Hero's Journey & Major Lessons Learned as a Serial Entrepreneur with Robert Beadles: An EOFire Classic from 2020

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Duct Tape Marketing. Today we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives so the giveaway may not be active and we'll be breaking down a hero's journey and major lessons learned as a serial entrepreneur. To drop these value bombs, I brought Robert Beatles into EO Fire Studios. Robert is a Christian husband, father, and serial entrepreneur responsible for creating major construction service-based businesses in California. He's responsible for more than$100 million from startups, software development, real estate investments, and more.

0:36And today, Foundation will talk about how business operations can be reduced to three words, people, product, profit. And then also in business, you need to use leverage. However, you have to have a good business model and profit in order for this to all work and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Robert and our sponsors. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients.

1:09One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts. Robert, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. Hey, what's up, Fire Nation? Thanks a bunch, John, for having me on. Something interesting about myself. Well, let's see. I've been with my wife since we were 14 years old. So 27 years later, we are still together, still best friends. Started off on welfare and food stamps, and now our companies make hundreds of millions of dollars.

1:47And I got a little white fuzzy poodle. And what's the poodle's name? I call her Dog. Dog. I think you should change it to DOG. There you go. That sounds a little bit more OG. Well, Fire Nation, as I was giving you a little intro prep during the introduction, we're gonna be talking about lessons learned while generating over$100 million in revenue over the course of 25 years. And we have a lot to cover today. And Robert, I do want to start with your journey, but we have a lot to cover. So let's keep it to three minutes. Give us the highlights of your journey thus far. Well, I'll give you a little teaser.

2:22I met my wife when we were 14, been together ever since. We had our first son at 17 years old. Ended up on welfare and food stamps and just struggling to survive. Got into construction. Ended up at the bottom there. Worked my way up to running the company. Got into it with the owner one day and the owner said, hey, look, man, if you can do a better job, go start showing company. So I did. And yeah, from there, you know, we created one of the largest construction service companies in California around 2009. I kind of took a break from it and started building a software company. And it's always been one of my passions.

2:59And we started doing some work for companies like the United States Post Office, creating applications and things for them. Then started getting into blockchain around 2011. And around 2017, created a YouTube channel for people that were always asking me about cryptocurrencies. And it's put us at like, I don't know, one of the top five in the world for cryptocurrency education. I created a company called Monarch, which is a decentralized wallet for holding cryptocurrency for everybody out there in the world for free. I then created Monarch Pay for merchants so that way they can start accepting cryptocurrency and not have to worry about high fees or chargebacks and all that kind of sucky stuff.

3:40And, yeah, I've been just creating businesses all my life. And yeah, this year we've done, between last year and this year, we've probably close to 10X anything we've ever done before. So our numbers are a lot higher now than they ever were. God's been great. And Christian, husband, father, and just business builder, that's me. And Fire Nation, as I shared in the intro, Robert's generated this over$100 million from startups, from software development, from real estate investment. So he's really has this diversified portfolio, this diversified skill set, which you'll see kind of unfold as we proceed forward here.

4:20Let's get into the weeds for a second here, Robert. You've been through it all. You started at the bottom. Now you're here. How do you define success in business? That's easy. Making payroll, covering all the expenses and everything after that is gravy. I mean, we're laughing right now, but with the times that we're living in, that is a real success for, I'd say about 90 plus percent of businesses right now. So let's get a little deeper in these weeds. Sure. So, I mean, there's a lot and a lot that goes into a business, right? And so I think, you know, Leah Koch always said it best, in the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words, people, product, and profits.

5:04And unless you've got a good team, you can't do much with the other two. And I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but it's so true. with business, you really have to have an amazing team. And it's great to be a smart guy, but if you're the smartest guy in your team, you're always going to be kind of at a disadvantage. You need people, mentors, you need people that have been there and done that around you. So you can take that counsel, that advice and apply it towards your own endeavors. You don't want to be so much of a trailblazer. You can follow the footsteps of giants and get where you want to go.

5:35this isn't really rocket science. You know, I've taken my same approach to businesses and I've cookie cuttered them in different industries across, you know, across the country. So yeah, we made, you know, over a hundred million dollars, you know, a couple of years ago, we made a lot more than that in the past two years. And it's, it's not because I'm some super smart guy. I'll just outwork other people. I give, you know, all glory to God first because without him, I got nothing. Then I give it to my family and friends and employees because you have to have this collection of people around you to support you and to give you the guidance that you need on your journey.

6:11And a ton of this also boils down to education as well. So it's great to be passionate. It's great to have awesome work ethics, but you always have to keep learning because there's so many things out there in this world and you just really got to know what you're doing and where you're trying to go. You did mention the three Ps, people, products, profit. We dove a little bit into the people aspect of it. Let's talk about products for a second. Like what over the years have you learned to find success when it comes to products? Filling needs, right? So I mean, it's one of the most simplistic things.

6:42You could have an amazing product, but if nobody wants it, it's going to sit on the shelf. So you need to figure out what it is that you're good at, what it is that you enjoy doing. And then if there's a need around that, you have a much higher chance of being successful versus just trying to chase, chase like, I don't know, the latest fads. Because by the time you create something for the latest fed, it's probably already outdated. And so there's probably not a use for it. So, you know, it's one of those things you just find a need and fill it and make sure that you're good at whatever need it is that you're trying to fill.

7:12Make sure you understand it immensely. It's one of those things you got to go like an inch wide and a mile deep and really understand what it is you're trying to do. And then amazing things happen. Fire Nation, the question you really have to answer for yourself is, is your product an actual solution to a real problem? If it is, then guess what? People will pay for that. If it's an actual solution to a real genuine problem, that's where most products fail. They don't fit that definition. Now, the last P, Robert, profit. Talk to us a little bit about profit. That's the beauty of business, right?

7:45So that's when you've got the gravy. That's when you've got your payroll covered, your expenses covered. That's when you're able to do really cool things like expand, pay people more. It's one of those things where people that just struggle all the time to make ends meet, they really, they're kind of locked in place. They're not really able to achieve their full, you know, potential because they're always just scratching by. So profits are a beautiful thing. And that goes back to like what you just said about a product. If you create something people really need and want, a service, product, whatever, profits come, you know, and it helps having that amazing team around you.

8:23So that way you kind of know how to budget forecast, you know how to cut the fat where you have to, you know how to put more money into something that's doing well. So that will allow you to create even more profits and take money out of things that are maybe losing you money. So that way you maintain more profits. It's, you know, it's a balancing act for sure. But it all kind of boils back to, you know, taking care of your customer, right? Whether it's a service or a product. If you do a great job for them, you'll find that it's usually pretty easy for them to open up their wallet and start paying you if you have something that they really want and need.

8:56And the profits just have a way of coming. Generating over$100 million in revenue over 25 years, it means you've had a lot. I mean, a lot of successes. But I like talking about failures. What is your biggest business failure over the last 25 years? And give us some lessons learned. Yeah, so this kind of goes back to filling a need that really wasn't there and doing something that I didn't understand. A while back, I think around 2010, something like that, my wife talked me into helping her best friend's son with a band. They're musicians. And I really didn't like the music, but I love my wife.

9:38And I really didn't know anything about creating a record label or throwing a concert, any of these types of stuff. But I'm pretty industrious and I'm smart enough. So basically, I took this band and I got them on the radio and kept them in the top 30 for two or three years. Just a big money pick. Just money sucked, just a money pit. It was crazy. And then if I wasn't learning from that mistake, then I went and I threw a concert at the Stockton Arena in Stockton, California, a rock concert. And so Stockton's not really known for its rock music, number one. And the bands that I brought on to headline, I was told that they could fill arenas, that they'd have no problem selling enough tickets.

10:26And I trusted people and I didn't understand enough about the business, the industry, any of that kind of stuff. And so basically I set fire to millions of dollars and it was an expensive lesson. And it's one of those that, again, it goes back to having a great team around you. Also going kind of like an inch wide, a mile deep into whatever it is you're going to be doing, understanding it really well. And I didn't understand it and it cost me millions of dollars. But I learned a very valuable lesson from this. and, you know, I haven't repeated that mistake. And well, yeah, I've made over$100 million in 25 years, but, you know, we've done, I don't know, probably close to that just in the past two on top of that, you know, just not repeating mistakes, learning these lessons.

11:07And it's something I, you know, and they always say, you know, it doesn't matter if you fall off the horse, it's how quick you get back up, things like that. Well, the same kind of goes true here is you just, you have to learn from your failures, learn from your mistakes and then not repeat them. You know, Warren Buffett gets chided all the time because like he missed a lot of things, you know, he missed Uber investment. He missed Microsoft. He missed Facebook and Amazon, but he keeps going back all the time. And people ask him about this to the fact that he only invests in what he knows. And he loves using these baseball analogies of like, listen, Ted Williams bats 400 because he only swings at pitches that make up about 20 % in the strike zone.

11:50He lets all the rest of them go. And he's like, in business, you could even do better than Ted Williams because you don't have to ever swing. You can just let balls go by and by and by until finally that one in that sweet spot and you just hit it out of the park. And so it's that patience, Fire Nation, is sticking to what you know. That's what's helped people like Robert and Warren do what they do. Now, before we move on, Robert, how big was the stadium in Stockton, how many people could it have sat if it was at full capacity? Probably just under 15 ,000 people. I think I got about 2 ,000, 3 ,000 people there, which I'm told is about four or five times more than that should have been there.

12:28So that just tells you how industrious and how hardworking we were to try to get it to where it was. And we still lost millions. But to speak to your point about Warren Buffett, that's absolutely right. And if you look at his early success and how successful he became, he basically only invested in three companies. And that's how he made the bulk of his money. You notice his fund now has like 50 something investments and it's not doing so well. You know, if you look at the stock market, but if you look at his top 10 holdings, that's about, well, I guess 67 % of his holdings are basically still in his top six or seven companies.

13:01So he's still kind of doing that, but he was really successful when he understood those three companies and that's all he put his money in. Yeah. I mean, Apple and Coca-Cola right now make up like over 20 % of his entire portfolio. So he's a massive believer in really focusing in on what works. Now, Fire Nation, if you think that we're even close to being done dropping value bombs, you have another thing coming. More is coming up as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. Do you own a small to medium-sized business that kept employees on payroll through COVID? If yes, then you may have a big cash refund waiting for you.

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15:30So Robert, I want to talk about the most important pieces of advice that you have for entrepreneurial newcomers. Fire Nation, a lot of us are solopreneurs, small business owners, startup entrepreneurs. We haven't been in the game for super long. What is your top three pieces of advice for us? Be trusting God, work your ass off and have an amazing team. And then education is definitely right up there because you can have the best intentions in the world. You can have the best vision, but if you don't know what you're doing, it's not usually going to work. I mean, there's luck out there involved in some of this, but I mean, you really just always have to be learning.

16:12Like every day I'm sucking up new information all day long. You know, I work 20 hour days. I don't like sleep that much. It doesn't matter what level of success I get to, it'll never be enough because I don't do this for the money. I do this because I actually enjoy it. I love it. It gives me purpose. I got drive in it. And it benefits a lot of people. And so as long as I'm adding value and purpose to the world, I'm going to keep doing it. So right now we're dealing with a pandemic. I mean, we're dealing with businesses that are being shut down left and right. We're dealing with unemployment into the twenties of millions of people in just a few short weeks.

16:47And those numbers are just climbing and climbing and climbing. We're dealing with failed government bailouts. But the reality is, the reason why so many businesses are struggling is because they did a terrible job managing their credit. They did a terrible job managing their debt. They did a terrible job saving money. I mean, most of these businesses need to stop whining. They need to look in the mirror and say, I just ran a terrible business because that was what happened with most of these businesses. Not all, but most. You obviously have very hardcore principles about these things. So give us your principles about managing credit, managing debt, and saving money in business.

17:25It's kind of a simple answer. I've always kind of believed that cash is king and not to get over leveraged and pay cash for everything when you can. I know that goes against a lot of people like even Robert Kiyosaki. I mean, I know him. I met him a couple times. I I remember back before 2008, he was telling everybody that they're losers. If they have equity in their house, they should be sucking that equity out to buy all these other houses. And that's when I stopped liking the guy. Right. Because I thought, that is so dangerous. What you're saying is crazy. All these people are going to suck all this equity out of their homes.

17:56And that's all that they've got. And guess what? They went and they over leveraged and they bought a bunch of other houses. The market tanked and they lost everything. So it's kind of the same thing in business. I understand that it's great to be able to use leverage. In some cases, if you can get 0 % loans and they're fixed, that's one thing. But if you get revolving credit lines that are costing you 5%, 10 % a year, you're never going to get away from that if you don't have a really good business model and you don't have the profits to pay that off. You're always going to be working just paying off the interest and it's going to be a money suck.

18:31So whenever you can, own things. You know, it's like even when you if you're in some kind of service company and you buy vehicles, you know, through the 179 tax deduction, you can buy vehicles and write them off 100 percent. You know, you can expense them out in the first year. That's huge tax savings. And you actually own the asset. And I realize trucks and stuff, they go down in value. But again, you can deduct that in the first year, 100 percent. There's things there's value in that. And so whenever you can, just try not to get over leverage. try to have money on the side. So even when you look at like Warren Buffett, he doesn't have all of his money in the stock market.

19:09He keeps a pool off to the side for when times are tough. Like 30 % right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when times are tough, that's usually when bargains happen. And I know it sounds awful because it's kind of a zero sum game, right? Somebody's losing, somebody's winning. But the fact of the matter is when times do get tough, then there are usually exceptional deals out there where you can get a great company at a great price or great products at a great price. And if you're sitting cash flush, it allows you to do that. Or God forbid, you have something like this COVID pandemic and you need the money and you're not waiting on the government cheese to pay your payroll because you've got it, you've saved up for a rainy day.

19:52And so it's always really smart to have cash reserves, always. And try not to get over leverage. Try not to go finance a whole bunch of stuff. Try to pay cash whenever you can. And that's kind of the way I do things. In the Army Fire Nation, we called it keeping our powder dry. You always need to keep that powder dry because you never know you got to fire that shot that's going to be the winner. Now, Robert, you work 20 hours a day. You sleep less than four. What the heck inspires you and keeps you so motivated on a day-to-day basis? I'll tell you, I mean, I love what I do. I've got a ton of different companies.

20:27I've got a ton of people that count on me. It's just one of those things that I don't know any other way. It's really difficult for me to go on vacation or to just sit back and watch TV or Netflix and chill. I can't do that stuff. I feel there's something inherently wrong with my brain that doesn't allow me to relax. I always have to be adding value, have some kind of purpose. I've got something driving me all the time, you know, for God and country, you know, whatever you want to call it. I don't know what it is, but I've just always been this way. I've always had, you know, a ton of different jobs or created a ton of different businesses.

21:05And when one has taken off and it doesn't need me, it allows me to kind of step back and go build something else. And it's just something I truly love to do. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I love how you kind of chuckled when you You mentioned the word watching television because it is so crazy how many people are literally going to, at every opportunity, whine and moan and complain about how they just can't become successful, about how they just can't get anything going, about how they just can't get any traction, any momentum, nothing, nothing, nothing. Then you audit their day and they're spending four to six hours a day watching Netflix.

21:40They're spending two to three hours a day watching YouTube videos and just going down rabbit holes. I mean, they are literally doing nothing productive. They are literally spending all of their free time non-productive. I mean, I love how Gary Vaynerchuk says, like, listen, like you're complaining. Give me the 14 hours you waste every week. And I would actually challenge that. I would say people waste way more than 14 hours every single week. And by the way, if you waste 14 hours a week and you're not complaining and you're fine with where you're at, that is your prerogative. Like that's part of being, you know, free and having freedom to choose how you live.

22:15And if you're happy and satisfied and wasting 14 hours a week, or you might not consider it wasting because you're watching and enjoying and being entertained those 14 hours a week, doing other things like television, fine, do that. But don't complain and whine and moan. And then let somebody like myself or Robert audit your day and be like, you literally do nothing. You are the most unproductive person in the world. And that is a huge percentage of people. Now, Robert, I'm curious because again, you've been doing this for 25 years. Your energy is unparalleled, your excitement, your enthusiasm is next level.

22:44What are you currently pursuing right now? And what's your motivations for pursuing this? So the motivation stays the same. I mean, I just love what I do and I love to stay busy and love to add value and purpose. Things that I got going on right now, geez, let's see what I've got. You know, construction service company, it's one of the largest in California. We service all kinds of customers. That's just, it's a mammoth. It's huge. Then I've got a real estate company where we own properties all of the United States. And that's pretty sizable as well. I've got Splash Factory. It's a software development company that creates applications for people like the United States Post Office.

23:26We've created things like Memory Tag, which is the world's first greeting cards that allows you to put a picture or video right into the paper greeting card or an e-gift card. You know, we got those in stores all over the place. You know, we've got Monarch, which is the world's, you know, it's the world's best decentralized cryptocurrency wallet that allows you to do all your safe storage plus trading and all that kind of cool stuff. And it's, you know, it's on Apple and Google. It's a Monarch wallet. Then we created Monarch Pay, which is for merchants that allows merchants to accept payments via stable coins and stable tokens and not have to deal with high fees.

24:05So less than 1 % transaction fees, no chargebacks ever, no closing of anybody's accounts ever. There's no chance of losing their money, no chance of being locked out of their money because it's decentralized and only they have access to the funds. So it's truly just, you know, it's consumer to business and business to consumer. Get, you know, Crypto Beetles, which is an education platform where I bring on people from all walks of life, usually in the tech and crypto ecosystem, some of the best and brightest. And we interview them and allow people to understand more about blockchain. I do answer the viewers questions and do little videos explaining blockchain and cryptocurrency and finances and things like that.