#53 How I Built A 8-Figure TikTok Shop Marketing Business at Age 24! | Riley Garcia

How do they figure out, how would you tell them to figure out which skill to get? And I would argue the harder part is how do you curate? How do you know what's good and what's bad advice? If you can find the balance of all four, you're not going to end up in that position with a job that makes you a lot of money that you don't love doing. You'll be able to find something that makes you a lot of money that you love doing every single day. Imagine having direct access to someone who's navigated life's toughest terrains and come out stronger. Someone who's been there, done that, and can guide you with empathy, experience, and honesty. This isn't just advice. It's a lifeline, a strategy session, a chance to learn from my journey so you can accelerate yours. Without the ability to be self-aware and introspective, the ability for you to get to where you want to go, nearly impossible. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the David Gutman Podcast. If you like this content, please like or subscribe. Really interesting guest today, Riley Garcia. You're the co-founder of Attention Economy Club. That's it. I know you've done some other cool stuff. Part of what I try to do when I bring people onto the podcast, especially younger people like yourself, part of what I think is so interesting is people that have taken the road less traveled. They didn't go to a formal education, and they've been able to find some measure of success. And I think that there's so many more useful lessons that can be learned from those less common journeys. So maybe let's start with kind of like where did the entrepreneurial bug come from? you know go back to maybe early in your childhood brothers sisters what did your folks do maybe talk a little bit about that yeah would love to um it's been a wild journey uh ever since i was a little kid i've always been interested in business started off i was six years old selling bookmarks to the older ladies in my community uh making a couple bucks trying to get some ice cream money for school ice cream money yeah i i love that just finding a way to make something happen i was an athlete, loved my family. I was like, I want to do more. Even as a little kid, I felt like that. And then high school rolled around and I was like, you know what? Let's start a clothing company. Started a clothing company, went well, not crazy. We weren't running crazy meta ads or anything. It was word of mouth. And I love making friends. So I took that brand word of mouth, spread it with my two business partners at the time. And yeah, liquidated after like four months, super quick, a little cash grab. And then, yeah, that kind of pushed me into entrepreneurship. That specific venture gave me a scholarship to LMU. So I was able to go to LMU, which I wouldn't have been able to do before. And yeah, went to LMU entrepreneurship and marketing degree. But I didn't do any studying. I was focusing on business the whole time. So I was kind of just there. It was one of those things my parents wanted me to go to college. But yeah, junior year rolled around, met my team that I work with now and the rest is history. So you dropped out? I didn't even drop out. I was in class and they'd be teaching something about marketing. I don't even know what they're talking about. And I'd be sitting there on my laptop working on better brand was our first venture. Um, I was the lowly intern just trying to learn what the hell was going on. And, um, yeah, that's a whole nother story, but focus on, on the business during that junior year of, of college for me. I was also a fraternity president. So I was all in the social sphere of figuring out like, how do people work? That was kind of my main, my main thought. How do people work? How do I make really solid friends? But at the same time, how do I learn how to sell on my own? So just kind of carried on from there. Now, what did your folks do? So my dad grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. No one ever went to college in his family. It was never even a word in their vocabulary ever. And he was playing, he was playing high school football. I think he went to college for like six weeks to try and see if it could happen. Couldn't afford it. So he packed up his bags, moved to California, networked his way to where he's at now. My mom is an interior designer. She went to, so she paid her way through private high school because that was her main dream is to go to, of course, my rival high school in Orange County. and she paid herself through high school, went to community college, got a degree in interior design, and then she opened up her own company. So she's also entrepreneurial in her own sense. So do you think your desire to sell bookmarks at six, maybe some of that came from watching your folks be entrepreneurs? Honestly, no. I would say no. My parents are so great. They've always empowered me to do whatever I wanted to do. And I told them, well, I want to make money and sell things. And they thought that was so bizarre. You know, I'd come home from school, soccer practice, and I'm like, hey, mom, how do I make money? And she's like, you don't have to worry about money. Me and your dad have worked so hard to take care of you. And I was like, no, I know that. Trust me, I know that. But I want to figure this out. I see you guys doing it. So maybe a little bit of that. But they didn't teach me any of that. They just kind of let me go and figure it out on my own. And yeah, it just ended up sticking. So would you say you grew up upper middle class? Would you say you grew up upper class? Like, like, were you pretty affluent growing up? Yeah, I would say probably middle to upper middle class. I grew up in Anaheim Hills in Orange County. Very blessed to have everything I did. My parents definitely didn't have that early on in their childhood. And so they really put things together for me. I went to private schools my whole life. Very, very blessed for everything that I have. Do you have siblings? Only me. Just you? Okay. Yeah, my daughter is also an only child. She's – remind me how old you are again? I'm 24. My daughter is 25, so basically the same age. Yeah. And, yeah, she always gave me a hard time about being an only child. Funny, I just had my brother on the podcast. I was wishing I was an only child when I was younger. I'm like, what do you mean all the presents go to you? Like your birthday is a big deal. Everything is all about you. Yeah. Well, so you said you played some sports growing up. I did. What were your sports? So I've been a fighter my whole life. I love boxing. I love watching UFC. Spent about eight years of my childhood training karate. Moved into like team sports, basketball and volleyball were my main two. Ended up getting injured within my third year of playing volleyball and switched completely to boxing. Boxed until I was around 21, tore my rotator cuff and yeah now I just go to the gym. But I bounced around from like solo sports, fight training, stuff like that, all the way to like playing beach volleyball and hanging out with my friends too. So I do want to get into, you know, your current TikTok shop business and we will. But I'm curious, you know, on this journey up to that point, did you have, you know, coaches or mentors, people that really sort of shaped, you know, the lens you see the world through or was it just kind of more, hey, some stuff my folks said kind of rubbed off and stuff I learned on my own reading podcasts, what have you? Yeah, no, that's a great question. I always I always have looked up to my dad. My dad is one of the strongest men I've ever met in my life where he's had a lot of different things thrown at him, a lot less opportunity than most. And he always succeeds and finds a way to succeed. He's not the entrepreneurial type, but he's the guy with the grit of an entrepreneur. So I've always learned that from him. Most patient guy I know. He's just my overall role model. Of course, I had like older brothers, if you will, at my high school and going into college and people who really helped form how I see things. But once I joined my team now, Chris, Chris Jackson, he's my mentor now, business mentor. Now I look up to him. Him and my dad are both incredible men in my life that have taught me really everything I know about business and life in general. Well, let's talk about your current business. So Chris Jackson, it's Marcus's uncle, right? Yes. Which is how I met you. Yes. And Nick and Moncy as well. But maybe talk a little bit about how did you and Chris come to meet each other and maybe talk a little bit about that journey. Yeah, this is one of my favorite stories to tell, honestly. Um, so in college, I started working at the startup that I'll probably omit talking about that startup, but I ended up getting laid off from the startup along with a couple of other people. Wasn't making a ton of money. And so I was like, man, I'm in college. I need to figure this out. Um, I want to make some money. I want to learn. I don't really want to just sit in a classroom and hear about business from someone who's never run a business before. and so I joined this internship or I got an email for this internship at a startup studio and they reached out to me and they're like hey we have this really great opportunity working at a startup studio where you can get paired with brands and be a social media intern okay sure let's try it out so my application was making tiktoks I was like what the hell am I doing I'm making tiktoks for an application yeah just make three here are the briefs it's all you have to do. So I made three TikToks. They were average at best, and they really liked what I had to offer. So I was paired with Better Brand, which was Chris Jackson. He also goes by Dr. Chris, his brand. Get paired with him, meet him, and we got really close instantly. Well, the startup studio and the brand ended up splitting up. I had the opportunity to choose which direction I wanted to go, and I went with Chris and best decision I've ever made in my life. We really tried to figure out this social media game, tried to figure out how organically do we become influencers rather than paying thousands of dollars to other influencers. And we figured it out. Company was sitting at around 30 days of cash in the bank. We had really no future ahead of us. and um connor miller our uh our creative director went stupid viral went crazy on tiktok for our brand three days later chris went viral and everything just took off from there and we realized okay all this organic traction can really propel us forward so that's what we do today it's really focused on socials and um what was it about because you said you and chris kind of hit it off just like that. Yeah. What was it? What were the qualities that he saw in you? You saw in him that like, yeah, this is someone who I want to be in business with. I'll never forget. There's, there's two, there were two times when he has a person really stuck out to me. The first time was our initial call. He asked me not necessarily about application stuff and what's my resume. He was like, why do you get up in the morning? Like what things have you done that have caused an impact that immediately told me, okay, this guy cares a lot more about the person rather than what they have in their pocket, in their bank account, or in their past. He wants to work with people that he trusts and enjoys being around. And so I told him about a couple of different charity things I was doing and stuff I did when I was 12. I started up with my family, this charitable organization in the Dominican Republic, and we just really connected on that. And he was like, interesting. Well, I'm a combat veteran. I also share a love for helping people and he was a medic he was also an army infantryman you know kind of moved his way up the ranks and so he had seen what it's like to be in a difficult position and try and help people and I really related to that and so we connected there initially and then he called me probably like a month later he's like hey I'm in LA I was going to LMU at the time I'm in LA for crypto LA. You've got to come out. I got us, I got us, you know, a really cool room. You can meet a bunch of people. I'm like, dude, I don't even really know this guy, but he's inviting me out to all these, you know, really cool meets and, um, drive out there and we go to dinner, just kind of hanging out. And we go to a bar, just have a couple of drinks, kind of catch up. And I'm like, Hey, Chris, I'll take first round. You take second round, just like the classic, you know, bro way to do things. And he looked me dead in the eye and he was like, you will not pay for these drinks. One day when we grow and you have people that are working for you, you can take care of them. And it really stuck out to me. I was like, wow. And little did I know that we didn't have any money as a business. I wasn't privy to those conversations, but he knew that the connection between me and him was more important than $20. And he wanted to make sure that I understood that he cared about me. And so from then on, it was just real from that on. Wow, that's great. So for those people who don't even know what a TikTok shop is, right? Maybe talk a little bit about that. You know, quite frankly, it's something I want to learn more about too. But anyway, maybe talk a little bit about that. Absolutely. So when we went viral initially, TikTok shop was not a thing. TikTok was a place for people to do dance videos and people to spend 10 hours a day scrolling during COVID. But we realized that the new economy is attention. It's not just a financial aspect of the economy. And so we were like, let's continue going viral across all platforms. Let's get eyeballs on our products. And then we probably amassed like one to 200 million views and TikTok came to us. They go, Hey, do you guys want to launch on our new platform? TikTok shop? It's launching. I believe it launched officially in like September of 23, we were on there in May of 23. So we kind of got the summer to really get involved with the platform. And how it works is affiliates can post videos and there's a link, a shop link in the videos. If people click on those shop links, the affiliate gets commission. And then of course the brand makes a sale. And so we were like, we're not going to reach out to other people initially. We're not going to reach out to other people. We know how to do this. And so we shot to the top of the leaderboards on TikTok shop for that entire year, the first pilot year. And then since then, we've seen a lot of success on the platform. Our main brand has sold three hundred and like seventy five thousand units on the platform. At what price point? Like a thirty thirty five dollar price point. OK, well, and then our I mean, later on, we kind of expanded to a marketing agency and have seen some success with external clients now, too. And is it mostly products or do you do like a physical product or is it more info product or a mix of both? Pretty much only CPG. So pretty much only health products. Health products are just very easy to sell on TikTok shop. They're the most difficult because you have violations, compliance and all the sorts. But we figured out a playbook to make sure that our affiliates and all the people we work with are putting out content that's real and truthful and can actually help people. At the end of the day, that's why we sell health products. Right. Like the whole point is to make people's lives better. And if we can do so in a way that helps us as a business and them as people, we're fulfilling our mission. So you're just doing you're exclusively doing physical health and wellness related products, basically. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. And is that is there and is there no interest in expanding beyond that ever or just not now or. Yeah. So we found we found so much success on the platform that we realized a lot of other businesses would love to be on the platform, too. And so we do offer like with our agency, we do consulting stuff. We do management stuff. So a little bit of info sprinkled in there. But in terms of selling on the platform, info really isn't a thing yet. I'm sure it will be. They just expanded to like hotels and stuff. So I can go as an affiliate, go stay at a hotel and be like, I love this place. You should come check it out. And people can go book their, you know, three day, four day trip. And then I would get commission on that now, too. So it's kind of expanding now, but it's mainly just packaged goods. Interesting. Interesting. So I heard a rumor that Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, was buying TikTok. Have you heard anything about that? You're going to put me in a tough spot here, man. So the extent of my knowledge is that TikTok is, of course, looking to be acquired. They want to make sure that they can remain in the U.S. A lot of people at TikTok aren't even super sure of what's going on. They're letting the execs handle it. But pretty much everything is hearsay. And so the big rumor that I heard was the release of an M2 app. So it's this new app that's going to have a new algorithm that Oracle, maybe Amazon, it doesn't matter who, but someone was going to buy this app. And then they came out and made a statement saying M2 and all the stuff, all the rumors around it are factually untrue. So I don't really know the future of it. What I try and do is just make good content, have what's in front of me, and kick ass doing it. And if the rules change later on, we'll figure it out. And because I think there was like – wasn't there like a 12-hour window where like TikTok went dark because it was – they were shutting it down. They weren't shutting it down. They were. They weren't. Does that not keep you up at night? Because it sounds like your whole business and livelihood at the moment for the most part is based on TikTok. Yeah. That goes away. I would imagine that's problematic. Yeah, that's a fair question. I will say January 19th, I was up all night. I was over in New York with some clients and staying at a hotel. I'm on Twitter, just scrolling, trying to find some bit of information. But luckily, my team is so agile with how we operate that we had contingency plans. if we had to switch over to Instagram, focus on Shopify collabs, and kind of focus on the traditional affiliate marketing. We had a plan there. But yeah, it was a scary time because, of course, we have the marketing agency helping clients. We have our brands that really rely on it too. But we're ready to pivot. So it sounds like in the hopefully unlikely event, it goes sideways. You've got your plan B. Totally. Yeah, that's smart. And I would imagine, while it might not translate perfectly, content creation is content creation and you going to figure your way through it Attention is attention Yeah that the right way to think about it So maybe talk a little bit about you already spoken to it a little and honestly we couldn be more aligned in this way probably why we got along so well when we met that time about how you think about leadership in terms of the way you want to be led and the way you lead others Yeah, so it was really interesting meeting you and hearing you use the term servant leader. I went to Servite High School in Anaheim, and that was the number one thing that we focused on, was being a servant leader. And I am of the I'm under the impression that when you are leading people and you are able to show them that whatever they are going through, you'll go and go through it, too, with them. They will not only succeed and learn, but they'll be more willing to push through that. So then in the future, they can do the same. And so I've done that throughout my whole life. sports teams. I was in politics in high school in a group called Junior Statesmen of America. And so we would draft up bills and do stuff, send them to Congress later on after they were debated on. Yeah, whole different life there. And I ended up being the president of that club and that organization in Southern California, moved on. I was a fraternity president in college. And every single time I had to do a lot of delegation. Of course, you have pledges in college too, that you work with. And it was never a thing where I would look down and kind of lead them from like, I'm here, this is what you need to do. It's this is our overall mission. Now, how do I put you guys in the right seats? And how do I get in there with you to get our mission completed? That's how I've always looked at it. That's honestly why I joined a fraternity in the first place, because my fraternity, Alpha Delta Gamma, was the only one that was willing to have that type of leadership in it. So yeah, it's always been a huge part of my life. Yeah. So it's interesting, when I was in college, I had two best friends. We just had our 40-year reunion, so I've known them since I was 18. So last year we had our 40-year reunion. And if I killed someone, they'd help me get rid of the body, like that level of friend. They were both in fraternities. I made the choice not to, because for me, and it sounds like maybe your fraternity had a different lens, it was like, well, I'm supposed to take orders from someone just because, not because they're smarter, better, demonstrated leadership, any of that, just because they're one level up in the pecking order. And so therefore, if they tell me to melt a block of ice with my ass, that's what I have to do, no questions asked. So it sounds like maybe your fraternity took a different approach? Totally took a different approach. You know, I went to Club Rush. I wanted to see what it was all about. I was not the traditional fraternity type. I didn't want to just spend all week drinking beers. That wasn't really my calling, I don't think, in college. I found a Latino frat on campus that was super cool. Nine guys, very small. And, you know, I wanted to fit in somewhere. And I was like, I'm going to go talk to these people. Talk to them, talk to the other traditional fraternities. And I was like, I'm not really getting along with these guys. they're not my type of people. And my buddy James calls me over and goes, at the time he wasn't my buddy. And he goes, Hey, have you spoken to anyone here yet? I said, no. And long story short, it was more like of an ethnic frat, ex athletes, um, very diverse group of guys that I was like, man, these are really, really cool people. And so I just remember pledging, everyone has their pledging horror stories um we focus on self-improvement the whole time hitting the gym together with the active members um like focusing on getting better as a man rather than doing some weird crap in the backyard of a frat house you know why why does every frat you say that it's so i'm like why would every frat like i would 100 percent have been in a frat if there were any frats on campus that did that as opposed to like it's stupid shit it's drinking games it's you know yeah it's the crazy shit it's never um but like developing as a person as a man is challenging like that's enough you know i would think that would be enough hazing right but at least it's constructive but nobody wow that's so interesting yeah i was very blessed to find them and when i went in there, I, I met leadership, I met the executive board and I was like, man, these guys are changing lives. I want to be part of that too, one day. And so I became, uh, you know, the, the pledge head where I would help develop the guys and we would go to the beach, do beach workouts. I'd be right next to them. It was never like a, you guys do this. And I'd be yelling at it. It was never like that. And then I was like, you know what? I want to take this a step further, became president. And even as president, I would get involved with what those guys were doing. One-on-one chats. I even saw one guy, I'll probably omit his name here, but one guy didn't really have a ton of friends. He was a couple years younger than me and he was living at home during COVID. Well, he ended up joining our frat and I saw him go from almost a recluse. He just wouldn't leave the house, super introverted guy. Two years later, puts on 20 pounds of muscle, has a girlfriend, runs businesses, or is somewhat making online money. And I just saw that progression in him. And it really inspired me to be better as well. And throughout that time period, I was like, this is how a fraternity should be after seeing success stories like his. And now that's kind of how the fraternity operates. So completely different strategy than most, which is cool. I would think that would make it harder for the other fraternities to compete. Like, I'm curious if there's a society. I know this is kind of an aside, but was there a ripple effect factor? Like maybe some other frats had to be start being less assholes because you guys were like doing it the right way. Or did it not leak over to those guys? I don't know if it leaked over. And don't get me wrong. There were some phenomenal guys in all the other fraternities at my college. I had great friends in each of them. and I don't really know how they operated. I just know that there were some really solid, solid guys coming out of them, but I was confident, especially when I was president and the three years prior, I was less involved because I was involved with business my senior year, but, um, I was very confident that our group would always facilitate growth. I wasn't confident in other fraternities just cause I didn't know them. Um, but I, I'm not really sure how to answer that question. I'm not really sure. But yeah, I do think that as time went on, I did hear from my friends. They would say, hey, like my life is getting better. You know, I have some really close friends in here now. So their lives did get better. So I'll give them their kudos. I just know that I have utmost confidence in our group and doing that type of stuff. So talk a little bit about so it's interesting you call it the Attention Economy Club. Why do you call it that? So it's a you call it a club, but it's, it's not actually a club, right? So it's not a club. Well, maybe it is. I don't know. Right. Um, maybe talk a little bit about how big is the team, you know, what's your role within the organization? Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. We saw this success with better brand, um, over the course of two years and it got to the point where we're like, we want to expand this to, we have manufacturing and fulfillment arms of the business. Why don't we take what we know, expand it to other people with TikTok shop on one end and also with creators on the other end. So we have two sides of Attention Economy Club. We have the agency arm servicing B2B. And then we have a big community of creators on Discord where we built a course, we train them on how to make content. They go and push out content for our brands and even other brands if they get contracted out. Those people are kind of the reason why we call it a club, because everybody's in this discord just shooting the shit. Everyone's having fun. So that's where the club aspect came into play. Attention economy is because we saw so many people making internet money. And when you really break down the data, the people who do the best in terms of internet money and scaling on TikTok, Instagram, whatever, is they're able to capture attention in the best way possible. They're able to keep people involved with whatever their personal brand is. And that allows them to build social credibility, which then leaks over to if they're selling info, if they're selling a product, I would rather buy something from someone that I trust rather than some random guy. And so as time goes on, as you continue to maintain that attention on your personal brand, you build that trust with your community and you can do better in the space. Yeah, people no longer trust institutions at all. And they don't trust corporations. And I think that that shift has happened, especially here in the last six to eight years, like that shift has been pretty dramatic. Now people trust people. And really, I really do think it's that social media influencer economy that's like, if Joe Rogan's telling me something, And I'm probably going to believe it. Yeah. You know, like he's never at least intentionally lied to me. There's not a politician alive that has not intentionally lied to everybody. Yeah. Agreed. Or a corporation for that matter. You know, well, so tell me a little bit about how big is your organization? So not because obviously the creators are. By the way, do you guys charge for your course that you give to the creators or is it free? OK. Yeah. So we charge for it, give them as much value as we can. And we actually provide them with a TikTok shop account. So you need 5,000 followers on TikTok to start selling. We build these accounts for you organically and give them to you so you can start posting immediately. So a lot of these people that were coming in were like, hey, I want to learn how to do this. I have a zero follower account, no following on TikTok. How do I get to the point I need to be at? And we're like, hey, we'll be unlike any other group out there. We'll give you an account so you can start day one, posting, learning, ideating, and scaling. how do you do that so how do you get an account with 5 000 or more followers that you just give to somebody i can't drop too much stuff but what i will say maybe tell me how long it takes we can do it in like two weeks okay okay yeah and we just post like different pieces of content that we've seen do well organically the spanish community is very good with engagement too so lean in on that a little bit grow it to 5 000 followers in a couple weeks and then we're able to give it to our uh our creators. And is your agency and the stuff you're doing, does it have a Spanish-speaking bent generally, or is it just exclusively, or is it a mix? It's a mix. It's a mix. Yeah, the Latino community is very strong in the United States in terms of, I guess, being consumers of social commerce and different things sold on the internet. So we actually have creators that use ChatGBT. They use Mexican or Cuban conversational Spanish, build out scripts and make content. They don't even speak Spanish. And so they're pushing out to this high converting audience that works really well for them. Alongside, of course, English creators. You know, we have blogger types, AI style, all these different types of content going out from our group. And we teach every single one. If you don't mind me asking, what do you guys charge for the course? $250 a month. Okay. Wow. And so basically, so they pay ongoing. It's not just one time. Correct. Got it. And then that allows them to be a member of the club, continue to participate. They get the account, and they get ongoing training and education, I would assume? Yes. Right. And what's the average, again, if you can share, what's the average person that's doing this making per month on top? I'm assuming it's more than $250. Yeah. Yeah, I would say it's difficult to tell. We have some creators. One creator in particular has brought in $2 million in revenue from one account, and the commission can range from 10% if there's ads behind the videos to 25%, 30% for other brands. I'd say on average, people are making about a grand to two grand a month minimum. Okay. And then it can scale up to 10, 20, 30K a month as well. Okay. Wow. So, and not counting the creator side of the business, how big is the rest of the team? So we have around 30 to 35 people that are in Attention Economy Club that are managing it, ranging from full service marketing to our in-house brands to external brand TikTok shop management, people involved with the community for creators, kind of all in around 30, 35. Got it. So from what literally you've told me about Chris's leadership style, sounds like it mirrors yours. Um, how do you think about attracting, motivating and retaining talent? So you've got a decent sized team. Um, what do you look for and what do you say? Ah, if I see that, absolutely not, not iron you. Yeah. Yeah. So we're, we're big believers in knowing your people. So you have to know what drives people and what keeps them going every day. Some people might be money, money motivated and that's completely fine. That is completely fine. There's also people who are family motivated. There's people who are growth motivated. And so when we bring people in, we find out what they need and what drives them right away. Once we're able to do that, that's how we can retain that talent by making sure that we not necessarily cater to their needs, but we're able to talk to them in a way that keeps them motivated. And we talk to them in a way where if we have someone young, that's like, I want to grow. I want to be on that next level in business. I'll be like, hey, let's hop on calls once a week and I will mentor you. Obviously trickle down from the mentoring that I have received. I will mentor you and help you grow in that realm of business that you want to grow in. People who want to start making a lot more money, I will try and find them more opportunities where they can kind of eat what they kill and bring in more cash. So it's just knowing your people. And in terms of bringing people in, it's all about culture. I would argue and I would put our culture and our company up against any organization in the entire U.S. I think that our group has such a family culture, diverse as hell. We have every type of walk of life in our community and in our business. And we're able to talk to different people and bring people together that may have never been friends or worked together outside of this. And when you have that culture, it's like a magnet to really top-level talent because people want to work in an organization that respects them and cares for them and really appreciates them versus being a number in the system. Couldn't agree more. Well, so tell me about is your company – I'm assuming your company is largely or maybe completely virtual? Yeah, we're pretty much all virtual. We have people – Chris lives in Maui in Texas. uh you know he has that going on uh where in texas uh he's right outside of austin okay yeah right outside of austin in texas and uh we also have people in new york we have people in florida the midwest uh we have a really solid team out of egypt as well that we work with and so yeah pretty much all digital we do have manufacturing and fulfillment and that's all based in Long Island. And that's an awesome operation led by Nicholas Rosario. He's the co-founder of Kutch, our kind of umbrella company. And yeah, he kicks ass over there doing that stuff. So how do you create culture in a fully virtual company? It's hard. It's hard. But two things. One, I like to have like virtual happy hours once a month on Fridays. Work is not allowed to be talked about. We also do coffee. People basically have a cocktail on a zoom call effectively. Yeah, pretty much. We'll do coffee breaks on Thursdays. So 45 minutes, again, no work, but it's in the morning. So people can kind of get their minds going, talking about life, what's going on. So we stay connected in that way. But on top of that, the culture almost facilitates itself because we're all friends. And so we're able to, I'm able to call up, you know, one of my creators in house or someone else on our team and be like, hey, I saw you were in Europe last month. Dude, how was that trip? And we're always talking about life and business at the same time, which is important. On top of that, we also have a lot of trips going on. So I went to Europe last year with, I'd say, six or seven of our employees. And it was our youngest employees. We have a massive group of people who are in their 20s. we named this group STP, Something to Prove. And so it was like eight of us, seven, eight of us. And we went to Europe all by ourselves, worked remotely, had to figure out our hours and just got really close. And then later on, we did a trip to Maui and all got even closer with our entire team of like 40 different people. Everyone went to Maui? Everyone went to Maui. Yeah. And so we're able to share. Company funded or they pay their way? Something like that. Yeah. A little mix, a mix of both? Yeah, no, Chris and Nick took care of us for sure. Wow. Yeah, yeah, they took care of us. And that opportunity allowed even myself to get to know people that I might not work with on a day to day basis. But now we have life experiences together. And so I can call up someone from the warehouse and be like, yo, I really need this done yesterday. Can you make it happen? Of course, bro, anything for you. Got you. Hang up the phone. It's done in 10 minutes. So that type of relationship allows for us to be more efficient and also love our jobs even more because we're able to connect with everybody. So I'm going to extrapolate here. So if I got this wrong, you can correct me. But if you're friends with everyone you work with, then you only hire people you like. Is that fair? Oh, yeah. I would definitely only hire people I like. Yeah. It's interesting because you'll see larger companies be like, okay, this person is incredibly, incredibly valid and we're trying to work with us. You know, their resume looks incredible. Let's interview them and see if they're a culture fit. Sometimes they not a culture fit and that okay I would rather go with someone who is slightly less qualified but trainable and that I can go get a beer with but also kick ass in business with because not only will they probably stay there longer and have less of an incentive to leave but also I'll be able to train them in a way where again going back to knowing your people I'll know my people in that instance. If we hire someone that we don't really get along with not really a culture fit that's totally okay Maybe they have other ideals or whatever. That's totally fine. But those types of people most likely will work with us, maybe feel like they don't really fit in because we're a little bit too different, and then probably go and find another venture. We're a big family. We're looking for people that we can work with for the next 10, 20 years. Got it. Yeah, I think the two most common mistakes that people make, and I think I mentioned it on another podcast, Elon Musk has talked about this. It's definitely been my experience. Two biggest mistakes are, one, that people hire based purely on talent sometimes because someone is so talented. You overlook the lack of cultural fit. I think there are some tricky situations because, like you said, if they're coachable and teachable and the skill is relatively easy to learn, that works out – I totally agree that works out way better. You do have occasional situations where the depth of knowledge and expertise is so significant. Again, let's use the example. You know, you're doing some crazy, sophisticated stuff in AI. You know, that's not necessarily teachable because, you know, maybe there's 50 people in the world that know how to do something, right? And so – but yeah, so if you hire just purely based on talent, man, that generally doesn't go well. Yeah. The second one is – and I'm curious about your opinion about this one – is whenever – is the only thing that's in my professional career that's 100% true with zero exceptions is whenever I've had the thought to fire someone. but have not, I have regretted it without one exception in a 35-year career. I'm curious what you're – we already talked about the first scenario, which is don't hire just based on talent if you don't have the cultural fit. What about on the firing side? How do you feel about when you do unfortunately make that hiring mistake? How do you think about that? Yeah, that's interesting. Last year, luckily, we had zero employee churn. Absolutely nobody got fired. Nobody left. Wow. I think that kind of speaks to what we focus on. That's impressive. That's way better than a net promoter score in terms of like what's true about your business. That's impressive. Yeah, so that – and I credit that to that trickle-down culture from Chris and Nick and our entire team. We're able to really facilitate that family. No one wants to leave. Why would you want to? But in terms of letting people go, sometimes people will honestly meet us in the middle with feeling like they might not be a fit. luckily, at least to our experience so far, that's the case. We really operate on, hey, these are your KPIs. These are the things that you have to meet. If you don't meet them, we will give you all the support. Not only just me, but your team lead, executive team, we'll give you as much support as you need. If you can't make it happen, we're not just going to be like, get the hell out of our face. It's, all right, we've gone through a couple of months of trying to figure this out, put you on a performance improvement plan. It's clearly not a fit. So we'll refer you to a bunch of, we have a huge network. We'll refer you anywhere else and give you all the support you need. But we think it's best if we just, you know, go separate ways. And it's happened very few times and every single time it's been amicable and okay. So yeah, we just look at it as these are our people, not when they start kind of doing a shitty job, they're no longer our people. We're always trying to nurture that relationship and help them grow. It just hits a point where, you know, it's not going to work out and we make sure that it's not just like, go. Got it. We make sure they're taken care of after too. Oh, that's great. Again, so few companies do anything even remotely like that. That's, uh, it's nice to hear that there's some people out there doing it the right way. Um, one of the things that, um, I learned early in my career and that I've taken throughout it, which is whenever it's been my decision to make, I always make sure that every last employee in the company, and even sometimes contractors, have equity in the company, even if it's a modest amount. Because my whole thing is if you want people to act like owners, you have to make them owners. And let's take an example. I remember I was running this. I was chief revenue officer of a crypto company, and I was trying to persuade leadership to set aside even 5% of the equity for non-founder employees. I actually already had equity. This is for other people. And I'm like, look, there is zero doubt in my mind that if you do this, it will increase the value by way more than 5%. So you're going to be better off giving away the 5% than if you don't. I'm curious how your organization looks at that. Are people shareholders or how do you guys think about that? Yeah, I have a little anecdote about that. I started off as a lowly intern. I didn't know shit about shit is how we always say it. I didn't know anything. How old were you when you started as the intern? 20. Okay. Yeah, I was 20. I just wanted beer money, man. That's all I really cared about. I wanted some money, wanted to, of course, learn. That was always my thing. But I never knew that the situation I'm in now would be my entire career. Initially, I didn't know that. Yeah. And so I was grinding, working hard when Chris came to me and he said, how much money do you need to stay? Like, we want you to say you're working hard. Gave him my number. I didn't know the financials. This is before we went viral. He goes, we'll get you there, but we'll have to talk about that. Well, by the time I graduated college a year later, he got me there, which is pretty, pretty cool. A couple months later, he was like, hey, you're running TikTok shop. You're bringing a ton of revenue in. We want to make you a co-owner. We want to give you equity and better brand in particular. And I was like, whoa, that's awesome. And so he gave gave me equity, a couple other people, equity that had been there since day one. And as time went on, we had a couple other people join the team. At that point in time, Chris came to me and said, hey, what do you think about these OG members of the team? They work their asses off. If we give them some equity, they might skyrocket because that's kind of what happened to me. I got some equity and I felt that ownership and it became my baby, you know, in a sense. and so we gave a couple other people equity the following year and we just saw them bloom so exactly to your point making them owners is super super crucial to them really feeling full connection to the brand and so what we do now is we haven't really worked it out with our new companies because everything's so fresh but instead of the equity pool as of right now our big thing that we do is after two years of working with us we get you a rolex and we get we get you a Rolex so you know that you are representing a company that cares for you and takes care of you so we have a bunch of team members with Rolexes Rolex probably loves us I know they love Chris so we do something like that and as time goes on we've talked about after a couple of years of working with us you'll be able to you know get involved with employee options and stuff like that man it's just it's it's so funny when you here you are 24 still early in your career and these things are so obvious to you and yet i'll talk to people in their 40s and their 50s and when i have this conversation they look at me like i've lost my goddamn mind and it's so strange that i mean the other one that i'm sure you probably relate to as well every place i've ever been um they always try to mess with the comp of the best sales people They pull away territory. They change the quota. It's like, oh, they're making too much money. I'm like – it's always amazing to me. It's like nobody is getting paid if stuff isn't getting sold, including the CEO. And so it's just so funny to me that the people that seem to get the hardest time – and I remember the woman who was my top salesperson at this telemedicine company I was president of. She made more than the next three salespeople below her combined. And they're always trying to mess with her. I never let them. But once I left, they're always messing with their comp structure, their political territory. It's like she's the one that's – she's driving something like $15 million to $20 million in enterprise value a year. Like that's the person you should say to them, what do you want and how do I get – what color would you like your Rolex to be? She'd be the only thing you're – the conversation you're having. I love the fact that you guys are giving away Rolexes. That's just so smart. Yeah, it's one of the coolest things. So Chris and I travel a lot together. He just had a baby, so he's a little bit tied down now. But we would go to networking events, agency events, all these different things. And people would go up to him and say, Hey, why does your entire team have the craziest watch collection I've ever seen? And he's like, that's how we keep them loyal. That's how we keep them involved and make them feel special. and so yeah we're able to walk around and really represent our hard work and it's not just executive people we have team leads of teams of two that have been with us for a couple of years now and have just proven that they're loyal and they kick ass of what they do they're rock and rolexes too and so obviously you know it's a little bit of a materialistic thing it's just like oh it's you know it's a watch people may look at it one way or the other the way that we look at it is you earn this we want you to succeed the goal is not to just you know keep all this cash at the top it's for everybody in the entire tribe to be taken care of so people always are i think everyone remembers guys especially but i think most people they remember uh the first time they made over 100 grand right and they remember the first really nice watch they got right and so i remember um talking to someone and i forgot how it came up but uh he was a really good sales guy And he was telling me that one of the things he would do is when someone who was really good for business for him in terms of sales, whenever that person got a promotion, especially if they got promoted and they had their own office, right? Either they got a bigger office or they got an office for the first time, he would send them a money tree. Oh, wow. And the reason he would send them a money tree is it's not just like flowers or something that just dies. Like it's there. every time they walk into their office right they're seeing that money tree and one what does it represent represents making more money and they remember who gave it to them and it's like so that guy is reminded every single day about me yeah i call him text him email him they're answering me right away i'm like very smart yeah yeah and we even go as far as we have a couple of people on our team two creators um definitely want to shout them out tiffany and marcus um they're very big into manifestation and having the right mindset and meditation every day and making sure that you know what your goals are and then to go crush them right after. And we care so much about that. We let Marcus on a company wide call comes on this call and he shares his method of manifestation and meditation. And he's a creator and he was talking to the CEO saying, hey, this is how you should view your daily operations and your mental operations doing so. And everybody in the entire company heard this, listened to it, loved it and implemented all of it into their lives. It was, it was super cool. And so we're really deep into not only can we offer like the Rolex type of incentive to people and like the money tree where it's like a reminder of growth, but also we have everybody offering value so everybody can learn from each other it's super cool dude i want to go work there like literally i'm like if you have any openings let me send me send me a job rec damn honestly uh i should have my uh i should send my daughter your way um you know she's uh anyway but um sounds like just a wonderful organization that's so nice to and gratifying to hear that there at least are a handful of companies out there doing it the right way yeah yeah and we honestly mainly only partner like when i bring on clients for my marketing agency uh services with tiktok shop i want partners i don't want clients to be honest i want people that i can call up um i always love shouting out primal queen um they're a massive killer in the cpg space beef organ supplement company and they wanted to get involved at tiktok shop well it's gotten to the point where their ceo very successful killer guy will text me and be like who you got in the fights this weekend for you like we're friends yeah and that type of that type of business is how i like to operate because it makes it it's not my job anymore it's just my life you know and operating like that allows me to be a lot happier than if i were still working you know 10 to 12 hours a day but have no friends and just recluse to my office now i have all these friends that were chasing a common goal so it's funny i was uh i'm launching an anti-nba course i think i'd mentioned it to you and uh so the 18 year old recent high school grad who i've been mentoring who's basically running one of the businesses for me um she was we were chatting one day and she was like how do you think about work-life balance and so forth and i said look i said as an entrepreneur um you know that's going to be number one like you're like your business but the best way to manage it is if the people that are your friends are also people that you work with i said then one it doesn't even feel like work. And two, there's your work-life balance. Maybe you go out to dinner, maybe you're talking shop, maybe you're not, it's fine either way. But it's like, that's a way to sort of indirectly get some work-life balance by making your work feel a lot more like life. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Man, it's so wild to me how I've made my closest friends through business. I have a lot of friends who work in big corporations and they make friends too, but their whole life is outside of work and mine luckily gets to be integrated um you know marquise yeah no great guy one of my best friends in the world he's like my little brother and i met him when he was 15 uh in an airbnb in la when i was first meeting chris and i was like oh cool chris your nephew and now he lives out here in scottsdale we hang out damn near daily um always on the phone playing Xbox together, doing everything that we love to do, and it all stemmed from work. It can all be a solid balance, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a hard line between the two. And I really feel blessed enough to be able to kind of blur that line between balance and work. So I got to meet Chris, man. He sounds like an amazing guy. So talk a little bit about – because you look like you take pretty good care of yourself. How integrated is sort of health and fitness and wellness and, you know, integrated into the company or maybe just into your life? Maybe it's not a company, you know, priority. Yeah. I mean, if it answers your question, I have a group chat with Chris and Marquise and the title of the group chat is Gym Bros. So we're always kind of talking about fitness. 41. Okay. 41. Yeah. So I was obviously boxing for a while. I had to fight at a lower weight than obviously I am now. And so I was real skinny, always in really good shape. I went to nationals for volleyball as well. So I always had to be, you know, thin. I could jump high and move around for boxing. And I always had to be agile. And I came to this company and I mean, you've seen Marquis. He's a tank of a kid. Yeah. And Chris, army guy. So they, they call me one day and they're like, you can bench 225, right? And I was like, no. What are you talking about? 225 is crazy. I was 160 pounds. Right. And out of all love, I say this because it was all love. They bullied me into getting to 225. And I was like, man, I will not let my little bro and my mentor show me up. They still show me up. So, but I was, I was then so inspired to be like, I'm going to be in the gym every single day. I'm going to get to that milestone. And I was able to accomplish it in a year. And from that moment forward, it kind of became a conversation of, okay, you've gotten to that point. What else are you doing for your health? You know, are you guys sleeping? Are you guys doing, and we take care of each other in that way too. So we recently all bought whoops. I'm not wearing it right now, but we all bought them, convinced them all to buy one. We joined a big group where we can all see each other's stats. And now we're on each other's ass about sleep recovery and strain alongside KPIs in business. So you've got your KPI dashboard and your whoop dashboard. Yeah, that's great. I even had our creative director, Connor, he texted me last night, like 1150 at night. He goes, hey, my whoop died yesterday. So just imagine I had a three mile run worth of strain on my dashboard. And it's true. I promise. I promise it's true. And I was like, sure, buddy. Sure. But yeah, we give each other shit and we always try and make each other better. So it's always cool. Let's talk a little bit about age. So I was a couple weekends ago, I went to this mastermind that I got invited to. I was the oldest person by 30 years. So there were some two 17-year-olds, a couple 18-year-olds, 19-year-old, 20, 24, 27, 29, and me. Honestly, like it – yeah, I'm sure they learned some stuff from me. I learned so much from them. There's so much creativity. There's so much curiosity. And I find that curiosity, humility, discipline, drive, those are the things that make people successful. And if you're with the right group of young guys or gals too, they'll have all of those things. Yeah. And the skills, those can be learned for the most part. Maybe talk a little bit about how you view age and lack of experience when you're trying to build out your talent, the team and your – I think the thing that speaks most volumes, I mean, look at Marquise. He's 19 years old. He's made multi-six figures on TikTok shop. He just crushes it. And again, 19. It's insane. When I was 19, I didn't know what the hell was going on. I was living in LA just trying to figure out life. And yeah I don even remember what that was like And for me starting this off at 20 for the first year and a half I was an intern kind of learning stuff And so I would enter conversations and just be disregarded all the time, especially by people with expertises in their 30s and 40s that are like, this guy doesn't know anything because I didn't. But as time went on, I was able to grow in my not only business acumen, but also gain a skill with TikTok Shop that very, very well established, you know, high level business people didn't understand. And I grew up with the rise of technology and how it is today and now including AI. And it was very interesting for me to go from no one even wanting to talk to me to gaining a skill and now consulting with brands, nine-figure brands, eight-figure brands that want to learn a skill from a 24-year-old, even today. It's very interesting for me. The good part about it is I've been able to make friends like yourself, get closer with Chris and his network, my own network of CEOs and business owners through TikTok, where that age just kind of dissipated because we're all able to speak the same language. And so if I were to give advice to someone who's younger, if I was talking to 19-year-old me, it would be learn a skill that is valuable and learn how to speak about it and have confidence in who you are and your knowledge and your skill set. And the moment that you kind of cross that threshold, you'll be able to scale in business, but you won't get to that point until you have the confidence and believe what you're saying. So you make an excellent point, but maybe take it one step further. So let's say that someone's like, okay, Riley seems to know what he's talking about. I definitely should get a skill that people find that's in demand. It's not going to take me a century to learn. How do they figure out – how would you tell them to figure out which skill to get? And I would argue the harder part is because there's so much bullshit out there. Someone's like, oh, I can teach you how to be a TikTok expert in 90 minutes or whatever. right maybe they can maybe they can't right how do you curate how do you know what's good and what's bad advice i always lean on a doing return to my uh my lexicon is ikigai japanese concept um there's a book written by hector garcia uh and great last name by the way you're gonna say no relation no relation the japanese concept this book is about two different things one blue zones so living a long time healthy they're trying to make scottsdale one now there's a couple in california okinawa other places in the world that are blue zones. So that's maintaining your cortisol levels and so forth. But the other side of the coin with that book is four different concepts, what the world needs, what you like to do, what you can get paid for, and what you want to do. And if you can find the middle of that Venn diagram, that four-point Venn diagram, you're going to be in the right spot. And so for me doing this exercise, what does the world need? The world needs health products that will make their lives better. Perfect. Great. So I work in the health product industry. What do I love to do? I love marketing. I love it. I love reaching people, converting people into customers, building communities. That's one of my biggest callings. So what I can get paid for, again, what I love to do, marketing. It's phenomenal. And what do I want to do? I want to be successful. I want to grow as a man. I want to grow in business. I want to travel the world and not be tied down to an office. and so I was able to find my skill set and kind of my life now based on those four qualities I would challenge anyone else to kind of do the same take take that that concept plug your own life into it maybe you're missing a piece maybe you're doing a hobby daily that you really love and you want to get more involved in it find a way to monetize and that's your skill set but But I feel like this happens a lot with doctors and lawyers because those are the two main occupations. Oh, this is how you get rich. You go to school. You get in crazy debt. You're a doctor and a lawyer. That's great if that's your calling. But a lot of people don't always love doing that. They just want to make a lot of money. If you can find the balance of all four, you're not going to end up in that position with a job that makes you a lot of money that you don't love doing. You'll be able to find something that makes you a lot of money that you love doing every single day. Yeah. Yeah, most lawyers I know are miserable human beings. I mean it's like you said. I know a lot of people, they went to college, they went to law school. They now have high six figures plus way over $100,000, $250,000 in student loan debt. And they got a good job offer at a law firm where they're going to have to work 80 hours a week for someone to treat them like crap. The complete opposite of the culture you guys have. And now they're stuck. It's like, well, what am I going to do? go be a bartender or that this is the job I can get. I don't even like it, but now I'm stuck. Right. I mean, I, I, the number of times I've heard that story is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, um, I told you my, my dad didn't go to college. Um, and so he had always wanted me to get my degree. It was like his number one thing. You're going to get your degree. And we've gone back and forth about me getting an MBA. I actually told him about you. I was like, Have him talk to me. I will. I will. I was like, you should hear about this guy. He's about to rip up his NBA from an Ivy League. And he was like, what are you talking about? And I said, listen, this whole concept of the NBA and business and being in an institutionalized arena is I'm learning from people how to grow and manage businesses that have never done that. You know, people run multi eight figure businesses off TikTok. Do you think that there is a textbook on planet Earth that talks about TikTok shop? No way. All of my experience now is coming from real life opportunities, real life businesses, not from a textbook written in 1997. and so I kind of gave him some pushback and for a couple of years my parents were like hey man you need to figure out your life this is a great stepping stone but when you get your MBA when you get your MBA it was always a thing and I came home I said hey we were able to grow to an eight figure business with Better Brand right they were like eight figures I said yeah 100% I came home with the Rolex on and, you know, a really strong salary a couple of years ago. And they were like, wow, nevermind. You're doing just fine. Um, and it was a very big transition, you know, big switch. So it's funny. Um, so I mentioned that 18 year old Anna, who's running the poster business that we're launching. So we're launching this custom poster business in the anti-MBA program. And, uh, so I basically just made her an offer to basically join full-time. Basically it's like, Hey, I'm to pay you a full-time salary until the poster business can afford to pay you the salary and because she was going to go back to community college full-time right you know starting at the end of september and her family flipped out yeah you know they've been you know she's going to do two years community college she's going to transfer to ucla she's going to do the thing and she's the golden child in her family right and it was just so interesting to me that um that people see i'm like she's literally going to be my apprentice yeah okay i'm going to coach her personally for as long as it takes for this business to get profitable i'm gonna make sure she gets paid a nice salary in the meantime until the business is going to pay her a six-figure salary plus i gave her 51 of the equity wow okay i'm like hey if you're gonna if i want you to be the owner you have to you have to have final decision making say and you know i'm like you can come to me if you want my advice and i own 49 yeah but um but you can out vote me if you want and uh you have to deal with consequences um but anyway so interesting that that not her dad but the rest of her family saw opportunity as a threat yeah and and it's uh i have i have another good friend of mine that made a compromise with his dad because he's so much situation he was making really good money you know he's going to go to college he really didn't want to but to please his daddy was going to do it he actually the compromise they made was he hired an executive assistant that he's outsourced his education to so he has an ea basically that's uh doing his coursework and he's doing it online um and he's just going to get his degree that way to check the box so his dad's happy he still can run his business but so we you know anna me and her family came to a compromise uh thankfully she had nine ap credits um so she basically is like half done with her associate's degree without even starting nice but my prediction is really interesting to See, I was telling her last night, I said, Anna, here's my prediction. You're going to go to a couple of these classes, right? And you're going to have gone to maybe three or four classes. You're going to be thinking, what the hell am I wasting my time in this room for? Because you don't learn anything about how to actually run a business. Yeah, I completely agree. It's interesting. I see a lot of people on X and they're always shitting on college all the time. and I have a very specific viewpoint of college and in terms of coursework I completely agree I completely agree where people go to college and they learn something that it's almost like you're learning how to play football and college is like we'll teach you how to play football but all they do is teach you how to run in a straight line where it's like I mean yeah it kind of it kind of coincides but is it really all the skill sets not even close but what college did teach me was how to read people, how to meet people, how to make strong relationships. It taught me how to be a leader that doesn't look down on anyone, but really truly loves people that you're trying to get to a common goal with. And it allowed me to build that social acumen that, you know, I can go to a dinner with people who are way more successful than me, people I want to learn from. and if I can't provide them with any value, the one thing I want to provide them with is a good time. Right. And a smile. If I can put a smile on people's faces, there doesn't have to be a single dollar amount that is attributed to that smile. If people are happy around me, then I'm happy. So I agree with you that the one benefit college can provide is a socialization aspect. Yeah. But I would argue there are less expensive, more effective ways to do the same thing. That's a good point. I might feel a little bit biased. Well, look, I think that you walked that line. Like when I got my MBA, even back then, it was going to cost me in lost income plus cost about a quarter of a million dollars. Now it's more like half a million if you did it today. But my decision was, okay, this is a really tough financial decision for me to make. And so I kind of did like what you did. There were no fraternities, but you became president of fraternity. Like you did a whole bunch of things to add additional skills to your talent stack. I was writing a weekly article for the newspaper. I was on like three big committees around curriculum. I had three part-time jobs. So like for me, I'm like I'm going to fill my time with as much as I humanly possibly can so that it's worth it because it wouldn't normally be worth it. And so I think that you can if you are going to go to school. There are probably ways to like squint a little bit and maybe make it worth it. But I would say for the average kid – when I was in business school, for most people – I didn't drink alcohol ever back then. For most people, they were drunk for two years. They were literally – they were partying for two years, and it was a two-year-paid vacation. Paid by their student loans that they were going to have to pay back later. Yeah. Yeah, and man, it's expensive, especially private school. Yeah. Oof. Yeah, there definitely are more effective ways. And I try and find the balance between always being grateful for having the experience I did, but also for someone like I look at Marquise, like my little brother. I try and provide him with, at least whenever he's around me, the best experience, social experience. He moved out here, introduced him to all my buddies. I really wanted him to kind of branch out because I – Because he's new to town, right? Brand new to town. A couple of months. Yeah. and introduce him to my buddies man he's passed me up he has all these friends out here all these business owners he met you before me um yeah he's done great looking kids smart in great shape like nothing you know smiling all the time yeah yeah and he's 19 and he's 19 and so it's it's been cool being able to take what i've learned from that social aspect and provide it to others without them having to front that bill. So now I just take it as I'm super grateful for what I was able to experience. Now, how do I get other people to hopefully experience something similar without having them go into crazy debt? So as you look to wrap up here, the last question I really wanted to ask you was, it would be pretty easy to be good looking 24 year old kid, very successful, wearing a nice watch looks just like mine you've got good taste yeah um and uh and and be a little cocky okay you couldn't come up you couldn't maybe on the inside you are but you couldn't come across as a more humble down-to-earth guy um how do you keep that humility um because it's it's the thing that i think uh harms more successful people than just about anything else is when they when they start to lose that humility. Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a big problem in internet money space. Um, a lot of people, you know, people pop off on Tik TOK shop, go buy a Corvette and tell everybody they're better than them. Um, I, I think going back to my father, um, my dad's done very well for himself and he has never been the guy to gloat. He's always been the guy to care for. uh he cares for people he takes care of people and same with chris um the the two mentors in my life has have always been strong humble uh consistent people and they don't feel the need to let other people know like hey you've done this and i've done this it it doesn't matter at the end of the day the number one quote that i've always abided by uh from chris himself was run your own race. Everybody's running their own race. And maybe you start on the outer ring of that track and you're in front, but before the race even starts, you're not going to go to another position and say, ha ha, I'm in front of you. The race hasn't started yet. And so everybody has their own journey. One day someone will pass me one day I'll pass someone else. It doesn't matter. The, the, you know, comparison thing, it's a thief of joy. I don't like to compare myself to other people. I just like to take care of the people that rely on me. Because there's a lot of people that rely on me. And I just look at it internally as other people don't need to know what I have or have accomplished. I just need to know that I'm confident in myself to take care of the people I love. And I guess I'll land this plan by this quote, Conor McGregor quote, I abide by this one as well. It's your lack of motivation is, and there's a couple of words, I can't remember the exact phrasing, but your lack of motivation is an insult to the people that believe in you. And so hearing that, especially with a fighting background and that type of stuff, many times where I'd be in the dark at the heavy bag at 11 p.m. at night, and it's me fighting against whatever is holding me back. That's how I look at business. I don't look at it as I need to dominate other people, let them know my accomplishments. I look at it as how can I improve and how can I take care of people? Yeah. I, you know, as, as someone who's been a competitive boxer, I'm sure you can relate to this. Um, there are wrestling matches I won where, you know, the kid wasn't very good and you know, I didn't feel good about it. Maybe I didn't even wrestle that well. You know, the two best matches I ever wrestled, I lost both. There were guys that should have mopped the floor with me and they were close matches. Those felt so much more satisfying than the matches I won. I feel like run your own race. I mean, Chris is a hundred percent right. All right, I lied. I have one more question. So because you're so young, think about, you know, let's go about 10, 15, 20, even 25 years, 25 years. So now you're 50. You're not even my age yet. Where do you see yourself? What do you want to be true about your life and why? To be true, I like that. Of course, I want a family. I'm an only child. I'm the last of my bloodline on the Garcia side. So I want to make that stick long term, long term life for, you know, my descendants one day, of course. what that comes with success of course being able to provide that cushion for the people that come after me um i felt like ever since i was 12 years old i felt a calling uh to adopt a kid um probably from i mean i i had this service organization in the dominican republic probably from there if they don't have any other options it's always been a calling for me um so i would love to not only have my own kids, have an adopted kid, but be able to implement successes I may or may not have. But for me, there is no other option than will have. And take some finances and put them into the DR and make sure that the kids there living in the Bates, the sugarcane fields, living in Consuelo, which is a small town outside of the capital that I was kind of in and around for a while, that all of them are taken care of. And so not only my tribe here and my family and friends and so forth, but also people I care about externally too. That's kind of my main goal in the next 20, 30 years. Riley, I got to say, you're such an impressive young man. I can't say enough nice things about you. Where can people find you and more about what you and your businesses are doing? Please shamelessly plug yourself. You deserve it. Okay. Yeah. I'm on IG, Riley.Garcia, two Y's. Someone took Riley.Garcia. Yeah, damn it. And then our agency is at Attention Economy Club, spelled out just like that. And if you have lung health stuff that you want to focus on at Better Brand, you'll find us everywhere. Take a look at our stuff coming out with a new line next month. So yeah, those are my plugs. Riley, it's been a genuine pleasure. Thank you, man. Appreciate you. Thank you.