How A 29 Year Old HUSTLER Built A $10.1M Business From His Laptop | Justin Phillips

1. 0:00 – 1:40

   Intro

   1. JPJustin Phillips0:00

      You have a goal of 100K a month, million a month, whatever. And I remember looking at my phone and I refreshed the banking app. It's like 1.1 liquid in the bank for the business. Six to eight months later, there was $12,000 in the bank account. Having it all, then losing it all, and then realizing that money truly did not matter. Who are you without a business? Who are you without status? Who are you without success? I just remember crying in the shower, bro, and just being like, "Dog, what am I gonna do?"

   2. CJCalum Johnson0:29

      Today's guest is Justin Phillips, and let me say this before I go deeper into it. For the most part, as humans we are products of our environment. Every now and then you get a special person who can manage to elevate past their environment and achieve something phenomenal. Justin is an example of that. All of the male family members that he had around him went to prison, went to jail. He even went to jail. Managed to take himself out of that environment and build a $10 million clothing business starting with just $100. And so really what you're gonna get from this episode is not only the story about how your environment, your circumstances never define who you are, you're also gonna get the practical, the tactical information about how you can start a clothing business or a clothing line with just $100. And so if you're in that moment where you wanna start a business, you wanna start something, and you're not even sure quite yet if it's possible, this is gonna be a really good episode for you. Let's get straight into it, and before we do, one huge favor and it's this: please subscribe to the

2. 1:40 – 8:06

   Justin shares the effects of growing up without a father.

   1. CJCalum Johnson1:40

      channel. It helps us immeasurably. I love growing this audience, but I'm also gonna make a deal with you, which is this year we're really scaling the production, we're scaling the guests, we're scaling every component of this podcast so that we give you a better experience. In order to uphold your part of the deal, I just need you to subscribe. So please subscribe to the channel and sit back and enjoy. Let's get into it. My brothers have been to jail. My first cousin has been to jail. My dad did 15 years in jail. Even I've been to jail. But we are all legal entrepreneurs now. I chose e-commerce as my path to seven figures. And so here's where I wanna begin when I talk about context. There's a, there's a place that you come from, right? There's formative years that made you who you are. Tell me about those.

   2. JPJustin Phillips2:30

      Yeah. So about that post specifically, um, I'm from Houston, Texas, born and raised. Single parent household obviously. Um, and my dad, he actually robbed banks. Crazy. So he actually got away with 10, and then he got caught on the 11th, and then he did 15 years in jail. So at the age of two he went to prison, and then he got out when I was 17. So all of my formative years was spent with my mother in Houston, Texas, just me and her. So she had to raise me and be the man and the woman in the situation. There's some things that a woman just can't teach a man.

   3. CJCalum Johnson3:05

      Mm.

   4. JPJustin Phillips3:05

      So during the formative years, didn't have really any male role models besides like mom's friends and whatnot, but they weren't present in my life. Um, but yeah, I mean, born and raised in Houston, Texas. Grew up with a single mo- mom. Most amazing woman I've ever met.

   5. CJCalum Johnson3:19

      Yeah.

   6. JPJustin Phillips3:19

      Yeah.

   7. CJCalum Johnson3:20

      Yeah. You know, I think, um, we hear that story kind of often, right? Like the, the mother that has to be the father and the mother.

   8. JPJustin Phillips3:28

      Right.

   9. CJCalum Johnson3:29

      And it's an impossible job.

   10. JPJustin Phillips3:30

       Yeah.

   11. CJCalum Johnson3:31

       It's an impossible task. And I think whenever the father's not there, and I know that just from even growing up with my dad, there's like a huge, there's a void.

   12. JPJustin Phillips3:39

       Yeah.

   13. CJCalum Johnson3:40

       So I'm curious, that period of your life from two to 17, there must be something that's filling that void. Like where was even that male kind of leadership coming from-

   14. JPJustin Phillips3:48

       Right

   15. CJCalum Johnson3:48

       ... in your life?

   16. JPJustin Phillips3:49

       I think it was coming from friends. So I would meet different friends and they would teach me like how to talk to girls or how to interact with women and stuff like that. So but then you don't- You're getting it from a perspective of someone that's like your age and not from a perspective of someone that's a little bit older with a little bit more wisdom. So it's not always the best advice in general, but that's pretty much where it was always coming from. It was either, um, mom's friends that were just like good guys that wanted to help out or friends that were my age that had a little bit more experience than me.

   17. CJCalum Johnson4:20

       Mm.

   18. JPJustin Phillips4:20

       So but yeah, but my mom, like you said, like she did an impossible job, bro. Like she had me at 17, so when she had me my grandmother actually kicked her out the house 'cause, you know, she had me and she like she didn't approve of it or whatever. And my mom was sleeping couch to couch. You know, bouncing around friends' couches with me and she was still in school. So she was [laughs] like me and her sleeping on friends' couches and then she would take me to school. By the grace of God her school had a daycare as well so she can put me in daycare and then actually go to school. And then she ended up, um, getting into, uh, like nightlife, so she was like doing bottle service, things of that nature, and making some good money. But she was also doing, uh, real estate as well. So she got a job and she was doing like IT stuff. So during the job she would like do real estate on the side, but then her job found out she was do- using her computers to do real estate and then they fired her, and then she had to go into real estate full time. But she also picked up that job doing bottle service. And then at one point she was like, "Man, I just wanna go into full time in real estate," and then that whole time she was raising me. So it was ... It's just impossible, bro.

   19. CJCalum Johnson5:25

       Yeah.

   20. JPJustin Phillips5:26

       Yeah.

   21. CJCalum Johnson5:26

       I'm curious what's the impact of you and just witnessing that? Because I think we, especially as children, we learn so much from just observing our parents. So when you're watching your mom kind of grind and hustle like that, like I'm sure that has an impact even to this day.

   22. JPJustin Phillips5:42

       Yeah.

   23. CJCalum Johnson5:43

       Like when you reflect on it, what would you say that is?

   24. JPJustin Phillips5:45

       Yeah, I mean, just seeing someone do that, it's just like bro, you just kind of grow a work ethic because it's like you don't really take lightly to excuses or you don't give yourself excuses 'cause like bro, my mom had me at 17, worked three jobs and was by herself and she still made it happen. So you kind of get that work ethic instilled in you. And I like what you said too about like- How you model behavior after your parents or whatnot, 'cause I was thinking about it too, and I was talking to my boy about it. And I was like, "Why do children want to walk?" And they get up and they fall, and then they don't stop trying to walk. Because it's so funny when, like, you're older, you fail, and then you stop because of the failure. But when you're younger, you wouldn't say, like, "I tried walking and I fell and this- walking's just not my thing."

   25. CJCalum Johnson6:33

       Yeah.

   26. JPJustin Phillips6:33

       But the reason you continue trying to do it is 'cause you're modeling the behavior of the other humans that are around you.

   27. CJCalum Johnson6:38

       Yeah.

   28. JPJustin Phillips6:38

       So you want to be able to do the same things that they're doing. I thought it was really interesting.

   29. CJCalum Johnson6:42

       Yeah.

   30. JPJustin Phillips6:42

       Yeah.
3. 8:06 – 13:40

   Full breakdown of the 6 basic human needs

   1. JPJustin Phillips8:06

      the idea of, you know, approval. Like, why don't you wanna be around me, and what do I need to be for you to wanna be around?

   2. CJCalum Johnson8:13

      Mm.

   3. JPJustin Phillips8:13

      So that was really my, my emotions around it.

   4. CJCalum Johnson8:16

      Yeah. You know, that's actually, um, it's really interesting in that there's actually been psychologists that have tested this with children where, uh, especially things that are done by their parents, the way that the child interprets it is, "I'm 100% responsible for this."

   5. JPJustin Phillips8:32

      Yeah.

   6. CJCalum Johnson8:33

      So if my parents are arguing, it's because of something I did. And so a lot of these kind of characteristics that people build in their personalities-

   7. JPJustin Phillips8:42

      Yeah

   8. CJCalum Johnson8:42

      ... it's often actually to kind of guise or kind of just respond to the situation that they were thrust in.

   9. JPJustin Phillips8:47

      1000%. And finish if you-

   10. CJCalum Johnson8:50

       No, go ahead.

   11. JPJustin Phillips8:51

       No, 'cause I was gonna say I've been l- looking into this so much lately because I started to realize, like, in different relationships you will try to seek out other things in a partner that you were missing as a, as a child. So one day I did this exercise where it talks about all of the basic human needs that you have, whether it's, like, contribution, connection, et cetera. There's six of them. And then it was like out of all of those six things, there's, like, sub-things that are inside of them, whether it be, like, approval or personal development or growth or whatever your actual need is. And it was funny because, so for instance, like you said, arguing. If a child saw their parents arguing growing up, they think that that's love because their parents are together. Now, you may have a need for connection, and then you grow up and you get in a relationship with someone, and then you start to argue with them, not because you're mad but because you want to connect, and that's what you deem connection as and love.

   12. CJCalum Johnson9:45

       That's what you know.

   13. JPJustin Phillips9:46

       So now when I'd sat back and thought about that, I was like, there was always some- I was writing it down, and everything that I wrote down, it was centered around personal development, growth. And then I kept writing the word approval down, and I was like, "Why do I have a need for status or a, a feeling of a need for approval?" And then I, like it snapped, and I was like, "Bro, okay." 'Cause I'd been trying to, like, exceed and achieve because I subconsciously wanted the approval of my parents or my- specifically my dad. And I was like, that was so interesting. It was like a great unlock and breakthrough for me.

   14. CJCalum Johnson10:17

       Mm.

   15. JPJustin Phillips10:17

       So yeah, it was just interesting.

   16. CJCalum Johnson10:19

       I'm curious, are there any stories from when, from when you were younger where it's like upon reflection, so in hindsight, you thinking about it now, it was just such a clear outcry for approval?

   17. JPJustin Phillips10:34

       Mm.

   18. CJCalum Johnson10:34

       So in, in, in the moment when you were experiencing it-

   19. JPJustin Phillips10:37

       Yeah

   20. CJCalum Johnson10:37

       ... it didn't seem like you wanted approval, but you reflecting on it now, you're like, "That's why I was acting like that."

   21. JPJustin Phillips10:44

       For sure. I remember one time, um, my, so my dad's side of the family, they own a car wash, and entrepreneurs and stuff. So I'm at the car wash with one of my, um, cousins that, like, helped raise me a lot and [laughs] it's a crazy story. So, um, my cousin, he smokes a lot. So I'm just younger, so I used to, like, roll up blunts for him and stuff, just trying to be cool with my cousins and them.

   22. CJCalum Johnson11:06

       Yeah.

   23. JPJustin Phillips11:06

       So my dad comes in, and I knew that if my dad walked in and saw me, like, rolling a blunt up, then he would be like, "What's ... Like, what are you doing?" And then in my head I was just, like, trying to get his attention. So at, in the be- in this, like, moment I was just like, "Oh, let me just do this because this is what I do." But in reality when I look back at it in the pa- or in the future, I was like, I did that so that he would say something. 'Cause then what I said to him when he said something was like, "Bro, don't tell me, like, what to do. You were never around."

   24. CJCalum Johnson11:38

       Mm.

   25. JPJustin Phillips11:38

       And then I look back at it and I was like, yeah, I was clearly trying to get that connection.

   26. CJCalum Johnson11:44

       Yeah.

   27. JPJustin Phillips11:44

       Yeah.

   28. CJCalum Johnson11:45

       I'm curious, how do you begin to, like, resolve that?

   29. JPJustin Phillips11:48

       You gotta let time go by, because you'll just learn to forgive. Because then I realized, I was like, you were an adult. You had issues. You're learning yourself just like I'm learning myself now.

   30. CJCalum Johnson11:59

       Mm.
4. 13:40 – 17:50

   What made Justin change

   1. CJCalum Johnson13:40

      to do. And so I'm curious, maybe you can just even talk about, like, almost starting to go in that direction and then making the pivot. Quick break. So a few months ago, we recorded an episode with an entrepreneur. His name was Will Rivera. Out of Atlanta, he has made millions and millions of dollars from dropshipping on Amazon, and that episode was so well-received, we get so many comments, even to this day, of people loving that episode and the game that Will dropped in it, that we actually brought Will back and Ecom Degree University, which is his course, as a sponsor to this episode. And they really give you everything. From the community that you need to support you, to the information, to a Discord chat where you can ask questions in live time. They teach you everything from setting up your business license, to finding a supplier, to finding the right products and getting it set up on Amazon correctly. And here's actually the best part. They've agreed to host a free live webinar, and so when you go to the link in the description and sign up, you will get access to a free live webinar where they are giving away all of the game that you need to get started selling name brand products on Amazon. Go to the link in the description, check it out. Thank me later. Now back to the show.

   2. JPJustin Phillips15:03

      I remember it like it was yesterday, bro. It was crazy. So, um, everybody on my, my dad's side of the family, all the men, you know, particular, like, they do illegal activities, you know? So being around that, I'm just like, "All right, well, they're getting a lot of money, and they're doing it really fast." So I'm like, "Man, that's what I wanna do." So I started to dabble in that on the side while I had a 9 to 5 job. So then I get into a circumstance where I'm just like, it was... It's crazy. So to paint the picture without incriminating myself, [laughs] um, I'm in a parking lot and I'm having a conversation with someone, and then there's a bunch of guys around me, and I see them, like, pulling guns out, and I'm like, "Oh, okay. That's what this is." So then I'm like, all right, in that moment I'm like, "I have a choice of continuing doing what I'm doing now, and it's either going to lead to death or jail. That's inevitable. Or I have a choice to go down an unknown route, but hopefully it'll be more positive." So the way I logically thought about it is that it's actually more risky to stay doing what I'm doing now than it is to go and do something else. So I remember when I went back to the, to my house one day. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with five people. So had my own place, um, after graduating college, was super depressed, bro, 'cause I'm super popular in school. I'm, I skipped a grade. I'm throwing parties, doing 10, $15,000 a month, and then I squandered it 'cause I'm young, making money, and then I graduate and I'm popular, but I have no job, no internship, no place to stay, no car, no nothing. So I ended up having to, you know, move back to with my mom. And I get a job, and then I go back to my home 'cause I wanted to have my own space 'cause I didn't want my mom telling me what to do. So one day I get a knock on my door, it's my cousins, and they're like, "Yo, stuff's messed up at our house. Like, can we come and stay with you?" And it was, uh, three of them, so I'm like, "Cool." And then in that time period, that year or so, there was, like, six or seven people living in my house. So I'm sleeping on the floor. Um, we'd rotate in the bed. Two people sleep in the bed, three on the floor, two peop- like, you know. And one day I walk in the house after coming home from work and I'm just dog tired. I'm looking down and I see, like, three people just asleep on the floor, and then I remember telling myself like, "Bro, this is not what your life is supposed to be like." So in that moment I was like, "Bro, I wanna be, I wanna do something better. I just don't know what to do." And I remember going on, um, Google and I typed in like, "What do CEOs do?" And then one of the things in, like, those articles that are, like, clearly for SEO is like, um, they read books, they do this or whatever. So I was like, "Okay, cool. I'm gonna read a book," 'cause the average CEO reads a book a week, and the average American reads one. So I picked out this book

5. 17:50 – 20:15

   2 things you MUST do if you want to succeed.

   1. JPJustin Phillips17:50

      I saw on Instagram and I just bought it, and it was called, uh, No Excuses by Brian Tracy, and it was talking about the importance of environment. And I remember just saying to my friends and my cousins, and I was like, "Hey, guys, it's May 1st, June 1st. I'm about to be on the stuff that's inside of this book. So if you aren't on that trajectory, I will leave, or you guys will have to leave. But I have to curate my environment." And environment is twofold. You have your digital environment, you have your physical environment. Digitally, people stay stuck because they consume- Content. And there's a reason why they call it consuming content. You are what you eat. So you're consuming this content, and you're becoming, you know, what you're seeing. And then in the physical environment, you're becoming like the people that you're around. So I knew that I was like, "I have to change both my physical and digital environment." And then I told them that I'll be leaving. And then one day they pulled me to the side a couple days later, and was like, "You probably should, like, leave or kick us out because we're holding you back and we see where you're going." And then that's when I moved to Atlanta and packed everything up. Nissan Altima 2013.

   2. CJCalum Johnson18:52

      Yeah.

   3. JPJustin Phillips18:52

      Took the drive, 12 hours. And while I'm on the drive, I was, a Bible study was on. And the Bi- uh, the pastor was like, "If you're thinking about moving, just, just go to the middle. Like, if you're thinking about traveling, just go to the middle. God can't pull you to the other side if you don't meet Him in the middle." And then I was like, "Bro, I'm, like, on the right path," you know? And then from that day, that's, um, when we started the business and stuff like that, when I moved to Atlanta.

   4. CJCalum Johnson19:15

      Nice. No, that's a special story.

   5. JPJustin Phillips19:17

      Yeah.

   6. CJCalum Johnson19:17

      You know, listening, listening to that, I think kind of, like, there's this key moment, this key turning point, which is you come home from work and you're incredibly tired. I think everyone's had that feeling of just coming home-

   7. JPJustin Phillips19:33

      Yeah

   8. CJCalum Johnson19:33

      ... and you're like, you just wanna sit on your couch and do nothing.

   9. JPJustin Phillips19:35

      Right.

   10. CJCalum Johnson19:36

       Nothing. And y- you see three people sleeping on the floor, and it felt like at that moment, that vision, seeing that, had such a large impact on what you did after. But I'm curious, why was seeing those three people sleeping on your floor, why was that almost, like, the turning point?

   11. JPJustin Phillips19:58

       I think it was because I just didn't want that to be my life. Like, I think I just asked myself in that moment, and it was weird. Like, my heart got real hot and I was just looking at this and I was like, "Is this what I want to walk into every single day I come back into my home?" And the answer

6. 20:15 – 23:23

   How to brainwash yourself to succeed.

   1. JPJustin Phillips20:15

      was no. So it was like, either I'm gonna continue to live this type of life and then say, "Oh, my circumstance and this and that," or I was gonna at least try. So that was my thing. I was like, "Bro, I'm gonna at least try." And I think that's why it was just so bad for me. It was like, "Bro, I just don't want this to be my situation."

   2. CJCalum Johnson20:33

      Mm.

   3. JPJustin Phillips20:34

      Honestly.

   4. CJCalum Johnson20:35

      Yeah. You know what? I, I have this thing that I tell myself, which is, like, before anything great can be achieved, you have to believe it first.

   5. JPJustin Phillips20:43

      Yeah.

   6. CJCalum Johnson20:43

      And so I think part of what's so powerful about your story is it seems that there was nothing in your environment to show you, like, you could be incredibly successful, make millions and millions of dollars as an entrepreneur. And so I'm just curious, even in that moment, because it's one thing to say, "I want something different."

   7. JPJustin Phillips21:05

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CJCalum Johnson21:06

      But then to have the belief to follow through on wanting that different thing is something-

   9. JPJustin Phillips21:11

      Yeah

   10. CJCalum Johnson21:12

       ... something else. What was giving you belief at that time?

   11. JPJustin Phillips21:16

       You know what? I think it was from social media randomly, now that I'm thinking about it. Because I was - so there was some benefits to this, too. I'm living in a house with multiple people. Rent's 700 bucks. We're, we're splitting the rent, so I'm paying, like, 200 bucks a month in rent.

   12. CJCalum Johnson21:34

       Yeah.

   13. JPJustin Phillips21:34

       Food, couple hundred bucks. So my job was paying me $4,000 a month. So I'm stacking up probably, like, 3,500 bucks a month. And I'm going to work and I'm doing, like, paid advertisement for this company. It's like a startup, uh, Amazon FBA company. And because when I was throwing parties in school, I told [laughs] I went on the interview and I was like, "Hey guys, like, I can get thousands of people to come to a party. Like, I promise you I can get thousands of people to come see your thing on Amazon." And they, like, hired me or whatever. I was the first hire at the company. And doing, you know, doing that type of work, you start to see advertisements, things of that nature. So I'm seeing, like, Tai Lopez and Adrian Morrison and all of those guys. And because I was stacking up this type of cash, I'd started just buying courses. So I bought Tai Lopez's social media marketing course, Adrian Morrison's Ecom Mastery course, et cetera. And inside of those is obviously, like, mindset sections and things of that nature. So I think because of reading books and becoming a reader and that being my habit, and then also continuously investing in myself and my mindset, that's what gave me the belief to actually be like, "Okay, I can do this."

   14. CJCalum Johnson22:37

       Yeah.

   15. JPJustin Phillips22:38

       Yeah.

   16. CJCalum Johnson22:38

       You know, that's actually special. I think it's actually something that's very cool about the internet, is you can kind of take yourself out of your physical environment and cultivate the right digital environment that gives you the correct encouragement. And so you can be following people that are making millions or billions of dollars, and then by just consuming everything that they're saying, it's like that's now getting ingrained into your mind.

   17. JPJustin Phillips23:01

       Yeah.

   18. CJCalum Johnson23:01

       It's almost like you're brainwashing yourself for success.

   19. JPJustin Phillips23:04

       Facts. I mean, that's what I used to do. 'Cause when I sat my boys down, I was like, "This is my new routine. I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna go for a walk and I'm gonna listen to I Am, like, you know, uh, meditations. And then I'm gonna read for a hour and I'm g- like, I'm just stacking all of this stuff." Now I have a different view on morning routines

7. 23:23 – 27:00

   How to grow through your dark phase in entrepreneurship.

   1. JPJustin Phillips23:23

      and whatnot now, but that's what I did. I just woke up, walked out of my situation, and immediately immersed myself in a different one. And then being immersed in it so much, I think that's what was able to pull me out of it, just by, like, staying in that, staying in that mode, you know?

   2. CJCalum Johnson23:37

      Yeah. You know what? When you make this, uh, decision and, and I know this personally. When you make this decision that you're gonna do something different, you're gonna be, I don't know, the first person in your friends group or the first person in your town that does this thing. There's this incredibly difficult moment on that path, and I'll tell you what it is and I'm sure that you've had it. You're not yet the new person, right? So you're not yet the successful entrepreneur that has successful entrepreneur friends. But then you're also now different than everyone that you know.

   3. JPJustin Phillips24:09

      Right.

   4. CJCalum Johnson24:09

      And so it's actually this kind of lonely in-between stage-

   5. JPJustin Phillips24:13

      Mm-hmm

   6. CJCalum Johnson24:13

      ... where you don't really relate with either group.

   7. JPJustin Phillips24:15

      Yeah.

   8. CJCalum Johnson24:16

      And so I'm curious, speak to that in your story.

   9. JPJustin Phillips24:21

      Yeah.

   10. CJCalum Johnson24:21

       You've kind of started out on this path of entrepreneurship. You've moved to Atlanta. What are those kind of initial moments-

   11. JPJustin Phillips24:28

       Yeah So it's like a - I have like a weird analogy for it. I call it like a, it's like astronaut. It's weird. So the way that I look at it is like, you know, you are on a rocket ship and you have your boosters, right? Your boosters are the people from your hometown, typically like friends, family, et cetera. They - if you make a decision to go on this trip to the moon by yourself, they might say like, "You're crazy," like you're whatever, you're this and that, but typically they're gonna like try to boost you up where they can. So you take off, you get boosted by your friends, but then you start to hit this like atmosphere where it gets like very difficult to breathe. And then what happens with the rockets? The boosters fall off.

   12. CJCalum Johnson25:07

       Mm.

   13. JPJustin Phillips25:07

       So now you're kinda here in this lonely area by yourself, and it's up to you to like go to the moon, travel to do what you're supposed to do. And once you get there, then the admirable thing, uh, to do in my opinion, is to plant your flag, go back down, and then take those people that were once there with you back up to where you've been because you've traversed that, you know, that, that path before. So for me, um, that place was really just knowing that people were gonna support me to a specific level, letting them fall off, but then still having that relationship enough and the humility and no ego enough to like go and be out there in Atlanta doing my own thing was a very difficult time. I'll talk more about it if you like. And then forcing the success and then going back to pick up the people that were once with you. All of the first, uh, employees at the company were all of my best friends that, that were from Houston. So I was like, "Bro, get to Atlanta. I'm making money, bro. Come and work with me." Like, "We can grow together and stuff." And then they ended up coming down and moving here.

   14. CJCalum Johnson26:03

       Mm.

   15. JPJustin Phillips26:04

       So...

   16. CJCalum Johnson26:04

       You know, talk, talk about those, uh, talk about those difficult moments. And I, and I'm curious because I think whenever you make a change, um, and I felt this. I felt it in like a weird way 'cause I moved from Manhattan back to New Jersey, and the reason why was really to focus on building this podcast. But then as you're on this journey, s- three months in, six months in, nine months in-

   17. JPJustin Phillips26:25

       Yeah

   18. CJCalum Johnson26:25

       ... start to remember little things here and there about your old life-

   19. JPJustin Phillips26:30

       Mm-hmm

   20. CJCalum Johnson26:30

       ... which you just miss. It made you like comfortable. It made you feel good, and you just miss that.

   21. JPJustin Phillips26:35

       Yeah.

   22. CJCalum Johnson26:35

       And I'm curious, was there moments where you're kind of, you're just like wavering almost? Like it's just difficult.

   23. JPJustin Phillips26:40

       Yeah, for sure. I would always just like FaceTime the homies just to like get that like, okay, like my boys are still my boys or whatever, but I still gotta like do my own thing. But when I moved to Atlanta, bro, it was super difficult 'cause I - from my job stacking up some, some cash, I saved up $26,000 within like the eight to 12-month time

8. 27:00 – 30:50

   How Justin risked his last $10,000 to start a business.

   1. JPJustin Phillips27:00

      where I was like saving a lot. Made a good call, invested $16,000 of it into Bitcoin in like 2017, um, so that was, that was great. And then I had $10,000 and two pennies left after that. And I get to Atlanta, um, because one of my college friends, name's Corey, and he had a business called Support Black Colleges, and he started it in 2012. And I had graduated at this time when I moved back to Atlanta. So he's like, um, telling me the whole time I'm doing all of this like negative stuff in Houston. He doesn't know what I'm doing, but he's like, "Yo, bro, like I think this Support Black College thing like has some legs, bro. Like come out to Atlanta." And I'm just like, "No, bro, I'm getting a lot of money fast," you know what I'm saying?

   2. CJCalum Johnson27:39

      Mm.

   3. JPJustin Phillips27:39

      But then when that pivotal moment, pivotal moment happened, I then moved, and then I got to Atlanta, and I remember having $10,000 and two pennies. And then we start to count up the inventory in the house, and it was $20,000 in inventory. And he was like, "Yo, I really want you to like apply the skills that you learned from your job to this business. Send me $10,000 and then you'll be 50/50 owner in the business. We'll do a handshake and it'll be all good." So I didn't - he didn't know that, but that's all I had. So I just felt like a lot of the times that I quit on other things, it was because I didn't have enough skin in the game. So you don't - you're not invested enough. You don't have enough skin in the game. You're not all in enough, and that's why you quit. So I was like, "I'm gonna put everything I have into this and not say anything, because if I have everything in it, I'm, I'm not gonna be able to not make it work. I have no other choice." So I wired him $10,000, had two pennies left in my bank account, didn't know how I was gonna eat, and that was the first couple days that I moved to Atlanta.

   4. CJCalum Johnson28:38

      Mm.

   5. JPJustin Phillips28:38

      So I remember, um, just thinking like, "Damn, well, one, I gotta pay rent. I don't know how I'm about to do that. Number two, I need to eat. Don't know how I'm gonna do that." And then that night, one of my homeboys, um, text me and he was like, "Man, congrats, you know, on the big move to Atlanta. Super proud of you." And then he Cash App'd me 250 bucks, and I was like, "Let's go." [laughs]

   6. CJCalum Johnson28:58

      [laughs]

   7. JPJustin Phillips28:58

      Like I could eat now, like and I could try to like, you know, at least breathe to stack up a little bit of money.

   8. CJCalum Johnson29:03

      Yeah.

   9. JPJustin Phillips29:03

      So I actually didn't jump into the business with, uh, with my partner that first month. That, that was like after my first 30 days there. So I started a social media marketing agency, and I was using a software that cost me 10 bucks a month to like follow, unfollow, like, comment, et cetera, uh, automation, and I was charging people $100 a month to do it. So I had like really good margins. So in that first month, I stacked up like four or $5,000 a month in recurring revenue.

   10. CJCalum Johnson29:27

       Mm.

   11. JPJustin Phillips29:27

       Just the - my thought was, you know, there's a big - like Alex talks about this a lot, like the difference between the wealthy and super wealthy isn't what they do, it's what they don't do. So I was like, "What are all the things that I can, I can do in this business, and what are the things that make me the most money in this business?" And I looked at those three tasks, and it was client outreach, client nurture, and, um, yeah, s- those were like top two. Client outreach, client nurture, and selling. So I'm like, "All right. I'm gonna reach out to clients all day, I'm gonna nurture those clients, and I'm gonna sell them," and that's all I did for 30 days, and that's how I was able to stack up that revenue. Um, and then from there I was like, "All right. I feel confident enough to like - comfortable enough," and then I was like, "Let's make this, you know, this move with Support Black College." And then me and Corey started taking it seriously. And then that first month, uh, in business we did $30,000 that month, and I, we could talk about that too. And then the next month, 65K, and then from there we scaled it up to a million bucks a month within the next couple years.

   12. CJCalum Johnson30:25

       Yeah. You know what? The, the word that comes to mind is focus.

   13. JPJustin Phillips30:28

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CJCalum Johnson30:28

       And I use that very intentionally, um- 'Cause that's how anything, like, great is really achieved, is really focusing. And I remember hearing this quote, um, by Jony Ives, who is, like, the senior, like, head designer at Apple.

   15. JPJustin Phillips30:44

       Mm-hmm.

   16. CJCalum Johnson30:44

       And he's talking about working with Steve Jobs. He said, "Steve Jobs is the most focused individual I've been around."

9. 30:50 – 42:25

   Full breakdown of how to start and grow a $1M clothing brand with just $100.

   1. CJCalum Johnson30:50

      And he said the way that Steve thought about focus, it wasn't about what they said yes to, it was everything they said no to.

   2. JPJustin Phillips30:57

      Mm.

   3. CJCalum Johnson30:58

      They said no to so many great ideas 'cause they only wanted to go after one phenomenal idea.

   4. JPJustin Phillips31:03

      Yeah.

   5. CJCalum Johnson31:03

      And when I listen to your story it's, like, the same thing. It's that focus. It's understanding what is really driving impact in your businesses. And here's where I wanna go. Another post from your Instagram.

   6. JPJustin Phillips31:14

      [laughs]

   7. CJCalum Johnson31:15

      You can tell I've been stalking you recently.

   8. JPJustin Phillips31:16

      [laughs]

   9. CJCalum Johnson31:17

      But you said, "I've been making multiple seven figures in e-commerce for the last three years, and I got started with just $100."

   10. JPJustin Phillips31:26

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CJCalum Johnson31:26

       "Here's how I did it and h- here's how you can, too." And the reason I even connect the two, I think to a lot of people it's like bullshit.

   12. JPJustin Phillips31:34

       [laughs]

   13. CJCalum Johnson31:34

       Like, no way can you make multiple seven figures starting with just $100.

   14. JPJustin Phillips31:40

       Right.

   15. CJCalum Johnson31:41

       My hunch is that the key is the focus.

   16. JPJustin Phillips31:44

       Uh-huh.

   17. CJCalum Johnson31:45

       And so I'm curious, I'm like, when you did that and when you had that first month you made $30,000-

   18. JPJustin Phillips31:51

       Mm-hmm

   19. CJCalum Johnson31:51

       ... where was that focus being placed?

   20. JPJustin Phillips31:54

       Yeah. There was four things. Number one was paid advertising, number two was influencer marketing, number three was grassroots marketing, and number four was content creation, content curation. So those are, like, the only four things that we even thought about. So even for that, you know, $30,000 situation, after I had stacked up a little bit of cash from, you know, the Instagram, uh, business, Shade Room at the time was doing $1,500 posts. So we were realizing that there was a big shift in influencer marketing. You've seen it happen with, like, Gymshark and Fashion Nova, et cetera. So we took that little nest egg, invested in a shout-out from Fashion Nova. But just to get a little tactical to help, like, really help, um, we had to make sure that the post was very contextual to the platform that we were on, so we curated a piece of content that would match what, you know, the Shade Room typically posts, and then we crafted the caption to make it sound like the Shade Room was saying it. So they were like, "Hey, room mates. This is a Black brand that we're l- in love with, that we're supporting," and blah, blah, blah. And then from that one post it generated 30K in sales just from ... It was a, so it was a great investment. So those are the four things that we, like, focused all of our attention on in the, in the beginning.

   21. CJCalum Johnson33:02

       Yeah.

   22. JPJustin Phillips33:03

       But, mm.

   23. CJCalum Johnson33:03

       You know what? You know what's interesting? And I actually have a, I have a confession, which is this, and this is why I was actually super interested in this conversation.

   24. JPJustin Phillips33:09

       [laughs]

   25. CJCalum Johnson33:10

       Um, about five years ago, five or six years ago, I'm still in university. My first business that I started was a clothing line.

   26. JPJustin Phillips33:18

       [laughs]

   27. CJCalum Johnson33:18

       I was like, "I wanna do clothing." I was like, "You can just ... " And this was, like, when the drop shipping-

   28. JPJustin Phillips33:22

       Right. [laughs]

   29. CJCalum Johnson33:22

       ... stuff was just getting going. I was like, "Oh, I don't even need to have the inventory. I can just start-

   30. JPJustin Phillips33:26

       Right
10. 42:25 – 44:25

    How to test the market for your merch before release.

    1. CJCalum Johnson42:25

       design, you can get the sample made.

    2. JPJustin Phillips42:27

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CJCalum Johnson42:27

       And then I guess, I guess you can use Shopify or like whatever-

    4. JPJustin Phillips42:31

       Yeah

    5. CJCalum Johnson42:31

       ... platform you want to make sure that, like, you can charge orders-

    6. JPJustin Phillips42:35

       Yeah

    7. CJCalum Johnson42:35

       ... and it can be sent to people. I guess the next part of that is the marketing-

    8. JPJustin Phillips42:41

       Mm-hmm

    9. CJCalum Johnson42:42

       ... side of things. And so I'm curious because even with people that you work with, there must be some people that, so they have the domain, they have the design, but and they've started doing some marketing-

    10. JPJustin Phillips42:54

        Right

    11. CJCalum Johnson42:54

        ... but it's just not working.

    12. JPJustin Phillips42:56

        Yeah.

    13. CJCalum Johnson42:56

        And so how do you know if it's the marketing isn't working or your product just sucks-

    14. JPJustin Phillips43:02

        No

    15. CJCalum Johnson43:02

        ... and no one wants the product? Like, how do you even figure out-

    16. JPJustin Phillips43:05

        [laughs]

    17. CJCalum Johnson43:05

        How do you get the signal that you're actually onto something?

    18. JPJustin Phillips43:07

        Yeah. So, [laughs] so what I would do typically is there's two ways. There's a paid way to do it, and then there's a free way to do it. So with the free way is I would do like a friends and family launch. So I would hit up ... 'Cause a lot of people have a lot of contacts, but they don't got a lot of contracts with the people that they're working with. So I hit up all the friends and family with a specific script, basically something along the lines of like, "Hey, I'm starting a business, and I want, uh, like, I'm sh- seeking some help, and here's, like, my product," or whatever. And what I started to realize very early on is, like, if you can't get your friends and family to, like, even like it, or you can't even give away the product for free, then there's no way you're gonna be able to sell it. So the paid way that I like to do it is we do, like, a, a giveaway campaign on Facebook. So we'll take a video of the product, and then we'll say, "Hey, we're doing a free giveaway of this product. Just give me your email and your phone number." And then we'll put a couple dollars behind it, and if people don't want the product for free, I guarantee you can't sell it. So then we'll just put, like, you know, now that we have a little more experience, like, KPIs in place of, like, if you're getting leads for less than this much, then that's a good product. If you're getting leads for more than this much, then it's probably not a good product and you need to go back to the drawing board.

    19. CJCalum Johnson44:19

        Mm.

    20. JPJustin Phillips44:20

        So that's typically how we would do it.

    21. CJCalum Johnson44:21

        Mm-hmm. And then when you're ... I guess if you do have the bad product and you're going

11. 44:25 – 49:00

    How to design your merch to get crazy demand.

    1. CJCalum Johnson44:25

       back to the drawing board, going back to the drawing board to do what?

    2. JPJustin Phillips44:28

       Yeah. The ... 'Cause this is the issue. Most people just don't have a, a wow factor with the product that they have. They, the, the, this, the issue with the newest entrepreneur, or newer entrepreneurs is they think that their skill level is far beyond what it actually is, and it's really delusion, but it's okay, 'cause we all go through it. So most people will just say, "You know, here's a white T-shirt, black T-shirt. I'm gonna slap my logo on it, guarantee I'm gonna get rich." But no one has an affinity to your logo or your brand name. They don't know you at all, so why would someone want to invest in the name? Now you have these fashion houses that have been in the game hundreds of years. They've built brand. You have no brand just starting out. So I always actually tell newer people to start out with more design-heavy, like, more design-based, um, you know, merchandise in general, where you're making designs that would actually connect with the audience that you're trying to put it in front of, and then you have your logo centered in the design somewhere. And as you do more drops, you can peel off more of the design aspects, and then the logo's still there, but they still feel what they feel about the design and the, you know, the characteristics of the brand in general. So same with Nike. It's like, you know, now you just look at Nike and you think, "Oh, just do it. I'm an athlete, no matter what my body looks like," et cetera, but it took [laughs] decades to be able-

    3. CJCalum Johnson45:41

       Yeah

    4. JPJustin Phillips45:41

       ... to create that feeling.

    5. CJCalum Johnson45:42

       Yeah.

    6. JPJustin Phillips45:42

       You know?

    7. CJCalum Johnson45:42

       That's actually a really powerful point, and it's in any business. And a lot of the time we take it for granted, right? 'Cause you might see, uh, something that Dior make or something that LV make. If you literally took that same design but it was your brand, no one would buy it.

    8. JPJustin Phillips45:58

       No.

    9. CJCalum Johnson45:59

       Because they, they have a certain reputation. They get away with doing certain things. And it's funny you even mentioned the, the Nike example. I read, uh, Shoe Dog-

    10. JPJustin Phillips46:08

        Yeah

    11. CJCalum Johnson46:08

        ... which is, uh, by Phil Knight-

    12. JPJustin Phillips46:10

        Mm

    13. CJCalum Johnson46:10

        ... who's the founder of Nike, and he was talking about when they came up with the Swoosh, they weren't even -they didn't like the design.

    14. JPJustin Phillips46:17

        Right.

    15. CJCalum Johnson46:17

        Like, they weren't even gonna use that as the logo.

    16. JPJustin Phillips46:19

        Mm.

    17. CJCalum Johnson46:19

        Now it's iconic, and they can sell shit just with the Swoosh on it, nothing else.

    18. JPJustin Phillips46:24

        Right.

    19. CJCalum Johnson46:24

        But, like, in the beginning it wasn't that.

    20. JPJustin Phillips46:26

        Yeah.

    21. CJCalum Johnson46:26

        It's building brand-

    22. JPJustin Phillips46:28

        Exactly

    23. CJCalum Johnson46:28

        ... over a number of years.

    24. JPJustin Phillips46:29

        Yeah.

    25. CJCalum Johnson46:30

        Uh, and you can't take that for granted.

    26. JPJustin Phillips46:31

        Yeah. And also, like, i- if you are gonna do that, you can, because I don't want people to think like, "Oh, I gotta have, like, super design-heavy," like, whatever. But the ... also too, you have to have, like, utility, functionality, just design in general. So if I'm starting, like, let's just say a scrubs company, I'm not gonna be able to, like, be super design-focused. But I can have some certain utility or functionality of this product that is different from what's going on in the marketplace. So I can lean more heavy into, "This is different because it serves this audience in this way that doesn't exist, and it's super functional and super u- like, has utility," rather than just like, "Oh, I'm slapping, like, a crazy design on something." 'Cause it might not lend itself to all of the different aspects of business.

    27. CJCalum Johnson47:13

        Yeah.

    28. JPJustin Phillips47:13

        You know?

    29. CJCalum Johnson47:14

        Yeah. Okay. Here's where I wanna go next. So you've made this decision to pick up your life, move to Atlanta.

    30. JPJustin Phillips47:23

        Yeah. [laughs]
12. 49:00 – 56:50

    How to handle the emotional baggage of running a successful business

    1. JPJustin Phillips49:00

       then we realized that we needed to learn a lot more.

    2. CJCalum Johnson49:02

       Yeah. It's interesting, actually. I remember, um, I read Bob Iger's book. So Bob Iger, like CEO-

    3. JPJustin Phillips49:09

       Disney

    4. CJCalum Johnson49:09

       ... executive at Disney.

    5. JPJustin Phillips49:11

       Yeah.

    6. CJCalum Johnson49:11

       And there's this section in the book where he gets, uh, promoted to this position that he always wanted, and it's such a great story and you kind of see it in everyone's story, which is we spend so much time in pursuit.

    7. JPJustin Phillips49:23

       [laughs]

    8. CJCalum Johnson49:23

       Right? Like, we're chasing after this thing, and then finally after months or years of pursuing this thing, you finally get the thing that you want, right? And he said ... I remember at the end of the chapter, he said, uh, "Little did I know this was when all of the hard work actually began."

    9. JPJustin Phillips49:42

       Yeah. [laughs]

    10. CJCalum Johnson49:42

        The second you get what you thought you wanted is actually where the hard work begins.

    11. JPJustin Phillips49:47

        Right.

    12. CJCalum Johnson49:47

        And it sounds like that's what it was from your perspective. Talk to me about some of that-

    13. JPJustin Phillips49:52

        Oh, yeah

    14. CJCalum Johnson49:52

        ... hard work. Like, what were some of those-

    15. JPJustin Phillips49:55

        Man

    16. CJCalum Johnson49:55

        ... difficult moments?

    17. JPJustin Phillips49:56

        Oh, my goodness. You know, the most difficult lesson I probably had to learn was just my identity is separate from the business. Bro, it was such a hard lesson. And then also that you have to get rid of your ego as well. So, you know, thinking about that, you have a goal of 100K a month, million a month, whatever. Then we hit the goal, 100K a month. We hit the goal a million a month, and I remember looking at my phone and I refreshed the banking app. It's, like, 1.1 liquid in the bank for the business and I'm like, "Let's go." But then six to eight months later, there was $12,000 in the bank account. So I'm looking at it like, "Bro, I don't even have the skillsets or the character traits to, like, manage money properly, bro." And I just remember, like, learning that lesson of losing it, having it all, then losing it all, and then realizing that money truly did not matter. And I was like, "Who are you without a business? Who are you without status? Who are you without success? And who are you gonna choose to be moving forward? Because you might have to go to social media tomorrow and tell everybody that you failed at this thing that was once so popular." And I just remember crying in the shower, bro, and just being like, "Dog, what am I gonna do?" And then I just went out the next day, got a terrible loan from, like, a rapid finance, like cash advance type place.

    18. CJCalum Johnson51:20

        Mm.

    19. JPJustin Phillips51:20

        But then I had to use that money to, like, really learn how to steward it properly. And then that lesson taught me, number one, you can't have your identity tied into the business. Because the business failed does not make you a bad person. It means that you have a skillset that is lacking, but that's okay 'cause you can fix that if you choose to. And I chose to fix those skillsets and then, you know, we were able to bounce back after that. So that lesson was very valuable for me, and then also the lesson I learned from, like, when we went from 30 employees to 3 was so hard. Just, like, a lesson about, like, difficult conversations. 'Cause you put off all of these hard conversations for so long, and we had 30 employees. We made that, you know, had a million bucks liquid, had $12,000 in the bank account. Payroll was $12,600. [laughs] I took the, my money in my own bank account, 600 bucks, and I paid payroll. We had zero dollars. So then I take everybody to the back of the warehouse and I'm like, "Bro, we don't have any money to pay you, so if you, if you don't believe in the company and our vision, then you might as well just leave. 'Cause we can't even pay you, so I wouldn't even be mad at you if you left anyways." And w- we went from 30 employees to 3 within, like, the next couple of days. And that just taught me, too, was like, you know, you can't even be mad at those people because, like, we didn't have the money to pay you, so why would you stick around? And then it was like, bro, you don't need more people to make a business successful. You need to learn how to get more from the small, like, you know, the small amount of people that you have. And then we had, like, 15,000 orders to ship out with 3 people, and then we just, like, really streamlined the process and was able to kind of bounce back after that.

    20. CJCalum Johnson53:01

        Yeah.

    21. JPJustin Phillips53:01

        It was tough though, bro.

    22. CJCalum Johnson53:03

        Yeah. No, I feel it. I, I wanna, I wanna talk about what you said about identity.

    23. JPJustin Phillips53:07

        Mm-hmm.

    24. CJCalum Johnson53:07

        'Cause it's something that even I'm, I'm, like, starting to experience it now. And just to kind of give, I guess, more context to it, this is, this is how it was or how it's felt to me, which is in starting the business or even putting the money up or whatever the commitment is that you make in the beginning, you're kind of going out on a limb, right?

    25. JPJustin Phillips53:26

        Yeah.

    26. CJCalum Johnson53:27

        Like, it feels like you're almost jumping off a ledge.

    27. JPJustin Phillips53:30

        Right.

    28. CJCalum Johnson53:30

        Like, you're putting everything, not just your money and your time, but, like, your belief, your confidence-

    29. JPJustin Phillips53:35

        [laughs]

    30. CJCalum Johnson53:36

        ... your identity into this thing. And then as you're building, it starts to gain traction, and now you're starting to get validation-
13. 56:50 – 1:03:20

    The car accident that changed Justin’s life.

    1. JPJustin Phillips56:50

       founder did. So do you have too much ego to where you have to be the person to run the company at all times? Or can you see someone else with a bigger vision come to the company and run it better than you can, and can you accept that? So getting rid of ego was a, was a very big one for me, bro.

    2. CJCalum Johnson57:07

       Yeah.

    3. JPJustin Phillips57:07

       Yeah. So.

    4. CJCalum Johnson57:08

       You, you know what's interesting and, and I, and I think it's really good. I remember even when we spoke a few weeks ago in the lead up to this, this recording today-

    5. JPJustin Phillips57:15

       Mm

    6. CJCalum Johnson57:15

       ... it was something that you mentioned, ego, ego, ego. And I can tell it's just like an important factor, like it really resonates for you. I'm curious, is there an experience ... I feel, I feel like when some- when something really resonates for someone, it's because they had an experience-

    7. JPJustin Phillips57:31

       Yeah

    8. CJCalum Johnson57:31

       ... that like anchored that-

    9. JPJustin Phillips57:32

       Oh, yeah

    10. CJCalum Johnson57:33

        ... for them and just showed how important-

    11. JPJustin Phillips57:35

        Yeah

    12. CJCalum Johnson57:35

        ... that thing was. They had to learn it the hard way.

    13. JPJustin Phillips57:37

        Yeah.

    14. CJCalum Johnson57:38

        I'm curious, what was, what was the learning it the hard way for you?

    15. JPJustin Phillips57:40

        Man, it came in flashback right when you said that, bro. It's crazy. Um, so like I was saying, in college I had like no regard for whatever. I was drinking a lot Thursday through Sunday and throwing parties, making money, young, doing whatever I wanted to, treating people any kind of way. And then so I'm throwing a party this night, Howard University versus Hampton, the HUHU Cabaret, big party every year.

    16. CJCalum Johnson58:05

        Yeah.

    17. JPJustin Phillips58:05

        And we threw it at the Howard Theatre, and I was at my boy's house and we were pre-gaming. So I didn't drive, so my boy had a car, purple Lexus. Nice.

    18. CJCalum Johnson58:14

        [laughs]

    19. JPJustin Phillips58:15

        [laughs] And my boy, um, he's upstairs getting ready. He always takes a while. So then my other guy's name's, uh, Jamal, and I'm just like, "Yo, bro, like, let's take Matt's car," and like, and ask him, "But let's take Matt's car and let's go drive by the Howard Theatre," 'cause it's like two minutes away from us, "and let's go see how many people are in line, 'cause then I'm gonna be able to count like 100, 200, 300." Like, all right, we went crazy.

    20. CJCalum Johnson58:37

        Yeah.

    21. JPJustin Phillips58:37

        So we go and drive. We turn left on Georgia Ave, and he just starts mashing the gas. And I'm like, "Okay, cool. We turnt up. You know, we doing our thing."

    22. CJCalum Johnson58:46

        Yeah.

    23. JPJustin Phillips58:46

        So then I look at him because we were doing shots pre-gaming before the, you know, the driving, and I look at him and I'm just remember looking at him and I just like, I could see the glaze in his eyes, like he's not there. You know, he's just drunk, just driving. So I turn at him and I say, "Hey bro, slow down." I turn back around and he's going 70 miles an hour. There's a car right in front of us, smash right into the back of it. I don't have a seatbelt on, so, but I have like, my hair is tied down now, but I had a huge fro back in the day. So my head hits the windshield, my mouth hits the dashboard, and all of my teeth are fried. Like I can, I went like this, like, and it's just all crooked. Like I could feel it. And then my front tooth fell out. So it was w- it was like loose, like when you're a kid. I pulled it out and I just threw it 'cause I was so mad and I'm like, "Bro, my life is gonna be forever changed. Like, I'm gonna look completely different after this." And he didn't even know what was going on. He didn't, like barely remembered the next day. And I went to the hospital. They were like figuring my situation out, all of that stuff. And then for the next like year, year and a half, I had a, well, no front tooth. So I went from popular, throwing parties, doing this, all the, treating people any kind of way, to where I didn't even feel confident being like who I was, like myself, 'cause I just felt like I looked so different. And I had to slowly rebuild my confidence. And then also I just thought about like how I talk to people because I was at this, I was in New York actually, and I was just hanging out with some friends, drinking. I ended up getting so drunk I accidentally fell asleep like outside of the hotel room, um, on the outside because I like was drunk, couldn't call them, phone died, whatever. I wake up, I go inside of the hotel to talk to the person at the desk. He's like, "No homeless people. No homeless people." And I'm like, "Dog." I'm like, "Bro, I'm not homeless, bro." You know what I'm saying? Whatever. And not that there's anything wrong with it, whatever. But just that moment, that whole, you know, range of events was, was like, "Yo bro, you can't talk to people any kind of way. You can't treat people any kind of way because at any given moment it can switch and it can be you." So that was the moment that was like, I gotta work on the ego, and I went down that, you know, that path of fixing that about myself.

    24. CJCalum Johnson1:01:02

        Yeah. You know what I, I want to take key in on? You're involved in like this high-speed crash.

    25. JPJustin Phillips1:01:07

        Mm-hmm.

    26. CJCalum Johnson1:01:08

        And I think it's interesting that the first emotion after the crash, after the impact-

    27. JPJustin Phillips1:01:15

        Yeah

    28. CJCalum Johnson1:01:16

        ... is anger.

    29. JPJustin Phillips1:01:17

        Yeah.

    30. CJCalum Johnson1:01:17

        And I think about people - like, I've never been involved in a car crash, but I would assume the people that have, it would be almost, like, rare, right-
14. 1:03:20 – 1:05:20

    How to scale your business without increasing ad spend.

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:03:20

       a month, how did you scale that to an even higher level?

    2. JPJustin Phillips1:03:24

       Yeah.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:03:24

       What was involved with that?

    4. JPJustin Phillips1:03:25

       So it's funny because it was a lot of the things that we were doing originally: paid ads, influencer marketing, grassroots, et cetera, and content creation. So we just did more of what was working, and we did it at a higher level. So a lot of people will always think, you know, especially more seasoned entrepreneurs actually, where they go wrong is they think that to do better I need to spend more. And the real - the funny thing is, so for instance, you know, if I'm consulting someone and they're doing couple hundred K a month or whatever, they're gonna be like, "Well, I need to spend, like, more money in paid ads." And I'm like, "Well, hold on. Because if we just take your conversion rate from 1% to 2%, you can double your business without spending any money at all." So a lot of it was, like, small optimizations to increase our revenue without changing anything and getting it really solid, and then starting to pour more gas on something that was already working. So at that point, after optimizing, it was paid ads, Facebook, Instagram, uh, Google. It was very heavily focused on influencer marketing, so we would reach out to 14 influencers an hour and we would say, "Hey, are you offering any paid promotional opportunities?" Most people are reaching out trying to get a handout. We reached out, you know, [laughs] at least looking as if we were willing to spend money, and then they would see our stuff and then say, "Oh, well, like, yeah, just send us something." Then I would send them something, and then we would use a, uh, I call it, like, the heartstrings tactic, and then we'd be like, "Hey, we just sent you something, but, like, bro, we're a small family-owned business, so, like, all of the money that we make we invest it back into the business. So, like, it would mean the world to us if you just posted us and tagged us. It would change everything." And then massive follow-up, too. "Hey, here's your tracking number. Hey, saw your tracking number," or, "Your package just landed. Hey," you know, et cetera. So it was, it was doing more of what worked. It was optimizing first and then not trying to change the complete business model, just doing

15. 1:05:20 – 1:14:31

    How to use TikTok to scale your Ecom business to $40k/month.

    1. JPJustin Phillips1:05:20

       more of what we were already doing.

    2. CJCalum Johnson1:05:21

       Yeah. You know what? Um, here's something that I wanna say. I feel like sometimes when people listen to stories like this, they take it too literally.

    3. JPJustin Phillips1:05:29

       Mm.

    4. CJCalum Johnson1:05:29

       And I know this 'cause I've done it. And, and here's what I mean by that. So when I was working in marketing, one of the things that I saw, and you even spoke about in the beginning, influencer marketing or, like, buying posts on, like, The Shade Room-

    5. JPJustin Phillips1:05:44

       Right

    6. CJCalum Johnson1:05:44

       ... or whatever worked for you. The way that it goes is that that works, but it worked in that time period.

    7. JPJustin Phillips1:05:52

       That time.

    8. CJCalum Johnson1:05:52

       And then because that attention is kind of underpriced, right?

    9. JPJustin Phillips1:05:55

       Right.

    10. CJCalum Johnson1:05:55

        'Cause no one else is really doing it, that's why you got a huge amount of success. But now we're in 2024.

    11. JPJustin Phillips1:06:02

        Different.

    12. CJCalum Johnson1:06:03

        Now The Shade Room probably charges way more than $1,500.

    13. JPJustin Phillips1:06:06

        For sure.

    14. CJCalum Johnson1:06:07

        So the ROI is different. And so I actually think what's more helpful for people is that process-

    15. JPJustin Phillips1:06:15

        Mm-hmm

    16. CJCalum Johnson1:06:15

        ... of finding the innovative kind of marketing, um, strategies that work-

    17. JPJustin Phillips1:06:21

        Yeah

    18. CJCalum Johnson1:06:21

        ... currently-

    19. JPJustin Phillips1:06:22

        Right

    20. CJCalum Johnson1:06:22

        ... that people aren't doing. And I'm curious, what is it that you're seeing from your vantage point where you're like-

    21. JPJustin Phillips1:06:29

        Mm

    22. CJCalum Johnson1:06:29

        ... "Okay, this is the equivalent of buying sh- The Shade Room posts-"

    23. JPJustin Phillips1:06:32

        [laughs]

    24. CJCalum Johnson1:06:33

        ... I dunno, a few years ago when you were doing it.

    25. JPJustin Phillips1:06:35

        Mm-hmm.

    26. CJCalum Johnson1:06:35

        This is the equivalent of that in 2024.

    27. JPJustin Phillips1:06:37

        Yeah. That's actually really good now that I'm thinking about it, 'cause a lot of times entrepreneurs that have some success, they, like, sh- teach from their own context-

    28. CJCalum Johnson1:06:45

        Mm

    29. JPJustin Phillips1:06:45

        ... and then reali- they don't realize that people are gonna watch this and then be like, "I need to do that."

    30. CJCalum Johnson1:06:49

        And take it literally.

Episode duration: 1:14:38