She Turned $10K Into $20 Million, Then Did It Again with Kim Perell

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0:47This is The Ed Myron Show.

0:52Welcome back to the show, everybody. Okay, today you're going to want to lean in because we're just talking off camera. I have a legitimate, successful entrepreneur. I'm talking about not in a small way, but in a big way. Imagine this. You take 10 grand, you turn it into 20 million bucks. You have an exit from a company. That company becomes a publicly traded company, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This woman is the real deal. She has tremendous energy, by the way. But what's great when you get someone on your show who's not telling you how to do something they haven't done themselves. This woman has done these things herself.

1:22And what I love about the book is she doesn't just brag about the things she did. Well, it's actually saving you the time from the mistakes she's made, which the book's called Mistakes That Made Me a Millionaire. By the way, multi, multi, multi, multi, multi-millionaire. And so we're going to pick her brain today. You're welcome in advance. This is going to be really good. Kim Perreault, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for coming all the way here on your private jet. I appreciate you showing up to my little humble abode today. So thank you.

1:50You've sold companies worth how much? Over$100 million, you think? Last company I sold for$235 million. That's all? That's it. I mean, what are you going to do? Playing small ball. That's unbelievable. What made you decide, before we get started, I'm just curious, you had all this success. You're raising four children. Is that right? Yeah, four. Four little ones. Met your husband in college. So you got a big, busy life. Why would you step in and start writing books and telling people how to do all this stuff? Why did you decide to do that? I mean, to be honest, it's actually probably because of my four kids.

2:22I think that in today's world, we're taught that we want to be perfect and we want to do everything right. And I actually built my entire career on all of the mistakes I made. And we don't need another how to win book. We need another book to show the messy truth about what actually happens behind the scenes. Do you think most people would actually start a business if they knew how really difficult it is? I mean, like the real day to day, like the ups, the downs, the emotions, the people that steal from you, the takeaways, the false starts. Do you think most people, if we're being real, we'll get to the mistakes that's literally going to be next.

3:01But I've always wanted to ask someone who's had big old exits. Everyone goes, that must've been amazing. But do you think most people would do it if they, if they truly knew how difficult it is and how difficult is it? No, no one would do it ever. Honestly, I wouldn't have done it. Me either. If I knew people, if you knew what you do now, I'd be like, I probably wouldn't have done it. No, it's actually kind of nice that you didn't know. I love that. I didn't know. Yeah, you're right. You know, because if you know, yeah, you wouldn't, you'd never get it. Ignorance is bliss. Oh, yes. What was the hardest thing for you?

3:32Like overall, if you said the one thing that was the hardest about all of this, because I think once you get to the 20 million, you're like, I can breathe a little bit now. Right. Like I'm not ever probably going to. You could be, but I'm not broke anymore once you've got that type of money. Right. That's a lot of money. So what was the hardest part, do you think? I know it's not in the book. I'm just curious. I think the hardest part is actually exactly what you're saying. It's the sleepless nights. It's what nobody sees behind the scenes. It's when I'm exhausted. I've done 16 hour days. You run up.

4:03You can't make payroll. It's when something terrible happens in the company and you think this is it. And you're just there alone. Yeah. I mean, it's the worst. And you just want to crawl in bed. That is what it feels like. You feel alone a lot. Alone. Yeah, you do. Even when you have people working with you, because as the leader, you carry the emotional burden of the company. Yeah. And entrepreneurship, you think it's hard, but you never expect it to be that lonely. You know, it's making me think. Yeah. But before we get, it sounds like we're going really dark here. But now your life, was it worth it?

4:39Oh, 100%. Right. Oh, yes. If I could tell my younger self how great my life would turn out, I wouldn't have believed it. to be honest. What's the best part? The freedom. I think it's freedom. Freedom to do whatever I want at whatever time, to invest in new entrepreneurs, to inspire other people, to live the life of their dreams, and not having to worry so much about, I guess, the little things. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's the freedom. I think being wealthy may be slightly overrated but i think being broke and poor which we've both been is way harder than than even you think when you're young you know having to have the world dictate terms to you all the time yes it's really you had to look around like you don't barely remember look at you like so funny no my dad growing up is he gave me some great advice he was an entrepreneur he's like listen kimmy don't want to be a doctor or lawyer there's a salad crap all you need to do is make enough money and he'd call it F you money.

5:45So if someone, you don't like what someone's telling you, you just tell them to F you. My entire being is just like, okay, I just got to work hard enough that eventually someone tells me something I don't want to do. I don't have to. I love that. It's so true. Okay. The book is riddled. It's basically written about the mistakes you made and the stipulation of the book. The premise is basically like, these are the things that actually made me wealthy. So one of my favorite proverbs is Chinese proverb says, if you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. And what I love about you is you've been down the road and you're like, I'll help you.

6:19I'll come back a little bit and let me help you. One of the things you say in the book that only someone who's made it would know is that the threshold to take action for most people is too high. They think they need to know more than they really need to know to take steps. And so they never take the appropriate steps, Right. So discuss that for a second, like not needing to know a hundred percent of the info. You used to think that, right? A hundred percent. You talk about this in the book. So just go ahead and riffed on that a little. I think when I was young and first starting out, I was waiting to feel a hundred percent ready.

6:52Yeah. I think everyone does. And people listening right now, they're waiting to feel that they've got the perfect website. They got the perfect pitch. They got the perfect social media. Once you realize it will never be perfect. and just having the courage to take action is the key to success. And I remember early on, I was listening and I write about in the book, listening to a Marine Corps general talking about the 70 % rule, which is if you have 70 % of the information to take action, you should act. And I started using this very early on, 70%, go, go, go, go. Even if it didn't feel, because it gave me an opportunity to balance analysis and action.

7:33And I mean, I still use it today because you'll never be 100%. So you have to make an educated decision and move forward despite not having all the information. What was the first exit? The first exit? I know, I read the book. Yes, the first exit was in 2008. So it was an internet marketing company. So I had started that in 2003. And I started it with a$10 ,000 loan from my grandma because no one would give me a dollar. They were like, the internet is over. It's a fad. Do not get a real job. I was like, okay, I could get a real job, but I had just gotten a real job. I got fired from that job. At some point you're like, well, nothing, there is no job security.

8:14I think anyone out there is thinking I have a secure job. You don't. You're right. You just don't. The only thing that's secure is whatever you can create. That sounds terrible because I thought I had a secure job. Just not the case. Yeah. After you had that exit, what, I'm just curious. Cause all these mistakes are in there that we're going to talk about, but like, why didn't you like, you're okay. I got 20 million bucks. I'm stopping. What was the next thing you did and why'd you do it? I mean, at that point to you, I had the freedom, right? Cause I think a lot of people go like, I got 20 million.

8:44I'm clipping coupons. Yeah. Yeah. I clip it. I just go to the beach. Well, I was actually, you might've thought that at one time too. I did. I actually, originally I just thought if I could just make a million dollars, like I had just 1 million, I will call it a day and live my life on the beach in Hawaii. I remember so vividly, but that, you know, that comes and goes. And what you realize is, and even now, cause I've starting new companies all the time. I love the love of the game. There you go. I know. It's so much fun to play. Yeah. I think it's easier to play when maybe you don't have to, the first one's the hardest because you need it.

9:19Yeah. Maybe afterwards you don't, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But I think in my case, like afterwards I was like, I'm playing with house money. I, you know, dreamed I would be here, but I didn't know I was going to be here. Right. So I don't know, maybe for me, that's true. I still make this mistake and you write about it in the book. So it was really good for me to read. I still like micromanage and try to do everything alone. I don't know how many employees I have in all my businesses, but it's a lot. And I still find myself, maybe it's ego thinking I'm better at things than other people when I'm truly not.

9:51But like, even with the podcast, I'll send Steven, do this, edit, make this here. I think this should be the cut. Don't you think that's, Hey, flip that. Like I'm constantly doing that. And you say like the second mistake in the book is like, I was trying to do everything on my own. Oh my gosh. Yes. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to trying to do everything alone. And to your point, was it ego? You know, and I think I had a lone wolf mentality growing up just of how I was raised, but at some point you realize you will not scale. So yes, maybe you get to some sort of success, but ultimately you'll crack under the pressure of trying to do it alone.

10:25And when you have the courage to ask for help, that is the game change. Like my entire business took off as soon as I got over my own ego and asked for help. I love your answering style, by the way. It's like very like to the point in business. Like, no, I love that. There's no wasted words. I actually, it's more fits me very well. I think the other reason that I try to do everything is I think a good entrepreneur is a bit of a control freak, but then a weak entrepreneur is too much of a control freak. So I think people listen to like, look, I do everything because I don't want to lose control.

10:58Right. I think there's this illusion that when you give tasks or asked people to help you with things, you lose control to some extent. Do you think that's part of the psychology that hurts? I just want to unpack for people. Why do they have these blind spots? Like, why did you think that? Yeah, maybe it was our ego, but was it also like a control thing? Yeah, I think I was so afraid that the company was going to fail. I had to be part of every single decision. And I was so afraid of what would go wrong if I didn't make the right decision. There was a lot of fear, I think, in giving that to someone else to execute.

11:33Because what if it went wrong? You try to make this interview easy on me. Because the third question I have is about fear. Because the third part of the book, you're like, it was paralyzing to you, the fear. it's funny if you unpack like the mind of some entrepreneurs I'm actually a fear-based entrepreneur like I think I've done I've spent more of my life moving away from what I didn't want sometimes like I was afraid to be broke I was afraid of not being able to eat it's even to this day I still kind of operate out of fear I don't think it's necessarily totally unhealthy but then there's like you can take everything too far to where then it paralyzes you you say in the book like your fear was like a paralyzing fear.

12:13Yeah. Well, fear where you just can't even move, right? You had that really? Yes. That's hard to picture. I think that if you have something so traumatic happen where you are lose your job or lose your, you know, your security or your identity, you're so afraid to make the same mistake. Yeah. And so overcoming that and understanding that mistakes are essential to success. And if you don't try, like that's the only real failure. And I think looking back, trying to understand where the fear was coming from and then how to move past the fear. Was there a massive failure at one point where you're like, this is a biggie.

12:55And I think this just did me in. Was there any moments like that in your career? I mean, listen, I've had so many failures. I've made so many mistakes at this point. Looking back, I think the first company that I'd worked for that failed. And I had called all my friends to come work for me because I told them they were going to be dot-com millionaires. And then they, I had to fire them all and they, many wouldn't talk to me. That hurt, right? You're young. And if you've ever hired people that are really close to you and then had to fire people that are close to you, that is scarring. So just having some of those, those points in your life that you don't ever want to repeat, I think puts you in a paralyzed state.

13:37Yeah, I do too. The other thing that paralyzed me is, if I'm being honest, the reason I think I'm in personal development in addition to the business space and become one of the tacticians in that space is that I needed to learn these skills to become like baseline functioning self-confidence, just to get baseline. I didn't grow up with it because the way I was raised, I was undersized, I was not the smartest, you know, whatever. And so I've had to work really hard on my belief. And as I started to grow as an entrepreneur, I had this constant thought that this is a fluke. I don't even know how we did this.

14:13We can't repeat it again next year. We can't do it again next month. And I would say like massive imposter syndrome most of my career. Did you have that? Because you seem so externally confident. Would this be the person I met then? And did you suffer with your oh my gosh no similar to you and i i talk about this a lot i mean i i'm a twin there's another one of me and you know growing up i was not the smart one she really no i was not she was smarter faster stronger everything we did she always better than me we took you know tests she was always scoring high and i was like the dummy of the family it was terrible but i think early on you put limiting beliefs on yourself so So I thought I was not the smart one, which I mean, to be a twin, our DNA was essentially pretty close.

15:03But I think you carry, you know, I carried that with me a long time. And I think women especially carry labels, you know, believing they're underqualified and believing they're not good enough and whatever you're, you know, those labels that you carry with you, which are simply not true. Yeah. Yeah. And they hold us back from reaching our greatest potential. So learning from that, I can remember early on in my career, I got asked to be on this board, which is an amazing opportunity. And I turned it down because I just didn't feel like I was qualified. I relate to that very much so. I think it's as good for people to hear two entrepreneurs talking, going, hey, look, if you have these things, we've made these mistakes.

15:44We also had these. Here's the other thing I did. I had people stick around in either my personal inner circle or in my businesses. You use the word toxic in the book, which is probably a more descriptive word, but I knew would eventually do harm, but they were really good at something at the time. So short term, losing them felt significantly like a top salesperson, right? Or a top this. And I keep trying to tell entrepreneurs this. It was the biggest mistake because the bigger the business gets, the more damage that person will do on their way out the door. And I want you to give me your opinion about it, but you do say in the book, it's like keeping, you call them toxic people around you.

16:26Oh, it's the worst. And you don't realize to your point that sales head that is so good, but he or she is so toxic to every single other person, but you have to balance. Should I keep them because I want to keep my numbers up or do I let them go because they're terrible and toxic for the company obviously you should let them go but those decisions because everyone is watching what as a leader everyone's watching what you do so you're basically saying it's okay to be an asshole yes yep you're right it's the wrong thing that's so bad from a leadership because that trickles down you know what i was surprised wasn't in the book if i'm being candid because the book is so good there's basically what i would call 10 mistakes in the book, all of them I've made.

17:12My book would have like the 26 trillion mistakes I've made in business. But one big mistake I made is I thought that I just needed to work on the business instead of myself in the beginning. So I'm surprised that's not in there. And I want to ask you about it because it isn't like I, I don't think your business eventually can exceed your own identity. It can exceed your ability, clearly, because mine did, because my abilities are limited. So a company should exceed your personal abilities. But I don't know that it'll exceed your identity, meaning your belief of what you or the business is worthy of.

17:51And I think one of the things that entrepreneurs have to do is they're simultaneously working on their businesses, doing what everybody is doing today, which is listening to this show, which I think is the best in the world for this. But it was working on yourself. Did you do that? And maybe that's why it wasn't a mistake because you just did it. So it didn't need to be listed as a mistake. My mom is an expert in organizational behavior. Okay. And so from an early age, I was like very deeply rooted in my own personal values. And I, that red thread carried through my companies, having that, those, you know, values.

18:27And I'd actually bring her in early on. I'd probably bring her. I mean, actually I asked her yesterday to mentor one of my friends. Wow. She's amazing. It's like having a little Buddha in my, you know, and it was amazing. So it was a gift that I got early on to have such an amazing leadership coach to come into my company. Sure was. To, you know, to coach me, to coach, to coach my teams. So I maybe I had a little bit of unfair advantage. Yeah, I think you did. Yeah, but that's why it wasn't a mistake. It was one of mine. So imagine it's midnight. You're on the couch. You're scrolling through this new website, hitting the add to cart button.

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19:40And you don't need to know how to code. You can handle everything in one place from inventory to payments to analytics. And they've got built-in marketing and email tools and that iconic purple ShopPay button used by millions of businesses around the world. If you want to see less parts being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your one month,$1 per month trial period and start selling today at Shopify.com slash Paula. Go to Shopify.com slash Paula. Shopify.com slash Paula. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash?

20:19Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. I'm a huge believer that pivoting and adaptability is like fluidity, is what I would call it as an entrepreneur, has always been important. But now with AI and all the things are going to be changing in the world now, Now, if you ever utter the sentence of this is just the way we've always done it or, hey, this is the road we're going down.

20:59I even think long term planning may be a bizarre concept nowadays because of the way the world's turning. And you say one of your mistakes was not pivoting enough soon enough. Like which one was it? I think not pivoting fast enough. You know, early on at an Internet company and I remember saying, oh, the social media thing is going to be big. I mean, this is very early. I'm like, no, it's not. How big can the social media thing get? But, you know, last were a few words on that one. But eventually, you know, and I lost some clients, you know, because I didn't have the capabilities. Eventually, I then added the capabilities and I grew it to a$200 million business.

21:35So you can be adaptable. But I think failing to pivot because you just think you have to go one way. You think that it has to be how you originally started out. But knowing, and I've invested in probably 150 companies, 99 % of them have pivoted at least once, if not more. Right. And so in today, to your point, in the world of AI, right now, if we were going to teach our children something or any entrepreneur listening to this, the adaptability, flexibility, we don't know what's going to happen. and the world's gonna move twice as fast, but your mental state of being able to adapt, be flexible, change with the environment will be the key to your success.

22:19I can't even know what's talking about this. Like we're in the midst of like a complete revolution in business. And before this revolution, people weren't adaptable and flexible and pivoting enough. Like the pandemic showed us all of this, right? And I gotta be honest with you guys, everybody. Like even for me, five and 10 year planning right now, it's kind of like I'm doing it, But I'm like, I get, and to me, you got to be well-read, well-informed, and you got to know what's going on. It's, I, it's, it's no longer good enough to go. I'm not really technologically savvy. Like that's basically saying, I'm going out of business.

22:50Like, it's not funny at all anymore. It used to, I used to joke about it. And now I'm like, okay, you sound like an old archive of a businessman. Like you're, you're, we should find your bones buried somewhere. You better be flexible. You better be pivoting. You better know what's going on. You better be fluid. And if you run a company with a bunch of bureaucracy that can't make decisions pretty quickly, like a small company, you're in big trouble in business. I think now you think, yeah, even big companies, because they're so big trouble. You're in the most trouble. Never going to make any change.

23:20But if you're a small company, the great news is you can be nimble. The challenge is, do you have the mindset to be nimble, right? And to embrace technology because a lot of people out there, oh, AI, like guys, it's here, it's coming and we need to embrace it as part of your business. Okay. I'm going to tell you guys, this is why I'm so glad you're doing the show. I actually think this is the one era that's coming everybody for what it's worth that, um, where small businesses may end up by and large having actual advantage over the bigger ones now, because these big companies that are bureaucracies that take weeks and committees and decisions and boards and all this stuff to make all of their decisions in an era where things are going to be changing like at electric speed are going to be in big, big trouble.

24:08And so if you're smaller, you're nimble. As she just said, the word is perfect, which is nimble. You better be, you better be ready to pivot. This is going to be, I think the most exciting time ever in the history of business. The internet made it the most exciting time. I think this is going to be even more exciting because I'm starting to understand what it's doing and business is going to put out of business. Okay, here we go. And don't you think, I mean, just to the pivot, everyone listening should ask themselves, when was the last time I pivoted? And if you can't think of it, that's a problem.