My Step-By-Step Process To Building a $1M+ Business

0:29I'm like, I should create this. Andrew Wilkinson said, I'm so jealous that I didn't start this idea. I feel like you got so much right. And I know that in doing any idea, there's something called the idea maze. You go through, you wander around, you try to figure out the right path. And if you're lucky, you pop out the other side with what you did with Hampton, where everything turned out right. What I want to know is what were the other paths you considered but ended up saying no to along the way? Because nobody sees that stuff. That's on the cutting room floor. I want to know, you know, I love the name Hampton.

1:03Were there other names that you thought about? And like, how did you pick that one? And like, what was that decision process? I want to know target market. Like you, I feel like you nailed the target market and you've nailed the value prop. Were there three other runner ups that you consider that you didn't have? I kind of want to see what goes on underneath the surface before this beautiful execution comes out. Well, first, thanks. You hopefully only see the good stuff. Obviously, there's all types of bad shit that happens on the on the back end where we're like, this sucks. But in general, it's been quite pleasant.

1:33So, dude, with this company, it's so funny. I purposely had on we had guests that ran these types of companies. And I wanted to prove to everyone I'm going to do my research in front of people. You left a paper trail, right? Like you left public breadcrumbs as to exactly how you did this step by step. And by definitely had guests come on and basically explain to you what the blueprint is. And then you were like, cool, thanks. Gonna go execute on that blueprint. And I didn't hide it from them. I told them, I told them before and after, I'm going to launch, I want to launch, I'm thinking of launching something like this and let's talk about it.

2:12Right. So there was nothing unethical or evil about this, but yeah, I wanted to do it publicly so people could see. So the, so let me tell you first. So I sold the hustle, I think in 22. Yeah. And or something like that. And I had about six months or eight months or 10 months, I forget, where I was just kind of fooling around. And I was looking at different ideas. The two ideas that lost, I'm so thankful they lost one. Remember how I got super into Airbnbs? I was like, this is the thing. I could do this. So I bought one and I did it. And it did okay. But I was like, this sucks. I do not enjoy this.

2:45This does this isn't in my zone of genius. It's a pain in the ass. And it seems on paper like a good idea. You created this Facebook group of, I forgot what you called it, like Sam's short-term rental bros or whatever the hell you called it. What was it? The STR crew. The STR crew, short-term rental crew. And people piled in and they started explaining their blueprints. They're like, yo, I own 40 Airbnbs. They make this much cashflow. Here's the pain points. Here's the plus sides. This other guy's like, oh, I do the same thing with this angle. And I was like, dude, this is fascinating. Sam's doing his research, again, in public.

3:16And you were wandering around the idea maze. You're like, maybe it's over here. Maybe the exit path is over here in this short-term rentals thing. And it kind of seemed like a good idea on paper, but you ended up saying no to that. And it was a good idea. It wasn't a good idea for me. It is a profitable thing, whatever. It was cool. The second thing that I thought about doing was I thought about creating... I've always wanted to create a trucking business. I'm passionate about truckers. I'm passionate about blue-collar workers. My family, I grew up in a trucking family. They work in that industry.

3:42And so I was like, I'm going to become a YouTuber and I'm going to create an audience of truckers. and then I'm going to build a product for them. And then I started doing it and I was like, no, I hate this. I'm not going to do it. You're like, I love the idea of blue collar workers. Yeah, I like the idea of it. Being amongst them. Yeah, it's like getting a neck tattoo. It's like the idea of it's kind of neat, but I don't know if I actually want it. And so then I was like, look, we had this thing called Trends at the Hustle and I got a lot wrong and I love the business model still. I think I can do this.

4:13And my partner, my now business partner and I, we had like basically a therapy group where we would like bitch and complain about everything going on. And we're like, I settled on that product. You built a product, launched it, did not use your audience initially publicly. You didn't use the podcast to promote it initially. Maybe your brand name helped in private, but you didn't do it publicly. And you drove it to millions of dollars in revenue very early on. So a very successful thing that everybody listens to this podcast kind of wants that outcome. So you're a walking case study. Go ahead. Yeah.

4:45So Hampton is a peer group. So some people call it a community. I call it a peer group. Basically, there's three parts of the peer group. So you have an eight person group that have similar size or types of companies. And you basically... It's like a therapy group. You just complain. So it takes about six months for it to catch and be awesome. But I have a six person or eight person group. It's freaking awesome. And you will do everything like you... Someone will make a presentation for every meeting. And they'll say like, here's my portfolio. Here's my net worth. Can you guys tell me, am I doing something wrong?

5:14Am I doing something right? Here's how my company works. What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? And so they do a presentation. So that's part one. Part two is we have a digital community where you can post in there and see what other people are saying. And you could be like, hey, I'm trying to hire a nanny. What are your guys' best advice for agencies to use in the Northeast? Things like that. You can do personal stuff, non-personal stuff. The third thing is events. I think we host 200 events a year at this point, including retreats, all these types of things. So it's highly inspired by Chief, YPO, Vistage.

5:42These are large companies that are in the space. So that's the business. Originally, I was trying to go after marketing executives and then just executives in general. Dude, I called. I did 50 to 70 meetings with people, trying to convince them to join. And none of them wanted it. Hello, dear marketing executive. Yeah. How goes your marketing today? No one fucking wanted it. I couldn't get it. And then eventually I was like, I need to charge like around 10 grand a year in order to make this like a viable business. No one fucking wanted it. They're willing to pay$500. And I created a group that was actually$500.

6:18And I was like, dude, this sucks. I can't do this. And then we were like, should we do doctors? Doctors would be cool. But like, what the fuck? I don't know anything about doctors. I tried to get in touch with a ton and no one wanted it. And then I was like, Fortune 500 CEOs. Same problem. How do I get in touch with the Fortune 500 CEO? I don't know one. It was really hard. And then Ideas that sound good on paper, but as soon as they came into contact with reality, they got punched in the face and they ran home with the nose bleeding. Well, this one really punched me in the face. The next one, we thought about minorities.

6:52We're like, you know, my wife is a minority and I like hear a little bit of the things that she goes through. I'm like, I should create this. And then I looked in the mirror and I was like, yeah, this ain't gonna work. I'm the opposite of a minority. Businessmen look great on paper. But then the old reflection threw you off. But that look in the mirror. Yeah. I remember when you told me that idea and I was like, dude, honestly, it's a great idea. I think it's an underserved community. I think they want that career development. I think that makes sense. But I was like, dude, what are you going to do when you're like, hey, I was like, you know, are you going to have Sarah be the CEO?

7:28Like, what are you going to do? You're going to be like, I am this white man who is running this. I don't know. Possible. But like, I don't know. So if you Google the word white bread, you're going to see a picture of Sam Parr. Like it would not have worked. There's a reason your nickname is the vanilla gorilla. Okay. It wasn't going to work. And then my partner was like, dude, let's just go after CEOs. And he'd been saying this whole time. I'm like, they will never pay for this. But all along, some people had heard rumors that I was launching this. So they asked me, like, can you do this for us?

7:59And I kept saying no. And then finally, we're like, fuck it, let's do it. And then that obviously was the right decision. But by the way, I did a ton of research. So I interviewed a ton of members of all these different groups. And they're like, I'm a tech guy. But it's all like guys who own like 18 apartment buildings in South Florida in my group. It kind of sucks. Like, I love them. But we don't like align on business. Well, it just sounds like it's better founder fit, right? Like, you know, it's who our audience is on this podcast. It's where you had a reputation. It's where you knew the relatable pain points.

8:26You knew where to reach them because you knew where you hang out. It's like way better founder fit. It was so much easier. It was way easier. Now, let's talk about the names. Here's a good story about the names. So the company is called Hampton. A lot of people think that means the Hamptons. Up until I was like 27, I didn't know what the Hamptons were. I thought I had read about it in like the Great Gatsby. I thought like it was like that. I didn't even know what it was until I married a woman from that area and I learned about it. So what I do is all of my LLCs are named after streets in my neighborhood of St.

8:56Louis. And there's a lot of really good names for some reason. And so I just usually look at the map of where I'm from and I just look at the names. So let me tell you some names that I thought about naming it. None of these really fit, but they could fit for other things. Number one is Macklin. I love that name. So at one point, I thought about having the Macklin Running Club. The second one is Sublette. I've always liked Sublette. The third one is Simpson. That was a street I grew up near. And then the last one, check this out. King's Highway. Is King's Highway awesome? I love King's Highway.

9:28I love King's Highway. And then eventually we settled on Hampton because I grew up near Hampton Avenue and everyone thinks that it means the Hamptons it doesn't it means Hampton and so sometimes people will say like oh I love the Hamptons referring to my company and I'm like no it's Hampton so we settled on Hampton because I had a good uh that had a good sound to it by the way can you tell me in deciding a name uh is that like a one-day process a one-hour process a one month process for you and are you bouncing it off people or are you just going into a dark room and saying what feels right in my soul like what's your what is the actual way a name gets picked for you?

10:01I only ask like three people. Usually it's my wife, my business partner, and that's about it. Three people, but actually there's only two. Even better. Did I just name two? And myself. And yourself. The Royal We. Yeah. No, I don't really ask too many people because I just don't care that much. I just want to hear someone's gut opinion. And also Hampton.com. I don't think I'm ever going to get. You know who owns that is Marriott. Yeah, the Hampton Inn. Yeah. So I don't know if I'm ever going to get that. But check this out with branding. If you asked me about this five or 10 years ago, I never in a million years thought this was important, but I actually do.

10:35I hired a branding agency. So I paid$15 ,000 right out the gate. And what I did was and I sent this to you, I created this document. And it says, it just says one line, it says elite, but cheeky. And the reason I was inspired by that was, have you read Felix Dennis's book? Yes. How to get rich? Yes. So Felix Dennis is this famous entrepreneur. He's dead now, but he was a wild guy. He was basically a combination of Richard Branson and Mick Jagger. So he had swagger, but he was a legit business guy. But he was elite in that he was great at what he does, but he was a silly person. And he wrote in a very conversational way.

11:12And I love that. And so when I wrote out this branding document, I listed what the business is, who uses it, whatever. And then what I did was I listed a ton of ads that I liked. So there's a bunch of advertisements from the 70s. That's one of my favorite eras for ads. And I found a bunch of GQ ads, Porsche ads, and Rolex ads. Like Rolex had this famous series of ads called the men who built the world wear Rolex. And they would do like a really cool expose on like an astronaut. And you can see the astronaut, he's wearing a Rolex or Dwight Eisenhower, the president of the United States. He's got a Rolex and it's the men who build America are wearing a Rolex.

11:50And so and then there's one with Wall Street journals where it says money talks, we translate. And it's just this beautiful imagery. And so I took that imagery and then I took the color British racing green. You know what British racing green is? I mean, it's the Hampton colors. But it's like a famous color from like Land Rover and Jaguar. It's like these British racing colors that I love. And I thought that because like when I think of a Land Rover or Range Rover or Jaguar. What do you got there? There you go. That's almost so I freaking love that color. That's my favorite color. I've got motorcycles in that color.

12:23I've had a car in that color. It's my favorite color. And I took that color and I'm like, we have to make the brand feel like these ads, but be that color. And I wrote a bunch of sentences that I would want on the website. And that's how we selected the branding. And dude, hiring a branding agency is like a total hack. What are some things along the way of making Hampton that you could have done, but you said no to? And in retrospect, maybe it was a good idea, bad idea. You don't know. You don't know how it would have turned out. But like, what were the no's? Because we can only see what you said yes to.

12:52We could see the name you chose. You told us what names you said no to. We could see the color you chose. What were the things you said no to along the way? Was there anything else that was like a path you considered? Here's two really big ones. So Hampton gets, let's just say, these aren't the exact numbers, but we'll use them, roughly 100 people a day who apply. We accept a fraction of that. And my partner, Joe and I, we watch. So in order to get into Hampton, you have to interview. We watch 100 % of the interviews, and we are the only people who click approve or deny. That is it. It was us too.

13:28That is our job is to watch 100 % of the interviews. So you said no to delegating that out. We said no to delegating that out. And we also... Here's what sucks. Dude, we turned down so many people. And it's like we're turning down so much revenue. And it fucking kills me. I'm adding up the numbers. Now when you ask me... So Chief, cheap.com. It's like this business. I guess we're like them. But they're for women executives. You know why they grew so fast? They grew to$100 million in revenue in 4 or 5 years. They let in 100 % of the people who apply and interview. We don't. and it fucking kills me.

14:06I see all this missed revenue and I'm like, oh my God. And so I'm picking in my head. I'm like, so a lot of people, we've talked about this, but Kingsford charcoal was invented because Ford had all this extra wood that they used to light their furnaces and they eventually turned it to charcoal. That's how Kingsford charcoal came about. And so always in my head, I'm like, what's the charcoal I could make from these people who we've rejected or who don't fit our criteria at the moment. But we've said no to doing any of those ideas. And so we said, basically, we're only focusing on CEOs of this demographic, of this type of business, and we're only going to do that until we say otherwise.

14:42And there's no time in the near future that we intend to say otherwise. Well, let me tell you two things I think you could be doing. So let me give you two ideas I think you maybe should have said yes to. Number one, I think if I go to your website right now, I don't see that you say no to that many people or that there's a cure. how heavy the curation is. All the things you just said to me would make me want to join because it's like, oh, they're really actually curating the community. These are actually high quality people. The founders watch every single interview. They accept in less than 1 % of people.

15:13They have a counter on their website of how many people they've said no to or how much revenue they've said no to in order to make the community solid because that comes first. And we put our money where our mouth is. We turn down this much revenue. Maybe it's too vulgar, but I think you could use that. The second thing. You got the elite part right. Now we have to make it cheeky. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I just went elite douchey. So I don't know. We got to work on the other part.

16:00a more traditional bank that shall now be named. I try it online. It would say no, it would freeze my account. Then I'd have to go in, book an appointment, speak to a specialist who would try to upsell me on something I didn't need. And then finally, after 30 minutes there, then they charge me 50 bucks for the pleasure of that terrible interaction. And now with Mercury, I just go online, push two buttons, and I'm done. It's such a seamless experience. It's very intuitive. Everything's under one place. They basically took all the things any company would need for their financial tech, and they made it super easy to use and put it into one platform.

16:29So highly, highly recommend it. If you're not using Mercury, I question your judgment. So that's it. You've heard it on My First Million. For more information, check out mercury.com. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Check show notes for details. The other thing I don't think you did a great job of is your story. So like, do you value a founding story or like the founder story and the founding story of the company? Do you think that's important or useful? I think that's incredibly important. And I think I made a mistake because I wanted to make this not the Sampar business.

17:03And I think I've screwed up. I think I should have leaned into that. I think the way it works, I did this with the hustle. You can have the founder can be the company or be the face for a period of time and you could phase it out. And with this time, I was like, I'm not going to be it. And I screwed that up. Yeah, yeah. I think you should lean into that because the situations where you don't want the founder to be the face and the reason to join is when the founder has to deliver the service. it's like the law firm or the specialty marketing exec it's like oh this guy's great but oh now I'm handed off to some junior person they're doing my marketing I want that guy on my account whereas with this you don't have to be the account you're not delivering the actual service so I think you could use it because the true founding story is that's how we met we made a peer group in San Francisco when we didn't know shit when we were running our companies and our companies could fail or succeed and in that group came a billion dollar company a$100 million company, a$30 million company, two failures, but one best man at your wedding and a friend who you ended up investing in their thing.

18:04And that came out of that. And then this podcast came out of that, which then has become one of the top business podcasts, blah, blah, blah. That's actually almost like your founding story as an entrepreneur and helped you when you actually sold the hustle successfully. So from, I remember in our peer groups, it was like, I'm going to do the hustle. It was an events business. Then no, no, no, next month. No, it's not an events business. It's a blog business. you said something that stuck with me and it was... It pissed you off. No, no, because you weren't wrong. You were right in that I couldn't build a huge company that way, but you were wrong in that I don't have to build a huge company in order to achieve my goals, which was you go, dude, you're showing up to this fight.

18:43You're showing up to this knife fight with just a knife. I don't even want you to have a gun. You need to have a magic fucking wand. And I was like, well, you're not wrong. That would be nice to have that. But I don't. and so until then we're using our fists in silica valley if you go pitch for investors you're basically making a promise it's going to be a billion dollar company so i was like i don't think it's gonna be a billion dollar company what i didn't know is you were like i'm not trying to build a billion dollar company i'm trying to build a company that makes me x millions of dollars and like and i could do it it can actually do that and that would change my life it'd be fucking awesome which is a different uh pitch so you you are right but where where i was wrong was i shouldn't have aimed for that from the get-go.

19:23Right, right. But you are correct. But so I think, you know, maybe using a founding story would be helpful for you because it's genuine. That's actually, you know, the origin of, I think, you know, a lot of this is like firsthand experience, how the peer group helped you and blah, blah, blah. And then how it also leads to all these other things. That group became, you know, one guy's like, you know, a groomsman at your wedding. Another guy becomes an investment you make down the road, blah, blah, blah. Like that's kind of how these tend to work. So anyways, that's my two cents. Well, thank you.

19:49Did you, have you ever used a branding agency um have i used i used a guy for the milk road not i mean he's an agency but it's like a guy one guy uh which i think you actually nailed i think you nailed that to be honest yeah i loved it it was a cool experience it definitely felt so indulgent it's like oh and now i'm going to take a break from my zero revenue business to go through this mood boarding process with this designer and talk about how the brand needs to feel. It's like, it needs to feel like there's a user and a customer. And there's definitely a part of my voice that was like, shut up, shut up, you idiot.

20:26You go, go build your business. But what we did, the trade-off we did was, we actually, with Milkrow, we wanted to do a brand right away. And we said, let's reward ourselves with a brand when we get to, I think we said 100 ,000 subscribers on the list. And I said, today, we're going to make the brand. But when we get to 100 ,000, then we'll know, like this is, we can always rebrand and we can polish it up. That's what we did to reward ourselves. I think in the future, I would probably use an agency if I'm confident about the idea. If I, it's also just like, I don't know, it's a luxury item. It's not a necessity, but it's a luxury.

21:00I think for some things, it is a necessity. Like if you're an e-commerce brand or something, you got to get your brand right. And you know another thing that I thought was the dumbest thing ever, but I think could be cool? A naming agency. I used a naming agency once. I find a lot of value in that now. I think that it's like most agencies where a lot will suck, but I actually think that it could be quite valuable. What naming, how much of the naming agency? This is one of my many rookie mistakes. I hired a naming agency once. I paid them$25 ,000, a lot of money. And they came in. Now, let me tell you a couple of things about them that's interesting.

21:35One, the people who work at a naming agency are actually awesome. Somebody who is drawn to that is a super interesting person. And actually the move is to go vet branding agencies or naming agencies and then just pluck the most interesting person you have and be like, you're going to run our whole brand. Come over, just come in the house, you're going to run our whole brand. That's what I should have done. And just the audacity that they think that they could just name something. They think that could be the job. Who do you think you are? It's like, that's crazy. So they come in and there's three of them.

22:05And I'm like, it takes three to do this? Oh my God. And so the three of them come in and they sit down and they say, so tell me about, tell me about the company. And when I tell you, I've never felt as much pressure in a pitch because I'm like, this isn't pitching for an investor or a customer. I'm like, I need to give these creatives because creative people like that, they're very skeptical. You know, they see a bunch of corporate BS. It's like, I need to be cool and so clear. And I need to capture the essence inside this business. I can't just say the surface. That's what they want. They were like, yeah, but what is it?

22:37And you're like, I just told you what it is. What do you mean what is it so anyways i have this conversation with them and then i'm like i want to know this guy's process and so i leave the room he comes i come back in he's sitting indian style in the middle of the room he's moved our table to the side he's sitting in his own little floor with the white i took our whiteboard put it on the ground and he's writing long sentences and i'm like this is not names like this is like paragraphs what are you doing and he's just writing out almost in first person. This was awesome, actually. He was writing out in first person.