Business Power Moves: Navigating High-Stakes Entrepreneurship with Amrinder Kamboj

0:00A lot of entrepreneurs don't understand there's a part where you're so stressed out of pressure. There's a reason why diamonds are made out of pressure. If there's a tipping point for every entrepreneur, it depends on what decision you want. You want to go down, you want to go up. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.

0:33What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It's always talking about what's right, and we're always talking about what's now. We can talk about last week, about next year. We're talking about right fucking now, how to get ahead, how to learn from the best. And look, I got good friends that refer great people to me, that know shit that you need to know, that I need to know, to get ahead, to understand what it takes to be successful today. That's why I've got Amrinder. He is here. He is a serial entrepreneur. He's just a badass, I guess. What's up, brother? What's up, Ryan? Thanks for having me, brother.

1:11Yeah, man. I think, you know, Ambringer's a strong name, though. It is. I kind of just want to call you that. That's fine. Amboge Ventures, right? Correct, yeah. That's our acquisition main company. We have roughly about 15 companies, major companies under that. Under those companies, we have other acquisition companies under that, too. and we're into what like 15 other countries so my whole principle is everybody asked me this is my whole principle is when i'm doing business i'm looking at business of whatever i'm doing in the u.s right i try to test it how can i copy paste and take it to multiple countries that's where scalability comes in so there's different things of scale and scalability right so scale is increasing your operations as your sales increase right scalability is getting into other verticals and horizons and through other countries.

1:58And a lot of people, they don't think that far. And this, the way it happened was one of the days we're doing all the stuff here. We're buying SaaS businesses. We're buying e-commerce brands. We're growing them and everything. One of the days, I'm just like, dude, what about if we got into another country? It's e-commerce is everywhere, right? The other principle, what I do is, okay, the world pretty much follows what USA does. if you go to india philippines dubai london all these other countries right all those people they're they're being influenced by the western community yeah right so if that's it and i can get into those markets the entry barrier barrier entry ratio is a lot cheaper right now and it's going to get much higher because then i started looking at okay philippines what is the e-commerce in the philippines what how much revenue are they doing you know 17 million dollars right So if the U.S.

2:49is doing$300-something billion or whatever it is, along the way, there's people in there that have money. They need to buy products. Convenience is the biggest thing. That's what I love about e-commerce. Every business that I get into, it's all about convenience to the client. Retail market, I hate retail market. Overhead, all this other stuff you got to do. Blah, blah. Restaurant business, I like. But there's different levels to the restaurant business as well. It's still a hairy business. It is. The margins are ridiculously low. So there's a certain percent of margin I'm also looking for too.

3:20And then growth ability. The reason why I hate hospitality restaurant businesses, it's a fab. I hate fab businesses. I want a business that lasts for five to 10, 15 years. Does that make sense? Restaurants, it's just like, I'm going to open up a Mediterranean spot. How long do you think it's going to last? One customer can literally ruin your repetition. If your main cook leaves, and it seems like you've been through this, huh? Oh, yeah. What happened? I want to hear this. No, I mean, it's just once you have Maine people leave and especially once you get a name for, you know, cooking, you know, restaurant business is tied to the chef.

3:54If it's high end. Correct. Especially if you're making tacos behind the tacos have gotten high end. So, but, you know, if it's fast food or something, it's one thing. But your brand can get tied to the chef real easily in the restaurant business. It is. when it comes to restaurant business, a lot of these businesses, when you look at it, a lot of people, they want to create. So there's a fab that's going on in California. They're opening restaurants left and right. They don't know how to cook or anything like that. All they know is like, oh, I can make some good burritos. I can make some good Indian food.

4:24I can make some good Mediterranean food. And then they want to open something up. They start with the taco truck, food truck, right? And then they want to open up a restaurant. They have these big dreams and everything. But the problem with that is a chef is not going to be able to become a business owner. And a business owner cannot be a chef. and you can't run a business like that. So then that's where it comes into the conversation you need to have is, what am I? Am I the chef? Am I going to play the chef role? Am I going to play the business role? And how do I do this? Let me give you a personal story.

4:50One of my uncles, he owns an Indian restaurant. I told him this. He's drinking at my parents' house. He goes, man, I got this nice Indian chef. He works at a five-star restaurant in New York. They treat him like shit. I'm going to pay him$16,$18 an hour. I bought a house for all employees, and he's going to have the master bedroom. and i looked at him like are you fucking idiot you think that chef who's giving you the revenue pretty much he's the one that produces the revenue quality of food and everything you think he gives a shit about living in a master bedroom and only making 18 hours an hour and what when you come into the restaurant as an owner you get a new car every year and he doesn't you're not giving them those opportunities and he's the main bread and butter of the business and i was like uncle why don't you do this i said why don't you give him at least 25 15 equity to put skin in the game you're a fucking idiot you're a kid you don't know what you're talking about right but then i was like think about it if he has skin in the game he's not going anywhere he's not going anywhere he's going to make better food products he's going to be more involved and now you have a business because now what he's going to do you teach him how to create a leadership team of how to have he's going to start training other chefs so now what do you do your job is to have multiple restaurants throughout the world and that's called scalability yep but people don't think like that No, they're very hyper focused on today.

6:07Today, control. Yeah. I know it all. A lot of, so I coached over a hundred different businesses and you've been in multiple businesses. I've done some research on you, bro. Yeah. So business is all the same, right? Yeah. Everybody tells me, but you don't understand my industry. No, data is the same shit. Yeah. Right. EBITDA doesn't lie to you. Cashflow doesn't lie to you. Your process KPIs, they're all the damn same. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So they come as 100 businesses. And the biggest problem when I see when an entrepreneur is about to fill the tipping point is when they think they know it all. Yeah.

6:42Right. Yeah. When you're successful, I'm successful. Why? Because we have people who know it more than us. Yeah. And we ask them for advice. Then we make the decision. That's when that switch happens. Yeah. A lot of people need to start doing that is take the backseat. I don't know at all, but these are the guys handling my customers. Give me the feedback. Like, okay, how can we improve? How can we improve? Oh, we need this AI technology. We need that. That's how you always grow. How'd you get so smart so young, Amrinder? That's a good question. So 32 years old, I was 20 years old doing GNC business.

7:12And I wish this information that I have now, I knew it in the GNC business. I would have never filled. I had a sports nutrition band. I sold it. It would have been 10 times further if I had this information. What I started doing was, okay, there's a tipping point in my life in 2018. I started helping my dad at the gas station business. I have the GNCs. I have help with my dad's gas station business. and then from there i'm like dude okay i'm coming in for the health background now i'm selling swishers helping people you know there's a different clientele and i knew in me i'm like dude whatever my dad tells me to do as far as like you know making sure the county is good to go whatever it is like it's this is way too freaking easy to me i can do this in my closing my eyes i was like i need to do something else there's more fire in me so then i got into e-commerce business then what happened was what clicked to me was when his employees kept leaving he would hire him A couple months later, a year, he leaves.

7:57GNC, same thing. So I'm like, okay, something's wrong here. And I'm like, what about if we reverse engineer this business? I've been doing business since I was 20 years old up until 32 now, right? 12 years of my career. I've never looked at one resume because I'm going towards the vibe that I'm getting through the purchase. I want to know Ryan at a personal level. If I'm going to do partnership with your friends, with you and all that jazz, I need you to do it at a personal level. That way I can teach you to do everything. But on a resume, you can bullshit lie to me, all that kind of stuff. Six months later down the road, you wasted my time.

8:27I know it usually within the first five minutes of talking to someone. Yeah. Yeah. They're bullshitting, whatever the hell it is. And I love having in-person meetings. Oh, yeah. I hate phone calls. I hate emails. I hate Zoom calls. I like in-person, especially any of my big business conversations. They're always in person because I can read the person like this. If they're nervous or shaky, they're doing this, doing that. If they're comfortable, if I ask them something. Like right now we're talking about the restaurant business and the way you reacted. I already knew you've been through that experience, right?

8:54You're thinking of something. Oh, yeah. Right? So that's why I asked that question. Going back to what I was saying. Okay. So when it comes to employees, we always hire based employees on the skill sets that they can bring to the company. So then I said, what about if I change that? What about if I created a business, right? Or at our gas station business where they're working for us, but then I'm also helping them get to their goals too. Yeah. Right? Their financial goals or whatever the hell it is. So I tell my dad, I was like, dad, this employee right here, he's a good employee. He's loyal to you and everything.

9:22If you want to get more stores, why don't you give him equity of the pie, 10%, depending on the performance that he brings in, which is bonus structure. And then from there, you can get more stores and have him be the manager. Now you have a scalable system. And he's like, no, same thing. Same answer, just like my uncle. Started doing the e-commerce business. Started growing it. Started getting a lot of people. And the first thing what I do is I ask them what? What's your five-year plan? I'm rendering my five-year plan is to help the company grow XYZ. And I put my hand up and I pause them. Look, dude, that's my company.

9:51That's my baby. You're not even in the company and you're already telling me you're going to help me grow. That's bullshit. I'm asking you, what's your personal five-year plan? Where do you want to be? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? All that kind of jazz. Then we create a five-year plan from there. Then we reverse engineer it. Now I'm like, okay, what's your personal professional financial goals? Where are you trying to go for the next years? From there, now I'm like, okay, now I can help you. let's tailor this is how much money you're turning so that's like a coaching thing from there from our companies this is what we can do if you do xyz yada yada yada yada so you're helping them meet their goals too they stay loyal to you your your turnover rates less and you're just growing does that make sense yeah but i just want to know if your nature or nurture did you do you get nurtured to be this structured or where's that nature are you always that it was a little bit of both so what happened was i in 2018 i started researching other people like grant cardone you You know, Patrick Bedevi, Bradley, you, majority of the guys.

10:46And I started to see, what are these guys doing? I started studying every single move. Why did Grant Cardone do this business deal with Brandon Nelson over here? What's going on here? Why is this guy doing this move over here? Why is this guy doing the move here? I started being literally a student of the subject. And then from there, I started reading a shit ton of books. And then the biggest thing where a CEO needs to do is always be curious on everything. I was sitting here going, my next line was the most successful people I know are the most curious. And you're a curious creature. Yeah, always.

11:15You know, I come in here and what's the first thing I do? Riverside, what do you think about that? I'm curious to see what your thoughts are, right? You'll form your own opinion, but you want a lot, you get the inputs. You want to know. Yeah, and then you give me the input. Okay, then you give me the input. You know, you explain it in 20 minutes and rather than two minutes I already know. Okay, if we're doing live events, we're going to use live in-person OBS. If we're doing mobile with the team, we're going to use Riverside. Boom, that's a structure that I have. In two minutes, I already knew that.

11:41But then you explained it a little bit more detailed, right? Curiosity is what makes innovative companies. Curiosity is what gives you the most information and knowledge. What did they do here that we're missing on our stuff? Yeah. Follow their trend. Yeah. That's curiosity. No, it is. I can tell you are. You're one of those guys that go down the rabbit hole a little deeper than most. That's what I am. Yeah. Yeah. You got to. But I don't know what I always I always like to get under the hood with people, because I think people that listen to our show are always wanting to kind of know, like, this is this DNA or, you know, can I become that person?

12:16You know, like because we got all into the spectrum. We got the 25 year old that's trying to be you trying to be me. And we have the 45 year olds that might be 10 yards, 100 yards past us or right there with us. And so I get that question a lot in my DMs and stuff. I think that question is kind of broad. The reason why. Okay. What happens is from analyzing a lot of people, what happens is, well, we just discussed you and I, we get. We're like that one 1%. Yeah. Then there's that other, what, 30, 40, 50%. A lot of people can get into that bracket. To get to that 1 % bracket, that you're just born with.

12:53Yeah. Okay. Right. So what I'm trying to say is you and I, we look at life, business in a very different perspective. with elon musk how many elon musk are the way he thinks how many people are like that how many that's 0.015 yeah you and i we're not even at the level no the way he thinks trying to put people on mars he sells paypal uses all the money to get tesla do like what the fuck right so he just thinks bigger i don't know you know like i think we all as humans put limitations on ourselves like even and actually i don't feel like i do but i do you know because i don't think fucking big enough for Mars, you know?

13:29And I go, how do I think that big? Yeah, exactly. Because you can do anything that you want to do, but you have to expand your mind. Exactly. So what I'm trying to say is you got the 1%, you got the 0.5%, and then we got this tier, and then you got the bottom tier. The bottom tier is always looking for motivation. They're never going to do it. They're always overanalyze everything. And then you got these people right here where they're motivated. They will get to a certain level, but they need somebody else to get to the next level. But they're always shy to get to the next level or they think they've done it all.

13:57You and I, the reason why we're at the 1 % is because we're always learning and curious and we know we have more potential to do more. So the philosophy I use is, okay, what I tell my team is, you have 24 hours. I have 24 hours. Elon Musk has 24 hours. How come Elon Musk is able to run the most successful companies on planet Earth? Every single company is successful. Why? It's because the way he does his time, the way he manages time, effort, and everything is so productive. There's no downtime. Yeah. Right? everything strategically done and i think that's the difference between what a lot of people have to do what i'm trying to say is okay there's a lot of people out there they want to do crazy shit they look at you and i they're like you know private jets rolls royce and all kinds of how'd you get there fuck dude put your phone down stop watching stop watching tom brady do all this crazy shit making him a billionaire why don't you work on yourself yeah well they're living the life through the lens of that other person correct you know they they're taking some solitude of or satisfaction in the fandom of that person.

14:58And I take pleasure in helping people succeed, but I take no pleasure in watching Ami get on a private jet. I'm happy for you, but I don't take any pleasure from that because I'm not living through a lens of your life. You know, I'm living through my life. Exactly. It's not because I don't want that for you. No one wants more from my friends and my colleagues than me. But I can't do it for you. And I take no satisfaction in you getting there because I want to be there. Yeah. Yeah. I think what it is, I think you just answered it right there. A lot of those people that I'm talking about is they live in this victim mindset where basically, I think it's school indoctrination or something like that, where they live in basically like the world society owns us everything.

15:42Right. The information is right there. You have the most powerful tool. Yeah. We live in the greatest time ever for that. Yeah. 25 years old. What were you doing when you're 25? What was Ryan like when he was 25 years old? I got promoted seven times at the first ad agency that I worked with. Okay. With a 2.0 GPA, barely got into the ad agency. But then the people that thought I didn't belong there were reporting to me. What year was that? 2005. 2005. Okay. Now imagine 1980 something. 1980 something. We don't have phones. Yeah. We have those long cord phones. Yeah. We don't have no technology or anything like that.

16:20Okay. Now you live in a country where there's poverty. Yeah. Okay. Then sometimes you have food. Sometimes you don't have food. You make the decision in your household to leave and provide for your family, your parents and your siblings, your brother and your sister. You go to another country miles away. You did some work. You saved up. You got a ticket. Go miles away and you go to Germany. You don't know the language. You don't know anybody there or anything like that. What would you feel? You'd feel awful. you would bill you know okay yeah then two or three years later you basically do the same thing and you go to usa same thing you start all over and everything and then you build from there yeah what i'm trying to say that's that story right there is my dad's story reason why i'm saying this is because what what did he do a lot of the people that are listening you have the resources and the tools it's the phones my dad didn't have none of that shit what i'm trying to say is when you bet on yourself and you give yourself no option oh yeah but to succeed and you're living on the edge yeah brother there's nowhere to go but exactly and i know this too you and i we i feel like we have the same synergy same type of personality right you like to live on the edge so do i and that's why we live every single day like we're always fucking broke we don't have at all or anything like that although we might have the jets and and we're playing private all that kind of stuff but the reason why we're doing that is we're just chasing for speed and time that's the only reason it's not clout no right it's just we're just trying to get to multiple places as quickly as possible.

17:46I don't want to sit and wait for four hours or a plane. Exactly. I'll pull up in five minutes. Yeah. But when you start looking at some of the stories out there, fuck them. When I was 25 years old, I was at my GSC, watching my dad hustle, grind, all that kind of stuff. You have to look at the sacrifice of what people do. So people see you and I as far as these successful guys, multimillion dollar guys, right? But they don't understand the ups and downs. What I'm trying to say is a lot of people, what happens is when that happens, they quit i'm not going to do the business business not for me i'm going to go to the job what you and i did was we got this yeah it just cost me 500 000 to learn a lesson yeah yeah people are okay spending 500 000 million dollars go to college to still learn nothing yeah exactly right their roi yeah exactly that's their roi but our roi is okay this is never going to happen again and that's what boom you start pivoting in a different way a lot of entrepreneurs they don't understand that is there's a part where you're so stressed out and pressure there's a reason why diamonds are made out of pressure.

18:43If there's a tipping point for every entrepreneur, it depends on what decision you want. You want to go down, you want to go up. That's the thing. Every single time where I'm stuck, I start calling my friends like you, Bradley, PBD, all these guys like, dude, I'm stuck over here. What do you think? What do you think? I'm just trying to get as much information as possible. Then from there, I have it laid down and then you make a decision because this might be something new to me, but Ryan's been through it. You know, somebody else has been through it somebody mike schmo joe somebody else if you're doing 100 million in revenue you don't have to call a guy who's doing 100 million or 500 million dollars it might be somebody who's 10 million dollar revenue too but he's been through that situation yeah so always be learning like i have a five-year-old son bro i'm always learning from him he's taught me so much shit you know i got cousins who are doing jobs i learned from them engineer curia again goes back to what curiosity learning and i think that's you know you nailed it i mean you have to kind of have to give a shit yeah like the problem is there's a lot of people that just don't give a shit yeah it's you can call it not giving a shit settling yeah there's a lot of settling that happens it does we get so and i have a hard time we all have our our superpowers and things that we're good at i'm not the most empathetic person though with the settling part like sometimes i can put on like i understand look i grew up with nothing i grew up in a track home in easily south carolina with no money lots of dirt but no money and so i came from nothing two parents that were that loved me and a military dad that gave me lots of love.

20:07So I guess that's something for sure compared to some kids. So I just don't have this gene in me that can understand what makes some people have curiosity and interest and want to do better. And I have a real blind spot there. I don't know why, but you get one life, man. One life. It doesn't mean you have to be a billionaire, but to not be interested in maximizing your potential is where I just, I don't know. I don't get it either. I think Ryan, you know what it is. A lot of the population, 75 % of the population, they're scared to just try. Yeah. And the reason why it is because they don't, if they try and they're friends, they make fun of them.

20:45That's the biggest thing. But the thing is when that happens, you have the wrong damn circle. The biggest problem that I've seen a lot of people not hitting their full potential, they're surrounded by fucking losers. Yeah. Right. They'll put you down or they have successful friends. And this happened to me. They have successful friends. Right. But they're not going to lift you up. And then when you let them go and you have better friends like Ryan, Bradley, all these guys, you're hanging out with you. You're talking about all those other bigger shit. They're looking at the different perspective of life.

21:10And then you're doing all this massive stuff. And then you meet them. You can't have the same conversation because you're vibrating at a different level. They're vibrating at a different level. Right. A lot of people, what they need to do is you need to change your circle. Like there's been times where my family, dude, I stopped talking to my mom for one year. Every single morning, I'm going to the office. I'm fired up to go to the office and kill it, crush it. She'll call me. Your cousin in Australia, blah, blah, blah, blah. What the fuck do you want me to do with that? Your uncle and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

21:33What the hell do you want me to do? Mom, I can't solve their problems. Yeah. I got my own fucking problems. Why don't you do this? Why don't you call me? Be excited. Be happy. Call me and say, son, how you doing? Can I help you? I love you and I miss you. Yeah. Right? Don't ever call me in the morning ever again. She didn't call me for one year in the morning. We'll have a conversation towards the end of the night. But that's what I'm trying to say. have to do those kinds of sacrifice things. A lot of people, I think they're just stuck trying to not to do sacrifices, you know, and the same thing with business.

22:03Sometimes you have people that you think they're good employees. You have to let them go. Oh yeah. You know, you can't have the emotional stuff coming in a good business. Sometimes you partner up with a friend and it's not a good partnership. Yeah. You got all good friends don't make good business partners. They don't. And there's a fine line. You got to find what to choose. Is it the journey or the destination for you? The journey. Yeah. I don't know what my destination is. My final destination, like if I were to die I know what I want right yeah but I like the journey every single business I've been to I get a lot a lot of people that will tell me let's do this listen I get a lot of offers on my table all the damn time right but okay the numbers great sense we're gonna make a lot of money all that kind of stuff but if it's not challenging me I'm not growing I like the journey part of things I like doing hard fucking shit like my mentors like Jeff Bezos my mentors is like Steve Jobs.

22:52My manager is like Elon Musk. Those big guys have created crazy ass shit like Mars. Think about it. Mars. Right? Let him figure out Mars. Let me take out people over here. Let me take care of people here on Earth. I'm trying to solve their problems. But the problems have to be big enough. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's a challenge is what I like. The journey that we're going through. What about you? Let me ask you that. I am. I'm always on a journey. I don't know that I have a destination. I don't have a destination for sure. I think that's why I've been successful. When you set a destination, You get there.

23:22And that's it. What do you do next? I don't want to get there. Yeah. A lot of people ask me, so have you ever thought about retiring and quitting? I can't. No, I won't. I mean, I'll always have something going on. Yeah, same here. I mean, I can play golf, but I, for like a day. Yeah. And you know, but I get, I don't know. Like, it's just, I'm sure no matter how much you take care of yourself and God willing, you know, we have the health at 75, but I just don't think I'll, I might go to bed earlier, but I'll, I think I'll just, I'll have my hands in something until I'm not breathing. You know, it's just not going to be me.

23:54To me, I don't see myself being 70, 80 years old and not doing something. Yeah. When you get to the point where you're, for example, you and I were very successful enough to be like, you know what? We don't need to work is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Right. But we like the challenge. We like doing that because that's like to us, that's our manhood in a way. Correct? Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's my purpose and, you know, it makes me happy. But I mean, but I also coach every game and go to every practice. So I'm not just a workaholic. It's just my hobbies are my business a lot of times. Exactly. And a lot of times I find ways to make my hobbies my business.

24:32Yeah. You know? Yeah. Literally. Yeah, exactly. That's what happens. Because all you're doing is you're at a football game. You're a coach, let's just say. Right? You're looking at some other things. But the way you and I will look at things is like this. Uniforms are costing me this much. I wonder if I can do another resources. Boom. Company starts. Yeah. You know, you're just looking for solutions all the damn time. Oh, exactly. I'm always looking for it. Yeah. There's always a problem looking for my solution. Your solution. That's the thing. So all the entrepreneurs that are out there looking for a next business, startup, whatever it is.

25:02This is literally how I started. And I know for a fact, Ryan, this is how he started. The majority of these guys is how I started. All you got to do is solve your own problems. If there's no solution out there, you have a business. Because if you're dealing with that damn problem, millions of people are dealing with the same problem. For an example, one of my cousins, she calls me from Australia. She goes, I mean, diapers are expensive here in Australia. I was like, okay. So I compare the pricing like, God damn, they are expensive. She's like, what about if we start manufacturing diapers? I'm like, okay, fuck it.

25:27Let's just do it. Right? So, okay, let's create diapers, which are good quality diapers at an affordable price for moms and me. Right? And I was like, the only way to do it is, okay, Ryan, you're a marketing guy. You're a successful guy. If you want to start a business to launch a company, what is it? Well, marketing is part of it. 100 % it's marketing. Right? so how do you get awareness is expensive it is mark cuban started his pharmaceutical company he said we're not going to market you guys have to help me organically grow this company yeah so we did the same approach in australia so we ordered a fucking container send it to australia high quality product diapers and then from there she started facebook groups she started talking to the moms started giving out free samples they started boom boom boom it started flowing flowing now that business is but in business for almost three four years we'll probably do about 24 million just in Australia just from selling fucking diapers.