Omar Soliman | He Got Rich Hauling Trash… Now His Business Makes $300 Million/Year

0:00You got rich hauling trash. Hauling trash, man. Our guest business does over$300 million a year. Is that correct? That's correct. We borrowed my mom's cargo van and said, hey, we want to haul junk as a job for the summer. And she looked us up and down and said, you guys can be the college hunks who haul junk. The first job we went to showed up. Lady showed me a bunch of stuff in her basement, asked me how much it was going to cost. In my mind, I'm thinking 50 bucks. And somehow I said$250. And she handed me the 250 bucks. And I looked at it. And it was the most money I'd ever made in my life. Probably the most money I'd seen in my life.

0:28And I told my parents, I'm like, I'm going to be a full-time junk man. I'm not going back to college. You started in what year? 05. We were on the very first episode, season one, episode one of Shark Tank. We were the first company to refuse a deal. What were some of those lessons you had to learn early on? Businesses don't die from starvation. They usually die from a**hole. You put too much into the business. You lose focus. I know you went to college. I did. So what do you think about the current education system? Oh, man. All right. That's a badass response right there. Omar, if me and you were to die tomorrow and you could leave one last message with the younger generation right here, what would that be?

0:59Oh man, that's a great question. What's going on everyone. Welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James. I'm here with Jack and Josh, and we have an incredible guest for you all today. Our guest business does over$300 million a year. Is that correct? That's correct. Omar, you got rich hauling trash. Hauling trash, man. That's fascinating, man. But I want to get right into it, man. I want you to take us back. You borrowed your mom's beat up van. We did. And you went around, you know, colleges, right? So no, we actually, our primary customers, like your parents, people that are homeowners, people think we, you were in college.

1:33We were in college. Our name is College Hunks, but we service homeowners offices, businesses. We borrowed my mom's cargo van and said, Hey, we want to haul junk as a job for the summer. And she looked us up and down and said, you guys can be the College Hunks who haul junk. Right. And we all just stopped. We're like, I felt the earth move when she said the name, went home, put it on some computer printouts. and six o 'clock that night, the phone started ringing. What was the exact moment that you realized that there was a fortune hiding in people's trash? The first job. So the first job we went to showed up, lady showed me a bunch of stuff in her basement, asked me how much it was gonna cost.

2:06In my mind, I'm thinking 50 bucks and somehow I said$250 and she handed me the 250 bucks and I looked at it and it was the most money I'd ever made in my life. Probably the most money I'd seen in my life and I went home, I made it rain and I told my parents, I was like, I'm gonna be a full-time junk man. I'm not going back to college. I ended up going back to college. Were you competing against these big junk removal companies? Yeah, we compete against junk removal companies. There's hauling companies. Certainly, some people can put their stuff out on the curb. But the value for us is we come in the home, uniformed employees.

2:38We remove the stuff from wherever it's at. And then we also added moving services. So we now offer local and long distance moving. But I would imagine a lot of those companies you were competing against, aren't they backed by the local government? There's companies that are, there's certainly like your local municipal trash companies that are local government. And then you've got like big kind of hauling companies and you've got big giant moving companies. So just in Tampa Bay alone, there's 700 competitors that do what we do. Did that pose a little bit of an advantage to you being that you weren't as regulated having to kind of like abide by like certain rules and whatnot?

3:10Like what was kind of the differences there? The difference is like, well, I mean, the same thing to you guys, like anyone with a phone or a camera can film content. But what makes Hard Knocks different than anybody with a camera, right? There's probably a secret recipe there. For us, it was the brand is viral, right? People sit down at the dimmer table back in 2005, sort of right when Facebook was starting. They would talk about, I saw this orange and green truck driving by. It said collet chunks on it. They take a picture of it. They post it on Facebook. People don't do that with Stanley Steamer or with some other home service business.

3:44So there was like a virality of the brand. That only worked so far because you got to deliver a good service. So in the early years, we had a great brand. We had a lot of sizzle, but we didn't have the steak. We didn't have like the systems, the processes, the people, the technology to truly deliver five-star service. Now that we can do both, that's really the secret sauce. And it's execution at scale. Like anybody with a truck can compete with College Hunks, but we have thousands of trucks doing thousands of jobs every single day. And so one person with one truck is entrepreneurship, but we're sort of an operating system at massive scale.

4:20And so that takes a lot of time and a lot of years of hard work to get there. Omar, when did you realize that like College Hunks was like, had its first sign of success? Like obviously in the early days, you get your first couple of clients and things like that. What was that moment like where you were just kind of like, man, this is a legit business? Like, did you ever imagine that this business would be doing$300 million a year? So, you know, Nick and I, as sort of guys that probably didn't lack confidence, we would have told you we thought we were going to do it sooner. But we describe it as a 20-year overnight success.

4:51Certainly, there's those pinch-yourself moments. But the two sort of, I'd say, paradigms in our business, the first one was we won a business plan in college at University of Miami, and that gave us a$10 ,000 check and a lot of confidence around the business. The second, I would say, is when we went around Shark Tank. So we were on the very first episode, season one, episode one of Shark Tank, And that really, I think, put the brand on a national scale. This was social media was still not like Instagram wasn't even out in the way it is. So like. But did you guys take the deal? We were the first company to refuse a deal.

5:27So Robert and Kevin both made an offer. We countered. Kevin O 'Leary called us pigs because he said we were being greedy. Robert countered our counter and we said no. What was the deal that they had both made? The deal at the time. So we went on pitching a business called College Fox's Packing Boxes because the contract at the time said Sony could take 1 % of your company whether there was a deal or not. Why? That was just like what the terms of early shark tank deals. If you were on the show, you would have to give up equity of your company. It wasn't until Mark Cuban came on that he said, I'm not going to do the show if you keep doing this.

6:02So when we went to pit, when we were going to pitch a business, we didn't want to pitch College Hunks because we're just like, well, we don't want to give up equity. Let's create a sister company. As soon as we start pitching, they're like, we don't want college foxes. We want college hunks. They made an offer. It was$250 ,000 for 10 % of hunks. And so that valued us at about two and a half million at the time. How big was the company at the time? It was small. We had probably eight or nine franchisees and we were probably doing a couple million in revenue. So it was a fair, fair market offer for what the business were.

6:34We just weren't ready to sell. The business now does, call it,$298 million in system-wide revenue. So definitely a few notches above the valuation they gave us. Did you ever end up raising capital? So back in 21, we raised some minority capital. So we sold about 25 % of the company to private equity. And what was the valuation of that? The valuation at that time was about$140 million. Good for you, man. Congratulations. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you. So you started this company with your partner, Nick. Like, is that from the beginning? From day one, yeah. So, you know, with the van, Nick had an internship at the World Bank and he was sending marketing messages to the World Bank employees to use our services.

7:15And then we both got corporate jobs in DC about three months into corporate life. As you all may or may not know, we were like, we can't do this for 40 years. And he asked me, what's your timeline to start the business? And I emailed him back. My timeline is right now, all exclamation points. And so we've been partners ever since. That's a badass response right there. I want to ask, right? Because when you started the business with Nick, you guys are 50-50 partners, right? Yeah. And you started in what year? 05. 05. So it wasn't until 16 years later that you ended up raising capital. It was. I mean, the business was, we were purely bootstrapped.

7:49So the organic DC revenue was funding our franchisee growth. So we started franchising in 08, but we thought franchising meant license to print money, but it's the opposite. You need to really invest a lot of money. It takes millions and millions of dollars to sort of get over the homework. How long were you and Nick going back and forth before you guys just started to ultimately take on that investment? To do the one that we just – so that we were – I wouldn't say we were going back and forth. We want to be a billion-dollar brand. So to get to the next level, it's going to take investment. It's going to take some sophisticated folks around the boardroom to help us get to that level.

8:29So it was just the right time. Why did you decide to go the franchising route versus just being privately owned? It's a great question. So the reason for franchising is for a business like ours, there's a lot of cost to open a new location. So that's A, right? There's like a, it allows you to finance your growth through other people. Yeah. But the second more important part is our business is a lot like it's organized chaos, right? And if you don't have someone that's boots on the ground with equity and skin on the game, they're not going to care as much as a manager potentially. So in the early days, we felt like if we can go get buy-in from folks that believe in our vision and want to make a difference in the world, let's go get them.

9:10And franchising has sort of been that catalyst to growth for us. And it's been a tremendous way to generate wealth, not for us, but for other folks. I got to ask you, a movie that I love is like The Founder by McDonald's, right? And when they started franchising, you know, this location selling rice and beans, this one selling chicken wings, every single location is doing something different. Did you have those early issues early on where you're kind of figuring it out how to actually run franchises to make sure everything's kind of buttoned up? Yeah, man. Yes. Short answer is yes, we did. The flip side of that is the Big Mac came from a franchise owner and serving breakfast at McDonald's came from a franchise owner.

9:50So it's like both, right? Like there's so many, like the reason we started doing moving is because our franchisees were like, I'm getting all these leads and I'm turning them down. Why don't we start offering moving services? So there's a balance of like listening, but then also you've got to be directive and set the course. The challenge with franchising is they're not your employees. Like we can't fire a franchise owner. So it's a lot like politics and that you've got to influence people. You've got to lead through example, and you've got to be able to get on stage to folks that have invested their life savings and tell them this is where we're going and build that trust really comes down to trust in any organization, but in ours and franchising, it's a trust business.

10:28So you mentioned earlier that like, obviously when you kind of start that business, you got that hustle, you're kind of just like doing whatever it takes to make it, make it happen. And then at some point you look in the mirror, you're like, man, in order to get that next level, you got to put in systems, you got to dial in the hiring, dial in the tech and everything like that. So what would you say if you could sum up your best advice to entrepreneurs who get to that stage, who look themselves in the mirror like, man, I got to dial this in. I can remember the moment that that happened. We were we were the 800 number was routed to our cell phone.

10:58So we'd be driving the truck and people would complain about our driving and we'd be the ones answering, taking the complaint, saying like, oh, I'm real sorry. I'm going to talk to that employee when they get back. So we fired ourselves like six times that summer from that. and we're like dude we got to do something different and a mentor of ours recommended a book called the e-myth oh the best right and what's the gist of the book is work on the business not in the business and we were literally up to our necks in the business right and that was the paradigm shift for us like all right to go from two guys in a truck to a national brand a we've got to get off the truck but b we've got to bring in those super who's the people that can take us to that next level.

11:38So that book and sort of that moment was like the aha moment for us. I'm so glad that that was your answer. That would have been my answer to that question. So I can't say nothing but good things about that book. That's Jack's favorite. It's my favorite, favorite book ever. It was like the first book we read that was like the paradigm. Like there's been four books we've read that have completely paradigm shifted our perspective. The first one was E-Myth. The second one was Traction, which is a great sort of, sort of how to like manage your business. The third one is a book called Ask Who Not How, which is a fantastic book because I think as owners and business owners, we're always like, how do I do this?

12:14How do I get to the next level? How do I get to 2 million more followers? But the real question we need to be asking is like, who can I bring on on my team that's gonna help me get there? Because like, we don't know the answer to the hows, it's the who. So us as owners need to be asking who. And then the book we just most recently read, which is fantastic, is Science of Scaling. by Benjamin Hardy, and I forget the other author's name. And the gist of that book is to truly hyperscale, you need to have, obviously, focus, right? You have to raise the floor. And so in franchising, we're always talking about raising the ceiling because we're like, oh, we need to get our$4 million guys to$6 million, but we sometimes lose perspective that we need to get our million-dollar guys to$2 million.

12:59We've got to make it easy for an 18-year-old who's never had a job before to come in day one and like know what to do. So this low code, low cognitive load operating system, right? And then set impossible goals. I got to ask you this question. Yeah. Specifically because I know you went to college. I did. So what do you think about the current education system? Oh, man. All right. I can talk a lot about this because I'm a C student. I hated school. Never knew what I wanted to be when I was growing up. Back in the 90s, there was no school hard knocks. There was no Shark Tank. There was no Apprentice.

13:36So entrepreneurship was not even like something people knew about. I look at your business and it's an unsexy business. It's junk removal. It's moving. And it's like, I feel like everybody today, like, you know, a lot of our generation, like they want to be the influencer. They want to get into stuff when it's like they can make a lot of money. It's hard. In the blue collar, in the trades, man. Look, I'm bearish. The short answer is I'm bearish on school overall, but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that business plan that University of Miami had. so like my whole life changed because I went to college and certainly I met people in college that certainly changed my life too so like if you're looking at college as a way to learn certain how to run a business you're better off buying a franchise or just starting your own business but if you're looking at college as like a way to network meet people and and sort of surround yourself with other like-minded individuals then school and college is right for you but the fact these kids are spending their time learning cursive and learning things that like we're never going to to use in our life is sort of like we need to disrupt school, right?

14:37And like teach people what it's like to run a business, teach people about influencer business and like understanding it and like have Mr. Beast have a class or have you have a class that people can learn from. Kids, this is what kids want to be. So let's help them be that. One of the things you said that I feel like a lot of business owners are probably struggling with is that ability to turn that 18 year old kid or that guy that's never worked in your industry before in creating standardized training, you know, that McDonald's manual to where anyone can come in, show up and do the job incredibly well.

15:06How did you go about doing that within your business? So it's like the McDonald's manual piece sort of works, but like an 18 year old doesn't want to read a manual. Right. And so it's like, it starts with who you hire and we don't hire career movers or career junk haulers. We hire future NBA players, future lawyers, future influencers, future business folks. That's step one. We hire for attitude and we train for the skill. You could have a hundred things in your manual, but it doesn't matter. We had a hunk a few years ago, stuck in an elevator with an 80 year old woman. The elevator couldn't open and she couldn't stand.

15:42So he got on all fours and she sat on his back for 30 minutes. And when the fire department pried the door open, someone took a picture of that and it went globally viral and Progressive, capital one, they use this in their training manuals. I promise you, there's nowhere in our manual that says, when you're stuck in an elevator with an elderly woman, get down on all fours, become a human chair and let her sit on your back. But when you hire people based on your values, you talk about those values and you get people that wanna move the world, which is our company purpose, those things happen organically.

16:14From when you started the business to now, how have the roles and responsibilities and the tasks on a day-to-day basis of you and your partner changed. Like who was in charge of what in the early days and now, what are your guys' primary focuses? It's completely changed because when I walked in here, you guys were on the phone, like on a sales call. That's how it was. Nick and I were in an office, no ceiling tiles, two desks that we found on jobs, just yelling at each other from across the room. I wore the call center technology hat. Nick wore the sales and finance hat. It's kind of like what we were better at.

16:47It's completely evolved now. Now we have who's, you know, in all of those business areas, we sit in what I would call like the visionary seat or co-chairmen of the board. And our job is to really be the spokesman for the brand, set the strategic vision and hold people accountable. And what would you say, like when you look back at the 20 plus years, you know, that you've been in business so far, what was maybe the lowest point in the company's history? Well, you know, COVID was definitely the two lowest points were the 2008 recession. So you guys, again, were young guys then, but 08, the housing bubble burst.

17:21So that was like, we had just started franchising and all of a sudden no revenue. And then COVID, both of those were like game changers for a positive because the 08, we started doing moving. And then COVID, I think it just forced us to become like true operators. Our business, again, it's not Facebook. It's not Google, right? It's like execution. We're more like a football team. How did COVID impact the business? because I would imagine that this is like, regardless of what's happening, you still need it. Great question. Yeah, the first couple months of COVID greatly impacted the business. Then it became like gangbusters, but then we had an inverse problem.

17:56We didn't have enough trucks or labor to handle all the business that was coming at us. So there was like this abrupt stop, all business stop for two months. And then it's like, go, go, go. So it was like, we all had whiplash from that. So it forced us to execute. Omar, what's the biggest hidden cost in running this business? The biggest hidden cost is, well, the biggest hidden cost is people. And the truly biggest hidden cost is the wrong people. Because the day you know you need to let go of someone till the day you do is the most expensive time in a business period. So the hidden cost is the wrong people.

18:37Now, I could give you like a whole bunch of other answers like insurance and all these things. But that's the hidden cost. What's the strangest thing you guys have ever had to move? Oh, man, that's a great question. We've moved and hauled away, you name it. World War II ammunition, mannequins, U.S. Airways was getting rid of like all their first class seats. So we had to haul away a bunch of like first class seats. Have you ever kept any of the souvenirs? We keep a little bit of something. I was actually going to ask, especially if it's like junk removal, right? Could an aspect of the business be almost like, you know those people that bid on storage units and they flip some of the random items?

19:15Is that an aspect of the business at all or no? It could be. The challenge is we get so many jobs, we have to get the trucks cleared and then trying to logistically sort and sell. It's easier to either donate or dispose. But the guys, that's a perk of the job. You know, the guys can keep some of the stuff. They certainly don't ever have to pay for furniture. Every guy that works for every team member that works for us, it's completely got their dorm room or their apartment furnished for sure.

20:03Omar Soliman: Man, that's a great question. So yes, resourcefulness beats resources, I think, 10 out of 10 times. I would say resourcefulness is bias for action and leveraging the people around you, creating a tribe and having people in that tribe that are either specialists or generalists that are going to be able to take you to the next level, right? So a resourceful person will ask, who do I know that's done this before? Who do I know has been through this same issue? Who can I call? And then what is something that I can do that certainly is going to take action faster? And College Hunk's is a resourceful factory because every day, every morning, thousands of 18 to 25 year olds are showing up doing a job that you wouldn't do for your best friend, having to get shit out of people's homes day in and day out.

20:52And every job is different. So like the way that we go about having to get the job and day done is an extremely high resourceful way of doing things. And I think it's a matter of, A, caring. B, surrounding yourselves with people that you can count on and then C, it's like bias for action. A fast company is usually going to be a smart company.

21:12Omar Soliman: It is everything.

21:17I think in the early days when I was young, growing up in D.C., being that we were in a blue-collar business, we didn't have a traditional path that folks in D.C. might have of going to school, getting a law degree. So when you're like, I've got this business called College Hunks, what fucking stupid-ass name is that? Do what? Junk calling? I got a question about the name. Yeah, we'll come back. But, you know, it's what I've found is people want to help. So you just ask.

21:49You know, I think about that. Yeah. It would be drastically different. It's a terrible scene to start a business by the way. I know. I'm sorry. We're throwing a lot. We're all from the D.C. area. Okay. Let's acknowledge. Everybody here probably has love for the D.M.V. You love D.C. I love the D.M.V. Yeah. I'm a commander's man and all that. Let me put that out there. But for, I think, people like us, right? We probably are cut from the similar cloth that probably we got in trouble in school probably and probably didn't love class as much and we didn't want to go do a traditional job. Earlier today, we were talking about all the close calls that we had of getting referrals when we were at school.

22:23There you go. I mean, that was my life. If you ask my friends or people like, Omar was always in trouble, right? So, D.C. is just a different city. It is. It's an education for a city, which is fine, but it's not like an entrepreneurial city. I got to ask about the name. College Hunks. Yes. How much has that name played into your branding success for the company? It's everything, man. At the time, we didn't realize how impactful it was. But when you're choosing a home service business, the two things you care about most are trust and care. And what we didn't realize at the time is the name just inherently gives you trust.

22:59People leave the keys to their house and be like, take care of my furniture. I'll be back. People just don't do that with other moving companies. So the name is everything. It's obviously a challenge, right? It's like, it's a mouthful. It's long. People think we move college students. We don't. We move, you know, single family homes and offices. Obviously it's got hunks in it. So it's a massive pattern interrupt. You know, another great book is The Purple Cow. Yeah. Right. You're driving down a field, you see nothing but brown cows. You now see The Purple Cow. It's a pattern interrupt. But it's everything.

23:30The name is the brand, you know, and people love it. And it's kind of, it says what we do. You know what we do based on when I say the name, right? How many years into the business did it take for you and your partner to finally pay yourselves a meaningful salary? Oh, man. Many years. 15, 12, 13 years until we were like making some decent money. And how much was decent money? A couple hundred grand a year. Okay. Yeah. You know, it took a long time. Yeah. Because when we started, we had no kids, no wives. It was just we were living seven people in one house here in Tampa and and just grinding. Would you say you guys were both always just very grounded and focused on growing the business?

24:11Like, was there any part of you or, you know, your partner that was ever like, man, we got to take some more of the money out or we got to go and get this? I think our problem is we suffer from entrepreneurial disease, which is too many ideas, too many shiny objects and probably ADD. So our team would probably say Omar and Nick will come in with 100 ideas, maybe start three or four of them. And then, you know, some might work, some might. So it's like businesses don't die from starvation. They usually die from indigestion. You put too much into the business. You lose focus. So the key is like we recognize that now in our age.

24:47So we know when to lean in and when to pull back. I don't know if you've realized, but you dropped two hard knocks, all-time quotes. Oh, dude. Put me on the whole thing. The purple cow. All right. Okay. I've never heard a business person mention that outside of like people that are within the content space. And then two is companies don't die from - Starvation. Starvation. Starvation. Jeremy Perkins. Yeah. That is amazing. It's true. It's true. Especially as like you always have challenges. Like you solve hard problems, your reward is harder problems. But like as the scale gets bigger, the focus needs to be even more.

25:22So how did you prevent that though? because I feel like they're so, I think like the starter entrepreneur has a massive problem in today, like on social media, they're like the newest thing pops up and they, they kind of jump ship to this new trend of like how to make money. And I think it's just because they all want to get rich super, super quick. And so what allowed you guys to stay focused on this business? So, I mean, I had a mentor tell me that specific to franchising, but he said franchising is a get rich slow scheme. And that always stood with me as like, for, for, for businesses like mine, there is no get rich quick.

25:58Unfortunately, it's get rich slow. So it's like, it's, it's, there's no magic bullet. It's like a hundred things you have to do to be successful. Um, and unfortunately in our business, there is no, there is no, there's no Bitcoin, there's no crypto, there's not, you know, there's not influencer marketing in that sense. So it's hard for us to, it's just a patience and a persistence game. Omar, your business is over $300 million a year now. What were the biggest problems you had to solve going from zero to one, one to 10, and then 10 to 100? Yeah. I mean, I think zero to one is like that MVP, minimum viable product phase.

26:36It's like, all right, do people need our service? And can we actually make profit margin from the revenue we're doing? And at that point, it's just essentially me and Nick doing all the work. One to 10 is a unique period because obviously you can't do all the work, but you also can't afford$300 ,000 super who's to run marketing and run data and run technology. So you're now playing what I would call money ball. And that's like finding what you can afford. You're not the New York Yankees, you're the Oakland A's. So it's like, you can't afford the 300 grand person. So it's playing that money ball phase.

27:10And then the next one is like the super who phase. It's like, all right, we're past that 10 million. We can go afford a rock star, but we have to make sure they are a rock star. So like, how do you ensure that that person? Cause then that's an expensive mistake. You hire that$200 ,000,$300 ,000 person and they don't work out. And usually those people want to invest a million dollars a year money to do what they want to do. Right. So that could become a multimillion dollar mistake. So the key at this point is now finding the super who's and ensuring that they are who they are. And it seems like very much so as you scale, you're in the people business.

27:45And with a big part of that being franchisees, what are the qualities that you've looked for in franchisees that are incredibly successful versus the ones that aren't as successful? Yeah, great question. What makes a franchisee successful is they follow system. We've got a playbook, they follow system, they stay engaged, right? They learn from the other franchisees. And then the third one is grit, which I'm sure every interview you've probably had, has said that, right? So those are the three things that it takes to be successful as a franchise owner and probably also as a business owner as well.

28:16How big of a role has recurring revenue played to the success of your business? Not at all. So every month our revenue starts at zero. Every day our revenue starts at zero. There's no recurring revenue. What I'll say, the component of recurring revenue is repeat and word of mouth. So 30 % of our business is referral or word of mouth, but that's not guaranteed. That's just, you used him and then you referred to him. So there's no recurring revenue. Is there a referral program you guys have set up to like you can get$500 off like your next move or anything like that? Is that like a big part of business?

28:49You know, we probably could do a better job at that if like really systemizing the referral and the post-move or post-job sort of sharing. Sorry, it was hard because like how often do people move? How often do people move, right? But then, you know, you got to reel it. We sell to commercial businesses, realtors, property managers, and that sort of thing. But I think that's an opportunity for us, for sure. I got a game for you. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Let's hear it. It's rapid fire, okay? And so I'm going to give you a couple of different scenarios, different questions, and it's probably going to be yes or no, but I want you to let me know.

29:25All right. Okay. How old are your kids? 15 and nine. Okay. If one of your kids tomorrow wanted to drop out of college and become an entrepreneur, would you encourage it? Yes. Why? Well, I mean, at first it's, it's, it's the family business. So I'd have to encourage the family business. If it's something that he or she really wanted to do and could make a case for it. For me, entrepreneurship is like, that's my sport. I'm not a base. I didn't play professional baseball. I didn't play in the NBA. Business is my sport. I would love for my kids to have that same, follow in those same footsteps. So I would be very encouraging if my son said that, I need to see a business plan.

30:08Yeah. I need to see some. He's got to go that same route. Yeah. Would you rather have 100 elite franchisees or 500 average ones? 100 elite franchisees, 100%. Your best performing franchisees making millions, but they're constantly breaking your rules. Do you terminate them? Your top franchisees making millions but constantly breaking your rules. So that would be like a major trust violation. Then no, I mean, breaking rules in the sense of like, if we lose trust in a franchise owner or they lose trust in us, then I don't think they could continue being a franchise owner. And I'll ask one for you, did you get offered$500 million cash for college hunks tomorrow?

30:46Are you selling? $500 million cash for college hunks tomorrow? I'm not selling. I'm not selling because we're not done yet. We want to be a billion. so I'd be leaving half the food on the table and B I don't have any hobbies so I need to stick I need something to do I love that yeah I feel like you know it's because we get asked that question all the time is like what do you guys consider selling and I mean it's like hey maybe maybe one day but for right now like I'm I'm deep in the game I love it like I have no intention yeah what is the uh what is the market to sell for for a platform like it would be like a media company would buy you i i think so yeah exactly yeah like barstool yeah yeah the one that's interesting is like a company like uh open ai like like the company that owns chat gpt yeah they purchased a a podcast called tpbn that has like a daily show they do every day okay the podcast does like 35 million a year in revenue from like sponsorships and different stuff but they they acquired it for 100 million interesting and so it's like open ai bought a media company so it's like it's not I'm going to say just other media companies.

31:51Yeah, it could be like a Netflix or Amazon Prime. Obviously, like a Barstool Sports could want to. I think that a lot of these companies. There was a meme page that got acquired for like$84 million from Warner Brothers. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a lot. So, whether it's big tech companies, you know, or big entertainment companies, right? Like they're seeing like, hey, this is where the attention is going. Like there's real eyeballs here. It's like it makes a lot of sense for them ultimately. Yeah. I wanted to ask you though, right? So, you borrowed your mom's beat up band to start doing your first job.

32:18What does she think of all this? Yeah. I mean, she's been extremely proud. She did pass away a few years ago, and we awarded her the Move the World Award at our company conference, which was a very moving moment. She would be and is very proud of college hunks. She, I think, was like, I would call her like the original entrepreneur for me because she left at 18 from her hometown in L.A. and joined the Army or joined the Air Force, actually, and then went on to be a reporter and then opened a furniture store. So she's like done all of these different things and then coined the name. So it's like she's such a part of the college hunks story.

32:56She's extremely proud. Did it take a lot of convincing for her to let you use her van to start doing some jobs? You know what? No, because she was happy that I was not sitting at home playing video games all day. This was Grand Theft Auto Vice City. The original came out. So that was what we were doing all day in the summertime was playing GTA. 100%. Did you have any mentors along the way? Yeah, a lot. I still do. What were some of those things that they helped you out with and some of the lessons you had to learn early on? So the E-Myth was recommended by, honestly, all the books that I mentioned were recommended by mentors.

33:30That's been a great thing about being in Tampa Bay is the community of business owners. And then there's like a franchise community here as well has been very welcoming to helping folks. And like it goes back to asking. Yeah. Just ask. So we all, like we mentioned earlier, grew up in the D.C. area. Yep. You're based in Tampa now. How important is it for people to get out of their hometown? Man, that's a great question. I think it's important. Like I convinced, I told my son, like you should go to college out of Tampa, right? It's like that experience of just living somewhere else and meeting different people is valuable.

34:05And I think it's important. Love it. Well, Omar, we like to end these podcasts off with two questions. I'll start and Jack will end it off. Omar, if me and you were to die tomorrow and you could leave one last message with the younger generation right here, what would that be? Man, it goes back. Resourcefulness beats resources. Be resourceful and surround yourself with people that are going to make you better. And Omar, with the life and legacy that you've led so far, how do you want to be remembered? I want to be remembered as someone that maximized the potential in the people around me. I want to be remembered as a good father and good leader.

34:40I love it. Well, this was a great conversation, man. Thank you, guys. Tactical, motivating, man. I appreciate you being with us. Congratulations, guys. Guys, I love your content and everything. It means a lot, man. For everybody watching, be sure to like and subscribe for amazing content, amazing episodes coming every week to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. If you want to get mentored every single week by the eight, nine, 10, and 11 figure entrepreneurs that we interview on School of Hard Knocks, then click the link in the description to join the School of Mentors and we'll see you inside the community.

35:06With that being said, we'll see you in the next episode. Hell yeah. There we go.