He's 27 and Runs His Family's 7 Companies

0:00Mo Moahid: Mohamed Moahid is 27 years old. He started his first company at 18 while he was still in school, scaled it to 200 employees and 100 ,000 people through his events in a single year, and sold it at 21 for low seven figures to his own co-founder because he'd already spotted his next business idea. He was doing all that while holding down a private equity job his dad made him take. Today, he sits over seven operating companies with his family business. They do line painting, real estate development across Canada, consumer electronics, eSIMs in 125 countries. And the week before we recorded this episode, they bought a supplement business for $3 million.

0:41Mo Moahid: He runs the family's money. He spends about$50 ,000 a month covering all of them. His parents, his brother, his sister, and he keeps almost nothing in cash. We start this episode with how the money was actually made. His great-grandfather built it in Pakistan and his dad rebuilt the whole thing from a sales job after moving to Canada. Then we go line by line through how he runs it now, what he spends, what he keeps liquid, and why he's pulling money out of the business that made his family's name. I met Mohamed through the Hampton community we're both in, which is for founders and operators who are doing$25 million in revenue on average.

1:14Mo Moahid: I can't overstate how much serendipity comes from being in a community like Hampton. It's awesome, and I think you should check it out. If you're interested, just go to joinhampton.com to learn more. Now, let's get right into it. This is Money Wise. I'm Daniel Burke, your host. Here's Mohamed. Mohamed, thank you so much for joining Money Wise today. How are you doing? Dude, it's a pleasure to be here. Daniel, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to learn a little bit about who you are, what brings you to Money Wise, some of your background. Tell me how you grew up around money and what really led to building successful businesses and becoming wealthy.

1:49I'm going to cut right to the jump here. So long story short, great grandfather did very, very well from the business perspective. My mom grew up one of the most successful families in the country of Pakistan. Grandfather was part of the first delegation that went out to Japan. And this is kind of like early 1990s. And since then, you know, the family kind of went on the other side of the thing. Instead of it going up, it went down. my dad re-picked up that spark and and really pushed it forward so you know for me growing up I always had both worlds that I saw and so you know my dad really put in a ton of hard work and he was kind of the first entrepreneur that I had as a leader a role model that I looked up to and much of my success today, I can credit to him.

2:44Mo Moahid: I love that. And when you started building businesses, did you originally start building those in Pakistan or where did you grow up and when did you start becoming an entrepreneur yourself? That was great. So I grew up in Pakistan until I was around 11. I went to a great school there and then moved to Canada because my dad saw more opportunity here and he loved the environment here to grow. And so he moved over year. And he kind of had that immigrant dream that everyone kind of has. And he started off in a sales job. So he came here in a job capacity. And then, you know, within the first two, three years, he saw things take the other, like a nosedive where his company was about to get acquired.

3:26He didn't know whether he was going to have employment or not. And so that is what pushed him to then start his own company. And then the rest is history. Since then, he scaled up quite a lot, continue to add different verticals of the business, continue to expand. And I was fortunate enough to see that whole journey throughout. And then also on my own end, you know, I was kind of always separate from that piece of the action. Like, you know, my dad was obviously building on his side. And again, when I was in high school, I saw him facing those challenges to scale all those things. And so I actually started my first business around then.

4:02And then since then, you know, it's been multiple kind of ups and downs in that entrepreneurial journey, you know, but today I am here and building something new. So super exciting times.

4:13Mo Moahid: I mean, did you know you would be an entrepreneur your whole life? I mean, it sounds like you were around wealth and businesses and that entrepreneurial spirit. I mean, did you always know that you would build something of your own or was that a surprise to you? 100%. I always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur. I started my career off in private equity to learn those skills because I knew at some point I was going to be buying businesses and so I actually wanted to get that experience in that environment and I also did investment banking so I always wanted to be around that kind of energy and again like I said growing up I was always around people that were business owners and I saw what they had built and for me it's always you got to choose your journey and if you don't choose it, life will choose it for you.

4:57So for me, it was always like a proactive approach where, hey, I'm trying to identify opportunity where I can see like a large moat that I can build in and then kind of scale that. So, you know, my first business, I kind of saw that opportunity. I saw someone else doing it, actually. I saw another two entrepreneurs doing a business and I said, hey, like, this is actually a very, very easy business. And I was 18 at the time and I said, hey, listen, And it would actually be very, very easy for me to copy them. And I know there are certain things that they're not doing that are as efficient. And I could easily run.

5:29So I actually started my first company back in university. That was like, I would say like a proper company. And yeah, we ran that other company out of business. It was in the events hospitality space. We ran them out of business. And then we expanded across Canada and did quite well with that first venture. So I was very proud of myself. At some point we had over 200 employees and we did a hundred thousand people, uh, that came to our events across that year. So it was, uh, quite an accomplishment for me, uh, cause I was only 21 at the time. So, you know, to see that, to see that kind of like, you know, early success, it was very exciting, but also humbling at the same time.

6:11Mo Moahid: So you started that at 18 while you were in school for business? yeah I went to school for business yep and then you I went to sorry I'm gonna say is that you was there an exit or liquidity event at 21 or when you say you did really well with that what was the outcome of that business yeah I sold that business to my partner who I was my co-founder I was done with that business and I had already seen the next business that I wanted to build so I exited to Michael I mean that business is still alive today so I exited to him and I continued building in the e-commerce sector post that. So again, like I said, this was in the events hospitality space.

6:50And when I was 21, it was around COVID time. And so at that point in time, I had seen in that COVID time, what I could do on the digital advertising side of things, on the e-commerce side of things. And so for me, you know, post COVID, we did really well. I mean, that was actually our best year that year after COVID. But at the same time, I was also seeing a new fire, which was in the e-commerce side. And so I was continuing to scale that piece while I was still operating that company. It's called Six Social. So while I was still operating that, I continued scaling on the e-commerce side and we were selling a lot of gifts, products, different kind of funny products, even like a Donald Trump toilet paper roll, that kind of thing.

7:37Um, it was, it was a good like gifting kind of business and we did well. Uh, and then, you know, since then I exited that one as well.

7:46Mo Moahid: Uh, what were the two exit costs or the acquisition prices for the first one, your co-founder and that second one? Uh, the first one is like in the seven figure range. Um, so like low seven figures. Okay. Yeah. 1 million, 2 million. Yeah. It was like around, I would say like two, 3 million. Um, and so I exited that we didn't have like a vesting or anything like that. It was a very cash rich business. So it was kind of like an easy way to exit that. And then the second one, I scaled that one. And that one, I actually just kind of shut down myself because the customer acquisition costs ended up rising quite a lot and I had made a ton of money on it.

8:24So it wasn't really necessarily an exit or liquidity event, but it was a very, very strong cash flowing business. So I did well with that.

8:32Mo Moahid: So you said you started your career in private equity. but then you just told me about two businesses that don't sound like private equity to me at all. So help me understand, when did you start your career? I'm putting that in quotes for those listening. When did private equity start? Because those two businesses are a little bit different, right? Yeah, it's good. So I was actually working at a PE shop while I was running these businesses because for me, it was always about delegation. Like, you know, even day one, I was like, okay, the only way I can really scale is I've got to build a system that can be delegated and I got to find people that I can delegate to.

9:05So my co-founder, who was more on the upside, I was a little bit more on the strategy finance side of things and like vision slash like growth. And so we actually found an initial team that was very strong. And so for me, you know, I would really just be, you know, in the event space, a lot of times people will say you have to be there physically in order to scale that business. And I proved that you don't because I would bring my laptop after work, at 8, 9 p.m. after leaving the office. And I would be checking in with my teams and be like, hey guys, how's this event? How's that event? And then I'm seeing the video footage also come in and it's like, okay, this looks overall pretty good.

9:43So that's kind of how that started. And then I quit because I was like, you know what, honestly, this is scaling way too quickly. And so then I quit that PE. And I was like, I guess the opportunity has been built up enough where I feel comfortable in jumping in because my dad always wanted me to get some corporate experience. So he actually was the one that was the reason that I took that job because he was like, you know, you have to work corporate. And so I was like, okay, fine, let me do it. Put in my, I was only there for like a year, put in like my year in and I was like, okay, you know what?

10:14Honestly, it's way more lucrative for me to jump out of this now.

10:19Mo Moahid: Yeah. And so your parents' parents had money in businesses. Your parents had a business. sounds like you were involved in that. When you launched your own private equity and started building yourself, was there already some money to your name or did you start, you know, from scratch? I mean, were your parents like, no, no, no, you're on your own. You got to build the way we built. Or I mean, tell me how that worked. Yeah. My, my parents had always been very easy with me on money. Like I always had my dad's credit card. I could pretty much buy whatever I wanted, like growing up, like, you know, I, money was never really kind of like something that was restrained from me.

10:53So it wasn't really, you know, the lack of money that got me excited, but more so it was, I wanted to earn it myself and then spend it. I think that's kind of what it was. And I would always save money, like whatever gifts I got and all this. So I always kind of had money in that sense. And then I also had like my dad's card if I, you know, wanted to use his money as well. So it was always like, I have mine and then I have his to access. But, you know, again, he doesn't come from a mindset either where he would be wasteful despite him doing quite well. So like, you know, he's the type of person that will even wear a shirt from like seven years ago.

11:30I saw him wearing a shirt the other day from like seven years ago. I was like, oh, I didn't even, I saw you in a picture with that shirt, you know, and that's like framed in our house. I'm like, I can't believe you still have that one. So, you know, it's not really in his nature to be, you know, wasteful or excessively spend. And so I kind of saw that value in him. And so I kind of kept that value on myself as well, where I would be very conservative with the way I would spend. Because for my dad, he kind of grew up, like I said, where he had to earn all of it himself to a large degree. And so that value for money, that's one thing he definitely taught me.

12:03Mo Moahid: You had inherited quite a bit from your parents early on, and you started with wealth. And now fast forward, you mentioned that was 18, and you are how old now? I'm 27. Okay, so let's say nine years. Let's make it 10 just to make that easier. What's happened in those 10 years? One of the companies my dad started was a real estate development one. And so, you know, we own a ton of land across Canada, really. Specifically focus in, you know, two or three municipalities where we do a large amount of kind of construction and building. And so you mentioned most of it's in real estate. What percent of that 110 is in real estate?

12:42I'd say like 95%, 90%.

12:45Mo Moahid: So it's called 90 million in real estate. and then the companies you're invested in and you have shares in, how many companies is that? We have seven companies. Okay. We were looking at an eighth one, but yeah, the companies that we own, we're in line painting. So painting those like lines on the road, that's one of our companies, real estate development I mentioned. We own a consumer electronics distribution company through which we sell B2B. We also own a company that does the same thing, but it's just more on the e-commerce side. So IoT, consumer electronic devices, we sell through Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, across the US, Canada.

13:25And then we have another company that's more focused on the international distribution. So this one is more on the Latin America, Dubai, Hong Kong side of things. And then we also have another company that is focused on telecommunication services. So eSIMs specifically, where people are traveling and they're buying eSIMs. So we own a company, we roam, through which people that even listen to this podcast can go out and buy eSIM wherever country they're in. So we're partnered with, I think, 125 countries that we provide coverage in. So that's kind of like our eSIM division. And then we also are looking into the reverse logistics space.

14:09So that's kind of another space where it's more so on the repair side of consumer electronics specifically. But that's kind of like, yeah, the businesses that we own as a group. And then me personally, I also own an e-commerce business that I created on my own end. And then also my brother and I started the company that I'm, you know, even this logo here is your agent. We're an AI transformation company where we saw a lot of revenue and synergy we were able to create within our own companies. And so we decided to offer that and scale that as an additional company as well.

14:46Mo Moahid: When do you feel like in your journey, money started to matter to you? Because starting at 5 million is awesome. I think a lot of people would die to start at what a lot of people are even chasing from zero. You started at a fairly successful number, but now that's about 20x that. I mean, where did you start really getting back into the game of like, oh, I want this number to be bigger? Or is it not about the money to you? I don't think it's about the money specifically. I like the number. Like, I do definitely want to increase that quite a lot. For me, though, it's about the impact that one has created in the lives of people.

15:27And I love entrepreneurship because I view it as a form of art where it's really your impact on society. Whatever you wanted to create, you created. and now it has manifested not only in your own life, but also in the lives of other people when people are impacted and touched. I love the Steve Jobs quote, which says, everything that we call life around us has been created by humans that are no smarter or dumber than we are. So I feel like with entrepreneurship, it's a pretty level playing field. And that's why a country like Canada or America is so great because people can really chase their dreams and have the opportunity to meritocratically work.

16:09Mo Moahid: What liquid do you have? Is it about 10 million then is what's left over? Yeah. So part of the liquidity is in the business side of things. Like I said, some of our businesses have because of the needs of the business, like operating cash flow. On the personal side, I don't keep much liquid at all, really. Oftentimes I'm having to draw down and bring back. So I'm actually not very heavy from a personal cash side. What do you have personally? Maybe like$50 ,000. Okay. And is that ever something that concerns you with having so much built into illiquid assets? I actually prefer being in a position where money is parked up in investments that I believe will hold far more long-term value than having the cash on hand.

16:58I don't necessarily, like I said, spend a ton of money. so it's like for me it's never really a concern and then again I obviously do draw dividends and things like that from companies so you know I do have I've got that piece to keep things kind of

17:11Mo Moahid: moving yeah and what is your personal burn look like monthly then with the dividends you're pulling and the cash flow you do have I said around around 50 yeah you're spending 50 per month yeah roughly okay so you're pulling out and spending exactly what you need to break even every month. Yeah. Around roundabout. Yeah. I don't want to keep additional money on hand when I could have it allocated to something. And for me, like I'm even the type of person that I, if I do have extra or if, you know, if I get, we could do a good deal and there's one company is doing better this year, for example, then I'll actually want to inject that into what I believe is like the highest ROI opportunity for our group of companies where that's where like the beauty of it is as well, where we can see different opportunities and different areas in the markets where it's like, okay, like this actually, this business, like Zero at Age, and the reason we're so heavily invested in this one specifically, and over the last like four months, we've quadrupled our team.

18:10So the reason for that is because we know that, hey, this business is right now something that people need, and we can create a ton of value for society and for different businesses. So this is a business that will be better positioned in this time versus the real estate development one, which, you know, right now I'm actually looking to liquidate some part of it because, you know, I don't personally believe that, you know, over this, let's say next five-year period, that's going to be the highest ROI on that money. Like if we just take that and reallocate it, we may end up in a better, you know, position, you know, like multiple wise.

18:46So that's kind of like how I view these things.

18:49Mo Moahid: Mohamed keeps almost nothing in cash personally, not because he can't, but because he thinks money sitting still is money doing nothing. Every dollar gets pushed back into whichever of the seven family companies he thinks has the best return that year. These types of capital allocation conversations constantly happen inside of Hampton, which is a community for founders and CEOs doing at least 3 million in revenue. If that's the type of conversation that excites you, check it out at joinhampton.com. 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?

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20:39Mo Moahid: That's dailybodycoach.com forward slash money wise. Just hearing you talk 50 a month just sounds so low. What is, what are you spending 50 a month on? I mean, how does that break out? So I would say a good chunk of it is on food and like travel and those things. Like we, I do like to eat, you know, at nice restaurants and stuff. So it ends up kind of adding up quickly uh so i'd say like a good portion of it is on food like how much like 10 000 a month on food yeah we probably spend i would imagine around there okay um on food because i also so for me it's also like when i say 50 i'm also including like my family right so sure you know for for us like it's not really like my personal finances so to speak but it's like you know I have my brother as well um I've got my sister and I've got my parents which like we all as a unit um kind of stick together so you know I manage like the family's finances so to speak so yeah I'd say like we spend around there and then uh the rest of it would be uh I would say a mix of um gosh I gotta think travel we spend a good amount of money on traveling I'd say like that ends up probably like flying like every month somewhere or what does travel mean yeah we fly I pretty often, like a couple times a month probably.

21:57Mo Moahid: You fly coach or you fly in first class, private? No, no, probably like business first class, like not private. I've actually never flown private. I kind of want to, but it's like, you know, I have never found a reason to. So walk me through like how some of these acquisitions work. So 90 million in real estate and it's a family business. So when you go to look at and do due diligence on a new property. What's that process like? How do you decide whether or not one's worth purchasing? Who actually puts the money front for the property? And how involved are you personally in that acquisition? I've been more as an observer, but trying to get more involved recently on that side.

22:39The way we evaluate a property is we'll first look at where the property is. And then if we know that specifically geographical location, like I said, we mainly focus on like two, three kind of towns, municipalities. And so after that, we get a better understanding of, hey, like how much money do we have to put in here in order to materially impact the cash flows that this property generates, you know, whatever it generates currently, plus like what we think are realistic and the cash flows from that property over that period in time. So that's kind of like how I would say the initial kind of evaluation process looks like.

23:19And then And obviously we go deeper into DD and then figure out financing and that sort of thing. In terms of like how we, you know, view financing, we've got our pool of investors that are friends or family that we kind of work within. And then also like our own money. So we'll put up our own money sometimes, depending on the deals specifically and what we need.

23:40Mo Moahid: Okay. So when you look at the family finances, you said you're the one that kind of manages that? I'm actually very heavily involved in that process. you know where should we buy what what you know this looks like and again like i said we operate a lot of times with like trusted you know family partners friends and so a lot of times we're doing business uh with these people and so someone will bring a deal over to us and say hey listen like this is a good company it's worth buying uh they'll have done kind of their own initial screening on that deal and we don't entertain deals from brokers all the time like it's not like these are brokers these are people that are also probably putting up capital themselves and so you know they're bringing something over to us uh they're also in and then they say hey like what do you think of this and then i'll on my end do the you know financial uh modeling and again the initial screening part and say okay like you know honestly this could make sense for us given and you asked earlier about the liquidity thing as well it's like again my belief is you want to have your money be working at all times and so that's where it's like okay do we have additional liquidity right now to put additional money towards this.

24:49And we are always reinvesting. I also mentioned, you know, for us, like, like dividends that we get is a lot of time, like just reinvested back. So, you know, we are actually looking at these deals on a pretty continual, like we bought a company last week, for example, right? It was someone that I'd met, they were running an e-commerce business. Like I said, you know, one of our companies, we do e-commerce on electronics and IoT devices. They were running a supplements business and we're looking at supplements as an additional category to add. And so we said, okay, you know what this looks like, we did some do that.

25:21It's like, okay, well, this looks like a great business. And then we, we picked that up.

25:24Mo Moahid: And how much did you spend on that company? That one was like a 3 million, you know, transaction. So when you acquire that company, is it like, you know, acquisition based on tranches and milestones over time, or is it a cash purchase for 3 million that you fully own the company immediately? That this one specifically because of the risk level, it was one where we had, like we have a vesting kind of period built up for the founder. The founder has done a complete handoff over to us. But at the same time, there is still that piece that we're looking at. And so where does the cash come from for an acquisition like that?

26:00We have like a, like I said, an operating cashflow, which is like that, like the 10 million ish liquidity that we have that we keep for opportunities like this where, okay, like this looks like a good business, let's pick it up. And then, yeah, like a lot of times it's that like flow. We're very mindful of our cash flow. That's one thing that we, you know, we look at quite a lot in terms of like, okay, how much cash are we generating? How much cash are we reinvesting? What are we buying? All of those things are actually like, you know, questions. And like I said, you know, one of the reasons we are moving away from land is because a lot of of times, like land is great, but it's not a cash yielding kind of property a lot of times.

26:42So it's, we're moving away from that and more into cash flowing assets.

26:48Mo Moahid: So you have, it's an interesting family business. You're managing the personal spend for your whole family, your immediate family. And there's the 10 million, which is a cash operation, you know, cash flow property, let's call it liquid cash. Is it literal cash or is this tied to different business properties? Like how does that, how do you pull money out of that? Is it a cash account? No, it's, it's a, it's like a business line of credit type. Okay. So line of credit, 10 million, 50 ,000 a month. I mean, do you like working with your family in this capacity? I mean, this is a very unique situation.

27:20It is interesting because it has its pros, it has its cons. Yeah. You know, working with your brother, because I work most closely with him. You're six years older.

27:31Mo Moahid: It's not just your brother. You're six years older than your brother. So tell me about that relationship. He's grown a ton. And that's actually, I would say, is the thing that I'm the most proud of, despite the businesses and success. Because at the end of the day, money is great to have, but it's like, if you don't have the people around you that you can enjoy those moments with, it doesn't really matter. I'm still friends with a lot of my childhood friends and I see them, you know, every few months. And so those relationships are actually what I hold most dear. And, you know, the relationships within my family, again, you know, may God protect every single one of them.

28:06And the relationships that we have, I cherish those because with my brother, especially, you know, being six years younger, and he didn't go to school, by the way, he actually started his own, like he has his own entrepreneurial journey. Like he started his own business when he was 16. He's always been in like the tech engineering side of things more so um technical uh deep deeper technical than than i've been so uh you know it's a little bit a lot of like mentorship and getting him to see certain things like obviously certain views that we have don't always align uh the good thing is because we're we're close like we do have a lot of the same beliefs and we're aligned on a lot of things we all as a family grow older um you know my parents like my my dad is pretty young too he's 55 so you know as that now I'm trying to step more into those, like I said, seats, because I want to be the one that can take charge as my dad wants to spend less and less time, you know, working.

29:01Like my dad will definitely be active, you know, till the day he, you know, again, may God give him a long life is active. But at the same time, for me, he wants me to probably take that ownership seat where he's not necessarily giving me the reins, but I'm kind of taking, stepping up and taking those and getting a better understanding of everything going on. So that's kind of what I spend a good amount of my time doing is like understanding where he's at in different projects and different things that he's involved with and kind of coming into those. Because like I said, you know, I've had my own entrepreneurial journey, which is outside of, you know, the family group of companies.

29:38So for me, a lot of times it is kind of going in and asking, oh, what's going on with that? The good thing is my dad and I, we talk regularly. So, you know, I've always kind of heard what's happening in this company and that company through the grapevine, so to speak. And then over time, I've built up enough knowledge on that specific situation where, you know, he'll say, Hey, take care of this or handle this. And I, you know, can, can figure it out for the most part.

30:02Mo Moahid: Yeah. Earlier, you said you're chasing a lot more money. Uh, I don't know what that number is. What, what amount is going to make you happy? What, what amount is, is, is attaining what you're finally searching for? For me, it's actually more, again, not about the number of my, like, or amount of money I have, but it's actually more so tied to the amount of like money that I can distribute because, you know, I do believe like money is a, it's something that comes and goes. It's something that like, you know, you have and, and, and you spend it and it moves. And so I just want to be able to have a lot more flowing through me and impact, you know, the hundreds of millions of people.

30:49So that's kind of what my, even billions of people, like that's kind of what my goal is, is like making sure that I can impact and give to the people around me. That's why, you know, for me, like these values are something that I hold very dear because again, the reason, you know, I've never actually spent a lot of money or used my dad's card to do that is because I understand that money isn't earned easily. Like obviously when you get to a point where you can leverage and you have a lot more efficiency you can create even with small percentage points where, you know, even for example, the reason we're getting on the S, it's like, you know, even 5, 10, 20 % is massive, right?

31:30But it's like, what do we do with that is what I care about more. And so like there isn't necessarily a dollar figure I have in mind, but it's more so about like how many people that I can impact through me. And that's what I want. Not my legacy. I mean, we'll see what happens with mine, but I want my dad's legacy to be about because, you know, like I said, I've seen him go through that entire journey. And so I've always been grateful to have him as a role model because, you know, again, he's been someone that's very humble and he's kept his head down and worked hard. And he does what he can to help other people.

32:03and I want to continue that and carry that torch forward more so than, you know, having kind of other aspirations for like the purpose of my life, really.

32:11Mo Moahid: Yeah. I love how much you respect and admire your dad. I think that's awesome. Do you want kids someday of your own? Yeah. You know, God willing, maybe soon. Yeah. Oh, well, that'd be, that'd be exciting. Do you think that your kids will be part of this family business as well? Or will that be even an expectation you have for them? I've actually thought about this quite a lot. I definitely want my kids to be very disciplined. That's something that I had growing up where discipline is huge. I started, you know, horse riding when I was very young as well. I, you know, I'm part of team Canada and I play internationally for that.

32:49So I definitely want them to be connected to animals, nature, discipline. Now on the business side, I actually, again, for my daddy, he never actually forced me to come into the entrepreneurship world. He actually, he wanted me to go into like accounting. He said, Hey, I am actually financially not like my strong suit. So you should go into accounting. But for me, it's not going to be about that for my kids. I want them to be very well read and they should understand things deeply, but I don't necessarily see myself boxing them into a specific like job necessarily. Like I'd rather have them have very strong worldviews that are very well informed.

33:31Mo Moahid: I have a friend whose family owns a billion dollar company and they would not let the children work in the family business for either two or four years after college. There was an expectation and even a requirement, hey, if you want to work in the family business, you have to go do something else first. Not really to prove themselves necessarily, but like, hey, we don't want you just relying on this as like the only option, even the given option. We want you to go experience the world. What do you think about that? I agree with that fully. I mean, that's kind of what happened to me, right? So my dad also, he's like, hey, listen, go work corporate.

34:10And when I say like he told me to do it, it's kind of like a requirement. He's very nice. He's like, okay, just go do it. It'll be beneficial for you. But then I knew if I didn't, he'll just be like a little like sad and disappointed. So I was like, okay, I'm going to go ahead and do that. And even when I quit, like he actually didn't want me to quit. He's like, your business is doing well, but you should still be working, you know, this corporate job. And I'm like, wait, why do you want me to continue to do this? I can earn way more if I, you know, continue to scale my company. I love this company.

34:37I've grown it. But then he was like, no, no, no, you still need to work. So I actually had to kind of like go back to back with him a little bit in order to even leave kind of that corporate side of things.

34:47Mo Moahid: What would you say if your kids someday told you they just don't want to be part of the family business? I would definitely encourage them to pursue whatever they're passionate about. And at the end of the day, if they can create value for society and be great citizens and uphold strong, subtle values, I'd be happy. For me, that's what would matter more than them not coming into the family business. But I would definitely want them to hold that responsibility of being wealthy. and I'd want them to use that position and society, that responsibility, that privilege in order to give back and in order to make sure that, you know, we're doing the right thing.

35:31One of my mentors, you know, she comes from, you know, a billionaire South African family. She told me, you know, she grew up in, she's like, you know, 70 plus now. So she grew up in South Africa at that time and she's, you know, white. And she said, you know, her mother told her that there's a price for, you know, she'd like grab her and she's like, there's a price for the color of the skin and you got to make sure you pay it forward. So that's kind of what I definitely would want my kids to do. But yeah, for the family business, I wouldn't necessarily be super, super sad if they weren't part of that.

36:03Mo Moahid: For anyone listening who maybe resonates with your story, maybe they're part of their family's business or they're wanting to start a family business of their own where their children someday maybe incorporate into that. What advice do you have for them? Of course, you've seen a lot. You've experienced a lot the last 27 years, what would you do differently and what would you have them do if they could kind of hear your voice having seen that yourself? I know tons of people that have family businesses. A lot of my friends that I grew up with that, like I said, are like my childhood friends. They all have family businesses.

36:34And one thing that I've seen across everybody is discipline is key. In fact, one of my friends, he also belongs to a billionaire family and his parents used to give him$50 a week as an allowance. so you know I don't know you know who's listening to this but you know$50 a week isn't really a lot especially when you're like a teenager and you're like oh I actually want to do things

36:57Mo Moahid: and then you have$50 a week so I think when you know there's billions yeah particularly when you know that you know obviously like things are always paid for in that sense but you know they know that you know certain like experiences and certain things that you know they could be part of. But at the same time, like for them, I would, I would say is like, make sure that your kids or when you're dealing with these people, the decision-making element is incredibly strong. And having that strong decision-making comes from discipline and comes from knowing what makes sense and what doesn't. I've had friends that are not super wealthy and, you know, some of the financial decisions they make, I look at them and say, like, to be honest, like, I don't know why you would do this because you're just wasting your money.

37:42But, you know, people obviously sometimes like that novelty and those things. Like literally, you know, someone said to me, he said, hey, like what is$200 a month to you? And I was like, I'd rather not waste$200 a month when I don't need to. Like, why would I waste$200? So, you know, I think having that sense of humbleness is key because, you know, no matter how much, you know, water you have in the tap, if you only need to use a little bit to, you know, wash your hands, why would you waste the rest of

38:09Mo Moahid: Something that became obvious in my conversation with Muhammad is that giving and altruism is what really matters most to him. The teaching he grew up with is that giving is measured against what you have. If you have$10 and you give$5, that counts for more than$10 ,000 when you give$100. This type of approach to giving might resonate with you, especially if you grew up with some sort of faith or religion. I know it resonates with me. Of all the conversations I have with ultra high net worth people, the conversation around giving is one that people tend to feel very personal about. To Muhammad, accumulating more for the sake of having more goes against his core belief system.

38:47Mo Moahid: The way you talk, it's very altruistic. It sounds like it's very important to you to be a good steward of money and not to just lackadaisically spend it however you can. Even the water, you know, and washing your hands with the amount of water you need instead of wasting water. That's interesting to me. How do you think about philanthropy and giving and being generous? I believe that everybody has been gifted with stewarding a specific set of resources, right? Now, whether that's wealth or whether that's health or whether that's time, everyone has, and everyone has time, right? No matter if you're sick or healthy or old or young, you have time.

39:29And so it's really important to steward these resources in the way that benefits other people. So for me, that is a core belief that informs how I actually approach different situations as well, where I always ask to myself, is this the best way for me to steward even time? And if I can give on my end, I always want to be in the position of giving, whether that's time, whether that's wealth, whether that's advice or skill. I always want to be in that position. And again, for my kids as well, like I mentioned earlier in terms of values, that for me is like the biggest thing that anybody could really do because everybody lives for themselves, right?

40:18It's like every single human being's desire is to go and fly private or to go Michelin star or to go really, really extravagant with the vacations. But, you know, all of those things really is for yourself. It's for your own happiness or your family's happiness. But there's fewer people that will look towards other people because, you know, when you're giving without the expectation of anything in return or when you're giving purely for the other person, knowing that this person most likely won't be able to benefit you. That's what I'm always most interested in. So I do think philanthropy and being altruistic is massive, especially for everybody with the resources that they're told to steward because nobody, when they pass away, will take anything with them.

41:05But it's more so having that dominion over those resources that we can control.

41:13Mo Moahid: Yeah, giving without any expectation of return. I think that's, if everyone in the world decided to do that, the world would be a better place. I mean, I believe that in the core of my being. If everyone could be generous with what they have, whether a lot or a little, I think the world would be a better place. 100%. This is super, super important, especially in today's day and age where we are in an era of abundance, actually. There's tons of resources and there are people without those resources. so especially us in North America we're privileged versus the rest of the world and I obviously get to see some of the in my travels some of the poverty and some of the conditions people are going through and you know us as educated people and even if someone isn't entirely incredibly wealthy in North America hey at least they are educated they speak English they know generally a sense of the world and they can definitely help people in other places that don't have that same sense.

42:08Mo Moahid: There's something psychological about giving when, especially when it's a stretch. I don't know. For me, if I, if I'm giving a lot, that's like an uncomfortable amount, whether it's resources or money, it's like this, uh, this is uncomfortable, but like, I know that's good for me to do. And one of the teachings in our religion is that you're always judged based on how much you have. So if someone has$10 and they give$5, it's better than somebody who has$10 ,000 and they gave$100. So obviously that person that had$10, they gave away half of everything. So they definitely feel that impact a lot more.

42:53And so it's always also in accordance with or in balance with how much you have and how much you can give.

42:59Mo Moahid: Well, Mohamed, I really appreciate you joining Money Wise today. Your situation's really cool. I think a lot of people learn a lot from you and just the way you think about business and family. Again, love how much you admire your family. That's very cool to me. It's something I resonate with a lot as a family man myself. But thanks a lot to just all the stuff you shared with us today. Really appreciate that. Hey, I appreciate you having me here. Of course. Take care.