in Detroit where there was kind of an implosion, then then a renaissance. And so I think that uh and especially if you have a shrinking population, the way you buy real estate changes quite certainly. Um so I think the type of real estate matters. I think where you buy the real estate, the location matters. Uh, and I think doing something where you are an intelligent investor, you know, I think for me, I went and took all the real estate courses I could. I took eight years to study the market before I bought my first, you know, piece of real estate. I'm not suggesting everyone should do that, but I just wanted to be well informed before I started investing in real estate if I was going to make a sizable investment. And so, that was the approach that I took. And so, I think investing in what you know also very, very important. Um and I had a friend who's in private equity say recently that generalists in the next kind of are going to be hurt as you move forward and people who are real experts and invest in areas of expertise are going to have a benefit.

[09:40] — Yeah. I I think real estate also is impacted by the technology. Right. If we have flying cars, which people are predicting, and there's already the companies, we talked about it last week, it becomes much easier to get the beautiful scenery 30 miles out of town or 60 miles out of town because of the commute or on the other side of the mountain or whatever. So, I do think technology impacts it. I think gold is good. Although if we really have that much abundance, there's a whole bunch of gold that with the right robots and technology, if the price goes high enough, they can go to the bottom of the ocean or eventually they'll be able to figure out how to mine asteroids, etc. Uh, you know, it's not as limited. So, for me, of course, it's Bitcoin is the answer because it is limited to 21 million. Uh the other thing I was thinking about with this is companies that really make something right intellect is going away and knowledge is is being disrupted by AI to some extent. I do think being an expert in something is not being disrupted but general knowledge is going away. But if you make something that is needed or you mine something or you know energy I mean a lot of those different things uh are probably going to hold value and become more valuable over time. So — that's right.

[10:55] — All right listeners we're going to go to break. When we get back we have a very special guest Jeffrey Feldberg uh is going to talk about a lot of things with abundance and really kind of building on some of what we just talked about. How to exit his company with a nine figure exit and uh some just a lot of wisdom and a lot of tips. I think y'all are really going to enjoy this one. that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our fivefs for lots of other taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more time consuming and difficult goals to chase. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit less than a minute that's formulated with 75 plus vitamins and nutrients and designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. It even has a few grams of protein uh that we're all chasing these days. And if you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll also receive a free AG1 flavor sampler plus vitamin D3 plus K2 with your welcome kit when you first subscribe. $72 value. Go to shop.dream 3 we've got Jeffrey Feldberg. Jeffrey, welcome to Tales of Abundance. I'm excited to have you here.

[12:14] — Hey, John. Great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Delighted. — You know, we met on your podcast uh Deep Wealth and with your deep wealth nation with your audience. And I'm so interested and inspired by the stories that you tell and you're pretty public about turning down a sevenf figureure exit and turning it into a ninef figure exit. Let's start with just the story of Ebanet and how you ended up with your is this was it your first exit? Embanet's a really interesting story and John thank you and by the way great to have you on the podcast and you're quite modest yourself and congratulations with you and Anthony and Randy and what you guys are doing now and all of your successes. You know, looking back now, you can always connect the dots, but back in the day, it was anything but that. Embanette, in many ways, it's like that story that probably so many people and in your community have likely heard about the bumblebee. On paper, the bumblebee should never fly. Scientists have said, "Well, the weight is too much. The wingspan is too small. The only problem is no one ever told the bumblebee and it flies." And Embanette is much the same way. On paper, it never should have worked. Here I was, no money. I had no experience, no team. I was in for me a new industry, this thing called the internet. I don't know if you guys heard about the internet. It's a small little thing that was up and coming back in the day, but we were up against some really large, well-backed competitors. But it was early days when we first started and the internet was brand new. It was dialed up modems. I'm going to date myself here somewhat.

[13:47] Brand new, by the way. People think like 2000. This is like 1995, right? — That That's right. Yeah. — Yeah. I mean, that's that you could hear the internet with that screeching sound on the phones with some of us remember — And you know, for those out there, again, I'm dating myself. Think America Online and CompuServe and that going back to those days. It was nowhere like what it is today with the internet, but that was it. And you know what was interesting about EMBANET was it started in my MBA program. So EMBANET originally stood for electronic MBA network. And when I began it, I had no idea this is what I was going to be doing. It was for selfish reasons quite openly. I started my NBA program and for those that are watching this, I used to have a whole lot more hair. My hair used to be like this, but I started my NBA program. I lost most of it from the stress. This is in the first semester of the NBA program. And I said, "Gosh, there's got to be a better way of doing this." We were meeting on the weekends and the week nights and the weekdays and driving to these meetings. I said, "This is crazy. Let's find a better way." And experimented. I found a better way. It worked so well that for my team, my group, we became the top group in the program and saving time. And it was, if I can use a couple ewords, effortlessness and with ease. I felt guilty. And I said, "Okay, this can't be just for us. Let me introduce it to the rest of the class." And little did I know that that class project would later go on to become embinet, which later would go on to create a market disruption. And depending on where you want to go, John, we can delve into what it did and all those other things. But it really started off as, okay, how can I solve this problem for myself and my group to make things easier. when you've been pretty public about, you know, you were offered something like three times Ebida in at the first turn and then you decided to disrupt yourself instead and ended up selling for 13 times EBIDA I found online. And so I mean and and the disruption, this is the part that really grabbed me online was that your disruption, you tried to disrupt your own business model in 1999 right as we were about to go through a dotcom com bust and then you had massive success.

[16:02] Like tell us that like take us into 1999. Take us into the mindset. Take us into that first offer. Tell us where it was in the process. And then how did you walk through that arc? — It was a dark and stormy night. Seriously, just let let me let me set up the context to put this in perspective. So started out in my parents attic. No money, no experience, no team. And it was okay, if this worked well in my NBA program, let me take this to other NBA programs. And the whole idea was for other MBA programs for both the faculty and the students whether it was a full-time or executive MBA student. Today we take it for granted. We call it e-learning. Back then that didn't exist. And so it was being able to save some time and go through the MBA program and save a whole lot of time. Our our claim to fame we became the golden child in the industry. Most online programs, think about this, you're you're in business and out of every 10 customers, you're losing six or seven of them. That was online learning. So, Ambinet came along and said, "Hey, we're going to do your hosting. So, we'll take care of the servers. We'll do 24/7 live technical support. We'll help bring the courses online, so it's not just a boring talking head. It's actually dynamic and interesting." And that's what got us going. And so, initially, it was very small, again, out of my parents attic.

[17:23] And eventually my dad was a pharmacist and he was on the board of directors. He had ownership in the building. I said, "Hey, dad, do you think I can get I wanted the doctor's office?" Cuz I had worked at my dad's pharmacy growing up as a kid. There were some vacancies. Do you think I can get a doctor's office monthtomonth? It was, I think, $500 a month at the time. Can you speak to the board? Maybe they can do us a favor. Said, "Okay, I spoke to the board, but Jeffrey, sure, but it's literally monthtomonth. They can give you a month's notice and you're out." So anyways, we're in the doctor's office. It's now very humble embanet and we're starting to grow. We got the attention of a Fortune 10 company who knocked on the door and they initially came along. Oh, let's do a joint venture and this could be interesting. And I had a feeling this was more than just a joint venture, but hey, you know what? I don't know what I don't know. Let's go along with this. Where's it going to go? Who knows? They'll pick out some of our blind spots. And very long story short, they ended up giving a seven figure offer. And friends and family, hey Jeffrey and team, take it. This won't come along again. Grab it. You'll do something else. You're still young. But to everyone's surprise, I said no. And I don't know who felt worse to the buyer or my family, but said no to that. And I had learned from that process of okay, wow, I just didn't know what I didn't know. I was this founder and all hands on deck and let's just get this going.

[18:47] But I saw through the process, okay, yeah, the buyer was that proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing and looking to get a real deal there. But you know what's that old saying? When you point some fingers, you got four pointing right back at you. And I said, okay, I did not help that seven figure offer situation. Let me learn from this. And so I took those learnings myself, my business partner Steve Wells and Wesles Galazo and created a system that less than 24 months later we were able to have a ninef figureure exit deal and we really got our start from saying no to a sevenf figureure offer and what was going on at that time John as we were going through that process it was my goodness the dot orbomb was uh right right upon us and One one quick story I I'll share with you. I'll never forget. I was at a trade show and we had all these companies, no business model, no revenues, just these ideas and they were selling for gazillions of dollars. And one of these startups approached me and said, "Jeffrey, you're a dinosaur. You're not you're just not going to be here. We're going to put you out of business." And I said, "Oh, how's that?" Well, this founder said, "We're charging nothing and you're charging something. Why would anyone want to use you?" And I thought, "Oh, isn't that interesting?" But what was interesting for myself and for your listeners is I stuck to best practices to first principles and I said, "Okay, well maybe they'll put us out of business, but if they're going to put us out of business, it's not going to be without a fight." And so for me, it was never about market share or how big of a business. I only had one concern, and this is because I was bootstrapping. I want to be the most profitable business.

[20:30] I'll take a smaller business as long as it's profitable. And ultimately, you know, history and looking back, hindsight is always 2020. That was the right approach because we had a really terrific business. It wasn't just a terrific business model. It was an excellent business model. We can talk about that at one point if you like. It was a great business model. We were profitable. We were making a difference. It was a real business with real customers. Tier one universities, Vanderbilt University, Boston — So Jeffrey, was that 24 months? Was that when you is that when you changed — It it was it was already in the works when the seven figure offer came. We were already in that inflection point and we knew something was off and that we had to change. So, another way to look at it is that we were terrific at keeping the seats filled. It was actually John Clark, the associate dean at Colorado State University, calls me up one day, Jeffrey, I have a board of directors meeting and it's not great. There's this thing called the internet and now video conferencing and now my competitors are setting up in town for my executive MBA program. I'm going to have a whole lot less students for myself and for you. Can you help me fill the seats? And had no idea, you know, Randy and Anthony, John filling the seats, marketing had no idea what that was. Obviously, we knew how to market.

[21:49] it was for ourselves. But that's really what began our journey to create a market disruption of okay, we're great at keeping the seats filled. How do you fill the seats? And that led to a new business model, a new way of doing business. And ultimately, that's what led to the market disruption. And what's interesting, all you founders out there who want abundance, as I like to say, in today's success are tomorrow seeds of failure. And what do you mean by that? Well, had Embinet and I'd like to go back to Embinet 1, which is what we began with, and Embinet 2, it would have been very comfortable and very easy to stick with Embinet 1 and not look to fill the seats. Had we done that though, what would have happened? Technology became easier. The schools were catching up. The ID IT departments would have gone to our customers said, "Look, maybe we're not as good as Empanet, but good is good enough, and we now got the technology down. The servers aren't going down as much, and the software's become easier. we can do all that for you. Why don't you come on board with us? By the time they did that, the schools were like, well, yeah, that's all fine and good, but are you going to get me my students? Because we've 10 times, 30 times the number of students that we have in our online programs, and they're just not any students. They are as good, even better, than our onampus students. And so, that's really behind the scenes what we were figuring out and failing a lot. If you think this was a straight path, it was anything but. It was one step forward, five steps back, two steps forward, seven steps back, but figuring out along the way to really make the difference. And so ultimately, it was we kept the seats filled, but we also filled the seats and we did so in a very novel way of doing this from a business model perspective that gained a lot of traction and worked really well.

[23:37] I mean that's super early solution selling where you were giving someone the entire box versus just a point solution or a SAS solution or and I think for for the you know the listeners that you know weren't doing business in that time period like 95 to 2005 you were still running data centers and maybe even at a data center locally and colllocation was a really big problem and I remember we had a fire at a data center at that period and and we were geolocc we were coll-located in multiple geographies but like we had some real latency problems when that fire took down a data center for a few hours and like it there was a lot of challenges you don't have to worry about today with things like AWS and Azure and Google Cloud and just a different set of problems than we have right now. — Oh my goodness. Yeah. Having lived through that, the the other not only was technology changing, but I think it was around 2002 or so, the investment dollars dried up, right? Because so many companies went belly up that everyone ran for the hills. And so the the the some of the startups that probably had promise, you know, they went down in in a in flames because they couldn't get investment dollars from, you know, the guys on the West Coast anymore. So it was a lot going on. I mean it was a very turbulent time uh from 02 to '05 and then obviously uh other things occurred in 08 and09. So yeah interesting je what years when you talk about the seven figure exit and the nine figure exit just to help me get my head around it like what what were the time frames or what years were those?

[25:13] — Sure. So the exit and this is could be easily a whole other episode. The exit was in 2007. It was two weeks before the great recession began in the bond market. So in other words, had had the exit been pushed forward, say 2 3 weeks, it would not have happened. It just would have blown up because the buyer was financing the deal through bonds. And so that was the timing of when the exit was. And so it was like 2004, 2005, somewhere in around there when the seven figure offer came. And Anthony, to your point, I mean, since we're talking about abundance, it's really an important, at least for me looking back and a strategy that I've tended to follow, I've made a lot of mistakes. Thankfully, they were much earlier on, even before Embinet. I could tell you the stories of when I was greedy. I wanted to be rich for the sake of being rich. And that blew up in flames. One of the reasons why I believe Embasset worked when everyone around us said, "You guys are crazy and it's nuts and you can't do this." It was a passion. myself, the team, we were chasing our passion first and not the dollars. And in my experience, when I chase the dollars first, [snorts] the dollars don't usually happen. But when I chase the passion first, no guarantees.

[26:28] When I can do it right though, the dollars will follow. And so, we stuck to our beliefs. It was a passion for us. And we were on a mission. It wasn't just about the money. In fact, the money was further down on the list. And quite openly we just wanted to be that gamecher, be that change maker for the faculty, the students, the graduates that ultimately we were serving. And that's really what helped get us through some very turbulent times. Some people may disagree with me. They're not wrong to disagree with me. We were bootstrapped as well. And so in in a lot of ways that helped to insulate us. We didn't take the easy money very deliberately on that. It just wasn't our ethos. and we said, "Okay, a dollar earned is a dollar kept. We're going to reinvest that in the business and yes, we're going to grow slower." That said, though, we will have the control. We'll do it our way with our vision and our kind of quality. — Yeah, that really hits home. That really hits home with me personally. uh you know I spent 39 years in corporate America you know stepping on everybody I could step on to climb corporate ladders and at the age of 60 was able to become an entrepreneur and the difference in mindset in terms of now I'm doing something I like to do not necessarily good at it yet but I'm going to work really hard at it to get good at it and it led to what it led to but it's such a it's such It's such a shift in mindset. And if the listeners, if you're not liking what you're doing, no matter how good you are at something, you aren't going to be happy. No matter how much wealth you dollars and cents, I mean, I made plenty of money in corporate America. Lived a really great life. I was never happy.

[28:14] Never. Never happy. And I wasn't a real good person either. Uh that that environment creates um you know, some some bad habits. we'll just call them bad habits and bad uh bad actions. Uh so yeah, it really hits home and you can see the passion you have in terms of you knew you had something you were liking what you were doing and you know maybe it was going to be successful, maybe it wasn't, but you weren't going to give — You're exactly right. And Anthony, as you're talking about that, actually on my podcast with John, we spoke about this as well. If you really want to see what someone is like, take away all the money or give them a lot of money. And I've been on both sides of that and on my side post exit. So think about this for a second. Jeffrey now has the experience. He has the zeros in the bank. He has the team. I was not a nice person. I had a huge ego. That's when I made a lot of my mistakes. There should have been abundance in my life. There was anything but that. I didn't feel that. And so just because you have zeros in the bank doesn't mean you have an abundant life. Sure you can go and buy things and do things that lasts for a millisecond. And once the purchase is over and I don't know maybe it's a day or three days or a week maybe a month if you're lucky then for me anyways it was that empty feeling again and it's as the saying goes happiness is an inside job.

[29:36] Fulfillment is an inside job. You can't at least for me I couldn't fulfill it externally. And so it was a dark period in my life. If I didn't have that happily ever after and not having a purpose, having a lot of time and zeros in the bank, — it was not a great combination for me. — There's a lot of irony around that because, you know, when you hang out with people that have lots of money, either through inheritance or earning it or whatever the case may be, it's easy to figure out when you have a lot of money that money doesn't make you happy. And you talk to people who maybe want more than they have and they they think the money is the thing that will create the happiness, right? And so um and you know and the comment is it's really easy to say when you have it that it doesn't make you happy. But the truth is that it's not the source of it, right? Like a life well-lived is a happy life. And you can see that when you for me at least when I've gone to other cultures and seen that it really isn't the money first, it's the other things first. And so tell us about that. Like when there was a point when you recognized that clearly like the money didn't do it for me. So tell us about that moment and when it happened and how you got through — Yeah. It became a much longer story than I ever could have imagined or had wanted. And so post exit day one I'm pinching myself. Was this real? Did this really happen? And it felt great to unplug, turn the phone off, not look at emails, not have phone calls. Truth is, I was burnt out. I was going at it 24/7 and had been at it for 13 years and needed that time to rest and recuperate.

[31:12] Once that was over though and lunch became the highlight of my day, it wasn't a great beginning for me because now I had the time and I landed in a group of it was like a Norman Rockwell picture with the other people that I became friends with at that point in time. Successful on the surface. They had lots of time on their hands as well and very wellto-do and successful people. I didn't see it at the time or if I did I didn't want to see it. There was really no spirituality and you know today I'm a man of God and John you and I had spoken about that God didn't exist for me back in those days and it was the old saying you are the five people that you spend the most amount of time with and like that frog in boiling water I began to change as a person. the people I was associating with. Sure, incredible vacations and all the toys and these big houses and all the material trappings. Yet inside there was an emptiness and my values began to change. And I'll never forget I have two daughters and my eldest daughter, maybe she was seven or eight, no more than nine at the time.

[32:27] And one night she comes to me and says, "Daddy, are you going to be home tonight to do something with me? I I have a question and I want to know if you're home tonight." And I said, "Honey, of course I'm going to be home. Why are you asking me? What do you want to do?" When guys, truth be told, I'm I'm ashamed, really embarrassed to say it. I didn't have plans to be home. And so I was lying to myself and at the time, "Sure, I'll be home." I ended up saying, "Well, daddy, you haven't been home a lot lately like you used to be." And I wanted to watch a movie with you. And it it crushed my heart. It just crushed me because when she was growing up, I wasn't there most of the time. I was traveling 6 months of the year, not back to back, but added up cumably 6 months of the year. And and I promised myself if there was ever an opportunity where I can be there for my daughter and then later my my two daughters, I would be there. So after school or school events or whatever is going on in her life because I missed so much of that for the first number of years of her life. And I said, "Okay, something's not right here." And that was my wakeup call that I began to look around and I looked in the mirror. I did not like what I saw with a person that was looking right back at me. I said, "Okay, I not needing to. I want to make some changes because I can see I was at a fork in the road. I can see where this is going and I don't like where it's going and this is not who I am and not who I want to be." And for me that was really the dark night of the soul of okay Jeffrey make some changes now because you have a very small window here otherwise you're going to lose it all.

[33:57] Do you think you could tell that like if you abundance is about a lot more than than money? Then what would you have said to your kind of pre-exit self about wealth if you could go back and you could have listened as your younger like for me I could go back and talk to my younger self and be like yeah my younger self wouldn't have listened. That was the place I was in. — Yeah it would be. And again I could only hope I would have listened. I'm not so sure I would have. But what I would be telling my younger self is it's true some of those colloquial sayings of the best things in life are free and love can't solve all problems, but love is so much. And if on your first hand you can count the number of best friends that you have, you are a wealthy person. And if you're loved by your family, respected by your community, if God is at the center of your heart in all that you do, you are wealthy and have abundance beyond measure. Because all the zeros in the bank, all the success, all the accolades, all the so-called accomplishments are absolutely nothing if you don't have the fulfillment and joy. So I had the first part, I had zero fulfillment, zero joy. And it was beginning to show up in my life. I can only hope that the pre-exit Jeffrey would have listened and said, "Hey, okay, whoa, not so quick here, Jeffrey.

[35:14] Let's let's do a trial run here of Jeffrey without the business." Because in my mind, I was the business. The business was me. There was no separation. And this is I'll speak for myself. I don't believe that I'm alone. Most founders are in this situation. In our 90-day mastery program, in fact, we talk a lot about that of why we need to get the postexit life now. even if your post exit is three, four decades away. And it would be to build a life. God's at the center of my heart. My family, I'm there for them. I'm showing up with integrity, honesty. I have morality and doing my best, not just for me, but also for those around me and being an example for my children. And as we're talking about this, you'll notice that money is not entering the conversation. And I'm not going to be ignorant and say, "Well, money doesn't do anything." Of course, money does things. It's for me, it's like a lubricant in life. It's like oil for the engine of the car. It can make life smoother. It can and does take some pressures off life. Absolutely. Does it bring in and usher the fulfillment and the happiness? At least for me, no, it doesn't. Because for me, it became meaningless. Okay, I'm at this incredible five-star hotel. What city am I in? Where am I again? Because they all look the same to me. And these restaurants, sure, they're great, but I forget about them the next day. and that really expensive bottle of wine that I had, which I no longer have alcohol, but that's a whole other story. You know, we all peeed out later on that day or the next day. And it's all but a distant memory with that. But I do remember that night my daughter asked me, "Daddy, are you home tonight? I want to watch a movie with you and you haven't been home for a while." Or those magic moments, as I call them, with my other daughter, with my family, or with close friends, my loved ones, those I do remember. And all too often when even I look back I was chasing that abundance in my mind.

[37:08] Okay, I got to become richer. I got to become bigger. I didn't have those abundant moments because I was burning the candle at both ends. My health was going by the wayside and it was the wrong path in every which way. — Yeah. It sounds easy though to to now as I as as we're older to look back and say, you know, it it isn't important. But what you know, you were in an attic. Um I I you know, I didn't I came from very modest means at 0 to 60 time where you're earning your first paycheck and being able to afford an apartment and then a house on your own. Um the the inflection point, you know, no one's teaching the 20some person who's now got a decent income, got a decent job that now's the time to think about your future. you know, stop and be happy for a second and think about what's really going to make you happy for the rest of your life. And that's what's missing. If you know, you know, once you get on that train of earning money, more money seems like the best idea at the time. And you don't you're too immature to to make those decisions. So, I think about that and I I counsel my kids on this now that, you know, here's what I didn't do, right? Um, I'm counseling a young guy who's got a business locally here who uh John will be happy to hear I'm forcing him to uh establish his financial finish line so he knows where the hell he's going as opposed to like you said working 247 and you know not paying attention to his daughter and literally not paying attention to his daughter. Um so yeah, it's easy to say now, but boy, um we can have an impact on people by teaching them those things. Um and yeah, you're going to they're not going to some of them aren't going to listen at all, but maybe we can plant seeds uh that at some point they'll say, you know, what John told me back, you know, seven years ago was was the right thing.

[39:11] Let me let me let me act on that now. — It's hard. — Yeah. And you know, as you're talking about that, if I was a listener listening in, and I was just getting going, what I would be saying is, sure, of course, all of you guys can say that it's because you have some success now. You've experienced that, but you're not where I am, and you don't know what it's like or you forget what it's like to make the mortgage or to pay the rent or to get the bills going or to build a life for yourself. And so, for everyone listening in, you're absolutely right when you're saying that because that's exactly what I was saying. Oh yeah, sure you can say that, but you've already made it. So that's easy for you to say. Of course you're going to say it. You're a hypocrite in saying that. What I would share though is for everyone listening. This is where faith comes in of take it from us of we've been on this journey perhaps longer than you have or if we've been the same amount of time, maybe we've taken it to a different trajectory and take it on faith that focus on what really matters first. get your house internally in order and then everything else will follow along the way. And thankfully, my youngest daughter never had to go through what my oldest daughter went through because she always knew dad was always there and after school. And so I had fortunately learned and my eldest daughter gave me that wakeup call. And I'm so glad that I listened to her and to myself to do that, that my youngest daughter was a benefactor of that. But for everyone listening, have some faith that what we're saying here. Don't think it's a face value. You know, go to Ronald Reagan, trust, but verify. But why not try it for seven days or 15 days, 30 days? Hey, let me put the right values first. And money is not at the top of the list.

[40:54] — I want to circle I want to circle back to the building phase. And you know, I worked for a dot company during the boom and bust. And uh you know, as college.com, we were supposed to go public. We, you know, there was talk of the biggest IPO in history, blah blah blah, and we were supposed to go, I think it was spring of 2000 because of some well, what I found out later were accounting discrepancies. We didn't go public. They had a different story that, you know, they told even kind of top people. But I'm just thinking how different what you're talking about is than what I experienced or witnessed. So there you talked about making money and charging and and for people that aren't old enough that was the culture. The culture was had nothing to do with making money, building revenue. It was how do you get users? How do you buy users? Um, you know, we raised 75 million overnight at one time from Sony, GM and uh NBC and they just spent it between then and the IPO instead with no concept of making a real business. So my question is with with that context and that was the culture there was pressure I think industrywide but you saw a different route right like is it was that wisdom was that confidence was that being smarter I mean how did you do that when that was I can't express to people that didn't live through it how against the stream that was so how did you do that or how did you find that wisdom — Randy great question. I remember one of my early mentors said, Jeffrey, I would choose to be both lucky and smart. If I can only have one, I choose luck over being smart. And so part of it was being lucky. I look back, I was very fortunate. Two of my role models, my mentors were my father and my father's brother, my uncle. And sadly, both of these terrific men have passed away.

[42:57] Growing up though, as a young boy, it was instilled in my mind. And because we're immigrant families, perhaps Jeffrey, don't ever take loans. If you don't have it, you don't spend it. And if you're going to do something, make sure that you have not only the money in the bank to do it, but make sure that you have a backup to the money in case things don't work out. And so, Randy, to your point, I remember we were chastising the industry. Oh, look at Empanet. They're old-fashioned. They don't have a burn rate. They're not buying up all these crazy big full page ads in the paper and flying across the country doing all this and that. And people saw us as old-fashioned and out of style and they're just not going to be around doing that. And there was immense amount of pressure even from the team. Well, look at what our competitors are doing. Why aren't we doing what they're doing? And Randy, just one quick story to share with you. When we go to a trade show, our competitors, I say this jokingly, not really though, they'd get the city block on the trade show floor. They'd have an entire row or column or area. I mean, it was massive what they had. And we had that one little table and it was myself and my co-founders. We would be taking it and checking it in as luggage the booth and taking it out, assembling it ourselves, our competition at these massive booths that they were already having professional crews assemble it. And we were manning the booth. And when we eventually did have staff go, everyone was sharing rooms, including myself, to save the money. And so for us the mindset was hey uh dollar saved means we can live another day and it's let's put our clients first. Well the business has got to come first but then the clients and whatever we can do let's live another day. And that was a tale of our story. Everything was live another day. Why would we get a hotel room for you or a hotel room for me? We can share a hotel room. the guys with the guys and the gals with the gals at that time when we had a bigger team that was going out. But why why would we spend that money when we can save it and put that back into the business? Even the profits that we had, it was frustrating for me because no profits and then you get some profits and you turn a corner. Wow. Okay, we're starting to build a nice nest egg here and guess what? The business has grown. You have to reinvest in the infrastructure. Well, you don't have to, but I want to reinvest in the in the infrastructure.

[45:09] Okay, there goes the profits. we're going to put this all into new equipment or new infrastructure or new facilities so the business can continue to grow. So it was a completely different life and Randy being open and honest I at times wasn't sure if that would be the right way to go and thinking hey maybe we do have this wrong maybe it should be what everyone else is doing the burn rate and getting money thankfully we stuck to the original vision of the bootstrapping that that's really what saved the day for us in fact I would in closing on this topic I I would put one thing out there had we accepted back in the day venture capital as it was called today private equity there likely would not have been a nine figure exit we probably would have imploded we would not have been successful because as I like to say resilience trumps resources all day every day we had to be resilient we didn't have the money to write the check and even even if we could well do we have to are there some other ways that we don't have to that we can be smart about this and get it done in a more efficient yeah maybe jumping through some hoops But we can save some money along the way. And that was really the mindset and baked into the culture.

[46:20] — Yeah. They probably would have forced you into doing all those things. I mean, oh yes, I I wish I would have worked there cuz ours was the exact opposite. Every time we got money, they just they couldn't wait to figure out how to spend it. I remember, you know, I'd be back and forth to San Diego and we had perfectly fine offices and then all of a sudden they had the top I don't know how many floors of like one of the big tall buildings downtown with the roof and balconies and — you know, yeah, they they were burning cash in a in a million different ways. Um, changing directions a little bit, I I see a lot of similarities between the dot boom and bust and what's going on with AI right now. Not that we've hit a bust yet, but do you I mean having lived through that and you know exited from there, what similarities do you see or maybe you don't see the similarities? — Wow, what a great question. And if I knew I wouldn't be on this podcast right now to go be investing and profiting from that, I don't really know is the short answer with that. What's interesting is, and [clears throat] I don't want to put some names out there, let's just say one of the biggest names in AI that came out with this amazing model a year ago and it was going to change forever the industry and it did.

[47:34] They now shelved it and they're now going to be looking at doing something else. Things are changing so rapidly that to me it goes back to a lot of what we're saying. There's so much uncertainty right now. And on the one hand though, it's more than really ever easier to bootstrap now because of AI. I don't need to have the size of team and I can do in a day what perhaps would have taken months or longer to do before that. It's really going back to what's the problem that I'm solving and is it a painful enough problem that people are willing to gladly pay me to take that problem that pain away for them. And I can help enough people do that first and then help enough people over time I can help myself. So it's interesting to see where AI is going. A lot of money to be made, a lot of money to be lost for sure in terms of where things are, where that all goes. Your guess is as good as mine. — Cash is still cash, right? And I think that's you get people who are disciplined still know that cash is king in this particular environment and it's helping quite a bit. So maybe maybe we shift gears and say okay for the listener who's been here for the last you know 30 something minutes two or three of the biggest mistakes that you see that may have happened in your historical past or maybe you've counseled people through it but are relevant today like what are the two or three things I should be watching out for today as red flags and what should I do instead?

[48:56] — Great question. So looking back, my one of my biggest mistakes and it it came out in the exit where I was too much the focal point, the center of control for the business in part because I'm that adrenaline junkie. I love that control and I love that. Okay, Jeffrey's needed. He's going to come in and save the day and he's able to do that. I never asked at what cost. It held the business back. It held people back in the business and ultimately it wasn't a great recipe. By the time we brought in a terrific leadership team, they were just under a year, perhaps a little over a year in the seat when we're going through the liquidity event and all of the investors and buyers came along and said, "Hey, this is a great team that you have, but come on, Jeffrey. You think we're born yesterday. We knew that you put them in place just for this." And as great as they are, they don't have the seat time that we're going to give you the credit for that. In fact, we're going to penalize you for that because we just don't know how they're going to handle themselves under pressure. Now, they probably did, but they were saying what they wanted to say because you can't really challenge that.

[49:59] So, if you are a founder and you're the focal point of attention in your company, wow, think twice about that. The health for you is suffering, probably your family and loved ones as well as the business. Fire yourself from the non-essential areas. Ask the question, okay, where do I not need to be? What don't I like doing? when do I walk away from an activity I just feel so depleted, so drained. Those are the areas I like to say automate, delegate or eliminate and get out of that area so that you can focus on really what you want to do. You can be like that board of director role or like the grandparent who's coming in, you have some grandchildren, you come in for the best of times and you leave it with the parents to do all the rest of the things. That to me was a huge mistake in terms of not doing that early enough in the [snorts] the company history. And — there you can't hold on before you move on. Is there anything you can't get give up? Like is there anything a founder definitely should never take their hand off of? — The short answer is yes. And it's it's a fine balance. And there may be some disagreement with what I'm about to share next. It's important to have that team in place and those hired guns as they're called. Never take your eye off the cash in the bank and how the money is being spent. Be in control of that.

[51:20] Uh because it happened to me. It's happened to so many other founders and friends that have gone through this route. It's a similar story. Yeah. Very profitable company. Brought in the hired guns. They brought the corporate culture in. Nothing wrong with that, but I completely abdicated. I didn't delegate. They were doing what they wanted to do. And the profits go in the dumpster and the company either stops existing, goes out of business or has some major challenges ahead. So create that tight tension in a healthy way of how the money is being spent, not telling them of micromanaging, well you spent $5 over here, why'd you do that? but to really have the right kind of KPIs that reward the behavior that you want to see. And for me, the right bonus system, the right KPIs that reward having the leadership team do what you want them to do without you having to say a thing where they're coming to you, Jeffrey, give me some help here because I want to make my bonus and here's what's going on. Do you have any ideas of what we can do to pull this one out so I can make my bonus? And and so to me, don't give up on how money is being spent. You may think, and oftentimes when I would bring in the hired guns, well, what do I know? I was never part of that world, they're smarter than me, they're better than me. Who am I to say, let them just do what they do? Well, actually, no. They can do what I can't do, but I can also do what they can't do. And that's what makes it a beautiful business relationship in terms of having that I'll call it that harmony with that healthy tension back and forth and discussions and having not um judgment but having the data the KPIs the bonuses point in the direction of where we want this to go. Jeffrey, that we have a lot of entrepreneurs, small business people that that listen to the show and I'm thinking a lot of them are hearing what you're saying. They're like, "He's absolutely right and I'm not going to do it because that person won't do it as well as me."

[53:13] Right? And and I think we've all had this conversation a hundred times with people. So, what do you what do you tell that person to get over that belief system, fear, whatever you want to call it? — Well, sure. Do you want to be right or do you want to be successful? Do you want to be right or do you want to be living or dead? Because no one ever talks about the final exit. What's the final exit? Well, this is when we meet our maker. No one plans on it. We're all marching towards it. Thankfully, we don't know when that's going to be. It is somewhere out there. And when it's okay, well, I'm the best. I can do this the quickest. Why should I pay someone to do it when I can do it far better than them? If you take a step back and you're really honest about it and you check the ego at the door, even if that person is only 70% as good, you know what? Good is good enough. And the difference is whoever's 70% is good. I'll even take 65% as good, although I'd prefer 80% but whatever it's going to be 65% 80% somewhere in between or somewhere more or what if they're better? What if they're 120% 160% better? that person is focusing on that all the time. As a founder, that doesn't happen. I get to it when I get to it.

[54:24] And decisions get delayed or they just don't get made and opportunities are lost. And so, as a company, yeah, it might be in the books, it's the profits a step or two back to make 10 or 15 steps forward. And let me take it a step forward. Maybe you have no plans to sell and that's fine. The best practices though are best practices. If you were to sell the company, if you were to get investment in, let's just use a round number, every dollar of profit is worth $10 to you. And sure, maybe it's only five or six, or maybe it could be 20 or maybe more than that. And whoever you're bringing in can help 5x or 10x the Why wouldn't you do it? As we're talking about this, I'm thinking of a guest who came on the Deep podcast. He said, "Jeffrey, you know, the biggest problem that I see with founders when I'm speaking with him, and this these are his words, not mine. So many founders are focused on how can I make something five or 10% better." Maybe the question is, well, maybe I'm not 5 or 10% better. Maybe I'm even worse in that area because I'm 20xing the business overall.

[55:31] And isn't that where we really all want to be? So, fire ourselves and don't make a bet the farm decision. Do an And if it blows up, it doesn't work, the wrong person was hired, great. You're that much closer to knowing who I'm going to look for, what I should be doing, and how I'm going to be hiring the next person who can take the company to the next level. And if that doesn't work out, okay, well, there can only be so many mishires that I do until I get the right person. I'm now that much closer. It's like when in the early days, I was doing the sales all on my own. Every hangup that I got, I said, "Yes, I got a hangup." And well, that's was like, "Well, Jeffrey, why are you so excited? They just hung up on you." And they didn't even say no. They just hung up. I said, "Well, every hang up I get, I'm that much closer to getting the yes. So, here we go. This next phone call could be it." It's the same thing when I'm firing myself. This next hire could be the hire that marks the change for myself and the company. And to that listener, to that founder, what if you have an incredibly successful business? It's profitable. It's scaling. And you're spending 5 hours a month, 10 hours a month because you choose to, not because you have to, because you want to, and because you have this incredible team, then that you're spending your time the way that you want to spend your time. Is that worth some experimentation and trying some things out and some investment to get there? In my books, for sure, it would be why not?

[56:55] — So, okay. So, we've got abdicate, delegate, or eliminate. That was one. Always keep your finger on the cash. Like, that's number two. Give us one more quick takeaway for someone who's listening who's like, I I'm in a small business. I got to move it forward. Third big takeaway would be what? — It was all about the team. I'm going to throw two out there. They're kind of one and the same, not really, but very quickly. It's it's all about the team. You the success, the nine figure exit. I had two incredible business partners. I also had this incredible team. It it was not me. And it was having the right team around me. There was a point in the journey where I welcome God back into my life. That made a huge difference for me as well in terms of the clarity and knowing what to do, what not to do. So have the right team around you and the right team. It could just be one other person. We're not talking you have to be a gazillion person company. Okay, my team is myself and this other person for now. Great. We're going to make the most of it. And with the right team, we embed into the culture. Let's have six months of cash in the bank. We're losing money on that. We're not investing in that. it's just getting interest whatever the interest rate is because I want that peace of mind at night that heaven forbid I lose a customer or something happens we're not closing up shop we have enough cash in the bank to keep us through some of the tough times to give us that breathing room that you just never know for that rainy day — during during that period where you [clears throat] you were you were growing and you knew this was a was a real thing did you have any experience with your team where someone someone or uh multiple people had all the talent in the world, were terrific at their job, but they didn't fit from a value perspective and you had to make tough decisions around that. And the reason I bring that up again, not not to be personal, John and I just went through a a great exit. Um, we tried another another um opportunity where we brought someone over from that exit who just just didn't fit with our values and it we crashed and burned so fast. Um, it was it was shocking how how the the lack of the value alignment literally destroyed a company in a matter of weeks uh that had all the promise in the world and it it destroyed it. So, did you have that — Sadly, Anthony, the answer is yes. Not once, but many a times. And even at the most senior of levels where, okay, this is the person. And the red flags were there. I refused to see them because in my mind, it has to work. This has got to be the person. I'm too tired to go out and find somebody else. I don't like what I'm seeing. and it blew up in really all the instances at the worst possible time because I didn't listen to my intuition or to my gut or to what others were saying and I didn't see the writing that was on the wall. And so finding someone that fits the culture and the beliefs is not saying that hey we've got to be best friends or they need to be exactly like I am. We can agree to disagree but the values and what are your values for the listeners listening. What are the values? As an example, the values at Emberet. Okay, we never give up. We always find a way around, through, over, under. We transform impossible into I'm possible.

[1:00:13] Don't know how we're going to do it, but we will figure it out and find a way. And when we had people that didn't have those values, that's when the pressure came on. They would quit or they'd make the wrong decisions and they would leave us high and dry. And the company paid a heavy, heavy price for that. a number of times when that happened. And so having the right team and the right culture is absolutely essential. And having learned from that, although sometimes looking back I didn't because that happened. I'd hire someone else and oh they weren't a cultural fit. Jeffrey, what's going on? You made the same mistake again. Having said that though, having the courage for me now to say no, yeah, this person is a rockar in every way. They're not a fit for this company though because the values aren't there. Sure, they can make the company a lot of money. They can make a difference. I'm going to say no because I don't see a good ending here because the values are different. — They're way more than a poster on the wall. You have to live, you have to really live your values. Um, you know, and my advice to young entrepreneurs is create your values. Don't tell anybody about them. live them for a year and then make sure you have a team around you that that are automatically live those values. You you you create the culture by um demonstrating your commitment to those values. They they don't have to be spoken. They have to be lived. And you know what I'm as I'm talking to younger younger guys in in this business and even some some some guys that were in are in similar positions that I was in my in my old Yeah, they have quote unquote a mission statement and a value poster on the wall. They're not they're not really living it, you know, they're not and they're they're metricbased. They're they're not uh actionbased. So, that would be my personal advice. um having spent 39 years in corporate America where every year we'd spend we'd go on a retreat to create our mission statement and our values, slap them on the wall and the first one was always the customer comes first or some version of that and no not a single action in those Fortune 100 companies was revol revolved around the customer. It was all about EPS you know how do you do 10% more with 10% less and um total waste of time. So uh really it's really an important thing and it's it's subjective and it's not metricbased but it's absolutely necessary to building a successful company. More important than growing revenue I think.

[1:02:55] — Yeah absolutely. As you're talking about that Anthony I'm just thinking back and really it's me asking the question are my actions speaking louder than my words? Because we can say a lot of things but talk is cheap. And so if you looked at just my actions, am I exemplifying what I want to see in other people? So true. — When the best — Yeah. You you uh you talk one of your I think I if I might have this right that growth is a mistake. What's the financial metric uh that's most to creating value in the company? whether you're thinking about an exit or or otherwise, what's the one thing that people maybe aren't focused on? Is is IBIDA a thing of the past? You know, is it free cash flow? What's your take on — Wow, what a great question. My goodness, we can go down so many different avenues with that. From a high level perspective with what I'm about to say, let me preface it by saying that at one point in time, we need to make sure that what we're doing is understood by the rest of the world. So if we're going to have investors come in or the next generation or a buyer, EBIT does very much alive and well and it exists and this is how companies are going to be valued. So we have to make sure that it's there. But two things that play into that is again for me it's going back to the nine-step road map that we created for ourselves and back in the day wasn't even nine steps. Our biggest failures filled out some of the nine steps. It's going back to step one big picture. Are we solving a painful of enough problem that people are more than happy to pay us for that?

[1:04:35] Write us a check, take money out of their pocket to pay us for that, to make that pain go away. That's really question number one. And if the answer is, well, no, we're another meto company or h it's okay now, but another month or two will become obsolete. Not great. Not great at all. And we were talking earlier about AI and that's a great example of it better be a incredibly big complicated painful problem that we are world class at solving to make a difference. And then once you've got that figured out the next metric for me then this was everything and I ignored everyone else's advice. Maybe for better maybe for worse and it's are we profitable? And I'm not talking gross profits. So many founders to me in my books make the mistake, oh Jeffrey, look at this. Our growth was up 50%. And so, well, that's great, but what were your profits? And they start talking gross profits. And I said, no, no, no, no. What? Net profits. So, after you paid all your expenses, your taxes, everything else, how much money was left? And so, as an example, let me exaggerate this. Hey, we had growth. It was up 100%. We got to $10 million in revenue. Okay, amazing. What did you have left end of the day? What were your profits? Oh, actually we lost $2 million. Okay, so all those numbers, they mean nothing. So for me, it's going back again to the basics. What's the problem that we're solving? And are we creating a moat around ourselves that is difficult for others to come in and duplicate what we're doing and solving that painful problem? And then what's the net profit? And as an example to put my money literally where my mouth is, pun intended, back in the embinet days and with all my other companies, but in EMBANET in particular, every dollar of revenue that we brought in, net profit was 53.

[1:06:22] So think about that. I was keeping 53 cents of every dollar. And that's why my topline was much smaller than my competitors. But we were the king of kings when it came to profits in the industry because my competitors were so far behind. Sure, they were outspending us and they had the burn rate and they had the revenue and everything else, but they were missing the profits. And end of the day, that's what really made a difference. And there may be times, Anthony, where okay, it's out of fashion. Profits don't matter so much, but it always comes back to first principles and profits do make a difference and stay in for the long — Great. Thanks. — That's it, man. Cash flow. Cash is king. And that's the mic drop moment. Like if you're in business and you're making money, there you are. And if you're in business and you're not making money, you're maybe in unintentionally the nonprofit. Jeffrey, amazing. We're going to have to bring you back. I think we want to hear more about this system and how you assess the a company when you go in and how you can tell right away what changes to make. But this has been a fantastic conversation. We're gonna we're gonna have our team bring you back very shortly to follow up and ask. I think I think each one of us probably had 10 more questions without even thinking about it. Maybe it might have been closer to a hundred. So, thank you very much for being here. Uh, Tales of Abundance, the the listeners, you know what to do. Randy, you want to tell them where to find us?

[1:07:40] — Tales of Abundance.com, YouTube, [laughter] iTunes, Spotify, doesn't matter. Wherever they get podcasts, doesn't change. We're gonna we're going to put show notes together so you know where to find Jeffrey. Jeffrey, if somebody wants to find you, where do they find you? Send me a good oldfashioned email success deepw.com deepwealthde pw we alth.com success at deepwalth.com that'll personally get to me and would be delighted to answer any — We'll put you in the show notes as well. Thanks for being here. We'll talk to you again real soon. — Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Take care and God bless. — Thank you, Jeffrey. — Listen and subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Click follow for more content like this or go to talesofabundance.com to join our community and get free tools.