#92 If I Wanted To Become A Millionaire Creator in 2025, This Is What I’d Do

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0:35If you want to make money online and become a millionaire in 2025, I'm breaking down the exact step-by-step playbook for how to do it. Every single media company that has become very large has struggled financially to the point of either going under or having to be bought by a billionaire. I'm going to sit down with John Yushe, who is one of the best known journalists about creators. How do you approach your business as a creator so you can scale much more quickly than a lot of the other folks you may see out there. You don't always have to be the expert if you can borrow somebody else's 10 ,000 hours.

1:06I want to build like a lasting company. I have to build it out in a way where I am not the single point of failure. So we're going to break down not ideas about how to go viral and make money, but my actual playbook. Let's get into it. Hi, and welcome back to the Big Deal Podcast. I'm Cody Sanchez. This show is growing at such an insane rate. Like, no, seriously, say. It's kind of crazy. And yet over half of our regular viewers haven't actually subscribed. It's a free way of supporting the show and it helps us to grow the show and bring you even better guests. So if you could double check that you've hit that subscribe button, I would be so grateful from the bottom of my heart.

1:41Thank you. And as my friend Andy says, don't be a hoe, share the show. You know, it's funny as I've been doing more interviews with big creators, they've shown me a lot of stuff behind the scenes. I've seen their brainstorming documents. I've seen their Notion docs or processes. And I kid you not, when your team showed me your Notion page and some of your processes, I felt like a part of my brain that didn't even exist, it started to blow open. Because the way you approach it in some of the systems, I wanted to ask you about that. Because I think a lot of folks, myself included, just do things and we don't have a system around it.

2:13So we end up recreating the wheel. How do you approach your business as a creator to make it so you can scale and grow much more quickly than a lot of the other folks you may see out there? Yeah. Well, the first thing overall we do before the tools and tactics is really like a mindset thing. Like, haven't you heard a ton of creators say like, well, I got burned out, so I didn't want to do it anymore. I think burnout actually happens because we don't have processes. Yeah, well said. So if we had processes and systems and people and ways that we followed along to things, we wouldn't burn out. So one, like, don't believe what other creators say, because they say that stuff, because a lot of times we creators want to mimic artists, I think.

2:53And artists have this like ethereal nature to them, right? They're like, oh, I have to find the muse and I have to create. And like, they've got this whole thing. And I kind of think that's bullshit. I think you show up and you keep working and then the muse finds you. And like, you just, that's how it goes. And so I think it sounds much cooler to like have this ethereal, mysterious way that you create. But I think that's the same thing that people do when they make money. They're like, oh, you know, It found me how big this business got. I could barely. And that's not true. And it's the same with creating.

3:26Anybody who's famous or rich worked really fucking hard at it for a long time and wanted it really bad. Nobody got it by accident. Even our most famous actors, et cetera. Now I know a lot of them and not one of them has ever said, I just stumbled on all this money and fame. They fucking fought for it. I also really like this rule in finance, which is the rule of thirds. Have you heard of this? Well, tell me about it. I know the rule of thirds in terms of cameras and light. Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like the rule of thirds in business is basically like you get taught kind of early that like one is slightly stretched, but you'll be kind of fine.

4:02And then one third of your time, you're going to be miserable, like dark, awful, miserable, overwhelmed, inundated. But the cool thing is they cycle. So like when you're in one, just know like you're not going to stay there. So just the next one's coming, the next one's coming. And so if I know all of that, then I don't burn out because I have the right mindset. I realized this is just going to happen for a period and I keep going. And then the way that you keep yourself sort of honest on all this is I think the only way to build a big business is with people. And I realized that early on, which meant that like I had to get the things that I saw out of my head and into a process.

4:37Otherwise, I was going to go crazy with people asking me again and again what I think. And so we also have – this is the rule of three instead of the rule of thirds. But anytime something that we do has more than three steps and we do it more than three times, we try to write it down and create an SOP. Now, are we perfect at it every time? Absolutely not. Tanner and I were just talking in the car about like one stupid thing we had never processized. But for the most part, you know, I joke with the team and sometimes I'll be on stage and I'll be like, what's my love language? You know, and they're like SOPs.

5:09Can you define SOP for people who don't know what that stands for? It stands for a system and processes. agencies. And, um, and maybe Cody, to put that in context, like you have this great saying of like, you should have more SOPs than a pilot does when they're taking off. Um, because a pilot is like, they have to check so many different things and it's a repetitive process. Um, what are some of those SOPs that you have or like, talk to me about it. Cause I feel like a lot of creators don't even know what that stands for, let alone how to implement it. Yeah. It's definitely a business particular thing, but yeah, if you think about a pilot, they have a little checklist they do every time.

5:41Even right now for our podcast, I was annoyed because I'm sure people can relate. We were making the same mistake again and again. And I was like, why? We have an SOP. So we have a checklist for like, all right, you schedule the guest. What happens? You send out a text to the guest. What text is it? You ask them what their drink order is. You ask them how soon they need to be out. You ask them what is their website? What is their contact information? You check in with them the day of. The lights go on in the room. The AC goes on like 15 minutes before, because sometimes it gets cold in there. Like everything, single thing you can, and you build it.

6:15It's like a living, breathing document. But the problem is your documents are only good as what's called your implementation. So you actually taking the thing and using it. And so for our podcast, for instance, this is like a little sneaky hack. Our generation is so technological that a lot of times our SOPs or our processes go on our phones, right? So you're like, yeah, we'll check it off on there. But what else is on our phones? Like every distraction known to man ever. And so I had the team print out and laminate an SOP. And I'm like, before we do anything, where is it? And so then we have our little lamination and we check it off as we go.

6:51Why? Because there's no distractions. It's like, where's the thing? This is it. I get to look at it. The best SOP is ideally you take a screenshot or you take a picture of it and everybody signs off what they did. And this sounds kind of annoying and over the top, but I learned it from boring businesses because that's what you have to do with technicians in the trades. I am like listening to this and I'm like, okay, we got to do this with our process. The team at first was like, why would you do something so weird? And I was like, I promise you it will change your life because it'll just be there.

7:23Like you can't not do it. It's right in front of your face. Cody, I also went through your contrarian creed. And you had these like 13 principles, which by the way, I love that you had 13 because you're like, we're going to embrace the unlucky because we're going to make our own luck. But you had this one that you're like, even our notes will be mini masterpieces, which I interpreted to say like even things you do internally, like have to be like super high quality. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that? Yeah. Well, they talk about Pablo Picasso being one of the best artists of all times, or at least one of the most well-known artists of all times.

7:58And there's two things I think are interesting about Picasso. One is he is also the most prolific artist of all time, right? So he had more pieces of art created than any other known artist of time. He had a lot of shots on goal. Oh yeah. 50 ,000 pieces of art. I think last night. Right. The second is he famously had the story where he was at a table with a friend, A young woman came up to him, asked him to do a drawing for her. He did one in 10 seconds, handed it back to her and said$10 ,000. She said, that took you 10 seconds. He said, no, it took me 50 years or however old he was because it was shot and goal, shot and goal, shot and goal to perfection.

8:32I remembered those two things and I wanted to apply that to our business. The last thing I guess with the notes in general, I say to the team a lot, imagine if the piece of content that you create, like the worst thing that you ever do is the only thing that your, your like biggest inspiration ever gets to see. What if, you know, say John is a huge Demi Lovato fan. It's probably the top of your list. How'd you know? Oh my God. Wow. How'd you know? And, and Demi gets to see one piece of your content and it wasn't one that you were proud of. And I think about that a lot because on the internet, you know, you are going to do stuff you're not proud of, but I want to at least try.

9:15And so I talk about that a lot with the team. Like what you are doing is building a Rolodex of pieces of content that are your life resume. And so let's make sure that it's really good and that what we do is so interesting that when somebody else sees it, they want to steal even the napkin that we left behind at the bar like Picasso. That's cool. I also want to ask about this SOP for how you repurpose podcast clips and speeches. I think this is super relatable to a lot of folks who may go on podcasts or just the level of detail on that checklist that you went through, maybe to talk through it so people fully understand what these checklists look like for you guys.

9:52Well, I think Gary V is really big on repurposing content and has different frameworks for it. But what I found is that you can have an idea, but an idea without a plan is really just hope. And hope is not a great stretch. And so I found that one, in the beginning, you do everything and you learn everything from doing that. And it's incredible. And then at some point, you will burn out if you don't bring somebody on to do the things that you're not uniquely skilled in the world to do. And so I think one of the worst things you can do as a creator is hire the thing you think the business needs, not the thing you want.

10:27And so take your pain off as the creator before you add in to the need of the business. And so one of the early things that I didn't want to do was first, I didn't want to waste the 50 speeches I give a year or whatever when I'm promoting a book, let's say. And so what I found is I was like, God, we have this Rolodex. We're traveling all over the country. I'm taking my team with me. What are we doing with these things? Why aren't we doing more? And in the beginning, we did a few of them. But then I realized that listening for the right hook and exact moments in them is tough. And so Tanner and our team really took, I mean, I don't remember how many bullets this is.

11:07Yeah. So 10 bullets on just the setup, like just what you have to do every single time to do single execution. When it comes to finding the hooks, we didn't want to just tell people find the viral part because what does that mean? What is viral? How do you define that? We had to define it. And so we kind of came up with a bunch of different ideas about what viral might be. And usually with our content, we place them in buckets. Like we have pillars of content we create, we have buckets. And so some of them might be, is there an audience-specific pain point or desire? Like how do you make a million dollars when you have zero?

11:44Audience wants it, plus it's kind of painful, right? Right? Evoke emotion. I think young people don't work hard enough today. Well, that's going to piss some people off. Moment. Specificity and numbers. So, I found a study where 100 ,000 people said that if you do this one thing, you will be more successful. Right? Study we found. Motivate. So, is there a line in there where you're like, ooh, that line's so good, I almost want to tweet it. Hook. Credibility hack. So this one's kind of interesting if you're a new creator. So if you're a new creator, you probably already noticed this, but maybe you don't have a lot of credibility.

12:24Can you steal somebody else's? And that's what a lot of young people do when they're like, here's how Elon Musk made his why. Here's how Jeff Bezos, here's the secret to Amazon's first million, whatever. So you don't always have to be the expert if you can borrow somebody else's 10 ,000 hours. So we use that as well. And then maybe the only one that I think is really useful is it's why use five when you can use one, which means if you're going to say something, let's say it cleanly and concisely and directly. And every time we look at a script or at something we're going to create, I want to value my audience so highly and their time even more than them that I'm X-ing out anything that isn't absolutely necessary.

13:03And so a lot of times our team, especially like for instance, you know, Christian, he'll get a first draft of a script for something. And the second draft is basically just, can we cut 30 % of it? And even with the book, I started with the book, there was probably 390 pages and whittled it down to 270. Because in today's day and age, you don't need more information. You need the exact right information at the exact right time and nothing else. The other thing I think is important too is like we want to build – I mean I'm trying to build something kind of giant here. I want to build like the 21st century media company.

13:40And I don't know that I've really ever talked about all this stuff publicly because we're very focused on like what serves job working John, right? And that's who we're trying to serve. But when I think about it, I'm like I think my generation, the finance company of me was like Bloomberg. They were where you went to for news. You also logged in and financed your Bloomberg terminal. Like that's where you went. And these days, it's like, where do you go? Most of the finance news is kind of trash or it's about the stock market. I'm like, nobody should be day training. That's a terrible idea. So we're trying to build that.

14:12And if I want to build a lasting company that can exist beyond my time, I have to build it out in a way where I am not the single point of failure. And I think the moment that you do that, too, is the moment you unlock all this creative ability, too. because then, I mean, we're talking about, Tan and I are like, okay, what documentary are we going to do next? Like, do we want to do some full feature films? Who's the next talent we want to bring in? But it all started with like, hey, I just don't want to edit this video. And so can I make a process where somebody else could follow that? And that's a beautiful thing if that's where you are today.

14:45I mean, so many people say that to see you do it is really interesting in the behind the scenes. Yeah, there's no accidents in success. And I think you probably see it even more in creators. They're like, the thing is, I'm authentic. You're like, yes, but like, you know, let's go a little bit deeper. Like, let's get all those humble answers out of the way. Yeah, I agree. Cody, can you break down your income pie chart? Like, what are all the different ways you make money? And if I could ask, you're very open about finance. How much money do you make last year? A lot. Are you the IRS? Do I have to report it?

15:18I mean, a couple of ways we could talk about this. So how I make the most money is through our Main Street Holding company. So that company does nine figures a year. And more than that, it varies. It can go up and down. It's going up quite a bit right now. But sometimes we sell a company. So I get cagey sometimes with sharing exactly how much we make because what if we sell a company and then it's not nine figures? So sometimes I think about that. But that's Main Street Holding Company. That's where we make most of our money. It's safe to say we're making eight figures a year pretty healthy every year.

15:52and uh contrarian thinking our media company is the same that business definitely makes good eight figures a year in revenue so that's our media business and how we make money there so main street holding company owns like resi brands which is a trade services franchise so that's like a company called pinks and that one painter and um there's garage up in there there's um you know a couple defense companies there's so that that thing is probably where we make most of our cash The second is contrarian thinking. So contrarian thinking is a media company that owns our education business, which is where we teach people how to buy businesses, build businesses, and eventually sell businesses.

16:31We have some sponsorships and partnerships in there. That's probably like seven figures a year.

16:41Let's see, what else do we make money? AdSense, small amount. I don't know how much we make. How much do you think we make in ad dollars a year? Yeah. A couple hundred K. Yeah. A couple hundred K. Yeah. Um, the, and what else do we do? Oh, and, and then we're working on more affiliates. So where do we own a portion of a company inside of contrarian thinking, not the main street holding company that we get paid a percentage in revenue share and distributions. And we own part of that company. And then we have contrarian thinking capital, which is our venture capital company. And there we mostly don't make any money.

17:16that's a cost center, not a profit center. And that business maybe will become a profit center as we continue to grow. And then we have one independent company that's big called BizScout. But that company just cost me millions of dollars. And that's our small business buying and selling marketplace, sort of like Zillow, but for small businesses. And we hope to make a lot of money on that business one day, but right now it just, it costs me money instead. So almost like three top line businesses, like the holding company where you buy and sell other boring businesses. Yep. The contrarian thinking, which is the media company, the YouTube channel, like all the stuff we've been talking about.

17:53And then BizScout is almost like the software that kind of goes along with all of your teachings and where you maybe have transacted some of these businesses that you've bought and put in your holding company. Is that right? Not transacted any on them yet. We just launched this marketplace. So this is what I think BizScout and Main Street Holding Company are like my multi-billion dollar place. Like Main Street Holding Company, I think, will get to a billion dollars. And there are a few billion-dollar businesses in both Contrarian Thinking Capital and Main Street Hold Company, but we just don't own 100 % of them.

18:27The Contrarian Thinking Capital is kind of interesting because I always used to think that venture capital – I still think this. I still think venture capital is something you should not do. You shouldn't angel invest in high-growth startups unless you're already a millionaire. Like if you can afford to lose money, then I think angel investing makes sense. But that one might be a sleeper because we have like – I think we have$5 billion companies in that one. And they're boring businesses. Like our thesis is basically that venture capital ignored boring businesses. They focused entirely on like dating apps and AI.

19:00And that's okay, but there are companies like Nuvo Cargo that's worth a couple hundred million bucks that's just like port, big ship technology, right? Or like figure, which is kind of a sexy business, but is humanoid robots, right? It's worth a couple billion dollars. So we'll see. But at this stage, the idea is for most of the money we make, can we plow as much as humanly possible back into both content to continue to grow, our investments to continue to grow them? And then I'm not like that flashy, probably like, I mean, you don't see me really posting anything flashy on the internet. It's not really my deal.

19:34I just want to see us grow. How do you think about courses and like info products? That's another area where like, I feel like there's a lot of baggage, but you've done a great job of like selling, you know, like, like, I mean, these numbers kind of like stood out to me. You have a$100 course, a$2 ,000 accelerator, and you have a$10 ,000 course in community. Like, how did you think about the price points? Like, how well are those doing? Like, I feel like a lot of creators can also package up what they say into these courses, but maybe not a lot of them do because it's hard to price yourself in many ways.

20:08How have you thought about that? I think there's two reasons people don't do info products. One is because people on the internet tell you that it is better to go invest somebody else's money than teach them how to do the investing. There's a lot of people that look down on education products. And I can see why. Because one, universities are a huge institution that has sort of monopolized the idea of teaching another person. I think it's criminal and they're totally overrated. And if you look at the actual numbers for educational institutions today, we have had a three to four X incline in the cost of universities.

20:41And we have had a flat line of return, meaning our salary increases after university. So for me, I got like on my, again, on my moral high ground here, it was like, why did I go to an MBA at Georgetown? I mean, if I want to climb a corporate ladder, it's very useful. Having that on there is much better than Arizona State, Harvard of the West, where I went to undergrad, right? Like way better. But if I don't want to climb the corporate ladder, That$160 ,000 degree or whatever it was that really didn't teach me much of anything. And then they say, well, it's for the network. I don't know. Better network by meeting people like you guys at conferences than that.

21:18I think that's a scam. And so once I started to realize that, my mom's a 30-year special education teacher. I was like, I think we can go to war with those guys. I think we can be a better financial education company. and we can teach people more about getting financial freedom than a Wharton degree. Wow, you're targeting my alma mater. Is that yours? Yeah, I went to Wharton undergrad. Well, I use Wharton because I think they are the best finance school out there. I think NYU Stern is like second, but it's not Harvard. And MIT and Stanford are actually incredible for entrepreneurship and engineering degrees.

21:55But Wharton's like the cream of the crop in finance. And I can't tell you, sorry, Wharton grads, I can't tell you how many of them I meet who come up to me. One came up the other day and I just, it just tickles my little taint. But this guy came up to me and he's like. Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage solutions. Put heavy duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid impact resistant design prevents cracking and the clear base and sides make items easy to find. Even when the totes are stacked, find select shelving and tote storage up to 15 % off at the Home Depot.

22:30to organize every room in your home, from your garage to your attic. Visit homedebo.com. How doers get more done. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? there's no place like chrome check responses set up required compatibility and availability varies 18 plus uh what was he oh no this was to chris my husband moral of the story uh dude comes up we're like hey how's it going who are you he's like oh you know i'm so and so what are you up to and he says i am a um independent sponsor which is a fancy wharton-esque way yeah i'm saying, I'm buying a business.