Codie Sanchez | The Secret to Making Millions Without Starting From Scratch

0:00This is the GaryVee Audio Experience. I knew since I was eight I was going to be a businessman and so you know I'm 49 now like back then there was no thought of like people knowing who you are maybe in the business I was going to be in a little bit so yeah and then by the time it started happening for me I was in my mid-30s I was grown it still feels incredibly nice and I also know like why people like my stuff and And I feel like it's for good reasons. It's not because like I can hit a home run or I'm the most attractive man on earth. Like it's because of like something pretty good. I always like when people say thank you instead of like, oh, I've always wanted to meet you.

0:42Or, you know, that to me is like, oh, okay. We helped you out. Not that it's about me that much. I'm really excited the moment you're in. I know these moments of bursts are always like super fun. So congrats. Thanks. Well, you do a good job. It sounds like of recognizing them. I was joking with the team when we hit the New York Times bestseller. I was like, huh, I don't know if I feel anything right now. That's so weird. You know, I thought I would feel something. I wish my brother was here. He'd be laughing. He says the single greatest flaw I have is the inability to smell roses. I'm macro grateful.

1:17Yeah. But I don't really make those kind of goals, nor do I think like much of them either. Yeah, I think I'm the same. I was curious, though. I think that might be somebody who then ends up liking the process. I feel like that means we probably are both similar in the fact that we like the process. I like the game more than the trophy that comes from the game. Totally. I like the game. I don't think I could stop. When people are like, well, isn't it enough? Or why do you talk online? Why don't you shut up and be rich and be quiet? I'm always like, well, that doesn't sound that fun. What do you do after a while?

1:51I wish I had a hobby. I don't have any fucking hobbies. So that would be helpful. People that don't have hobbies are the big winners in life in some ways. I mean, look, you could be passionate about your career and have like a couple of great hobbies. And I think that's like the really awesome, but I get it. My, my work is my hobby for sure. My only other hobby brings me incredible pain. It's following the New York jets. So I don't know. I'm staying away from hobbies. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell everybody who you are? Because like I just said in our banter before we went on, you know, you're having a really great moment.

2:22I feel like you're popping up a lot. So you're in that moment. But because I also know, because I pay attention to things, it's not like you just started today and different things of that nature. So if I said, give me the three minute, you've got the whole floor. I want as many people in the Vayner Nation to have a sense of who you are. Take it away. I'm a reformed finance person, basically. And what happened, I think, is what happened to a lot of people, especially in New York, where you are, which is like, I thought there was a path that I was supposed to follow for a long time. Like, you know, good little Latina daughter, you go get a nice job, you work in a big corporate field.

2:53You go to Wall Street. That's super cool. You work at Goldman Sachs. You climb this ladder. You work at a bunch of big firms. Finally, you're at the head of the ladder. You run a billion-dollar asset center management business in Latin America. At First Trust, you think that's kind of cool. And then after being in finance on Wall Street, however you want to say it, for let's call it like 12 years, man, I was like, I looked into the future. I looked at the corner office, guys. And, you know, it was like, and I'm divorced, so no harm, no foul. But it was like five or six divorces, 47 Lambos, just a lot of stuff that I didn't care about.

3:28And they didn't seem very happy. And so it's like, what game are we playing here? And I don't think I want to play anymore. And I really like money and I like the game of business, but it felt a little shallow. And I had started in finance because I was a journalist along the U.S.-Mexico border. and when I thought about why I got into the game originally, it was because my last name is Sanchez. I was along the U.S.-Mexico border. I was covering human trafficking in Juarez. I remember. Yeah. And I remember watching what happened to people who looked like me, and they were like really terrible things, drug violence, cartel violence.

4:03So I remember thinking, why do I have this life, and they don't? And the difference is truly one thing, which is cash. If you have money, not nationality, not race, not sex, but money, then you can assert your will in the world, and somebody else has a harder time asserting it on you typically. And so that's why I got into finance. And then when I climbed so many ladders, I think at points, I forgot about it. I got into it in my own goal. And then I was like, Oh, wait a second. Uh, I don't want to be these people and I want to get back to my roots. And so I started buying little businesses on the side and maybe not that dissimilar to you've talked about a few times.

4:35It was like a little dabble over here because I was too scared to do something really big. I was a corporate wuss and I made a lot of money and I didn't want to leave and I didn't have a big idea. Yeah, you had the golden handcuffs of the money you were making and so like it makes sense. And again, I think that sometimes people find entrepreneurship and then they can do it. But like most entrepreneurs actually do it right from the get because they're incapable of doing anything else. And then there's people like yourself who actually had it there. They didn't know. But most people are entrepreneurial tendencies, not an actual entrepreneur.

5:09And that's where they get caught. and you heard the horror stories of somebody right now who's listening and get inspired by you making a million dollars a year being a big time lawyer it's like yeah i'm gonna go do it and then they lose everything and it's not as good and so you got self-awareness a big one so you started to dabble which i love and yeah and and i think i really actually i try not to recommend anything i just say what i do and like what i learned one way or the other but i don't think enough people tell you like you don't have to quit the whole thing to your point like i bought a couple businesses on the side, little ones.

5:37And when you say bought businesses, people go, yeah, must be nice. If I was rich, I'd do that too. And I'm like, wait a second. Like my first business that I quote, unquote, bought was like less than 10K. This was a little online consulting business. And my second or third or fourth business was, you know, 100K laundromat. Those aren't tiny, but it's not, you know, this isn't a rich person only game. And so I bought those at the side, had somebody else with working with me, running them day to day while I was working really long hours. And then eventually I was like, wait a second, this scales.

6:05We just buy more of, we buy not one laundromat, but we buy five or six and then we wrap them up and then we have efficiencies of scale. And so finally I got to a point where I was like, wait a second, I'm going to make way more money and I like it on the side doing this business. I'm sorry to interrupt because it's something that I wanted to, like I've dabbled in myself and was the long-term vision of what I'd want to build on top of VaynerMedia, VaynerX. I started the advertising agency to build a private equity firm on top of it but but i came up with this term for myself 70 years ago called micro private equity and it and when i heard you just say that i'm like yeah it's like it's it's almost like my you know private equity as we know it they go out and buy the big businesses we know they buy david busters or crocs or things of that nature um super goop this thing is more like entrepreneurial but the way you were thinking about it when you're thinking about buying one laundromat but then get five efficiency scales.

7:01That's what I would define as micro private equity. Have you ever thought of it that way? Do you see that? Do you agree, disagree? Now I see it that way. Back then I was like, I just think that this is an efficient way to get more customers faster. I keep doing that. But I did steal our private equity playbook. I was in private equity. Oh, interesting. Got it. Yeah. I'm like, we just do leverage buyouts. And instead of using bank's capital, third parties, aka LP's capital, I'll just use my own. And then I'll try to talk the seller into doing a deal with me. And I didn't even know the turn back then seller financing was not that normal.

7:34In vernacular, I think it's always existed. And so I was like, Wait a second, how about I buy part of this? You're kind of old, you're kind of tired, you're kind of sick, you don't want to keep running it, you float me some of it. And I'll give you more of the upside. And we'll keep kind of running this thing together. And not everybody's going to give you that deal, but some did. And so that's how I thought about it. But now I think this is just, here's my two cents. If I have like something ice cream from the rooftops of the world, it's that private equity guys are the richest guys in the world.

8:06You know this, you know a bunch of them. If it's not private equity guys, it's guys who have bought businesses and do transactions within their business, aka Jeff Bezos, like 194 acquisitions or something like that. So everybody who makes a lot of money buys businesses. It just hasn't been normalized for the little guy in the same way that real estate has it that's right real day it's normal to buy a house or a few and fix them and flip them up i think in 20 years that'll be the same way for businesses they will be commoditator tradable right could not agree more so that's my pitch is like let's normalize access to everybody it doesn't mean that the big guys still can't make a ton of money black rock and blackstone are doing fine buying single property yeah and by the way of course that's going to happen because they're going to be looking at for different things.

8:47They're already at a place where, you know, where it's not as interesting. When I was a little kid and I made$1 ,000 at my first baseball card show, it felt like$1 trillion. And then there was a time that the number became 10 ,000. 10 ,000 was like, holy shit. And I will remember, I mean, I always had big dreams, but I remember really being like, I need to be someone who can make$100 ,000 a year. You know, I came from lower middle class, middle class, and I was also growing up in the 80s when 100 ,000 was really what's now considered a million in a lot of ways. So, you know, yeah, I mean, of course, to your point, you know, Apollo and BlackRock, Blackstone, all these players, KKR, like they're going to be looking to buy Coca-Cola, not necessarily, you know, the three bodayas that sell Coca-Cola.

9:34You're exactly right. Well, and the cool part I think about mainstream businesses is like, it's damn hard to compete with tech businesses. Like you're going to go head to head with Sam Altman at OpenAI. Like Elon struggles. that that's tough but that's like where we're telling young kids to go we're like go build an app like i don't know maybe if you are really fucking good you should go do that you know what's funny i've been telling kids go build your personal brand because you can deploy that leverage against something whether you want to go main street and it is the only thing that is defensible against the macro technology once people understand what ai agents are about to do to the world they're going to realize real fast how important brand is and so to your point i think it's a very good beacon because you think about the long tail of small businesses.

10:15You know, I don't know the math, you know, probably better than I do. But I start thinking about how many hairdress salons are there in the world? Forget about America. How many private gyms are there? Right. And then by the way, this is why I built Vayner. My big thing was, I'm probably in a place now where I'll actually just do private equity. But I knew that I built it to potentially do micro private equity. Because Because if I bought seven laundromats, I also have the ability right now with my 2 ,000 person global marketing firm to come up with a brand and do great marketing for it. And there's a lot of efficiency back office, but if you can create growth, I mean I don't think big girl, big boy private equity.

10:54My biggest argument to the titans at KKR and BlackRock and Blackstone, and I speak to a lot of them, is you guys are great at financial and operational efficiency. You guys don't know shit about marketing and you're wasting a lot of money. Oh, I mean, you're so right. Like, for instance, I wonder if I have one here. We have a company called Pink's. I was looking, I have all these hats on here from our companies that we own. But Pink's is this cool company that is a bunch of young, kind of good looking dudes in traditional 50s outfits. And they're window cleaners. Yep. Oh, I know that business.

11:26I know that business. I own that business. Good for you. So yeah, with them. I'm a partial lawyer. I get it, I get it. Yeah, we're co-owners in the business. So they have 120 locations across the country now. Our holding company that owns that one and like a painting company and some other companies, 600 locations across the country. And our mission is like a little bit different, which is to your point. I'm not saying just like go do the minimum with the business. Then it's hard to compete with private equity. They're really cost efficient. They're financial wizards. Those are smart guys and gals.

11:58But like you said, they do not get brand. They do not get brand. And guess what? Me with my like hot boy window cleaning company, you know, like a personal calendar, a great Instagram, they're doing trick flips at your house. I'm going to beat the private equity window cleaning companies. Why? Because nobody can name a single roofing company. It's a window cleaning company. Of course. People don't understand in a world where technology is going to eat up everything and Excel sheet junkies can outmath you. Brand is the only thing. Yeah, I think you're right. What do you think about this? I've been trying this on.

12:34I think brand is the only thing. And I also think it's going to be like hard assets in real estate. I think you're right that hard assets are great. but I will never miss a New York Jets game. Cody, we can become friendly off of this. You could text me in nine years and be like, Gar, if you can please just meet me in Midtown Manhattan. I live in Manhattan. They're a big fan of both of us and you're the missing piece. We can get this. It will be the biggest deal. In fact, I've used my AI calculator. This will be the biggest financial deal of both you and my career but they can only meet in Midtown at 1 p.m.

13:12If the New York Jets are 0-13 and playing their 14th game of the year and they're playing at one o 'clock, I will not be at that meeting. That's called religion. That's called brand. So I think you're, I mean, look, to say anything is the only thing already isn't true. Yeah. But I do think as technology continues to go ham, as when you think about the blockchain and AI agents and this whole wave of Web3, VR, it's all coming. I really am a big fan of brand and I think it makes the act like of course you have the common sense and know how to balance your checkbook and all these little things but if you're asking me what can win in an upset right like if you're gonna upset like a sports term like PE's against you and they're much bigger but you're just like the only thing it's not you're not gonna have more hard assets than them you're not gonna have better technology you're not gonna have better AI It's going to be brand and that's why I spend my life on it.

14:16Yeah, that's a good point, actually. I mean, I obviously feel somewhat the same because I'm on the internet. I do think - No, you're doing a great job. Well, thanks. Actually, let's talk about, if I may, because I think this will bring a lot of people value. You've had a really good run here the last year and you probably know it better than I do of exact timing. Anything that you feel has led to you kind of popping off a little bit more than you have? You've been having a consistent climb. but let's not be confused. Like you're in a little bit of a moment and I've had like different moments where I have moments and you know, it's just like anything else.

14:49Like it's like a good stock, you know, like a good stock. And so that's what I would say you have been, but I know you're in your moment right now. For example, just me living my life, how I roll many more people in the last year. But like, hey, do you know this versus three years ago? What, what, if anything made that happen? A couple of things. One, I'm about three years in to being on the internet. So I think like your freshman year, you know what the fuck you're doing. You got no idea. You know, your sophomore year, you're kind of the same. Your junior, like if you're serious about something, that's when you start to make varsity, right?

15:23So to use another term, I think from my perspective, I love any game of business that I get to play. I treat media like a business. You know, we own all these other companies, but if you saw the backend, we just hired a president from a really big name. I'm going to make the announcement this week and I think it'll be cool but this president has run one of the biggest media companies in the world and uh and I was showing I was nervous to bring him in like he's gonna see what fucking idiots we are over here nope and and and what he said instead is he was like I've never seen a media company that's run like a financial firm and so like I think about it like data yeah because it is yeah of course and it's just you can actually predict what's going to happen if you obsess on the data.

16:07And I think the data has to be paired with the fact that I try to obsess on like one human, we call them job working, John, this is the person that I'm talking to. And so everything we do is with the idea of this avatar. And I know what they look like. And I've had them before. And I've written all out. And what's amazing for you is there's 73 ,000 variants of, of John, right? And different races, genders, income levels, interest categories and um yeah i've called it rick and sally and i get mad at rick and sally i always yell at rick and sally for doing the wrong things but i have a very good sense of what you're saying there um what do you want a lot of people don't talk to i think one of the problems with people on the internet is once you start getting a little attention then it gets you know then you want to like impress other smart people or yeah i think yeah i think a lot of people want fame or notoriety for money and not to work.

17:06So I think there's a lot there. I mean, this is what I spend a lot of time on. Cody, I think to your point, when someone gets, the reason like when people are coming up, I'm always watching, I watch a lot. I mainly listen, even though it seems like I'm always yapping. Yeah, I think most people don't love the game. And so if they get a little something, they just wanna lay by the pool and party and hook up. And those are all cool things. It's not like anything's bad. But I think the reason most people lose their way is they're not about it. They're not about providing value to the audience. They're not about building something really substantial.

17:44And they don't love the game of building things. They want the trophies. They don't wanna play the game. So once they played enough of a game to get a trophy, they're like, this was good enough. And by the way, that's amazing. That's amazing. They're allowed. everyone's allowed to live their life however they want. But I think if to answer your question, I think that's why when you look at it, you're like, oh, why did they do that? That. Yeah, I think you're right. You know, when I first heard about you actually was a guy who's become a friend, Andy Fursella, who like thinks the world of you. And what was interesting is, and I think he'd be fine with me saying this, but he was just like, Gary's so smart.

18:17Like people don't realize on the internet because he seems nice and he talks really broadly to people how deep this guy goes. and I kind of took that to heart actually in a lot of things that we do with like don't try to serve the highest level and be the elite of the elite in order to make yourself feel really smart like who are you serving and I think once people get really well known on the internet they stop talking about the shit that we need to know when we don't when we're not in it yet it's like how much money did you make how how do I make my first thousand how do I make my first hundred thousand like can you break that down really tactically don't use 37 vowels and so i'm i'm pretty big on that i think you're smart to do that that's very nice to hear and yeah i mean i think what people say behind your back that actually know you is like everything so it's nice to hear and i look i think this is you know again every format's different we're doing this podcast you and i right i'm sitting here analyzing the first bit of it i know it's good we've already touched on some stuff like i I know people are gonna get value, right?

19:19I also know we're doing a podcast. That's gonna be different than when, not if, this point I feel, one day we'll sit down and have dinner, right? And in that instance, we'll probably go deeper into the things that are happening, and to Andy's point, well only in that format will you be like, oh shit, right? I mean, Gary's an operator, or it's, you know, in this, and what's weird about me, like, Like, for example, Vayner has 2 ,000 global employees and I am the active CEO. Shit, I'm the COO too. And so, and you know this, most people think I'm a cartoon character. You know what I mean? Like a personal brand or a public speaker.

20:03And this is only one of my businesses that I'm actively running. I have a sports agency and a TV production company and this intellectual property, VFriends, and I'm the co-founder of Resi and we sold that. But I'm like truly an entrepreneur operator who happens to also make content, but that content I've been so good at because I treated it like a business like you, it becomes, people don't know, you know? And that's okay, that's awesome. Anyway, let me jump to something more important, which is you thought about, you know, at least for a minute or maybe right before you started, or maybe a lot, depending on how you roll.

20:42What would you like to talk about to this audience that we haven't touched on yet? Because I want to give you that opportunity. What do you want to jam on? What do you want to pontificate about? What do you want to banter about? Well, I think one thing that the audience should really be thinking about, and that's kind of the point of the book, is I think we got a nice little five-year run here. And nobody knows what the future is going to have. But I think we got a five-year run where we have an overlap between baby boomers and the generation that you and I talk a lot to, which is Gen Z and millennials, in which we get to take over their businesses.

21:16So if I get to leave people with one thing today, and I'll shut up about this after about five years because I think there will be a time when this doesn't matter anymore, but it is happening all around us. Right now, somebody that you know, Gary, or maybe more importantly, somebody that's listening right now, somebody that's your parents, your dad, your uncle, your cousin has a business that is making them not happy anymore. that maybe you just want to retire from. And I don't think we need intermediaries. We don't need banks. We don't need private equity companies in order to exchange businesses.

21:48We used to exchange businesses with apprenticeship. Now apprenticeship is illegal in the US, which is probably how you know it's a good thing. And so - Break that down for me. I don't know what you just said there, meaning I know apprenticeship. I remember like your store manager became like your pseudo son or daughter and they bought it from you, right? I'm not, we're not talking family business. You're actually talking about like, I was Don. I had two pizza shops. Little Johnny started working for me in the summers in 15. He decided he liked it. He became my store manager. He worked for 22 years.

22:20I didn't have any children or they didn't have any interest in my business. And little Johnny bought the business from me and bought it out from me, paying me a little bit year in year. That I know because I grew up with that. I think about that. Tell me what part is now illegal in the US. Well, apprentices used to be unpaid. That was unpaid internships. Now we've changed the world. But that's how you used to get an apprentice. They're like, I am not qualified. I don't know how to run. I'm sorry. You're talking about, which also used to happen, right? I had a business. It wasn't somebody who grew up in my business.

22:55It was sometimes and often, you know this, a customer of my business who didn't like what they were doing. And they were like, wait, you're looking to sell? Joe, don't sell. wait a minute I'll buy it from you Joe I'll work for a year for free you teach me the business and I'll buy it from you 100 and that used to be actually how we transitioned I know in the US it was either your family or that and so what I'm saying is I think we got to bring a little bit more of that back because there's simply not enough people by the way that illegal I'm sorry to interrupt you this just gets me crazy do you know how most things in the world start with good intent but then they fuck everything up.

23:31I understand the concept of like, hey, let's not fuck people and be predatory and not let them do unpaid internships. But what about the people that have no opportunity? One of the only things they have is their effort. And so, you know, highbrow academic, like we can do the right thing. Humans don't know how to do the right thing. People come up with these fucking rules and you just actually took away good shit from people that had good intent, not fucking demon corporations that are like, we're going to fuck the kids. I mean, including kids that come from a lot of wealth who don't want to be nepo babies and work for their parents but could afford to go work somewhere for free.

24:10That just fucks me up so much. It's awful. Well, I mean, it's, you know, it's actually, it's wild. I was sitting with somebody from the SBA last night. There are 214 ,000 regulations on small businesses in Texas. In Texas. You can't even do a, you can't even be a hair braider. I love how Texas is like, we're so fucking capitalist. It's absurd. Scares me to ask how many are in New York and California. Oh, I couldn't even. Eight trillion. We can't count enough. Her entire mission in the SBA this year is to roll back 25 ,000 regulations. For humans, especially people who listen to you, they already don't think they're victims because you yell at them a lot.

24:52They already believe that they are capable of something. and all I hope to push on some people is like think a little bigger. That's it. Honestly, I love what you're doing and let me tell you why. It's uncomfortably practical. No, really, I'm being dead fucking serious. Like I don't think people understand that they can buy an entire business for$10 ,000 and it might even motivate them to do what I want which is, hey, remember when I keep yelling about buying Starbucks when you have no savings or taking Ubers when you have no savings. I believe most people that make$80 ,000 a year or higher can actually save a lot of money if they get humble and strategic.