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BigDeal by Codie SanchezBigDeal by Codie Sanchez

Side Hustle King: 3 Easy Businesses Anyone Can Start | Chris Koerner

My new book, Own Or Be Owned, is all about building a business so good it doesn't need you. It's out September 18, grab your ticket to the launch event here: - cs

Chris KoernerguestCodie Sanchezhost
Aug 28, 20251h 17mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 1:10

    Introduction

    1. CK

      John, just give me an hour of your time. And finally he says, "Chris, if God himself appeared to me and told me that this worked, I wouldn't even believe God."

    2. CS

      Today's guest, Chris Koerner, has made a career after finding these overlooked, hidden, super profitable small businesses that just about anybody can start.

    3. CK

      You can't have no money and pride. That doesn't work. I added up how many times I got rejected. It's like 24,000 times. Find a business, find the things that they hate doing, unbundle that.

    4. CS

      What do you think are the three best, most underrated side hustles?

    5. CK

      Okay.

    6. CS

      [instrumental music] Welcome back to The Big Deal podcast. I'm Codie Sanchez, and I found out something fascinating the other day, which is that 87% of you guys, people who watch our episodes, are not subscribed to this channel. So I have an ask for you all. If you could subscribe to the channel, this is the way that we grow. We can have bigger guests, we can hire the right team members, and it's only really through you guys doing this one simple thing. So if you haven't already subscribed to the channel, can I ask you a favor this week? Can you hit that subscribe button? Thank you. Truly, we can't do this without you.

  2. 1:10 – 1:40

    Exploring Profitable Small Businesses

    1. CS

      You've built sleeper businesses basically as a career-

    2. CK

      Mm-hmm

    3. CS

      ... it feels like. You know, crazy side hustles, then grew them into actual companies.

    4. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CS

      These are cashflow producing, non-venture backed companies. Almost anybody could start if they were willing to take the risk-

    6. CK

      Mm-hmm

    7. CS

      ... and do the hard thing of actually working them. Is there one that you're, like, currently obsessed with now, or is there like a, a business that you're obsessed with at the moment?

    8. CK

      Man, I... It's like asking which kid is my favorite.

    9. CS

      [laughs]

    10. CK

      I, I just love

  3. 1:40 – 3:47

    The Pizza Oven Business Model

    1. CK

      business. So, uh, what... Okay, so I was in Cameron, Missouri last week.

    2. CS

      Mm.

    3. CK

      Population 8,000 people. I pull into this hardware store, and I see this cute couple, 30s, kids out by the road selling pizzas, right? I have, like, an outdoor kitchen with an authentic pizza oven. I geek out over it, and so I had to talk to these guys. They've got, like, a $700 pizza oven, a $100, like, a pop-up canopy, and they're just slinging these authentic pizzas. And so I'm like, "How much money are you making here?" And $700 a day.

    4. CS

      Wow.

    5. CK

      Their kids make the pizzas. They wave signs. And I said, "Well, what do you pay?" They're in the parking lot of a hardware store. "What do you pay to be here?" "Well, nothing." Like, they just hope that we can bring them customers, and they bring us customers. This is, like, middle of nowhere, middle America, right? Like, and they're making $700 a day, 80% margins, selling pizzas from an oven that they bought at Home Depot, right? Like, I just love stuff like that 'cause who couldn't do that? Like, who, who couldn't do that business if they really had to make some money?

    6. CS

      Isn't that wild? And if you just, like, for people who aren't, you know, who are public school math kids like me, I mean, if you take, let's round it to 1,000 times 30 days in a month, we're talking about some s- that's a, that's a-

    7. CK

      Yeah

    8. CS

      ... $30,000 a month business.

    9. CK

      Yeah.

    10. CS

      If you have 80% margins, we're talking about you're taking home a top 1% level salary.

    11. CK

      Yeah.

    12. CS

      You know, 200 plus thousand dollars.

    13. CK

      But how many people in Cameron, Missouri are saying, "No, there's just no opportunities here"?

    14. CS

      I know. You know what else kills me that I think you prove a lot and is, like, one of the missions of this company? [sighs] It's like you're sure, you can just do things. And in fact, I think you'll be shocked by how often people don't charge you.

    15. CK

      Yeah.

    16. CS

      Like, we did this whole experiment with vending machines where we put vending machines in a bunch of different locations, and then we did videos about them and shared the numbers. And everybody was like, "You left out the rent." I'm like, "I didn't pay rent."

    17. CK

      Yeah.

    18. CS

      You know? I know that you can-

    19. CK

      Yeah

    20. CS

      ... theoretically, and you might have to sometimes, but, like, I just didn't-

    21. CK

      Yeah

    22. CS

      ... in this case. And so I love that story. Um, you know, I, I was curious for you, is there one business that you've seen, like, ever-

    23. CK

      Mm-hmm

    24. CS

      ... that you're just like, "This business is such a sleeper, and almost anybody

  4. 3:47 – 5:41

    The Stump Grinding Experiment

    1. CS

      could start it"?

    2. CK

      So a year ago, I was... We, we own a tree trimming business, right?

    3. CS

      Mm.

    4. CK

      And tree trimming businesses are great. Uh, it's, I call it a binary outcome, right? The customer needs a tree gone. You show up. The tree's gone. Five-star review. Invoice paid, right?

    5. CS

      Mm.

    6. CK

      Whereas other businesses, it's just, like custom home building, it's not. It's, there's so much that could go wrong.

    7. CS

      Mm.

    8. CK

      But, uh, stump grinding is kind of a, a, a pain in tree trimming because, you know, if you're a tree trimmer, you just, you got a truck with a chainsaw, and if you gotta grind the stump, it's like I gotta go to the rental place, put it on my trailer, gas it up, pay 300 bucks to rent it, charge 300 bucks to grind it. It's just a pain. So I was talking with my business partner about this, and, um, we thought, "I bet there's a w- a world where you could be a business-to-business stump grinding business." And that wasn't really a thing, right? So we were just riffing on this on my podcast, and as an experiment, 'cause I'm curious and I have to get my questions answered, right? So I scraped every tree trimming business in Houston, and I'm in Dallas, and so I wanted, like, a sister city that was comparable. And I hired a virtual assistant to call up every tree trimming business and say, "Hey, who grinds your stumps? Do you own a stump grinder? Do you rent them? Theoretically, if you could ever outsource that entirely to a stump grinding business that only served tree trimming businesses, would you do it? If so, what would you pay?" And the results were incredible. Like, 20% of these, uh, tree trimmers would love to outsource it. And so we were just talking about this, and people went out and started business-to-business stump grinding businesses on, based on this theory and research, and this one guy made $300,000 his first year. And he r- he rented the thing, and he rented the trailer, and he fi- like, he didn't, he wasn't wealthy, but he's making, like, 60, 70% margins grinding stumps for these tree trimming businesses.

    9. CS

      I love it. Well, you know boring businesses are... That's, that's my love

  5. 5:41 – 6:52

    The Importance of Asking Questions

    1. CS

      language.

    2. CK

      Yeah.

    3. CS

      Um, but what I think is interesting is two things. One, it doesn't take that much to get the research, right?

    4. CK

      Yeah.

    5. CS

      You literally just cold called, or in this case, 'cause you have an assistant, had somebody else-

    6. CK

      Yeah

    7. CS

      ... cold call a bunch of people and ask them three or four questions.

    8. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    9. CS

      And the other case of the pizza company, you just were willing to do the thing most people won't, which is, "How much revenue do you make a day?"

    10. CK

      Yeah.

    11. CS

      Like, how often do people not give you the answer to that question, I'd be curious?

    12. CK

      Rarely, honestly

    13. CS

      Right?

    14. CK

      You just have to ask.

    15. CS

      It, it... I would say it's, like, 95% of the time-

    16. CK

      Yeah

    17. CS

      ... they tell you. And why? Because they're proud of it.

    18. CK

      Yeah.

    19. CS

      You know? Like, if you're, if you've ever ran a business and you know what it feels like to actually get somebody to pay you for your service, how hard it is-

    20. CK

      Yeah

    21. CS

      ... you wanna tell people.

    22. CK

      Yeah.

    23. CS

      You know, I was, yesterday I was... I am old now, and so my back has been hurting, just so on par, and so I go to this PT, and he was telling me a story about his background. And I'm like, "That's incredible." And I started telling him the number, like, percentage of numbers that actually... percentage of businesses that actually hit 100,000, then a million, then 10 million-

    24. CK

      Hmm

    25. CS

      ... a year. It's kind of rare-

    26. CK

      Yeah

    27. CS

      ... actually. And so he was like, "Can I tell you my revenue number?" And I was like, "Yeah, tell me. What is it?"

    28. CK

      Yeah.

    29. CS

      He's like, "310,000." I'm like, "That's amazing, because you don't have any employees either," right?

    30. CK

      Yeah.

  6. 6:52 – 10:43

    Starting a Tree Trimming Business

    1. CS

      Now, with your tree trim- trimming business, when did you start that?

    2. CK

      Two years ago.

    3. CS

      And how much cash did you have to start it with?

    4. CK

      I had cash to start it with, but I've... Like, I grew up poor, right?

    5. CS

      Hmm.

    6. CK

      And so I always like to say constraints equal creativity.

    7. CS

      Hmm.

    8. CK

      And I've never been VC-funded. I've tried to raise money. It's a lot harder than people think.

    9. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    10. CK

      And so I've ha- I've been forced to be creative, right? And that's never left me. Now, to, to this day, like, I can afford to do certain things, but I'm so cheap and/or willing to be creative that I don't have to. So with the tree trimming business, I had a truck. I found a, a young, hungry entrepreneur that had just graduated from college, and I knew how to start it 'cause I had helped a friend do it as a favor a couple years prior. And so we, we really... We didn't own a chainsaw. We still don't own a chainsaw. We just found subcontractors and subbed it all out to them. And so the truck was our-

    11. CS

      Can you explain what that is-

    12. CK

      Yeah

    13. CS

      ... subcontractors, if people don't know?

    14. CK

      Yeah. So we just found tree trimming businesses that did the work themselves, and we just said, "Hey, we're gonna quote 1,600 for this. What would you quote? 800. Okay, cool. We're just gonna mark up all of your quotes to us 100%, and we'll take that margin. We'll bring you jobs. We'll keep you busy. Cool."

    15. CS

      Yeah, that's wild. And now how big is that business? Do you share the revenue numbers?

    16. CK

      Yeah. I mean, we're doing half a million a year.

    17. CS

      That's amazing.

    18. CK

      Yeah.

    19. CS

      And this is you and a kid who was in college?

    20. CK

      Yeah, he's the operating partner.

    21. CS

      And how old is he now?

    22. CK

      Uh, he's 23.

    23. CS

      Wow.

    24. CK

      Yeah. He had no experience in the industry.

    25. CS

      Interesting.

    26. CK

      Yeah.

    27. CS

      And do you think... Like, what's the formula? So let's say somebody right now has no money, or they've lost all their money, and they wanna go out and start a business.

    28. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    29. CS

      What is the formula that you need to be able to have a cash flowing business that you start?

    30. CK

      Yeah. Well, you, you can't have no money and pride.

  7. 10:43 – 13:57

    Traits of a Successful Business Partner

    1. CK

      I kind of regret what I'm about to say-

    2. CS

      [laughs]

    3. CK

      ... but, um, it's, but it's the truth. So I've noticed a direct correlation, you probably have, too, between the people that have just gone all out to get my attention, and then their performance after I hire them or partner with them, right? Whereas some reach out kinda half-heartedly-

    4. CS

      Yeah

    5. CK

      ... and it's like sometimes I've hired them in the past, and it just... They kind of did a half-hearted job.

    6. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    7. CK

      But the people that are, like, just blowing me up everywhere, like, "I will, I will do this. I will do this. Like, I promise I will be your hardest worker. I don't know anything. I'm humble, but I'm willing to, to do all the work." That was James. He had never had a home service business. He had, like, flipped iPhones on Facebook Marketplace, but he was just hungry.

    8. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    9. CK

      And so I like to look for humility, um, gratitude, someone who's like, "I am just so grateful for this opportunity"-

    10. CS

      Yeah

    11. CK

      ... and some sort of an entrepreneurial gene, right? 'Cause I don't wanna make them entrepreneurial. They have to have that. If they have those three things, then it's almost 100% certain they'll be successful.

    12. CS

      Yeah, I always loved the Munger quote where he says, um, "If you're gonna have a mistress, pick an old one 'cause she'll be grateful for it." [laughs]

    13. CK

      [laughs]

    14. CS

      And I think that it's true of business partners, too.

    15. CK

      Yeah.

    16. CS

      He used to, you know, describe Buffett as the best thing that we have in our partnership is we're both grateful for it.

    17. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CS

      I think that's true in marriage. It's true in business.

    19. CK

      Absolutely.

    20. CS

      And so if you could optimize for intelligence, history, sophistication or hunger and gratitude, go left-

    21. CK

      Yes

    22. CS

      ... not right. Love that. Okay, so let's say that there's somebody listening who has zero time on their hands. Maybe they actually have money, but they don't have time. What business would you tell them to do, or what would you tell them to start?

    23. CK

      That's a good question. Um, I would say that they should start, um, liquidating things. Buying things from, like, Costco Overstock.

    24. CS

      Hmm.

    25. CK

      There's a half a dozen websites out there, um, that sell pallets of returned items, defective items, or items that might be perfect, you just don't know. Um, like you could buy a pallet full of Blackstone grills for 100 bucks, right? And so someone like that, that has some money to buy stuff like that and doesn't have a lot of time, they can start by selling a few things on the side-

    26. CS

      Mm-hmm

    27. CK

      ... learning how it all works, and then partnering with someone like James, my business partner in the, in the tree business, um, to do it for him. But I think it's very important that you don't outsource things too quickly.

    28. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    29. CK

      You really gotta get in the weeds so you can recognize the weeds before you get out of the weeds, right?

    30. CS

      Yeah. Yeah, uh, I, I do think it's really hard to hire well until you've done well.

  8. 13:57 – 20:01

    Underrated Side Hustles

    1. CS

      valuable.

    2. CK

      Yeah, yeah.

    3. CS

      So if like right now you had to look at all the side hustles, all the businesses that exist, what do you think are the three best, most underrated side hustles?

    4. CK

      Okay. All right, so you, you say right now, I'm gonna take that literally.

    5. CS

      Mm.

    6. CK

      So, um, we're in August, and I came across this woman last year who decorates porches with pumpkins. Have you seen that?

    7. CS

      Oh yeah, I saw it because of you.

    8. CK

      Yeah.

    9. CS

      Yeah, the Dallas chick-

    10. CK

      So, yeah

    11. CS

      ... wasn't she?

    12. CK

      Heather. We've since become friends. And she's making over a million dollars a year just buying wholesale pumpkins from someone that... Anyone could Google and find a wholesale pumpkin supplier. Buys them by the truckload and decorates them on porches. And it's a beautiful business because it's so visual. If you s- put your iPhone on a tripod, put it on time lapse, post that to Instagram, the algorithm loves it, right? So there's all your customers. And that's what she's done, and she does an amazing job, and she's an amazingly hard worker. So I'm not downplaying, like, it's just a good idea. Anyone can do it. It's very profitable. She charges between $600 and $1,300 to decorate a, a porch with pumpkins. I'm a customer. My wife loves it. And I love this opportunity because you could start with almost nothing. An Instagram account, a little money for pumpkins. And then you can make it not seasonal. She prefers for it to be seasonal. She wants to be with her family during Christmas. But, uh, there are people that do this for Christmas decorations. I talked to a guy in Pennsylvania that does it for flower.

    13. CS

      Hmm.

    14. CK

      Front porch flower decorations.

    15. CS

      Hmm.

    16. CK

      He charges a few hundred dollars a quarter, and he'll swap out flowers every month.

    17. CS

      I'd pay for that.

    18. CK

      Um, yeah. And he's in Long Island. Like-

    19. CS

      Yeah

    20. CK

      ... this stuff would work anywhere. Um, and it's very visual. It goes viral very naturally.

    21. CS

      Hmm.

    22. CK

      Um, that's one, because it's high margin, it's unique, and you don't need a lotta, uh, money to do it.

    23. CS

      You know what the other thing about that one is? When you don't have a lot of money, you don't realize how much money other people have.

    24. CK

      Yeah.

    25. CS

      And that they want... Like, the thing about rich people, they wanna spend their money.

    26. CK

      Yep.

    27. CS

      And so I remember when I was broke and poor, the idea of some mom putting 1,300 bucks to put pumpkins-

    28. CK

      Mm-hmm

    29. CS

      ... on their front yard in Dallas would be crazy. And then you drive in Highland Park and you're like, "These bitches-

    30. CK

      [laughs]

  9. 20:01 – 24:42

    Avoiding Complex Businesses

    1. CS

      let's talk about worse businesses.

    2. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CS

      So if you, like, had no money again or were just starting out, but were gonna get... Save people decades-

    4. CK

      Mm-hmm

    5. CS

      ... of mistakes and hours, what are the businesses that you would never touch with a 10-foot pole?

    6. CK

      I'm gonna talk about binary outcomes again.

    7. CS

      Mm.

    8. CK

      Okay? So, oh, man, I had a third-party logistics business once.

    9. CS

      Uh-huh.

    10. CK

      And basically, e-commerce brands would come to us, and we would store their products in a warehouse, pick, pack, and ship them out for them, right?

    11. CS

      Whoa.

    12. CK

      We were doing 400,000 a month and not making any money. Um, it was a miserable business because it did not have binary outcomes. So-

    13. CS

      Mm

    14. CK

      ... um, the business owner, our customer, was, like, so emotionally invested in h- in his inventory. "Hey, I did that big sale. Why haven't they shipped yet?"

    15. CS

      Mm.

    16. CK

      "Hey, these went to the wrong address. Hey, my inventory went stale." 'Cause maybe it was food. "Are you keeping track of these expiration dates?" There were hundreds of things that could go wrong, and literally, uh, if you clicked the wrong thing, you could ship 3,000 packages to 3,000 wrong homes.

    17. CS

      [laughs]

    18. CK

      Ask me how I learned that.

    19. CS

      [laughs]

    20. CK

      Right? And those aren't our packages, which makes it even worse, right?

    21. CS

      Yeah.

    22. CK

      So we were making all this money top line with no profit, losing money, right? It was not a binary outcome. It's not a simple business. We were competing with, like, Amazon.

    23. CS

      Uh-huh.

    24. CK

      Who's gonna do that? So anything, like, I've started 75, 80 businesses. The common thread between all of them are just non-binary outcomes. Too complex, not simple.

    25. CS

      Yeah.

    26. CK

      Yeah.

    27. CS

      Okay. So worst is 3PL. What's your second and third?

    28. CK

      Oh, man, uh, house cleaning.

    29. CS

      Interesting.

    30. CK

      Yeah.

  10. 24:42 – 37:46

    The Bucky's Heist Story

    1. CS

      about a d- I, I heard a ridiculous story of yours that you're like, "Which one?"

    2. CK

      It's probably true.

    3. CS

      [laughs] Um, about Texas snacks and the Buc-ee's heist.

    4. CK

      Yeah.

    5. CS

      [laughs]

    6. CK

      Oh, heist. That's a good word.

    7. CS

      [laughs]

    8. CK

      I like that. So for those that aren't familiar with Buc-ee's, it's a chain of gas stations. They do billions of dollars a year from 50 locations, right? It's just an amazing business. Privately held, and it's a, it's, um, an amazing brand. It's like a Disney, right?

    9. CS

      Uh-huh.

    10. CK

      They have a great brand. And so I went there six years ago, and I walked in and with my cousin, who's also a business nerd, and we were like... He said, I think, he's like, "Do you know Disney sells like," I'm making this up, I don't remember the number, "but like 15 billion a year of shirts?"

    11. CS

      Hmm.

    12. CK

      I was like, "I didn't know that. That's crazy. I wonder how much these guys sell online of their shirts." So we go to their website, and I, I distinctly remember there's no shop button. It's like, where do you buy these shirts? And these gas stations are in these far-flung rural areas, and so you, you can't get to it unless you're going down to the beach, right? And so that was just like a light bulb moment. And it was at this time that I was running that fulfillment business. And so we thought, "Wow, we need to get them as a customer." And instead of just, like, fulfilling their products, we're gonna bring them online and fulfill their products. This could be a white whale for us, right? So I start reaching out to the executive team. No response. No response. So we're like, "What if we just try to get their attention, um, by launching the business for them, and then just cold emailing reporters and saying, 'Buc-ee's won't answer us, so we're gonna launch this business for them.' "

    13. CS

      [laughs] So good.

    14. CK

      Yeah. And his first question is like, "Chris, we're gonna get sued."

    15. CS

      [laughs]

    16. CK

      And I was like, "That's gonna be a good story, though."

    17. CS

      [laughs]

    18. CK

      Right? If we get sued, then we can just say, "Okay, okay, okay. Leave me alone. I'm done."

    19. CS

      Exactly.

    20. CK

      "I'm done." But I was like, "But what if we don't get sued? It could be a big business. It could be a big partnership. It could be tens of millions of dollars. Who knows?" And so my business partner and I, we bought one of everything from the store near my house. Cost about $3,000. I hired a photographer for 200 bucks. We took pictures of everything in their store, put it on a website, cold emailed reporters, and said, "We wanna get Buc-ee's attention, so we're selling everything that they own online for them." And they said, "That's a great story." We had a dozen news outlets write about us, and we went viral and did $200,000 of sales in our first month. And we do millions of dollars a year now, five, uh, years later.

    21. CS

      You're still doing it today?

    22. CK

      Yeah.

    23. CS

      Wow.

    24. CK

      It's a great business.

    25. CS

      I bet. So you're the one responsible for all the Buc-ee's merch I now see all over the country.

    26. CK

      That's right. We don't have, like, an official partnership with them, but we have an understanding. And they support us. They help us buy it in bulk. Um, but we just resell it. We go to one of their stores. We load up a box truck full of pallets, bring it back to our warehouse, and sell it online, ship it all over the world.

    27. CS

      [laughs] That is insane.

    28. CK

      Yeah.

    29. CS

      So you're not even actually their, like, licensed provider?

    30. CK

      Nope.

  11. 37:46 – 38:35

    Pet Cremation Costs and a Personal Story

    1. CS

      Like-

    2. CK

      Yeah

    3. CS

      ... what, what does it cost to get a pet cremated?

    4. CK

      Oh, $250 to $500.

    5. CS

      Wow. God, my dad's gonna kill me for this story, but I... Like, when my favorite dog died-

    6. CK

      Yeah

    7. CS

      ... he was obsessed with the dump truck. Like, you know how the trash truck-

    8. CK

      Yeah, yeah

    9. CS

      ... one of the dogs would ch- And so he died, and his name was Elvis. He was this amazing little cocker spaniel. And so, you know, he, my, so my dad told me, and so I came by the next day. I'm like, "Well, where's Elvis buried? You know, what happened?" He's like, "Oh, no, I, like, took him to his favorite spot." And I'm like, "What do you mean by that?"

    10. CK

      What does that mean? [laughs]

    11. CS

      Yeah, and he just put him in a bag and gave him to the dump truck, and I was like, "I think that's illegal."

    12. CK

      [laughs] Oh, wow.

    13. CS

      "I think that's..." R- he was like, "He would be thrilled. He'd be barking happily-

    14. CK

      Yeah

    15. CS

      ... all the way to the dump, his favorite place."

    16. CK

      And you're just, like, staring into the abyss.

    17. CS

      Oh, it w- just was. I know.

    18. CK

      [laughs]

    19. CS

      It was such a, it... You know, we're Latino. They're like-

    20. CK

      [laughs]

    21. CS

      They don't understand things like cremating a dog-

    22. CK

      Yeah

    23. CS

      ... for 500 bucks. That's, like, not part of the equation. Okay, let's talk about, um,

  12. 38:35 – 38:58

    Introduction to RV Parks and Low People Businesses

    1. CS

      RV parks. So I think a lot of people are interested in this idea of, um, I call them, like, low people businesses.

    2. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CS

      You know, vending machines, laundromats, car washes, RV parks, all of them have, like, a version of the business-

    4. CK

      Sure

    5. CS

      ... that could be low people.

    6. CK

      Yep.

    7. CS

      Then they have a very high people version of it.

    8. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    9. CS

      You own a bunch of RV parks-

    10. CK

      Mm-hmm

    11. CS

      ... and got into it. How did you get into that

  13. 38:58 – 43:37

    Economics and Management of RV Parks

    1. CS

      business? Break down the economics of it. What's most-

    2. CK

      Yeah

    3. CS

      ... interesting about it?

    4. CK

      Yeah, so... And I've done both ends of that, um, small RV parks with no employees and large RV parks with a lot of employees. So I was buying single-family homes back in college. Um, and then I moved to Texas, and I met some guys that were... They owned hundreds of single-family homes, but they had just been introduced to mobile home and RV parks.

    5. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CK

      And they basically said, "Chris, you've gotta look at this. Instead of having 12 homes across a metroplex in two hours, you can have 12 homes all on the same two acres, and each one of them is more profitable than those, and it costs like a third as much as all of the single-family homes. So you have the efficiencies of them being all right there. Uh, it's the lowest form of affordable housing, so it's recession resistant, and they're easier to manage. And you don't have to maintain the unit. The tenant owns the unit, so you just own the land."

    7. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    8. CK

      So I'm like, "Why do people even buy single-family homes?"

    9. CS

      [laughs]

    10. CK

      Like, I don't understand. Is this, like, the world's best-kept secret? And so we partnered up, and we started buying these small RV and mobile home parks across Texas and Oklahoma, 10 to 70 pad sites. No amenities, mostly long-term tenants-

    11. CS

      Mm-hmm

    12. CK

      ... um, and where the tenants own either the RV or the mobile home, and we just maintain the infrastructure. Um, and we did that for th- two and a half, three years. And-

    13. CS

      What would each one cost you to buy those-

    14. CK

      Yeah, so be-

    15. CS

      ... parks

    16. CK

      ... between 100,000 and 1.5 million.

    17. CS

      Wow. And what kind of margins are you making on that? Like, how much money are you getting in your pocket from that?

    18. CK

      It's, like, 30 to 60% cash on cash returns.

    19. CS

      Yeah, that's wild.

    20. CK

      It's insane, yeah.

    21. CS

      Does that still exist today?

    22. CK

      Yeah.

    23. CS

      Or has a lot of that... It does.

    24. CK

      No, it does.

    25. CS

      Yeah.

    26. CK

      Like, I-

    27. CS

      'Cause a lot of people say, "Those days are over."

    28. CK

      Yeah.

    29. CS

      "You can't find X business like that, Y business like that." Is that true? And if it's not true, then why can you still find those?

    30. CK

      Yeah.

  14. 43:37 – 51:48

    Crypto Ventures with John McAfee

    1. CS

      So you once started a crypto project with John McAfee, who was easily, I think, the most eccentric, paranoid, and wild entrepreneur maybe of all times. He founded, like, uh, founded and sold McAfee antivirus software, investigated for murder in Belize-

    2. CK

      Yeah

    3. CS

      ... and later returned to the US, where he ran for president not once but twice. I think there's a whole Netflix documentary about him. Is that right?

    4. CK

      That's correct, yeah. So it was, like, seven years ago. ... uh, or eight, I don't know. But crypto was going crazy, and I was getting involved 'cause I'm, you know, always distracted. And I had kinda found this math equation that helped me predict the price of cryptocurrencies, and it's very simple. Here's the whole secret, okay? I would... I found a way to measure how much hype a cryptocurrency had, how many people were talking about it on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and I put that into a number from one to 100. And then I used public websites to find out the market cap of the cryptocurrency-

    5. CS

      Mm-hmm

    6. CK

      ... how much it was worth, and then I just divided the two numbers. So if there was a cryptocurrency that was very big, very popular, but people weren't really talking about it, my algorithm division told me it was gonna go down in value at some point. Or if everyone was talking about something and it was... had a small market cap, then it would go up in value. So I started investing my own money in this, and it was working, and I felt like I had just discovered, like, Newtonian physics or something, right?

    7. CS

      [laughs]

    8. CK

      I was like, "This is huge. I'm gonna be so rich. This is amazing." Um, but I... This was, like, years before I ever started p- publishing content. I had no following, no audience, no rich friends, nothing. And so I thought, "Who's the biggest name in crypto?" John McAfee. He had, like, a million Twitter followers at the time. And, uh, for better or worse, he was the biggest name in crypto. And so I thought, "If I could just skip the line," right? Constraints equal creativity. "If I could just partner with him and get him to buy into this vision that this works, then I could do something with this equation, build a community or sell access to it for a monthly fee or s- or raise a fund and invest the fund's money into it. I gotta get his attention." Problem is, is that he's... he founded a security company. He's very private. He lives on a compound with bodyguards. Uh, so I started guessing his email address 'cause I couldn't even find his email, which is pretty easy to do. I couldn't find his. So I'm trying, like, JM@mcafee.com, John@mcafee, John, and it was just bounce back, bounce back, bounce back. Finally, I had a notification. It was opened. I'm like, "Okay, I found it." He didn't respond, but I found it. So then I just start blowing him up. "John, I'm really onto something here." Some guy in Texas, he doesn't know who I am. I'm nobody. I'm onto something. I think... Finally, he responds, and I still have these screenshots.

    9. CS

      [laughs]

    10. CK

      So this was, um, January 24th, 2018. "As long as it is a live demo, as I said before, I will not even look at history and will throw you out of house if you bring it up. Even if you have HD video showing God coming down from heaven and exclaiming that you are legit-

    11. CS

      [laughs]

    12. CK

      ... I will still throw you out of the house. I want a live demo of your product that accurately projects the future. Otherwise, I will be seriously pissed off. Can you pull off a demo that predicts prices the following day, 48 hours from today, and one week from today? If you can do that, then please come. If you cannot, even with the greatest excuse God could provide, then do not come."

    13. CS

      [laughs]

    14. CK

      Put it in the history books.

    15. CS

      Oh my God, I wanna use that li- David, the amount-

    16. CK

      It's good

    17. CS

      ... of times I'm gonna say to you now for things you wanna pitch me.

    18. CK

      [laughs]

    19. CS

      Even with the grace of God-

    20. CK

      That's right

    21. CS

      ... [laughs] I will never dance on the internet.

    22. CK

      [laughs]

    23. CS

      Yeah, that is so good. Okay.

    24. CK

      Yeah.

    25. CS

      Um, what a fucking great email save too.

    26. CK

      Yeah. And I was like, "John, just give me an hour of your time in person." And he said, "Okay. I live in Lexington, Tennessee. Be at my house on," I think it was February 28th, "at 1:23 PM. Uh, and if you're there, I'll give you an hour." And he said, "I'll give you my address the morning of."

    27. CS

      Whoa.

    28. CK

      So I'm like, "Okay." So I fly to Tennessee. I get a rental car. Emailing, email him that morning and say, "I'm coming, John. What's your address?" No response. I'm just going to Lexington.

    29. CS

      [laughs]

    30. CK

      I don't know where he lives, right? There's, like, 40,000 people there. "John, I'm coming to Lexington." Finally, at, like, 1:00 he... or, like, 12:00, he emails me his address. So I pull up to this house. It's, like, this old Southern-style neighborhood, and there's one, like, Spanish-style home with, like, a Hummer and, like, a Nissan Versa.

  15. 51:48 – 57:55

    Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

    1. CS

      One is you've obviously met a ton of everyday business owners who have gone from nothing to couple hundred thousand, million, two million dollar businesses.

    2. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CS

      Everybody talks about the world's greatest founders, but what have you noticed just in your millionaire founders that you've met, what is different about them than everybody else?

    4. CK

      Yeah. They have an insane bias for action.

    5. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CK

      Um, they just move fast.

    7. CS

      Yeah.

    8. CK

      And not, like, to have first mover's advantage just because that's just how they operate. They're impatient.

    9. CS

      Yeah.

    10. CK

      Right? Which could be seen as a flaw. It might be a flaw in their personal life. I don't know. But they're just insanely curious and impatient, and they pair those two things together.

    11. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    12. CK

      And sometimes it gets messy, and things fail, and things explode, and bankruptcy. Like, but over the long run, they just win.

    13. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    14. CK

      If they don't quit, they stay in the game, um, they just win.

    15. CS

      Until you actually get in front of people who are moving, like a- like billionaires. Like, most of the billionaires I've met, I'm just like, "Oh, my God, you d- once you've made a decision, it's just tidal waves of movement."

    16. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    17. CS

      But I've struggled to try to get, like, a formula for how to explain if you are fast or not. Like, if somebody said, "All right. Hmm. Let's... Chris, create for me the algorithm of am I fast or am I not in my life"

    18. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    19. CS

      What would be the inputs? How could one tell-

    20. CK

      Mm

    21. CS

      ... if you really were a person who biased for action?

    22. CK

      Hmm. That's a good question. I've noticed, like, the best employees I've had-

    23. CS

      Mm-hmm

    24. CK

      ... work fast.

    25. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    26. CK

      And that's not something you talk about with employees. You talk about productivity or... But they just, like, if I give two employees the same spreadsheet task, one of them is done in 10 minutes, one does the same thing in three hours.

    27. CS

      Yeah.

    28. CK

      Right? And so I wish I, I wish I had a formula of, like, how to train that. Um, maybe it can't be trained.

    29. CS

      Mm.

    30. CK

      But, like, you know what? Maybe the commonality is you truly love what you do.

  16. 57:55 – 1:03:11

    Challenges and Lessons in Entrepreneurship

    1. CS

      that for a second. Like, you've done 75 businesses. You have to have gotten lied to, cheated-

    2. CK

      Mm

    3. CS

      ... defrauded. Like, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you in entrepreneurship?

    4. CK

      Mm. Man. I... We could have four hours of conversation. Like, I call it, like, surface area for fraud.

    5. CS

      Yeah.

    6. CK

      Surface area for scams, trials, business partnership fallouts. I've had, like, 15 business partners.

    7. CS

      Wow.

    8. CK

      Um, I, I could tell so many stories. But the worst one ever was I was building a business with a couple partners, and we had a $50 million opportunity on the table.

    9. CS

      Mm.

    10. CK

      Uh, we had a term sheet, and it was significantly better than we thought we would get. Uh, and this was life-changing money for all of us. And, um, the two partners that I had kind of, like, ganged up, so to speak.

    11. CS

      Yeah

    12. CK

      Had a meeting without me.

    13. CS

      Right.

    14. CK

      And they said, "You know what? Like, there's really not enough equity to go around. I know our operating agreement kinda... You know, we could just rip up that operating agreement, start a new company, get those same investors in our new company with just us. They're not gonna care. They barely know Chris, right? It sucks, but, like, honestly, this just makes the most sense."

    15. CS

      Oof.

    16. CK

      So they had that conversation, and then I was... In my head, I was about to sign, like, the best deal of my life. I was way up here.

    17. CS

      Mm.

    18. CK

      Right? And then I get a text that's like, "Hey, uh, meet me at Starbucks." And, um, I just, like, I just saw the text, and nothing. I had no red flags. Like, there were no signs that this was about to happen, right? But I saw that text and I was like, "I don't feel good about this. Why don't I feel good about this?" Just something told me.

    19. CS

      Yeah.

    20. CK

      And, like, that feeling just came up, and I'm like, "Okay." So I get in the truck, and I drive across the street to Starbucks. I'm like, "Why aren't we meeting at the office?" This was right across the street. Like, "Okay." So I get to Starbucks, and I thought I was meeting with one of them, the one I was closer with. I was meeting with both of them.

    21. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    22. CK

      And you could just see the looks on their faces.

    23. CS

      Yeah.

    24. CK

      And it was a longer conversation, but basically it was like, "This sucks. This is wrong. We know this is wrong. We know this will ruin our friendship, uh, but you're out." Like, "You're out. This is done. We're doing this without you. We don't need you." Um, and so I was just like, chip on shoulder, right? I was like, "Okay." Uh, well, that came later.

    25. CS

      Yeah.

    26. CK

      In the moment, I was just, like, seeing red.

    27. CS

      Yeah

    28. CK

      And just, like, driving home like this. And, um, it, it was just, it was one of the worst things that's ever happened to me, honestly.

    29. CS

      Yeah.

    30. CK

      Um, but at the end of the day, like, you know, law- lawyers got involved. That deal blew up, um, and my life has never been better ever since.

  17. 1:03:11 – 1:12:26

    Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

    1. CS

      Let, let's talk about, like, let's give people some tactics really quickly. So, we've already talked about some ways to find businesses.

    2. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    3. CS

      Um, but if you were gonna, like, have somebody leave here, you've given them three businesses like you like, you've given them three businesses you don't. If they right now are listening, and they wanna go find their next business to start-

    4. CK

      Mm-hmm

    5. CS

      ... uh, where would you look?

    6. CK

      Yeah.

    7. CS

      What do you do?

    8. CK

      Where do you start? So I think that you, you have to put yourself in one of two buckets. Am I someone that already knows I love entrepreneurship?

    9. CS

      Mm.

    10. CK

      I've made my first dollar for myself, I've tasted it, I love it.

    11. CS

      Yeah.

    12. CK

      Or am I someone that loves the idea of entrepreneurship? Um, I like how it sounds. I don't wanna work... You know, who wants to work for someone, right? Some of those people end up trying it, and they don't like it.

    13. CS

      Mm.

    14. CK

      Right? So step one is figure out what bucket you're in, right? Uh, and then answer that question for yourself. Like, go gather things around your house that are just sitting around, sell them on Facebook Marketplace, see how it feels. Is the, is the hassle of going back and forth with someone or meeting someone to sell a $50 dresser, is it not worth it for you, or does it seem not worth it until you make that $50 and you're like, "Oh, that feels good. I did that myself," right? So start there, I would say.

    15. CS

      Yeah. Now, what about for the person that, like, is already in a job? So, like, they're already working. They're, they kinda maybe like what they do.

    16. CK

      Mm-hmm.

    17. CS

      But they're, they're not, like, young and hungry necessarily. They're, like, in their career. Is there somewhere you tell people to start where they... It's slightly more advanced?

    18. CK

      Yeah.

    19. CS

      Like, is there a 202 level to start-

    20. CK

      Mm-hmm

    21. CS

      ... or does everybody have to start at 101 Facebook Marketplace?

    22. CK

      Yeah. You familiar with the Ikigai principle?

    23. CS

      Yeah.

    24. CK

      Yeah. So for those that aren't, it's just a Venn diagram. What do you love?

    25. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    26. CK

      What are you good at? What does the world need? And what could you charge for?

    27. CS

      Mm-hmm.

    28. CK

      Okay? Start there. So if you, if you work in, um, dentistry, right, you know dentistry better than most people you know, so maybe you should start thinking of ideas that are tangential to that. Maybe you have a vendor that seems to be crushing it, and you could copy what, what they're doing. Maybe you could start a m- maybe you manage your, your dentist, uh, Facebook ads account, and you could start a, an ad agency for dentists, right? So start what you enjoy and what you know and what is in kind of your zone of genius, uh, and go from there. W- where I see people going wrong is, like, they're a lawyer, and then they go, um, try to start a pressure washing business. And they're like, "I don't even like this at my house."

    29. CS

      [laughs]

    30. CK

      Like, this... "What am I doing?" You know? And that could turn them off from entrepreneurship, just because they chose the wrong thing. They might actually love the feeling of entrepreneurship, right? So definitely start what, with what you know, um, and then test it. Like, Jeff Bezos talks about the regret minimization framework.

  18. 1:12:26 – 1:16:11

    The Impact of Hard Experiences on Entrepreneurship

    1. CS

      Wild.

    2. CK

      Yeah, yeah.

    3. CS

      And so do you think a lot of your entrepreneurial chops come from doing hard things like that really young?

    4. CK

      Oh, 100%.

    5. CS

      Oh.

    6. CK

      Um, I was like, in high school, you know, I, I, I had a single mom. She was a wait- a waitress, and-

    7. CS

      Oh

    8. CK

      ... I had bad grades. I was not motivated. I was not driven. I was not valedictorian. 3.0 GPA, stupid stuff on the weekends. But after knocking doors in Eastern Europe in a foreign l- language for two years... And I added up how many times I got rejected, r- loosely, because we would knock on doors all day, every day. Um, and so if you add that up, like, X doors per day, it's, like, 24,000 times. Rejected to my face, okay? This isn't, like, a, a mean email. Like, "I don't want what you're selling me." When you do that for two years and you come home, I can... I just remember sitting in my room after coming home thinking, like, "I can freaking do anything. Like, and I will. Like, this is America. I can do whatever I want." Because I met a lot of really smart, kind, talented people over there that had no opportunity. They could not get ahead if they wanted to.

    9. CS

      Oof.

    10. CK

      And I was like, "I can do whatever I want here compared to Hungary." And so I've just been trying to do that ever since.

    11. CS

      Did you convert anybody with 24,000 nos?

    12. CK

      Um, 11.

    13. CS

      Whoa.

    14. CK

      Yeah. So how's that conversion rate?

    15. CS

      Which also seems like a lot. Like, if you believe you're saving souls-

    16. CK

      Yeah

    17. CS

      ... 11 is a lot. That's more than me.

    18. CK

      [laughs]

    19. CS

      But that's a tough ratio.

    20. CK

      It's tough. Yeah.

    21. CS

      So do you think, like, will you make your kids do the same thing or ask your kids if they wanna do the same thing?

    22. CK

      We encourage them to.

    23. CS

      Yeah.

    24. CK

      Um, but it's, I can't really force them to do anything.

    25. CS

      Yeah.

    26. CK

      You know? Especially once they're 18.

    27. CS

      You just model it.

    28. CK

      Yeah. But the thing is about those 11 people is I learned after a while, like, it was all for me. Like, that sounds selfish, but I served that mission, I thought I was serving others, and that became a byproduct of what I was doing.

    29. CS

      Mm.

    30. CK

      Really, I was served the most in serving them.

  19. 1:16:11 – 1:17:27

    Conclusion and Final Thoughts

    1. CS

      I mean, I don't even track it, but like- [laughs] ... 3.62 million. [laughs] Something. Something like that. I barely know. [laughs] So I don't track it. Um, and where do you like people to follow the most? I like your Instagram. Yeah. And your Twitter. I try to stay off X as much as possible actually- Yeah ... because it can be a cesspool. But you have great, ah, X- Yeah ... and Instagram. Yeah. Do you wanna tell them where to find you? Yeah, my podcast really. Mm. The Koerner Office, spelled like my last name. Yeah. Spell it 'cause they're never gonna get that. K-O-E-R-N-E-R. There you go. Or tkopod.com. That's the- I actually thought it was corner up until this very moment. Yeah. Well, I don't do myself any favors. The Koerner Office- I know ... is really... So it's The Koerner Office 'cause it looks like corner. Yeah, but I'll accept both of them. Okay, cool. Yeah. Um, well, thank you for being on here. Thank you for all the, the secrets that you share about entrepreneurs, and I think this episode is gonna be really useful for multiple people out there who are stuck in their own way, and they might just break through. Me too. So if you do, give him a follow all across the interwebs, and if you act- if you guys start a business, or if you grow one because of this, tell us. We will get you something special in the comments. Um, come back. We will patrol this for the next couple months, and if something cool happens, we'll make sure we give away some merch to you. Maybe we'll even get an original Bucky's- There you go ... something that Chris did- Some Bucky notes ... simultaneously. Thanks for being here. Thank you. [outro music]

Episode duration: 1:17:27

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