E090 - $80M CEO: Adderall Addiction, Fitness Industry & Entrepreneurship | Christian Guzman

0:28Shout out to Paul here at T-Shirt Depot. tell people like when I was coaching and doing well, I was still in college and I had 14 ,000 subscribers. If you know how to do it, then you can just put some time aside and just get it done. Yeah. When I had to destroy that inventory for Alfleet, same year where I had to make the call, I can't fucking take anything more on my plate. We have to scrap it. What do you think is the art of building a loyal audience and community? That's a really good question. I want to say... Now, before we jump into today's episode, I just want to mention that this podcast is brought to you by me and everything that I have built to help you guys level up.

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1:44So if you're interested about any of those, check out the description. You'll find the links to all of them. Let's get cracking with the episode. What is up, guys? Welcome back to First Things Durst. We are, first of all, we're using headphones. second of all we're in houston and i'm joined with christian guzman what's up guys thanks for having me mike well thank you first of all for the tour of alphaland and the workout we've just done that is a very impressive facility thank you bro thanks for uh i've been not gonna lie been very much looking forward since we met in september september yeah to uh show you this place yeah patiently waiting it's funny because we must have known each other for so long because we kind of do a similar thing in terms of content creation the youtube but we haven't actually met until that point in september yeah and i feel like like just meeting at that point i was like the moment has finally come right just like one of those kind of deals and uh yeah i think i mean this is my opinion i feel like we just hit it off and it's like you know everything is exactly as i assumed it would be you know so it just felt kind of natural you know it was it was good as well because obviously i posted that picture on the story there's so many people were happy they were like oh yeah it finally happened yeah and even i made the announcement that i was coming here to america and i was going to stop by houston and everyone's like oh you've got to go alfaland you've got to do a podcast with christian hell yeah well i'm glad we make it happen bro yeah so you you started doing your thing on youtube back in 2012 2012 what about you mine was 2016 2016 oh shoot yeah yeah i got an early start yeah you uh you were literally one of the ogs doing doing your thing in the whole fitness thing yeah it's uh i think i was i was second year of college no sorry first year of college uh second semester so i was uh filming in the all my physique updates in the community bathroom at like 1 a.m when no one would be up during a weekday um and that's kind of how i started just in the dorm room and just you know what made you want to do it because like it's not like there were really many people all doing it at that point there weren't many but at the time there was probably like three to five people that i was consuming content of um scooby scott herman uh matt ogus had kind of started and so i was pretty like already really enjoying his videos and he was doing you know vlog style and so and then Chris Jones.

4:15So in Greg Plitt for me, it was like Greg Plitt was though. He wasn't like a vlogger at all. He was more like just in front of a camera. I just wanted to, I don't know. I feel like in college, I really didn't, I know I didn't feel like I fit in. Um, especially the school I went to was very primarily fraternity, sorority. You're either in a fraternity sorority or an athlete. And if you weren't, it was like a 10 % of the population was not in either of those. And that was like me. So I really just, I felt like I had the time. I love fitness. I was already training. I was like, might as well kind of start this little, why not just film some tips, you know?

4:55What did you study? I was in school for kinesiology the first year. And then I quickly realized that I wanted to switch to health and fitness management. So that's, I transferred out first year and went to a new school the second year to pursue that. But I assumed that health and fitness management was like owning a gym and it definitely wasn't but um i dropped out right after the second year when i was still taking all my core classes i didn't actually get into any like specialized courses but i think as soon as i realized i knew that the owning a gym and training studio was going to be like what i wanted to do so as soon as i realized like i'm already kind of working towards that i was doing emails just responding to emails and eventually started charging like $50 a meal plan workout plan for like customized help for people uh and I saw some income coming in so for me that was really it was almost like damn do I need to stay in this or can I kind of just keep doing what I'm kind of doing and over the months of kind of generating some revenue it was clear to me that like okay there's a path for me to do what I want to do without having to do another two baby three years of school which I was never good at yeah so when when did the the beginning of opening the the gym store the beginning so i started videos in 2012 2014 is when i opened my first gym and that was a 900 square foot box it was a 1500 square foot warehouse but there was 600 square feet of office so yeah 900 square foot actual gym and completely failed within within about a year i mean i didn't know how to hire an employee i didn't i just assumed that i I could put like a lock box outside and give my membership or my members like the code and that they would, you know, not sneak friends in.

6:49I assume they would treat the equipment well. I assume they wouldn't take the pre-workout I had on the counter. And, you know, it slowly just became very apparent. I assume their cards would go through and I would try to process them at the end of the month. That was not the case. So it was just a lot more than I assumed it would be. Well, that's the thing. everybody likes the idea of having their own gym but a lot of people don't understand what it actually takes to to build it in the first place the capital it costs and just how it should operate and make money like i i had a little taste of it when i was younger i think it was like 2000 2013 when i opened a studio the same year yeah same or the same different plant different areas of the planet doing the same thing but it was never i don't think we could get the planning permission to operate it as a public gym but we could get away with it being a studio where coaches could train their clients out of so it was it was one of those things where it was like my dream to do it but once i'd kind of done it and was doing it i was like i don't want to really do this yeah Yeah.

8:01I mean, I can definitely relate to that. I probably just didn't look up the regulations. I probably just went for it and just didn't really know. But I mean, I just had no idea like how to, I mean, it's not like I had a system to run the memberships. I would just get everyone's card and manually input them on my credit card machine. You know, like I genuinely, I was 20 years old. I had no idea about anything. I just knew, okay, I need insurance. I need my LLC and And I need to get the credit cards and a waiver. And then that was kind of what I started with. How did it progress after that? You said it failed.

8:35Yeah. So I started charging$20 a month. And essentially, like within nine to 10 months, it was very clear that just the headache of trying to, I knew it was, it just wasn't succeeding as its own thing. And at the time I was putting so much of my time into YouTube and into my online coaching because my online coaching funded the gym. So for me, it was the gym was going to be like, I'll do the online coaching. I'll really save up so I can start this thing. And it just was such a headache. And it was so at the time, like it's so crazy to think back 12 years ago, like what was draining to me there, you know, seems like a tiny little issue now, but it was just so much headache that I, I decided to cancel.

9:22It was at the point where if I had 40, 50 membership, I mean 35 of them were getting declined when I would try to charge a card and I was just like god what I don't want to like keep calling these people that are friends to me you know because we're all a good community and tight I don't want to be like hey bro your card didn't go through like can you you got me or like what like I just got so I just didn't I don't want to do it anymore and so I just shut the day and I knew that I could sustain my life through my other avenues through coaching and through just the social content and YouTube videos.

9:56So I shut it down. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to keep it private. I'll use it for filming and I will ship my clothes out of here. Right. It'll just be my private studio spot or whatever. So you already had an idea to build a clothing brand. Yes. So I had like the CG fitness merch. I remember that. Yeah. I was doing that for like a year and a half and kind of every drop just like adding a color t-shirt or maybe you know doing a hoodie or doing a beanie and all while knowing that to in order to level up i would need to start a brand and create a name that was bigger than cg fitness so al fleet was already an idea in like the 2014 2013 even year but obviously getting the logos and getting the business set up and you know starting the sampling process, which was probably like at that time, maybe seven months or so.

10:53Not, it wasn't like a crazy year out kind of deal, but it was like, uh, I don't know. It felt so much bigger at the time. Like, Oh my gosh, I need a new logo. Like this is my everything. Like I need to, you know, a simple task like that, or now it's simple, which is so such a big monumental, this logo has to be perfect. The name has to be perfect. And, um, so in 2015 is when I finally launched out fleet. So I was still in that 1500 square foot spot. And, uh, I remember telling people in December, 2014. So two months before launch, I remember telling them, this is a new cause I thought I was going to launch in December.

11:29Then my first batch came out completely fucked up. So I couldn't launch them, but I was like, this launch is about to happen. This is a company. This is what it means. This is the messaging. This is for the people who aren't scared to go after the dreams. And it was pretty much an extension of the, the videos. I don't know, the mindset really that I was really listening to at the time. I was super into, like I said, Greg Plitt and just a lot like Les Brown, Eric Thomas, a lot of these motivational speakers. And I really was just like, when I was working, doing my coaching plans, that'd be in the background on repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

12:04And it just sort of that mindset really, those were the foundational pillars that I wanted to shape the brand on. and uh yeah so i announced it in 2014 and we launched in 2015 so what happened with this fucked up badge you just i ate it bro yeah i just how much did that cost at the time i think that was like 12 grand they were two sizes too small so i got i got the samples for some people though i'd take one of them literally in the xl fit like maybe a medium and i just remember because i had been doing all the cg fitness clothing through like a local printer uh shout out to paul here t-shirt depot we still use them for like some alphalan exclusive tees and stuff but i was you know working with him so closely on cg fitness that i remember going to him for advice when the first batch came in the sizing was messed up like it wasn't what i approved at the fitting for the samples so my bulk order was different than when i approved and i remember going to him and being like Paul I put like 12 grand into this and the sizes are messed up and he told me I'll never forget and I'm so grateful to him to this day he goes Christian let me ask you a question do you want to be a millionaire one day a millionaire one day and I was like yeah I do that'd be great don't launch the shirts redo them get them perfect and then do it and I was like you're right it's like it's almost like i knew that that's what i had to do i just didn't really want to get myself to come to that decision yeah because it was so much in my bank account that was that was huge and i'd already i already came out and told people this is about to launch how am i going to start a brand when i've already like you can't even trust what i'm saying you can't trust my word yeah like i just promised you i'm gonna do this whole thing did this whole hype video everything and i felt like like fuck what a way to start off this brand right and um so i made the announcement i was open with people i was like guys look can't launch these i'm so sorry uh tbd like i'll let you know when when they're actually gonna be ready so then thankfully my coaching was doing good man because that thankfully like that didn't wipe me out but i had enough money to invest again and kind of ballsy i was like you know what instead of doing three colors of a shirt i'm gonna do seven so i did seven shirts i fixed the fitting they still came out a little wonky the batch actually launched but they came out way better than the first one the sizes were actually like true to size yeah and so we postponed like three months and then in february 2015 i finally was able to drop the collection and thankfully it didn't take like another seven months was it was the same factory i just was like look we need to fix this like make these changes and we did it pretty quick so yeah three months later we were live i don't get how you say the the factory mess of the first time should they not reimburse you for it or was it like a miscommunication i mean i don't remember all the d it could have been a miscommunication it could have very likely like maybe i don't know it could have been i just didn't really realize what size splits i don't know yeah but i just remember like getting the bulk and being like these are two sizes too small material was great the logos were great everything was great but they were just the wrong sized so i'm assuming that with the launch it did pretty well yeah um the first day we launched i was used to like when i did cg fitness we would have you know seven to$10 ,000 days when we would drop, which was like phenomenal.

15:41And, uh, the first day we launched out fleet, it was a 10 AM on a Saturday. We did$57 ,000 in like three minutes. And I was like, Holy shit, this is going to be different. And later that afternoon we were like$127 ,000 and I had just never seen money like that. That was like, I don't know, five months worth of coaching in in three hours two hours actually so i was like and of course at that point you don't really think about like oh what am i actually profiting what are my expenses you don't you're not thinking i just made 127 000 and it was just um yeah i mean that moment right there those that first two three minutes of launch really like set me on a course that you're on to something we were on to something and i knew that's where i needed to put my attention it's it's now it's time to taper off the coaching it's time to taper off anything that's distracting me this is also where i was like okay maybe that gym maybe maybe me failing at that wasn't such a bad thing yeah maybe it's like okay that's that's fine let me hone in on this in my in my youtube videos yeah and that was sort of all of my 2015 did that the majority of the traffic come from the youtube oh yeah all of it yeah yeah all of it okay damn that how many views have you kind of averaging at that point that's a really good question i want to say

17:10probably about 50 000 views a video like around that i would say 40 to 60 000 yeah like and i mean I get asked a lot about making money online and stuff nowadays. And my biggest thing is I tell people like when I was coaching and doing well, I was still in college and I had 14 ,000 subscribers. I had months where I was making between 20, 25, even upwards of$30 ,000. When I had 20 ,000 subscribers, I was doing 30, 35 a month. And like just the amount of impact you can have with a small relatively small follower account is pretty crazy and i know it's easy to be like oh well that was 10 years ago 12 years ago it's not the same now but i do know like now with alfali we work with smaller influencers right that when they have their broadcast channel they do long in-depth youtube videos they work with their community they do a ton of q a's they're really open like they do convert like crazy with small followings so if there's anyone out there like listening that feels like there's no hope because you need to have all this big reach that's not the case to make good money yeah so what what do you think is the art of building a loyal audience and community it's weird because like now i can kind of speak from that perspective like what i think works but back then it was literally just genuine like vlogs yeah and sharing your life with people yeah sharing and i think that my number one tip especially for men i think that men tend to overthink like this value thing like you know if i'm not providing value i'm not it's not worth it like but literally like if i look back at what i was doing even what i try to do now on my blogs i literally just try to think out loud like what am i thinking about let me just talk about what i'm thinking about and let me explain my thought process and a lot of times like that ends up being the content that people can resonate with it's not necessarily like this here's three things you need to do to improve your life like that's just trying to think of a way to put your thoughts together in a way that could be effective and impact that's so tough to do versus like you know what i mean just like kind of taking smaller moments in your day and like hey you know this is my favorite i'm trying this protein bar out let's give it a shot i mean here the macros you know compared to other bars this one's actually pretty pretty decent it's lower in fat i tend to feel a little bit better when i when i have this macro ratio versus like a very high fat but whatever it is like it could be anything but i think that people they can really resonate as well if you're open and vulnerable with people and sharing any concerns or doubts that you might have because you can you come across as being a lot more relatable i've found i even i remember i i don't know what like told me to kind of do it but i remember ordering my first batch of gym equipment from rogue fitness and i remember like you know when you're doing something really big in your life and you get that like your stomach kind of falls your balls kind of drop and you're like oh you kind of get that feeling like almost like when you get pulled over and you're not supposed to you're going way over the speed limit you kind of get that feeling when you're doing something big in your life and i remember like i need to film this i i have a feeling i should definitely film me clicking this order let me just not click it let me get the camera talk about it and then talk about these feelings i'm feeling and then click order i ended up like crying on that you know it's like tears where i was just like man guys this is a big moment like it's huge i can't believe this is actually happening and those kind of moments are i think really looking back really what set the channel apart without really intentionally trying to make it set apart it was not like i was planning to have these emotions or anything but i think just being able to pull the camera out on a quick not overthinking it and just like getting it done when i go back to look at the videos i was uploading i was uploading almost every other day and it'd be like literally i just went to the supplement store here's what i got or like just very very basic titles and very basic concise like five to ten minute videos that i was just kind of throwing stuff at the wall you know were you filming and editing by yourself oh yeah yeah which point did you get uh of a videographer to help that would have been i remember doing a few videos with javon when i was at texas state so that was my second year in college and i started working with him actually like during the summer when i was about to drop out so that would have been 20, 2012, I went to TCU 2013.

21:57I remember like he was, he had a company that he was working on called viewer optics. So it was like a media company. He was good with the camera. And I remember just doing a few, like a gym shark hall and I had him film it. Right. Or there was a few videos I did that year, but then the next year, uh, in the following year we did even more videos. So I was like, Hey, I'll pay you and I'm to come and let's do some cool edits. And for over 2014, it kind of started 2013 by 2015 i was trying to kind of implement more of that into my channel but um yeah i mean i i guess it is kind of why i guess i was making money so i figured i could afford to invest back into the channel and that's all it really was at that point it wasn't really like oh i think these cinematics are going to pop off or anything i think i just really liked how his camera work was and i was like that could be cool to implement i think back back then there was a wave and there was a trend where like that was the thing and i i think you might have been one of those guys that actually started it i don't know if i can't remember if at that point nabil was editing your videos no nabil wasn't until like 2017 2017 yeah but i remember when i saw when i saw nabil's work So Nabil and Morine came to town because we just got Morine as an athlete.

23:15And this young kid came with them as his videographer. And I remember he filmed a workout edit of Morine and I at the gym. And when I watched that video, he was the first one to put sound effects, bro. Like, you know, like the little, almost like the headphones were bleeding out. And I was like, yo, that's crazy, man. And then it turns out he really wanted to, like, you know, he was down to work with me. And I was like, I don't, I'm not trying to steal you, like, at all. So we ended up just doing, like, a 90-day spurt. So we came and filmed for 90 days, went back home, you know, to do it. But that kind of became, that's how summer shredding series kind of started leveling up.

23:59And that's how, yeah, a lot of people do look back at the cinematic, like, era, if you will, of that entire journey. and really it was it was new at that time yeah i mean he came out to dubai uh this was 20 oh is it 2021 maybe 2020 or 2021 because i was trying to get him to leave dubai and come and film alfalan build with me yeah yeah and he did a few videos for me and he was so good he's such so just fun to be around yeah um but then it's like it's frustrating because you know if you if he's not there and he's the one that you kind of want to work with bouncing between different different cameramen is it's annoying because they all have their different style you got different chemistry and then it can kind of give your channel like a different vibe yeah which is you know maybe not what you want but um i think it's okay as long as you know that even if no one's helping you film you at least have a good base yeah so i think that's how i kind of always and even now like i don't have anyone helping with any videos now so i'm like thank god like i've i can i know how to put together a vlog like it's really not hard but um it's a basic skill if you're going to do content creation i think you should learn the absolute fundamentals of how to edit and film a video because there's going to be there's going to be some times where either the person that you need to help film and edit isn't available and you need to just get something out quickly if you know how to do it then you can just put some time aside and just get it done yeah instead of having to wait for this person to be available and then maybe you've missed the opportunity or the momentum that you've built up i think exactly what you just said describes how really i tell everybody that wants to start anything yeah any business any idea any hobby like find figure out how to do something on your own and sustain it on your own before you try to outsource any or like because then you just become dependent yeah like straight up yeah and and it's not good especially in business to do that at what point did you start to delegate and outsource things with alpha league well or like tell me all the mistakes you made man um let's see 2015 hired one of my previous clients uh i was like yo like do you want to work yeah you want to work so like that was the first few years um Um, eventually I hired, I mean, did they do a good job?

26:29I mean, at the time, yeah, it was a lot of these, um, a lot of my first employee, it was very much like, I always think of the, the things three app. It's like an app, a checklist app that I love. And I, it's almost like so many relationships with employees have always just been like checklist and not like, I need you to own this responsibility or I need you to own this, you know it so it's yes and the fact that like a lot of people i've worked with are really good at checking off the list if i can constantly update a list and have them you know but at the end of the day like i've realized some staffing like that is okay but it's just not that's not gonna get you far because at the end of the day you're still bottlenecking yourself because it's just you it's just you you know and it's not it got me far it really it did get me pretty far um give me an example of a checklist uh i need you to respond to four or five comments i need you to be sure the emails are at zero before you go i need you to um send this package that arrived i need you to unpack the samples that arrived and lay them out on the counter i need just like little little things that are just like you shouldn't have to necessarily be writing on the checklist you know what i mean but almost like in the the list we get so micromanaging where you'd be like are you writing that like obviously you should do that you know what i mean and a lot like i remember once i had about three employees sometimes like they're playing fortnight or they'd be like like on the computer playing games or like i know it's like no i shouldn't have to tell you not to do that yeah and then you start having a few moments like i really shouldn't have to be telling you this like you're you're getting paid right now like what are we doing here and so as soon as that kind of started happening i mean i'm not gonna let that happen for many years many many years um were you always hiring like quite young yes all young all young um all friends of friends and a lot of like sometimes as soon as i actually had some staff at the gym i was just like hey you're really good at i like your energy at the front desk like can you come work at alfleet like that kind of deal yeah and again like that that did take me pretty far so i can't even like knock it really it's just now i've realized in order to actually like create a work structure where i can take a little bit of a step back and actually feel like whoever i'm hiring is like effectively doing something it's just a different caliber of of experience yeah um at what point did i mean i'm assuming you started off just selling male stuff yes when did you branch out into female 2016 and the only reason i did it is because i mean i don't want to say the only reason but i was working with a middleman right like a factory guy who we had sold some like he helped me create some of the original alfleet men's pieces and he was really, I mean, obviously if I order more from him, he makes more money.

29:41Right. So he came to Houston, brought three suitcases worth of like samples at the factory just has kind of like around it to show their capability. So he showed me some sports bras, some women's tanks, some, some leggings and things. And I was like, you know what? I'll give that a shot. So we tweaked the designs, put the logo on, got some samples and I came out with like a tank, a bra. I believe that was it. A tank and a bra. hyped them up i found some models who were even still model to the day with this day with alfleet but uh we launched and i sold three bras yeah bro zero tanks i did the same thing with mine when i launched bikinis i just thought for some reason yeah everyone will everyone will buy the bikinis like why wouldn't they buy the bikini why wouldn't they buy it's great quality right like they were i mean they weren't the best but they were good enough but then i just realized that first of all if you're if you're a female following me you're not gonna be like oh yeah mike mike knows the the female fashion industry so well like if he literally doesn't know what he's talking about it's not like i can try them on and be like hey look these are really good yeah it's uh it's a completely different ball game and it was it was it was a lesson which i learned but there's some people have told me especially when it comes to swimwear like if your business is doing well predominantly just in the men's category with it just stick with it like if you're gonna try and sell female stuff like this is you're gonna need like a whole different team of people to push that yeah and it's it's because i remember literally selling three rather than being like you know what i'll just go deliver them myself like you're making a joke right i was like i'll just go walk them over like no big deal um but though that didn't do well I don't know what it was man but at the time I was just like I was very I was hungry bro I didn't want to give up I was like and especially because I had an example to look at at this time I'd already like had my gym shark days right and I'd already seen from the ground up gym shark start a women's line and I even kind kind of in a way sort of I was very involved in that original process and very close to the kind of like the first female athlete for them and everything at the it was an ex-girlfriend of mine at the time and I just I knew that if they could do it why can't I do it right it really was just like uh I know maybe I just made the wrong bra maybe it was the wrong colors maybe it was wrong, whatever.

32:15So I just, we didn't give up on the women's and the first in 2017, it might've been 2018 is when we finally launched our first seamless legging that was called the revival legging. And I called it revival because I was like, the women's line is dead. So I'm going to revive this. So I called it the revival and I was like, okay, this is item you're going to like. And I, we had already, I'd picked out like maybe, I don't know, five to 10 girls that were on youtube and and then or instagram that i wanted to send the clothes to and i was willing to pay them some money and so we got some promotional content we did some good photo shoots and that was okay they launched and they did okay maybe but once it got into some hands of youtubers that actually did reviews unbiased unpaid like reviews of the product and they liked them it started coming and that is really really what changed the direction of alfleet i mean and it just opened up a whole new potential uh added revenue source instead of just sticking them and men's was doing phenomenal it was incredible but this just added like okay we can go we can let's see let's dabble into this and now it was you know my attention has always been on men's and still is to this day but i knew like if i could just get enough opinions from girls around me then and i had some girls working for me so it was easy i was like hey we try these on tell me what you think what do you think i would just literally be asking everybody like what they thought what do you not like and then i would kind of merge all of that feedback and then send it off to the factory and be like can we make these changes who make these changes and i'd watch every review on youtube from start to end to be like okay these are all their points and it was just like a big data collection because as a guy you don't know what to do yeah is right you can't tell like you can do anything so i just would do that and over time each i don't want to say each iteration got better but at least on each iteration i was trying to make them better yeah based off of feedback and that kind of to this day that's what alphys kind of known for i think is like really putting attention into like we if we launch something the chances of it coming back with no changes are like very slim to none and i think it yeah that's just kind of what we have built the brand off if you if you look at all the sales last year what was the ratio 75 women that's crazy that's why is that it was probably 2022 is probably 80 women do you think in general women just like to have more variety of gym clothes so they spend more i think if you have an item that can really feel trusted that it's going to be good and they love and they like it a lot they're gonna buy it again in more color they're gonna they're gonna trust the brand like want to buy um i think men are much more likely to buy a t-shirt love it and keep it for seven where the shit yeah like the amount of old core tees that i see at gyms when travel and stuff is like damn you still have that one he's like i'll never i'll never take it off bro i'm like damn you're gonna wear that till it dies but and it's crazy and it that therefore i do think owning or running a men's only brand is a lot harder especially if you're putting attention to quality and you're making things last like you know it's tough and even i will say it's kind of interesting because in 2024 we launched a collection called our men's zero collection and that was my the reason i called it zero i want to make a collection with absolutely zero branding because that's really men that's what they want they want a nice silhouette that's not going to have any branding even like a lid they don't want anything right the more minimal the better i think that's why lululemon did so well and this was the best-selling collection for men we've had in like five years yeah the men zero yeah because i feel as though jim shark have experienced a similar thing like would you say that a large chunk of their sales now is from yeah i don't know where i've heard this but i i know it's not as drastic as like 80 20 i think it's they do have a lot of men buying okay yeah but it's still i think primary i don't know i used when i was with them women was like taking over but i know now like it's pretty it's not even but i think it's pretty close which is like admirable because that shows me hey stop giving yourself fucking excuses there's room to grow men yeah yeah you know what i mean yeah are you friends with ben francis i'm great friends great friends that's good like you you can be friends and not like i'm also not gonna text him like yo what's your split like you know what i mean like it's a respectable like we had so much history together and we keep in touch anytime we get to see each other or we're in the same city we like get breakfast or whatever and it's awesome and uh but yeah i he's that it's definitely motivating as fuck you know i'd say like they're doing it the biggest right now that i can look at me like that's crazy they're doing that yeah to the caliber they are like their events and stuff are just crazy motivating going back to what you said earlier about you you had a middleman what are the pros and cons of having a middleman that communicates with the factory versus just going direct to the factory it's a very good question um because if you have the middleman they're going to eat into your margins they eat the margin for sure but i will say in certain cases many times middlemen just have so many more connections so i i'm going to give this example of like our performance hoodies performance hoodies have popped off like they were they're searching such a good staple alfali product but out of i have some middlemen and then I have many factories that we do work with just directly.

38:08And it's not like I send what I want to the middlemen only. No, I'm sending it to them. I'm also sending it to four other factories to get quotes, to get samples, to get fabrics, to this is the exact measurements I want. Here's a, like, this is what I want. And then when everything comes back to me, they have middlemen often have way more direct lines to get from. They may have a factory that's very good at fleece or that's very good at this that they know and trust versus like the independent factors i use maybe they have kind of shitty cotton poly fleeces and like they aren't as like nice and plush so really whatever sample comes back to me whether it be middleman or a direct factory the best yeah that's kind of what i go with and so it it's definitely i would say the balance now is like 20 middlemen's 80 factory direct but sometimes with middlemen depending on the product if the margin's good enough it's worth the headache but i will say like there's been different eras of alfleet where like like right now i'm looking at working with middlemen a lot more on like men's stuff and but with women's we're diving in a lot more direct with factory so it's just kind of it varies on product on the on what you're trying to do and sometimes like it's worth it um if i don't want to have such a large team in-house so like more in-house team more salaries more in-house designers and you need all these different roles to kind of do what a middleman can kind of handle so as long as you're not getting effed out of your mind with middlemen then it's not a terrible solution yeah it's something which i've experienced and i feel as though the what i have seen myself the middleman is taking a lot yeah probably 30 percent and that's just kind of preventing me from expanding the way that i want to expand so i was thinking of maybe like okay what if i go down the route of trying to just hire the team that the middleman has and just you know deal straight with the the manufacturer but i just i know that's going to become a fucking headache like just the time and effort will need to go into hiring the team building the team the risk that you'll need to take it is more risky the additional expenses where i'm like you know what i just i don't know with all the other things that i've got going on at the moment i don't know if that's i'll tell you if you think if you're looking at the product and being like is this middleman helping me get a literal better product that's more intricate that's more detailed that's uh something that and i i guess i can compare because i i see what the direct result is from direct factory so i'd be like fuck like okay they're bringing some design elements or bringing like these laser cuts that i wouldn't have thought of and shit like they're bringing ideas and stuff that my fashion designer that i have wow he's not he's not as good as like their team of people that can request these certain things and certain certain uh certain whatever stitches and i want this uh glued hem at the bottom and just there are certain levels that like sometimes it's worth it if you really think that they're helping you get to a better product but if you're doing a basic like something more basic then i would say it's definitely worth it to establish a direct line with a factory so that they would be doing it because they want you to have a better product so that you will sell more so that you will order more and they will make more money correct like the middlemen that we're using right now at that 20 are so hungry to do well because they know because i'm telling them the truth if you guys murder it and kill it i'll slowly start letting you try more product i'll slowly let you dabble into the women's and let you give it a shot at the samples right and that's it's highly motivating because like that can be a way for them to you know infinitely grow their the revenue yeah right so help me like it's so it's very dependent on the situation and product but i i find also like just being blunt dealing with eight to ten factories direct is a lot more of a headache than dealing with like four middlemen or three middlemen yeah a lot more you know what what are some of the the pinpoints moments that you can remember which were either the most stressful or sketchy times for the clothing brand well once it was already kind of up and running was there any points where things got a little bit hairy or was it all right probably i would say honestly like 2021 was the company's going like this or i should say our revenue's going like this um alfland expenses and alfley headquarters expenses are high i didn't allocate like i didn't at all know what i was really getting into with a construction build and with buying a big property and everything and though it made sense financially like at the beginning and i got i had some people look over it and look at my account be sure i can like i can afford this right 100 like it's a good move but this was taking some of the money from alfali correct alfali it's buying our headquarters athletes paying for our all the upstairs that you see all that construction all that for all all of that right it's but while also investing so much money to exponentially grow the company your deposits are way bigger your risk is way bigger i was ordering tons of volume of certain products not knowing if they were going to hit or not just really high confidence level and the part to answer your question like what was the most kind of risky part of that was really that i just i had no in-house finance person i had no no no i had an accountant but they were always outsourced so i had you making all this i was making the calls based off my gut man and and like as much as i wanted to just have guidance and help it's almost like any of the account the accounting teams I was using, they were just back.

44:22They were so busy and chaotically trying to get me caught up for all the like just growth and using the wrong cards or accounts on this and that and getting it all cleaned up. They were always like, I've never been ahead. Right. Like at that point, I was never ahead of my quarterly pay was always like they're playing catch up. I got to run and I got to keep this thing growing. So it was like no guidance, no guidance. And in 2021, one, we did$80 million in revenue. Right. And so if you're doing$80 million in revenue, you're placing deposits for, you know, two and a half, 3 million, 3.5. There were days where I was sending out two and a half million dollars of cash in a day for deposits when they're due.

45:05And all while not really actually having like a clear zoomed out view of, okay, if I'm ordering this much, what does this next launch have to hit for me to like be safe? You know what I mean? So it was very much gut. And thankfully it fucking worked out, bro. But like now we have director of finance. We have, we've leaned off of the outsource accounting and outsource for the longest time until literally last year, 2024, outsource accounting, outsource HR. So AKA all the HR comes to me, all the accounting, it's just all like dependent on me and assistant really. and so it was really a challenging time because i didn't want to slow down i didn't want to have to sit in the meeting just like go over all this stuff in the past i have to keep i have to be in the now and the future really the future because i'm ordering 18 months out 14 months out i can't be slowed down with like whatever happened in 2020 or 2019 or you know it's i have like i need to go over here so i didn't want to give my time over here because i knew i'd be sacrificing what we could be doing yeah the cost and like was just not worth it wasn't worth the time sacrifice you know to slow down in my head what did this uh new financial advisor i imagine they've gone through all the past uh expenses and everything what do they say well about your behavior i mean no one could say any no the thing is like i was spending a lot but we were making a lot and so we were still profiting like crazy so it's like at the end of the day they're like keep doing what you're doing yeah right and so imagine if someone had told you like oh you need to be more conservative i'd be like you don't understand yeah and i'm sure that like comes across so like cocky but it's just like what i was doing every year was working so what it took for me to kind of take a step back and be like fuck okay what is in 2023 just being totally transparent that's the first year where we had so much built up inventory at the end of the year and this is when we had finally outsourced our warehouse so i was in we you know in houston kind of similar to like max to space here we had a 90 000 square foot facility that we were you know opera we were all shipping ourselves.

47:32I had all the staff, uh, we were doing all of that. And that was like a 70 to 90 person team. Like we would bump it up on, you know, black Friday and birthday selling things to have like overnight shifts and all this, but it was such a headache and we were wasting so much money in house. So I ended up, uh, moving to a fulfillment center and the fulfillment center. That's when it became super apparent. Holy crap. Now this excess inventory is costing me big time. Just if it's not moving it's costing me right so the amount that that started costing when i wasn't moving product due to all the years where i was like i'm gonna order more i just like i was on a high of like okay whatever we do is gonna hit right 2021 2022 we were still growing like crazy well 2023 i had to actually like we had to destroy some inventory and not some a lot to manage because it costs so much money just to sit on the shelf correct and what was it just like items in sizes that would be like for example um and the way it works is like the more volume an item takes up and then where else so let's say a backpack if in 2020 i launched backpacks and we sold 5 ,000 in six months right when we sold out i was like okay i need 10 ,000 right well it turns out people got a backpack they don't necessarily want the next one so i'm stuck with 9 000 backpacks for example that are taking up i don't know 50 10 15 000 square feet over my contract limit that are even through black friday i put them on discount they're not moving like we're not making dents in this product it's like fuck like and so yeah it's uh that's that's one of the biggest risks with clothing bro the biggest risk so it's pretty much 2023 major reality check yeah 2024 much less of a reality check but we still had like inventory management issues thankfully now we are in the best spot we've been in like three years how do you decide when to just get rid of something when you're weighing how much it's costing you how much uh and if something's been through let's say two to three major sale events.

49:48People are like, we don't want this. I'm not going to take it. Yeah. So, and I mean, the issue also is like, we expanded our product range so much because I was trying to like, trying to chase Gymshark, bro. I'm not going to lie. I was trying to, you know, and I think we kind of lost our identity in a way because I was just trying to go bigger and bigger and bigger and more. Like, I want to offer this. I want to have this. Versus when we started the company, it was much more intentional. Yeah. and this is the year that you're going to start seeing like from alfleet the much more intentional brand and getting back to really like what we want to do which is hone in on really good product put our name behind items that we are really proud of we're going to you know test them first with more conservative inventory if they respond well that's when we restock instead of me just going balls to the wall all i cared about was really genuinely like increasing revenue year after year not knowing what the consequence looked like because for eight years straight this is a good podcast bro for eight years straight i was like everything is working until it didn't yeah we'll get back to the podcast in a second but first of all i want to say a massive shout out to bionic i have been using their supplements for the past four years i never knew what supplements i needed to take i'd always go into the pharmacy and buy a load of random bottles and end up popping pills all day, every day, not having a clue if I was consuming the vitamins, which I should be consuming at all.

51:14But Bionic came to save the day. They are a tailor-made supplement company that will put together your own specific formula based on your activity, your gender. I have Bionic Pro, where I get the blood test done every three to four months. And based on that blood test, I get my own personalized formula. For those people who don't want to do a blood test or don't have access to that then you can go with bionic go where you just have to fill in a short questionnaire and based on that questionnaire you will get your tailored supplements with a surprisingly high degree of accuracy so stop the guesswork sign up to bionic and ensure that you remove those deficiencies and build up your immune system what would you say has changed over the past 10 years regarding what helps to shift product because i know there was a there was definitely a period of time where big influencers were helping brands to sell their products but then as time went on a lot of these big influencers started to stop promoting other brands and then they would create their own brands because it was it became much easier to start your own brand it was more of a think yeah i mean how are these these trends changing it's a good question i mean to me i would say the just the two biggest things that impacted us in the last few years were number one like you just said more brands popping up influencer led and influencer found i love to see it it's like that's me also like i love to see people like pursuing what they want to do and like their own vision and you know knowing that man i could really do this on my own like let me not rely on a brand and like taking that big jump but obviously that's more competition that's more options it's more fitness brands but what really affected us was in the last three years bro the amount of like dupes on amazon like knockoffs cheap versions of product that look similar right i mean once we came out with the scrunch legging they amplify within it took about 18 months to two years but you start seeing brands on amazon that literally using our product photos with a different name on the back that starts with an a it's just like literally identical the quality shit but the price it's like two for whatever crazy and like over time as we that that started taking market share bro it's like if i can get it cheaper times are tough i'm gonna go here so that's when like you really need to rely on your brand your quality yes but like you have to have really strong more and a reason for people to support and not just choose to save the money so like that was those two things the dupes and the just a rise of so many other options while like slacking off on our marketing not intentionally but like we weren't hitting the mark so those three together put us through a rough time what was the main most effective form of marketing for you guys it's changed so before it used to be our campaign videos and our beautiful like imagery right as in like very high quality production very very artsy very very we brought that kind of element just like the cinematics were brought to the youtube channel we tried to bring that to the brand and it worked for many years but i would say like when covid hit and all the marketing started sort of shifting you know the organic trend came in we were late to the party we were stuck in our ways of like we i want the grid to be cohesive i want you know trying to be like a perfectionist oh bro i would plan that grid out to be color coordinated to the max it'd be perfect rose it was all this but like and at the time it was work the website was beautiful everything went together so well but over the last like three to four years that's really changed yeah there would be some people just literally put an iphone on a tripod and then they just put it on and they talk about why they like it and that's what and that's what works now yeah so it is very different very very different yeah i guess that just highlights the importance of how quickly you need to pivot adjust and adopt to what the current trend is yeah yeah um while still like finding a way to stay true to your brand yeah right so it's this year uh in april we have a our first we've been in business 10 years now for alfleet and we have our first rebrand officially so it's like the last few years have really caused us to look internally and be okay what do we need to do to establish who we are where we're going and how we We want to model like every decision we make.

56:07And so our goal this year, starting in April, is to like truly lean into being hyper intentional about every move that we make, every product we make, every influencer we bring on, anybody we choose to represent the brand, any event that we do. What are we tying it to? Why are we doing it? um it's really like been a yeah it's i and i'm happy it's it's weird to say like i'm happy that we had these hard years but i am because if you're just on your highs bro like you'll never you'll never well you get too complacent you get way too complacent and you don't innovate and stay on top of your game and then someone else will just take over yeah where do you see it like in an ideal world in five to ten years time and do you see yourself exiting or is it not something you really think about i don't see my okay that's a with exiting during all those hyper years we had investment people trying to come in and this and that i was like oh fuck off i don't care like we don't need that and to this day like with alpha elite it depends on the business like 3d i want to exit i want to find a way to grow the really really grow it i want to be able to exit and have that become something that you know can hopefully in five to ten years you know be a huge chunk of how i can kind of like be a little bit more comfortable let the money make money on its own that kind of deal just throw it all into the gym throw it all into the junk and build the gym out even more but yeah like yeah the gym don't want to sell it alfleet i don't want to i won't exit but who knows maybe one day down the road there may be a like an opportunity for me to sell a chunk or so like a piece yeah like have you ever thought about giving away equity and teaming up with somebody who can and that's like what i'm learning now especially like hanging out with her mosey hanging out with like a lot of these people like you realize like okay to to grow something really bigger and bigger but and this is where it gets tricky because like that used to i used to only want to grow bigger bigger bigger bigger so now that my goals with the brand have kind of shifted to like right now all i give a fuck about is not i'm not thinking about exit or sale i'm thinking about how can i build a community to be stronger than ever and how can i build that cult following where people know and trust alfleet and what we're going to do and it's like right now that's my focus and i would say that's going to be the next three years three to five years so as long as we stay there and at the same time, learn from our mistakes and stay more conscious of bottom line margin.

58:42Are we healthy as a company? Are we like not just being super like what's Christian's gut saying to do? Let's just order 5 ,000 of the backpacks. Like I want to evolve from that into a more structured, you know, a more, not, not structured in corporate. I know when I say structured in corporate people, no, don't do that without fleet. That's not what I mean. I just mean a more informative decision based we make decisions based off of data based off it's working we're being sure we have a good eye on the bottom line to be sure we don't lose money that makes sense so talk to me about the 3d this is uh i mean the clothing is competitive but the energy drink business is also competitive so how did this idea start and how did you launch with 3d uh pretty much i was known back in the early days of my youtube as the white monster guy bro jesus you probably made them a lot of money made a lot of money and and as any expo i'd go to any event people would bring me cases i'd be signing white monsters and just like that was my thing i loved them but i didn't love how they would you know after one your stomach kind of hurts you get you know you feel the bloat yeah so it's not something you really want to consume and then go do a workout not at all because it just especially if you like got to the point of having two a day bro like i mean your stomach hurts yeah so i wanted to i knew that okay if i can break into if i can make an energy drink i don't know how i would ship it i don't know how i would do logistical part of creating it but i would be sure it just wasn't as carbonated and didn't make my stomach hurt so the concept was with 3d was like originally it was should be an energy shot like a five hour energy and come in like a 12 pack a really nice case and like little foam inserts and pop them out and like you know because i was like oh i can ship that for affordable instead of trying to ship a 12 pack of 16 ounce cans but the energy drink is what i wanted to do because i knew that was what people correlated me to yeah so it's like max with his sour strips candy it's like it makes sense exactly so in 2016 uh i met these two guys from bite meals at the time that was a meal prep company that would ship, you know, frozen meals out and like they were meal prep and they would have like dry ice and the containers, whatever, like all packaged.

1:01:01And that's very impressive to ship and like have a company that can ship online, but they're, you know, actually getting you a pretty affordable deal. So these guys, and I was working with them. So the two guys that come to Houston to talk to me about bite meals, we started talking about Alfleet started talking about, you know, man, I would love to start an energy drink, but man, the shipping like i don't know how i'd figure that out they go i think we can help you with that i'm like really so and they had already had connections with like a factory in kentucky that could do flavoring so i was like all right well do run some numbers see like what we could ship a 12 pack of energy cases for and so the issue was not the actual putting the drink together No, it was the logistics of shipping.

1:01:48Because you can't just go into gas stations or you can't just go into distributors with nothing. So I knew the only way to do it is we have to start it by being online. We have to leverage the online presence to be able to kick this off. So they came back with like, okay, we can ship a 12-pack of cases or 12-pack of 3D for, I don't know, it was like$9. And that could be like a three to five day delivery. so i was like okay so if we sell it for 29.99 free shipping delivered to your door divide that by 12 it comes out to like i don't know two dollars and 24 or 25 cents a can delivered with shipping when i go to the gas station i'm paying 270 for a monster we got it right i was like we figured it out so we got the 3d made we made it less carbonated more juice kind of tasting so it was easy on the stomach the flavor was good the the branding was simple monster was so like kind of gaudy i want to do something completely solid color very neutral um very minimal and we launched and we sold 150 000 of cans in a day online we took that information my partners at the time we made it you know we made an agreement they took that to the to gas stations they took that to a few meetings we got into 7-eleven we got into gnc based off hey look we just sold 20 in 24 hours we sold 150k give us a shot and they did so yeah um things started kicking off for 3d so if you say you said you get in 7-eleven that's every single seven no select stores select stores so once they would give me let's say they gave me a list of like 10 stores that they were going to put it in i would get on my social and be like guys i need you to run to these locations and take this inventory and then they'll give us 20 stars because they it's a they're testing it yes yeah okay that's same with gnc as well and how did that go and walmart with target we were getting to heb we were rapidly growing peak year we did 12 million 12 million dollars in revenue um and i don't want to get into the if you guys want to watch like pretty much i had a breakup with those partners that dragged out for like five six years um so they ended up just starting a brand that looked identical to 3d called prime uh with logan hall and so same color can same everything and their attention went there 3d got put on the back burner from my perspective right and i did not know that yeah and i just came out with this information like two months ago when i did my what happened to 3d video because we were in like about to go into a lawsuit spent a ton of money on lawyer it was just like one of those really not good situations so over yeah if anything's going to slow down the growth of it that it completely shut it down so what what's interesting though is even with no movement on 3d like it was to the point we wouldn't even speak to each other man like at all still doing 10 million a year yeah like even last year which is crazy that shows how strong the brand is so long story short I got 100 % equity of the brand.

1:05:01I said, or else I'm going to go through with this. We're going to go through something ugly. So they gave me the company. I found new partners from Raw, Bum Energy. We have a whole game plan of what we're going to do to separate 3D. We're rebranding it. We're taking all the artificial colors out. We're relaunching in May. We've already got two massive contracts, bigger than any contracts we've ever dealt with in the past before, lined up and ready to go in may um and many more to come it's so funny because i remember there being a hype about it but then i remember it just not being a thing anymore i had no idea that was one of them prime launched yeah and holy fuck that got some attention although i think that's kind of i feel like it's dropped off a little bit i will say it wasn't such an issue when prime hydration dropped because that was the first thing that dropped it was when prime energy dropped for me that that was that was like the fucking kick in the face yeah because i was like we literally in our contract agreed that we are not us partners are not going to start competing energy drinks yeah period and y 'all just started yeah and now our shelf space where we were now just prime instead of 3d so i literally just saw it get swapped yeah so that it definitely sucked but when i came out i mean honestly i just gave a more in-depth explanation now than i did on my what happened a 3d video yeah i just wanted to you know keep it professional but i mean yeah it fucking sucked yeah it fucking sucked and um but and honestly bro i'm not gonna lie like i really was even last year was very ready to just call it quits on 3d liquidate fine be done with it the space is too competitive and i don't want to get back in it because it's just gonna be too hard but thank god for this loyal fall and thank god that all the connections that were the contracts we're signing now they remember 3d they remember what happened so what actually happened like it was selling people loved it people ask you about it to this day and so that me being open about like what's happened to this point i plan on documenting the journey like fully with every step every contract every flavor testing every every step of the way and um now that i've got partners that i really believe are going to help me expedite this growth we're going to come in aggressive pricing so it's attainable it's no artificial anything it's clear liquid sits great in the stomach they taste better than the originals i think it's i had one earlier it was delicious the new one right yeah i don't even know if i can say what it is but it was delicious and i think i'm excited for it right i feel i'm just proud i didn't give up on it yeah because i was really close man i mean really close um just because it's it was such an overwhelming like how am i going to get back into it and if i had to do it on my own this is the one business where i have partners 3d yeah because it's it's one where i imagine trying to do that myself i mean it was it was that me and heidi have had many long conversations this year about it like can we and what was she she's saying she she's saying you need partners right and i mean as much as i agree yes i do and there's still that part of me that's like but i can figure it out and and that's like at what cost though yeah and so but luckily i don't have to go down that road i've established really good strong relationships that we're moving forward with so the future looks bright man i'm pumped what what advice could you give to people who are potentially looking to partner up with people uh whether it be launching a business or scaling a business because i know this such a huge decision to make like who you are going to be splitting the equity with like what have you what have you learned and working with these new partners what were you taking into consideration i think most people should not start off with partners okay like straight up i i think that in most cases you need to try to do it yourself try to like do with minimal resources try to hire people for roles or higher positions that can do the same because a lot of times i think when people are starting something you're here sitting on the couch with your friends and And you're talking about your, maybe you have some drinks.

1:09:31You're like, you don't want to be sick, bro. What if we did this? Right. What if we did that? I think it's very easy in those early stages to be like, Mike, you're great at social media. I don't like being on camera. I'm pretty good at business. Like I'm in business school. This friend over here, they're, um, they're really good with talking to people right in person. So like they could be our person that goes and like talks to distributors. I can be the factory. you can be the social media let's let's do it together right even split 33 33 33 but the issue with it is when you're starting off already thinking like that and already like willing to it's different i don't know it's really different when you've already grown something and you've already like you're if you're getting bottlenecked by yourself or like by with your team and you know that okay this partnership can really bring value in expediting this growth or they can really bring something to the table that that is not with the previous partners did they have experience they had were they friends they were not friends but they had they brought the shipping expeditions they brought the helping with the formula they're like we can literally make it to where you just get you do the marketing approve the flavors do the can design and we'll handle everything else so it it sounded good so i did it and i don't regret doing it yeah i don't regret doing it um but again that that was a hell of a headache yeah so i think that so you're willing to partner up now because it's it's already kind of established and it is still selling it's still it has very good potential it's still doing 10 million revenue a year with no love that's pretty fucking good though i agree and that's like with like five accounts so it's like it's it's it's actually crazy is this from what's the split with online orders versus people oh it's like all in person okay yeah okay so there's people who see it on the shelf and they're like but it's just very few stores that carry it right now yeah but the stores that do carry it are ordering a lot yeah and it's pretty i'm not going to say it's easy to do if you do 10 million dollars in clothing sales online it's very different than doing 10 million dollars in a physical product that's like in multiple locations yeah very very very different and um i would just say to be very to go back to like the advice on like partnering i don't want to say like you don't need it's not right of me to say you don't need partnered this and that but i would just say like really try to find a way ask yourself like deep down is this something i can do myself if i really if I really try, if I actually like apply myself, can I like get this going?

1:12:19Can I get the else? Can I, can I get this moving? Most likely the time will be yes. Yeah. They are the answer will be yes. And I would say, try to keep it in house as much as you can until you reach a point where you realize that going into something with somebody could really, they could bring something that you can't bring and but oftentimes with that said like you can usually hire whatever that will be but in certain cases like for me with uh with the with the raw guys right this is something where i have so much on my plate i was gonna say i i feel like knowing you if this was the only thing you were doing you could probably do it yourself if you put all your time and attention into it yeah you got too much going on too much going on you've got the clothing you've got the gym summer shredding the bodybuilding league yes so they're the four main just four yeah yeah and then person if you count personal brand or whatever yeah that's a lot it's a lot and i'm like trying to have a family yeah and i've i've been watching your content like over the years and i feel like there was there was definitely one point where it was getting too much the work oh yeah and you'd stop like looking after your your health a little bit or your mental health a million percent bro i like and there's i didn't even we didn't even talk about odelia which is this fashion brand that i invested 2.2 million dollars in and ended up canceling because i started it and i made the announcement i made the decision to start it when i was just so hyped on everything happening i was young i was like i can fucking handle i can do it i can do it turns out that happened like during the when i had to destroy that inventory for our fleet same year where i had to make the call i can't fucking take anything more on my plate we have to scrap it or else it's going to keep costing me more money you invested into another oh yeah bro a fashion brand called adelia yeah why do you want to do that i was like 24 and i was like you know it was a startup at that point or was it it never launched it never launched two mil gone oh yeah stupid that was this going to be just you or like a that was well so i had essentially my fashion designer for alfleet that really like excelled with me in the early years i allocated that project over to like hey i want you to run this here's money to do it let's like but it long so it just didn't work bro and there was more so like there was so much on my plate that i couldn't handle giving any attention to it and i was like i this is just way too much over my head i was addicted to adderall trying to like keep up not sleeping um and just in a very bad place physically mentally um i don't want to say that because i was i was willing to push myself to any limit i'll just say that and like literally any limit um to do what i committed to doing i remember watching one video you had your orange hoodie yeah yeah greg just did a video on that one yep i was like what's and honestly bro seeing that video that greg did like really was what i needed to kind of like fuck i need to chill the fuck out and that was like after that was a whole night no sleeping and but i had already committed this video was going up so i have to get a film i have to get it on i have to like and then i remember like uploading and falling asleep waking up to this like and i was like what did i just do i was like you you've edited and uploaded this yeah i was like oh fuck man wasn't like what's going on yeah oh man but that's become a long way from there yeah it's weird do you feel like you're you're trying to give yourself more time to i don't know find this work life balance a little bit or do you just do you just love going all in on the grind no i am what i'm realizing is like i don't want to say it's necessarily like just work life it is work life it is but it's also like I'm, it took that year of Alfleet going down for me to realize like, what am I doing?

1:16:32Trying to do all it, putting all my time and so much energy and all these things I'm competing. Why am I doing two shows and trying to do this? And when I can't even truly say that I have everything handled for my main business, like that, that was a big wake up call, bro. I was like, that was huge. And it was a big reflection point one. That's 2023. that's the year we lost money first year that's the year that i was taking the most adderall until i finally like the day i finally competed my find my second show that was the last day i've taken adderall cold turkey and since then that was a monumental like just it took a few months for me to start feeling okay but really like 2024 is the year i really have been feeling like myself 2025 is where i feel like i'm ready to get back in but but like in a controlled i'm more aware now yeah than i ever have been i've never taken Adderall what's it like you've seen the movie limitless yeah that's how you feel really yeah i have to give it a try it's just probably illegal in Dubai the reason it's just so addictive though is because like i mean most people take it just like i took it for the first time in college right for a test is it like ritalin yeah same thing okay essentially the same thing i had ritalin at university the same exact thing i could not like i remember when i wasn't studying i just aggressively went around my house cleaning it and organizing everything that's how it started man it was like i could not sleep on it i was like take one get a good grade take one get all my meal plans knocked out once a week, Monday mornings, right?

1:18:18Take one. And then you just slowly over time, your dosage needs to go higher. You don't feel it as much. You feel like any business decision or any, anything I'm doing that's good just so happens I'm on it. So you start to correlate, like I need to be on it in order to do this meeting, or I need to be on it in order to do this or to do that. And like, eventually like with such a high tolerance buildup and I was prescribed by the way like a lot a lot 90 milligrams a day i was prescribed and i was finding a way to take more so it's like but at the same time like there's a time when 60 90 you don't i was stopped i wasn't feeling it right and it was just like it was so bad and i truly like advise anybody who's even if you think you're not relying on it just get off of it like just get off of it it's not you lose your soul bro yeah you really do how did heidi deal with that thing is like though i was on it and like very a lot i was still i was still very good i was still like come home i would still like give love attention it's like it didn't put me in a bad mood it's like it's i just became normal on it yeah i truly i felt like normal on it it just helped me like push through more.

1:19:36Right. So it's not like I was, I don't know. I think now that I've been off it, I like think back and I just don't want to think back to what those days look like, but I was still like me. It's just, I, I don't know. It's weird. It's very weird. That's the only thing I've ever had like an addiction to. And I've been open about it on my channel this year. But yeah, I think that's been the best thing I've done. Like I best decision I made ever was just, none of it anymore where do you think this drive comes from within you um i don't know man because you're i don't meet many people like you like you've you're really you're really pushing yourself and you really set you want to achieve a lot but it can be destructive it could be it's self-destructive 100 yeah like literally i i would when people would ask me about it like i would be in the years well one i put myself in many situations i love to commit to things to really give myself that deadline so there's been times where i'm like fucking take me like whatever i don't give a fuck like i will get through it i don't care what i'm gonna do to myself just like i need to get through this because i said i would do it and i think it just honestly i think it slowly became like it all stemmed from wanting to live this motivational, like, if I say I'm going to do it, I'm going to fucking do it.

1:21:02If I commit to something, you commit. Like, I think I just really like, you know, those early motivational speeches I was listening to and stuff were like, I mean, I really, truly like let that guide me. And I, I was like, I, and also the fact that I was putting myself out there to the public on YouTube, I truly have this ultimate fear of like letting my followers down and like letting them see like me not lead by example so like i think that pressure was always like the thing but in recent years it's been like let me fucking just say how it really is instead of just like pushing through and saying look i did it you know what i mean oh man you've you've achieved a lot i don't think you give yourself enough credit for what you've done thank you bro like obviously going around the facility today like i mean i've been around the world and i've seen a lot of gyms but the one thing that's cool about alfland is the it's the community and the type of people that are training there like it's just it's just like nice people like a good group of people and then obviously the facility itself is absolutely huge like you could go and have a different workout in a different area every day of the week thank you man trying to build it was always like trying to build the best gym we could yeah and it's just so happened that 18 and a half bigger property came available and it just so happened like i was in a position to be able to buy it and to be able to renovate it and to be able to you know so i don't know it's like i'm very grateful and blessed to be where i am yeah you've got so you've got that you've got the clothing are you going to continue with summer shredding or is that summer shredding is nice because it doesn't kill it doesn't it's not one of these that like it actually i would say summer Shriding is the only business that I really feel like if anything just gives me fuel.

1:22:52Yeah. It's, that's my, I would say my favorite, most rewarding business because it's just an amazing, we do a transfer. We have like nine divisions, men's transformation, women's transformation, your bodybuilding, classic physique, bikini, wellness figure, and a new fit physique, which is like a drug tested men's physique division. But the transformation classes are really what separate the, the organization. and we've had people i mean i don't want to go on and but it's like we have people that have literally lost hundreds of pounds they've transformed their lives they've been we have a new class called our comeback class where it's like i want to hear a pivotal point in your life that you went through that has turned you into who you are today if it's 50 pounds you lost 200 pounds like what but what really changed your life was it a car accident that made you really like we have a whole class dedicated to like stories we play, we have all the competitors that enter those divisions.

1:23:47They make videos. We play them on the big screen in front of the audience. They get to walk out at the end of the video. You see the before picture, then they walk out and you're like, what the fuck? And just like chills. And it's like, that's the most in that whole organization was built off my YouTube channel, summer shredding series. So it's like, it was, it's just, that's evolved into something so special. So like that, that doesn't take like, that's just exciting to go to the shows and i have a great event person ashley who who we have the rhythm down you know what i mean and now it's just like it's so much fun yeah that's the um i imagine that would be amazing for community building yeah are you gonna continue competing or not i'm not on the not on the list right now yeah just trying to live the mike thurston lifestyle get shredded and hold it yeah and um you look to start family soon, hopefully.