$247M Net Worth, $100k/Month Burn: Inside Onyi Odunukwe's Money

0:00Onyi Odunukwe says his net worth today sits at roughly$247 million. About$100 million of that is in commercial real estate he owns outright, and the rest is split between his tanning and wellness franchise businesses and 26 other businesses by his account. But how he got here is unusual. He's the son of two Nigerian immigrant doctors. His mom is a pharmacist and his dad is a surgeon. He was on track for medical school in Arkansas until a stranger financed a supplement store for him. And after he tasted the lifestyle of building businesses, he realized he never wanted to stop building. What originally started as an afterthought tanning salon grew to seven locations by the time he was 30.

0:41And now, eight years later, he has over 100 franchises with even more than that planning to be launched. What I love about getting to tell a story like Oni's is that his story is a business builder's playground. There's a Slack channel in the Hampton community that I'm a part of called Talk Business Ideas. And it's full of a bunch of founders and builders looking for their next business idea. If Oni's story fires you up as much as it does for me, you'll probably love the Hampton community too. Founders have done 25 million on average, built real businesses, compare notes with each other, and it's all private and safe.

1:15If that sounds like a world you want to join, over 1 ,000 founders already have, and we'd love to have you as well. Check it out at joinhampton.com or reach out to me personally and I'll hook you up. Now, let's get into this. I'm Daniel Burke, your host, and this is Money Wise. Well, Ani, thank you so much for joining us on Money Wise today. How are you doing?

1:33Onyi Odunukwe: Goa harito. I'm doing great. I'm really excited to jump into who you are, what makes you you, and what makes you unique. Tell me about yourself. Tell me what brings you to Money Wise today. Yeah, so my name is Ani Adedukwe. I am the son of Nigerian immigrants. My mom was born in London, my dad was born in Nigeria, but they both grew up in Nigeria. and both are doctorate. My mom's a PhD pharmacist. My dad's a surgeon. So I would say growing up was upper middle class, middle class, upper middle class probably, but my parents, you know, they have a very like modest lifestyle, so probably more middle class.

2:19Onyi Odunukwe: You know, I was going to follow in their footsteps. I wasn't going to go to med school, so I went to college for four years. I went to nursing school and actually dropped out my finals week, my senior year. And then I ended up finishing my degree about five, six years ago, but got into business at 21, formerly a bodybuilder. And so I had an opportunity where somebody would order finance a supplement store for me. So started doing that. I did really well with that. within, you know, six months was again location number two. Location number two was too large for a supplement store. So wanted to bring something, another modality in and ended up being tanning.

3:02Onyi Odunukwe: And that kind of, you know, has led me to where I'm at today. What did your parents say when you told them you were opening a tanning salon? That's a big difference from nursing school, medical school to tanning business operator. I mean, what was their reaction uh they weren't fond um i i think that you know that time i signed at least 2009 um this is back when everybody watched cnn and answer cooper came out with like a special one of those like you know almost 60 minute style specials about how bad team was um and i'm one of my best friends who's now a corporate lawyer in dc and and my dad were like hey i think this is a bad idea and then I just kind of kept with it and you know obviously I was right um but yeah I mean it was just you know I think sometimes people say like if I had to do all over again would I do it over again the answer is no but not because anything bad happened because I have no regrets but more just like the knowledge that I have now I would have made a more educated guess which would have led me away from what I did.

4:14Onyi Odunukwe: But sometimes like that, you know, immature naivete kind of allows you to just like do something that doesn't really make sense and it ends up working out. So when you look back on nursing school and on that sort of side, I guess, side quest to where you are now, do you think you would do it that way again? Do you think there were valuable lessons you learned on that, you know, initial part of the journey that led you to opening a business or was it unrelated? I mean, unrelated, I mean, I don't regret anything in life. So like, I don't like, I think every single thing led you to where you are.

4:48Onyi Odunukwe: So if you take one thing out, you, you'll go a different direction. So I don't have many regrets, but I don't think it, I don't think it helped me in my entrepreneurial journey at all. Sure. Uh, and I know you were a bodybuilder. You mentioned that you were Mr. Arkansas like twice, right? Not just once. Did that give you peek into tanning and the life of like tanning salons and is that initially what sparked the idea or was that unrelated as well just unrelated um it was just a random idea um i went to university of arkansas so you know moved to arkansas when i was 18 and uh a lot of the people at the university arkansas are actually from dallas i live in dallas now and they would just say how you know the tanning sucked in Arkansas and you know how much better it was in Dallas so and art and Fayetteville Northwest Arkansas that's where like Tyson corporate Walmart corporate all those are our station um is very white so so it's like a prime demographic for um you know for tanning so it made it made sense very interesting take me back to 2018 you started doing some franchises you sold five of your seven salons.

6:04Walk me through that day. What actually hit your account? Tell me about the acquisition process. What did that feel like?

6:11Onyi Odunukwe: Yeah. So, um, I was not interested in selling and I was approached and I was like, okay. Cause at the time I'm, I mean, I'm 30 years old. Um, just 30 and 30, uh i had five cars you know ferrari a house no kids no wife i'm you know making pretty good amount of money um and you know i i get this opportunity and somebody they you know they approach and i'm like the guy who connected us he told he told him he's like hey this is not a guy that you offer like a million dollars to and and he's gonna just you know accept it so they already kind of knew that going in i said hey you guys come down if you want to um that was palm beach corporate and which is like the largest chain in the world also based in dallas i was like you guys can you know come in come in town if you want to go look at the stores whatever we went to dinner that night and basically said hey this is where it needs to be and i'm going i'm going to london in a week with my new girlfriend at the time.

7:22Onyi Odunukwe: And if we have to close before I go or we just won't do the deal at all. I said, that's not much time, that's not whatever, that's my terms. They said, okay, well, let's get to work. We need access to your data and all these other things. I gave them the access. We closed in a week. After everything was paid, I received, uh, 2.3 million. Um, and I kept retained to two locations that I ended up, you know, selling for, um, 2.5 million. Um, so, uh, so yeah. Uh, but I took that 2.3 and then, you know, uh, curtailed that into how, you know, what I have to do. Sure. And you mentioned you had already purchased a number of cars.

8:11So 2018, you're already wealthy. So walk me through some of the different numbers of how much money you had in 2018, the sale of those five out of seven. And then now we're eight years removed from that. How has your wealth grown over that time? Yeah.

8:28Onyi Odunukwe: So I thought I was wealthy then. I had no real assets besides the house. I think I bought that house for 260 ,000 or 260 ,000 or 260 million would be crazy. crazy yeah um so so so i i was just like you know i think very like much like uh any probably late 20s early 30s just making over a half million dollars a year um i would say my net worth back then so i had 30 my net worth was probably three to four million um something around there My net worth today is, let me leave my approach, $247 ,670 ,000, so around$250 ,000 is net worth today. So I've pretty much doubled my net worth every year for the last eight years.

9:34so how does that break down the two let's call it 250 just for the sake of yeah rounding where is that money now is that liquid wealth or is that in assets tell me about that um so about

9:47Onyi Odunukwe: 100 million in commercial real estate um 194 million in business um and a little less than 10 million in cash and equities. And public equities like index funds or what does that cash count look like? Yeah. Index funds, crypto, money market accounts, all of those. So the majority is in a split between business and private assets, which we know you could sell a franchise sort of whenever, which I'm interested in. We're going to come back to that in a second because I would like you to explain more about the franchising operation to me. But you said$100 million in commercial real estate. What does that mean?

10:31Onyi Odunukwe: So I own the building I'm in right now. So this building I bought for$5.25 million. It's now worth a little over$12 million. So I have$6 million in equity, which is$6 million towards my net worth. I own about 27, 28 of these. I have another one closing in my two weeks and two more under contract. So I buy about 5 % in the year. Is that a Skyrise? I can see the background here. No, it's just a commercial strip center. Okay, cool. Very cool. So you own? Yeah, so I own about a quarter of all the centers that glows in. from just retail centers that you would see anywhere in America that have, you know, Verizon, T-Mobile, Starbucks, you know, Glenville, whatever it is.

11:24Onyi Odunukwe: So I own a bunch of those. Is that because you are the Glow founder or is it like which came first, the chicken or the egg? No, no, no. Glow came first for sure. I didn't start buying commercial real estate until five and a half years ago. Because it just made sense to own the building where those franchises were launching, it sounds like. Yeah. And then it also is just diversification tool. I also own a construction company. So it just makes sense. It's like I can build the location inside of it. I can renovate the exteriors of these locations. I do a lot of value add. So I'm not buying, just like this building right here.

12:02Onyi Odunukwe: If I buy a building within two years, I typically am able to double the value of the building. So a commercial real estate, if I have$100 million in venture real estate, I have about$40 million in debt on real estate. Or actual purchase price on my commercial real estate might be closer to 50 million. So I'll probably have 10 million cash into it, 40 million debt and 50 million in equity or 60 million in equity. Okay. And walk me through, like pretend I'm an idiot. What is a franchise? How does it work? How does someone open a franchise? How much money of their own equity do they need to put into that?

12:38How much do you make? And then how do you actually make money from that franchise who I imagine the operator is putting a lot of that up front to operate that? So walk me through that process.

12:50Onyi Odunukwe: Yeah. So I'll just go with Glow. Okay. So Glow costs about$1.1 million to open location. So the franchise, he pays a$45 ,000 up front franchise fee. And they pay that to you? Yeah. Okay. and then we get them lending so awesome the lending company so we carry them with the lender then we do this for other franchises as well and get a percent of the bank basically pays us a commission for it so we get them the lending typically they put down about 10 percent so they'll put down about 120 to 150 000 down on the loan and then they get built out they open once you're open you pay nine and a half percent of all your revenue um to uh corporate um which i don't know um so so yeah so that's how that's pretty much how it works um and then obviously we have corporate expense like we you know own a building and we have staff and corporate you know um uh you know corporate staff and all that but it's a pretty profit once you get to a certain level over a hundred locations is pretty profitable.

14:07And, um, so we're at that level and,

14:10Onyi Odunukwe: um, yeah. So now with franchising Blackstone bought Jersey Mike's for, for a billion, they, they gave a 40 X multiple of franchise revenue, not profit revenue. So once, when anything that Blackstone and Blackrock does, every PE firm basically copies. So now franchising is a huge asset class for PE. So PE is offering anywhere, as long as your EBITDA is above, for sure, and they're not sure anything below$2 million, but$5 million at out. So they're offering anywhere from 28X up to 40X multiples. Both. um so so that you know that is kind of the evaluation i mean i had an offer last june for 49 of glow for 250 mil i turned it down really why'd you turn it down um it's a good question my wife asked myself question um i i think that i was not uh I didn't have, I've sold before and obviously I got a lot less, but two, two, two and a half million dollars, you know, eight years ago was the same thing to me as$250 million today.

15:39Onyi Odunukwe: I sound very weird, but that's, you know, based on what I make and how I feel and all that, that's pretty much the same thing. And I sold last time I was lost, you know, because I've been doing this for so long and I enjoy what I do. And I have like, my sister's a franchisee. My dad's a franchisee. Um, all my best friends are franchisees. Um, you know, there's people that I met through this process that are really good friends now that are franchisees. And I know that a lot of times PE comes in, they kind of fuck shit up to lack, lack of a better way to say it. Um, but, um, so, so I just didn't feel, you know, like, Hey, what's my off ramp because the reason why I sold and got back in, And if I was going to get back in, I would have never sold in the first place.

16:24Onyi Odunukwe: Sure. But it's because I just didn't know what else to do. I'm really good at what I do now, so why not just keep doing what I'm doing? So that's why I did. So I didn't have that thing. Since then, I've opened a few more franchises. A nail salon, subscription-based nail salon concept, as well as a coffee shop that's also going to be a franchise. uh so since then i've i've added a few other things so now i feel more comfortable also understanding how it works where you know you don't have to even with them saying 49 percent um 49 means i still have patrol right so yes so as long as i'm not losing control and i understand to pay, I'm just taking money off the table more or less than I am getting rid of my baby in a sense.

17:21Onyi Odunukwe: So those are the things that I kind of had to understand. So if that opportunity presented itself again, I would probably say yes now. Oney already had one exit under his belt,$2.3 million in 2018, which at that time felt like a lot of money to him. So when private equity came back a few years later, offering him$250 million for less than half of Glow, you'd think that'd be an easy yes. But he said no. And it wasn't because the math didn't add up, but it's just because he didn't know what he'd actually do next. It's a strange kind of problem to have, but it's a real one that so many founders I talk to resonate with.

17:56The better you get at something, the harder it gets to imagine walking away from it. This is the exact kind of conversation that I have every day inside of Hampton. Founders compare their offers, exits, and what actually changes once the number gets a lot bigger than they were initially expecting. Hampton is a community for people doing real revenue who want to talk about this stuff with their peers, not for an audience. If you're looking for that group of people who will legitimately make you a better founder, exited founder, CEO, business builder in general, click the link in the description or check it out at joinhampton.com.

18:30So I guess what's changed? Because your reasoning for turning it down the first time is solid reasoning. What's changed with your mindset and your hopes and your dreams from turning it down to now that you would accept it if offered it again?

18:44Onyi Odunukwe: Um, understanding like the leverage understanding, you know, nothing really changes if you negotiated correctly. Um, and, and understanding all those, all those points. Cause I've had a couple of friends that are founders of franchises that are in the process of, you know, basically, you know, cashing out, um, not fully. Um, and so understanding that process now, uh, makes me feel a lot more comfortable. Um, and then, and then also having that off ramp. So that thing that is my next thing that I can go do. So understanding those things. Yeah. So it sounds like money, you mentioned$2.5 million and$250 million, like it doesn't make a difference.

19:26What are you actually spending every month that it sounds like money, more money doesn't really make any difference for you anymore. Tell me about what you spend per month that makes that reality.

19:37Onyi Odunukwe: What am I spending per month? I would say like per like personal you're saying like yeah yeah what do you what do you spend per month I would say about 75 to 100 ,000 a month uh some months are 50 some months are over 100 but probably on average uh some somewhere around there um and what does that break down to travel a lot um I have a full-time driver um I have a bunch of chauffeur cars um i have a live-in nanny um i have uh you know a few houses one dallas one in tampa um probably goes up significantly here soon building another house the mortgage on that's probably gonna be about 50k 50k a month um about to buy a ranch so that's probably another 25k a month so um yeah i mean that that's that's really it um that yeah what do you spend on the live-in nanny i'm curious not not much um living nanny is probably four grand a month okay yeah we have two kids and a third on the way and i'm i'm always curious i'm like you know that would be nice that would take a load off uh a little nanny 100 worth it 100 you said you have a driver and chauffeured cars so tell me the difference there why you why do you have both um so so i have a driver who drives my my so like i have a i don't know if you know like the metros vans like it's like the this little small yep so i have a couple of those i have one of the big sprinters um i have uh you know escalade um i have a rose royce um so these are all cars like i can be driven in um so i have a driver on the driver you know drives me wherever i need to go it's just a lot safer um because i work all the time um so yeah that's just another expense and how does that work you call them up and they're on hold for you?

21:33Do they have a number of clients they work with or full-time with you? Right, it's full-time with me.

21:38Onyi Odunukwe: Yeah, full-time means W-2 salary. Yeah, no, he's on call anytime that I meet him. What do you pay them? About 60K a year. That's cool. That's very cool. Do you drive a lot? I mean, I'm curious what that comes out to hourly in a week. How often do you drive somewhere? Not really. um not not not too much but like if we have like a doc my wife's pregnant right now so we have like say a doctor doctor appointment this morning he comes to the house picks us up drop us right off at the front we go in you know i might have one other appointment so i mean he might drive 20 hours a week and then some weeks you know it might even be um or like sometimes you know my parents have like a ranch in Oklahoma that's like two and a half hours from Dallas.

22:30Onyi Odunukwe: So my son, the nanny and the kids up with him and he drops them off and then he'll go back. That's nice. You know, things like that. But sometimes I'm, you know, I travel a lot, so I might be gone for a week. So he doesn't do anything for a week. He still gets paid. All right, Money Wise listeners, quick reality check. It's that time of year when you catch yourself thinking, why didn't I start earlier. We knew summer was coming. It always does. And if you keep doing what you usually do, you'll blink and it'll be New Year's again. Same story, same body, same excuses. That's why today's sponsor is Daily Body Coach.

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24:15Onyi Odunukwe: um a mix uh i mostly business in general um but like so like i'm doing a diary of ceo next week in london so like but like my grandma my mom's whole family lives there at my birthdays next week so we'll go there for my birthday and then also do the you know do the podcast and come home So it's like, I make, you know, I make work also fun. That makes it sense. I love that. Yeah, I think you're an interesting guy. I mean, that's a good life. I remember when you, I saw something you had said way back when you started, and it was that your goal was 10 million. And you've obviously blown past that goal.

24:59So my question is, like, at what point did you have enough where any more money wouldn't have made a meaningful amount of difference in your life?

25:09Onyi Odunukwe: Well, I always tell people, I say, there's no difference between one and two million. There's a big difference between one and 10. There's no difference between 10 and 20 million. There's a big difference between 10 and 100. So unless I am able to 10X what I have, like I'm not going to double the amount of work that I have unless there's an ability to 10X what I have. And then there's also that like very, you know, if I get, you know, I'll probably have a liquidity event the next whole day, 18 months, right? Where I'll have, I'll clear, you know, minimum 100 million cash. Once you get to that 100 million cash, right?

25:54Onyi Odunukwe: Because I, you know, I have a, you know, network for a quarter of a billion dollars right now, but I don't have that, you know, not even nearly in cash. I know it's only like 4%, right? You get to 100 million cash. I take the 100 million cash and not even invest it correctly, just put it into index funds and get a return of$10 million a year. Right? That's like$800 ,000 a month. And you never touch that money. Plus, you also have all the other assets that you have in addition to that. So it gets really easy to compound wealth once you have a lot of it. um and that's what you know getting from 1 million to 5 million was a lot harder than getting from 50 to to 250 um so i i don't i don't think my motivation is not money um i probably only spend five to ten percent of what i make um i reinvest the rest so i actually live a pretty frugal life um you know i'm not i'm not like flying private all the time or any of that i don't even fly first class, you know?

27:00Onyi Odunukwe: Um, so, um, you know, I, I, I think money is just a, money is just a good KPI or metric to, of success. So it's like, Hey, if I can get to a billion dollars, that means I achieved the pinnacle of success when it comes to just business and entrepreneurship, right? Not, Hey, I need a billion dollars because I can't live life, um, to his fullest with a billion dollars because I would never spend that. I couldn't really see myself spending more than probably$2 million a year. I just don't see how that's impossible. And if that's the case, I can live from now till I die and still pass on a very pretty good inheritance for my kids spending$2 million a year and I would have to earn another dollar.

27:54You mentioned you have a$75 ,000 to$100 ,000 monthly burn, and you're spending about 5 % to 10 % of what you make. So are you paying yourself about$10 to$12 million a year in salary from GLOW? Or I guess, where did the 5 % to 10 % come from?

28:10Onyi Odunukwe: no um so glow is probably i don't know maybe like seven or eight of that um and then obviously cash flow for commercial real estate and then i also i have 26 separate businesses glows only okay um but the mail salons and all that different businesses yeah yeah that not even counting that those are new um but but you know i have you know a construction company that you know, does a couple million a year, um, and, and all these other, you know, uh, businesses. So, um, in total it's, it's around there. Yeah. You mentioned legacy. Uh, your wife is pregnant. Is that your first? Uh, third. Third. That's what I thought.

28:54I didn't want to assume. Uh, so you have three kids. How do you think about money, legacy, what you leave to them when you're

29:02Onyi Odunukwe: gone uh yeah so i mean i think that that's like it's uh something that i think about a lot actually um because you kind of think about it anybody's been successful they a lot of times they like started from nothing right um and and there are a lot of people who you know like bill gates dad was one of the best attorneys in seattle and he became the richest person in the world um but there has to be some type of like struggle that's associated so like even if it's an artificial struggle um so figuring that out and not giving too much to your kids or hey you know when you're 25 years old you inherit 50 million bucks or you know whatever it is like you're not helping your child by doing that so um like how do you help them to grow and build and make sure that the wealth that you created is actually like generational you know a lot of people say generational wealth under spikes like a tagline you know bullshit whatever how do you make sure this action truly generational and, and kind of some of the things I've thought about is like, instead of giving them any type of, um, real money as an inheritance, it's more like you get your first home, your first wedding, um, you know, school's a hundred percent paid for, and this is every generation, um, and, and basically having a family office and allowing the money to compound and getting a life insurance policy on every single kid as they're born.

30:28Onyi Odunukwe: And that life share policy pays back to the trust. So doing those type of things that kind of give you a head, you know, a hand up, not really a handout. Because if you give somebody, you know, a hundred million dollars that has never been able to earn a million dollars, they're just going to blow it. Yeah. I mean, that's why people who win the lottery go bankrupt so often. It's you don't know how to make money, so you don't know how to deal with the amount that comes with it. Do your, do your kids know how good they have it right now? No, not at all. Like they just, they just think daddy's at work and just living normal lives.

31:07I mean, are they in public school or private school? I mean, what, what, who are their peers?

31:13Onyi Odunukwe: Public school. I'm a really, really good public school for the six-year-old. And then the little one stays home with the nanny, but probably going to start proper school here in little bit um and so yeah so i mean just kind of just trying to figure out what makes the most sense because i have like pretty strong opinions about like homeschool versus public school versus you know private school or other i believe in public schools um and and living like a as normal of a life as you can um you know for for your kids rather than like you know creating this like bubble that they live in where it's not actual reality.

31:51Yeah. Yeah. I guess what was your plan for, I don't want to say fabricating, cause that's not right, but like fabricating some of the struggle. Cause if you wanted, your kids would have, they could just not lift a finger their entire lives and be okay. So what's the thinking behind letting them experience some of the struggle and some of the hardship that comes with not having everything they could ever need?

32:14Onyi Odunukwe: yeah so i mean i think like so my parents did that because obviously my parents had a little money um they didn't give us anything like you know school food medical no problem but when it came to like saving clothes those you know hey we had five shirts and two pair of jeans and like you had your monday through friday shirt right so we were you know the kid that their parents on ebt has better clothes than we do. And we know my parents are doctors, right? So that kind of like, we wanted those things. And that's what, I got my first job when I was 13. I mean, I had to get a workers permit because like we understood that, hey, if you want these things, that you have to actually co-work for it.

33:00Onyi Odunukwe: So I think my parents did a pretty good job with that when it comes to being my sister and my brother. So, and we're all three hustlies. So kind of just replicating that as well, which is hard because I'm a giver and I like to give, you know, to people in my life. So it's going to be hard to like not do that as much with your kids. But I think there's an age where you can, especially you can also tell by the kid, like are you entitled versus, you know, are they a good kid who's grateful? And I also think guys and girls are different. I think you can spoil girls and I don't think you can spoil guys.

33:31Interesting. Why?

33:34Onyi Odunukwe: I've seen spoil girls all the time that they get, you know, anything that they want, whether their parents are rich or poor and they turn out perfect and they just want to impress their parents, especially their dad. Um, and guys that have seen spoiled, they never turn out to be anything. So just, you know, um, general data that not really scientific, but just what I've seen. Yeah. I have two boys and I have a third boy on the way. So I'm like, my, my gears are spinning as you say that. I'm like, Oh, I wonder, I wonder if there's some validity to that. You, uh, your social handle is sweat pant millionaire.

34:09What's that brand all about? Cause as I listened to you talk, the, the thought that comes to mind is not sweat pant millionaire. It's like, you're, you're, you're enjoying life. So I'm curious, like, where's the, where's the disconnect there? Maybe there's something I don't know about sweat pant millionaire. I mean, where did that brand come from?

34:24Onyi Odunukwe: Yeah, no. So when I first started Arkansas, um, it was, you know, even my first like five locations, I had to pretty much like sell myself and have like a co-sign by some random white guy that was a business guy in the area and nobody wanted to, you know, rent to me or do whatever. And then once I got to a certain like financial status, I basically just said, I'm not dressing up for anybody. Like I'm going to come as I am. Like right now I'm in sweats, right? And a Nike shirt. Um, so, so this is kind of, you know, I mean, I obviously I, I dress up from times just for because I feel like it are fashion purposes, but not I'm not dressing up for anybody.

35:03Onyi Odunukwe: Like I'm not, I'm not wearing a suit for a meeting. Um, you know, like that's just, I come as I am. So that's kind of the representation of it is basically, you know, I, I, I feel like I'm at a point now where I can present myself how I'm at to, um, and 99 % of the people I meet with work for me. And what I mean by that is like, even if they don't directly work for me, any person who pays you you work for so if you're if you're a vendor if you're you know anything so if if i am giving you money that means you work for me only person who gives me money is my customers so i don't have to dress up for somebody who's working for me so i present myself i want to present myself and uh people respect it it's very cool it's like a naval just came out with a a cool like calendar, you know, philosophy opinion recently where he's like, my, my calendar is mine.

35:55You cannot find my calendar. You cannot book time on my calendar. If I choose to put something on my calendar, it'll be there. But I think that's like a similar mindset. Like I'm just going to come as I am. I'm going to dress the way I want. And, you know, unless my daughter's getting married, I'm not going to wear a suit unless I have to, you know, unless I feel like it. That's cool. That's very cool. What kinds of things I would love to know when, when you, let's say when you made it, I don't know where in this, in a journey that you would refer to that as, did you like buy your parents a house or did you like set them up?

36:27You know, did you, did you, you sound like a giver? You said that yourself. What types of things did you give? How did you use finance and wealth for giving?

36:36Onyi Odunukwe: Yeah. So, I mean, I, my, my parents have money, so they, their house is paid off. Um, and, uh, so I bought my, my dad, his dream car, like a seven series BMW um I you know would give my parents you know certain things which they enjoy because they live pretty frugally um but really I mean the biggest thing that's the thing I love about money is um I love being able to do for others so like if something happens you know um like for instance Michelle that you've been communicating with who's my chief of staff right um you know her husband passed. Um, and you know, he didn't really leave anything.

37:16Onyi Odunukwe: So it's like being able to, you know, pay for his funeral, being able to buy her a house. You know, these are all things I was able to do cause I have the money to do it. Um, so, um, you know, things like that, um, and not really having to think about it. Um, I don't budget. So like being in a position where you can, you know go through life and not have to like say okay well you know my goddaughter's car broke down and she needs a new one and it costs you know 20 grand let me figure out how i can make that work just being able to go do that right um that you know that that feels good that does that does you said you have no regrets i want to push back and we can frame it not as a regret but if you were to go back is there anything you would do differently yeah i mean yeah i i i mean i think like i said everything leads you to where you are today you know um part of you know part of my story also is the fact that you know i sold weed when i was in college i got caught and and got a federal um offense for it a felony so so i'm technically a felon i can't i have no gun rights um i could i can vote and everything i'm now um But, you know, having to go through that and not being able to qualify for SBA longs and the IDL and all the other, you know, different things that go with that and just kind of the scarlet letter that that is.

38:51Onyi Odunukwe: But at the end of the day, like that whole, you know, situation or whatever is like more of a testimony to, you know, to where I am today. And I don't think that if that didn't happen, I would even be where I am today. Um, you know, if that didn't happen, I probably, um, you know, part of the reason why I dropped out my senior year finals week was because, you know, I got busted and you can't work in a hospital, you know, with a pending charge, um, that has dropped out. So, um, so yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's one of those things where, you know, if that didn't happen, I'd probably be a, uh, you know, a doctor somewhere making 400 grand and, and working endless snakes so yeah i mean to your point silver lining for sure it sounds like maybe even a chip on your shoulder i mean from some of that happening you're forced into a mindset of well i got to build something here do you think there was a chip on your shoulder that you had to build the way you built because of that happening um i think less because of that happening more just because of people talking shit so it's like you know i mean nobody really knows about that this is actually the first time i've ever talked about it you know um i never talked about social media and i'll never talked about on the podcast before.

40:07Onyi Odunukwe: Um, but, uh, you know, back, this is 16, 17 years ago. So, so back, I was, you know, 21 years old. So back 16, 17 years ago, even up until like 26, 27, when I'm doing my glow journey and everything else, this is something that people still remember. People are still talking about. Uh, so having that, like, so even when I'm having my success and I'm driving, you know, Ferrari, double LL, he, he, you know, that's a drug dealer, you know whatever it's like it's not true you know um i don't drink i don't smoke i don't i don't party um so i literally i work you know what i enjoy doing so um so having all that but now nobody knows about that nobody cares about that um and and you know uh even if somebody did say anything about it one is i don't care two is you didn't have that go you know happening to you and I'm way ahead of where you are.

41:00Onyi Odunukwe: So what's your excuse? That's my response. Right. Um, so to, to somebody who would say something, so it doesn't, it doesn't bother me. Yeah. I mean, you define who you are, not everyone else. I like that a lot with, uh, with the franchise. I think it's, it's an interesting angle. And you even mentioned the, you know, 28 to 40 X valuations. Half of our listeners are high net worth individuals already, just like you. The other half are people, maybe they own a company, does a couple million in EBITDA and they're aspiring to be someone like you. With franchises being such a lucrative business opportunity for wealthy people to make money and for business owners potentially to build franchise businesses, what advice do you have for the person listening to this who hasn't really ever heard of a franchise being such a lucrative business opportunity?

41:45Onyi Odunukwe: Yeah, I mean, if they have a business right now and it's something that they feel like is scalable, a system that's scalable, they can definitely franchise it. Or if they are looking just to get into business in general, I definitely recommend a franchise over starting a business because it's systems that are already proven obviously you have to bet it out systems that are already proven and you can kind of look and see and take a calculated risk and obviously when it comes to franchising you want to make sure that there's opportunity to scale so you're not going to go into like the Dallas-Fort Worth area with a franchise that has you know 40 locations already and they have one territory available I mean if you buy that even if you made$150 ,000 a year from that one location, you're learning a job, right?

42:29Onyi Odunukwe: Yeah. You know, the way that it makes sense is, hey, I'm going to buy 10 of these, I'm going to make$150 per location between 10 of these. Now that's a different story, right? So that's basically what I've been to franchising. One thing Oni brought up in today's episode that's worth clarifying is Blackstone's$8 billion deal for Jersey Mike's. The real number there is around 30 times EBITDA. Earnings, not revenue. And the mechanics of the deal are definitely interesting. Blackstone wasn't buying sandwich shops. They were buying the franchisor, the entity that just collects a royalty check off the top of every sandwich sold with almost none of the real estate or labor costs the actual store carries.

43:08That's a very different business model than the one Oni runs day to day. He has multi-unit operators, which are the people who actually own the 10 or 20 or 30 locations and typically trade closer to five to eight times earnings. So some of his point still holds, the closer you get to owning the royalty stream instead of the storefront, the more a buyer will eventually be able to pay for it or want to pay for it. I learned a lot about franchising from this episode and the wealth and freedom that can come from owning the corporate entity behind franchises. It's honestly something I've never really thought too much about.

43:39If you loved this episode, please do me a massive favor and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Write a review for us wherever you're listening and reach out to me on x at Daniel C. Burke. I'd love to hear from you. And I'm always looking for interesting, wealthy guests to bring on the show. So if that's you or if you know someone, please connect us. And if you're already in the Hampton community, hit me up on Slack. I'd love to talk. If you're not, you're missing out big time. But you can still see what all the hype is about by going to joinhampton.com. See you all next time on Money Wise. Thanks so much for listening.