Building a 100M+ business from 0 (Feat. Eugene Remm ) | EP 70

0:09All right, Chag Sameach everybody. If we're still standing, it would be amazing if you guys can find your seats. Just to kick it off here, and first of all, Chag Sameach, I know the timing was tough. Eugene and I had to rush over here. Well, he was already here, but I appreciate you all making the time to be here with us. One of the most amazing things about Eugene, although there are many of them, is that he can inspire with very few words. I'll start off and then I'll introduce him afterwards with a story. I think I was 19 or 20 at the time. And I came to Eugene's office. We were in touch for a while.

0:39I was telling him about the training that I was doing. And I said, Eugene, I'd love to work for you. And I'll never forget this because to this date, it was still one of the most influential moments that I've had. He said to me with a serious face, what value do you have to offer? And I said, well, I can do marketing. He's like, do you have a marketing degree? I was like, no. He's like, okay. What else can you offer? And in that moment, it was the first time that I was ever asked that question. And leaving it, my ego was, of course, bruised by it. But then every other moment in life that came from that has come as a byproduct of that, where it's so easy to think that we deserve to be in certain situations or to have success or to achieve anything.

1:19But that question to you made me actually think, wait, if I want anything in life, there needs to be a working for it. It's not just going to come to you. You can't just step into a room and think that you have it figured out. And so I want to thank you for that because I never told you, but it's really, really helped me in life. For those of you that don't know Eugene, he's the founder of Catch Corner Store. You got to help me out here. There's probably like six other names at this point. There's a few more, go ahead. Okay. Some of the best food in the world and also just amazing at what he does.

1:46So it's an honor to be here with you, Eugene. And maybe if you can just give a bit more of an introduction for us. Well, first I want to thank you because if this doesn't go well, it's because you're not good at your job. Absolutely. And I don't have a marketing degree. And if it goes great, it's because I'm an amazing guest. But it's funny. I just want to say I don't remember that conversation, but it definitely happened. But I would just say I think there's a bigger element there, which was if you want to, hey, I would like to work for you. I would like to start a company. I would like to start this T-shirt company.

2:16I would like to start this microphone company. the wrong question is like what is special or different about what I can provide that will give to you that will make it worth it so when I walk into someone's office when I was in my 20s and I would say hey I can help you with this thing maybe it's just getting your lunch in the beginning maybe it's just giving you some relevance of what 22 year olds are doing in New York City but I think just transitioning just because I think it's the first thing you said is you came in and just says I can do marketing. I don't even think you knew what marketing meant.

2:47But I think the idea is when you're meeting with someone and you want something for someone first, just think what is the value add that you can provide people. I think what we do in our business right now, we create in real life experiences. And those are, people are very good at making money. They go somewhere at eight in the morning. They leave somewhere at 6 PM. They go get a bunch of this green stuff and then they're unhappy when they get home. So they worked all this time to get this green stuff. This green stuff is supposed to make them happy. And then they're looking for places to actually bring joy.

3:20And what we do for a living is create experiences. So when I talk to my chefs and I talk to my managers and our team, I was like, you're not a server. You're not a manager. You're an experienced curator. No different than someone on Broadway. No different than someone who's creating someone's joy. And that's what we do. And I think it's interesting when you ask me that I think a lot of people need to ask the question, as a young professional, what is my value add to what I am doing? Not, oh, I'm going to take this job because after two years of this job, then I'll have this on my resume and then I'll go to do that.

3:57But in the meantime, say, hey, while I'm here for these two years, how can I help this company? And I think that, cabalistically speaking, is probably a core principle of life. You want to give light to get light. You want to be proactive, not reactive. And I think that's something, you know, I didn't remember that. Yeah, absolutely. One thing that I hear all the time from people my age, and I've even had this question myself at 20, 21 and 27 now, was that if we don't have the parents, if we don't have the environment, if we don't have the connections, we can't be successful. You obviously have a very atypical story to success.

4:33Do you believe that any of that's true? I believe the counter can actually be true. I think that if you have incredibly wealthy parents and you have a ton of influence, then you have no thirst. If you have no thirst, you have no desire. If you have no desire, you won't want to go and get. So as someone who came from humble beginnings, a Russian immigrant, parents, super simple, and really no teachings of any kind, for better or worse, right? Just make sure you don't spend more than you make and make sure you don't buy stuff you don't need and don't do anything bad. That was really the extent of it.

5:04But I think about it two ways. I think if you have nothing, then every step that you go to get something is like a taste of the light of something greater than what you currently have. I'm actually curious. Sometimes I would just say I would say it's just as hard to start from the top. Your family comes from a lot and then you just expect a lot to be the floor. And then you go somewhere and you see the floor and you're like, oh, my God, that's not possible. So, no, I think it's as much of a disadvantage to come from the top as it is to start at the bottom. I believe in 2026 with what technology can give you.

5:40Like when I was 12 or 13 or 14 or 15, I don't remember my age exactly, but like the real world was the first time that show, I don't know if any of you guys knew about it, but it was seven strangers living in a loft in New York city. And I had no idea that someone could make a living as a stylist or a dancer or a writer. I just thought it was who was in my town. It was insurance salesman. It was, you know, whatever plumbers, it was a lawyer or a doctor, I guess, would be like the traditional jobs. So I don't think that at all, actually. I would think that the one thing you need is perspective.

6:16The one thing in whatever industry you want to go in, you must have a point of view. And a point of view used to come with experience. But now I think with technology, that point of view can come much easier. Because if you want to learn about something, technology can at least teach you the basics, the very basic of anything. So if you want to be in the restaurant business, but you can't afford to eat at any of the restaurants, at least go online and look at all the restaurants that are in a comp set. At least search through Eater and Infatuation, and just read. It doesn't cost you anything other than the internet, and I think a lot of people are forgetting that they can do a lot, and a lot of young people interview with me, and I'll ask them that exact question.

6:56I'll be like, where does my restaurant group fit in? Give me three of my comps and they'll be frozen. Give me five of the best dishes you think we serve and why do you think they're the best? Give me, if they're going for a social media position, what do you think are the five most Instagrammable comps of what other dishes that people have? And people don't have perspective and you don't have to be born into perspective. You don't have to pay into perspective. And you can get that right now. So I don't, I don't think that at all. And I actually have an empathy for those that come from that from sincerely.

7:32And there isn't, you know, you're not going to get a lot of that in the big world because I don't think people actually understand that. But I think it's harder to come from a lot and find a way to be hungry or thirsty, especially if you've never been hungry. And I think that's even harder. Right. We were laughing with Andrew yesterday about like how today's day and age you go on Instagram. It's like, how do I find my soulmate? How do I build a successful business? I already know the answer to this, but I think it's important to even ask because I think like coming into this room, myself included probably in the audience is thinking that's exactly what I want to leave with.

8:03I want to leave with the path to success. Is there one? And then that's slightly rhetorical, but if there's not one, then what do you suggest to somebody who's wanting to leave with some bit of, yeah. Young people come into these meetings like, how do I start a business or how do I make more money and I it's like the wrong question but more importantly if there was one self-help book that worked for everybody we would all buy it and we would all follow it but the reality is for some people it's work harder and for people who work really hard with no vision for them it's to slow down for some people it's to talk up because they're incredibly quiet and then there's some people who are very boisterous and loud and they got to find places to be second position and let other people talk.

8:45So there is no one way. The only one way I know is the answer that I get from Eitan every time we talk, which is he doesn't give me answers because that would be too specific. He just says, ask the light. And it's not that simple, but he just says, what feels right? What is something that is not for the sake of receiving alone? What is something for the sake of others? What is something that shrinks the ego and grows your vessel? What is something that makes other people feel great before yourself. So I think there is no right answer because there's so many different ways to success. So some people will say, you got to work 24 hours a day.

9:22Maybe, maybe in tech you do. And maybe if you're a tech founder and you're grinding and it's about, you know, not sales, you're knocking on doors, maybe you do. If you're in a creative space, you shouldn't work all day. You create no space for creativity. You create no space for anything. So, and then there's people who are lazy and those people probably who think that just everything's going to come with them. They do something for two minutes. They think they're great. They talk about the thing they did for two minutes and for them, they got to work a lot more. So there's no linear line in my opinion.

9:53And I think there's just a few paths to that. Right. You've spoken about how success has changed for you as you've gotten older and achieved levels of success. How would you define that today? Well, today success is, success is very different. I think honestly it's every day it's an evolution of it but I think in my 20s it was a rap video right whatever you would think as a young person you know if you have money and cars and pretty people around you and you're doing the thing and people notice you like you want that because sadly for better or worse that was the interpretation of success you get some form of that and then you realize you're lonelier than you were before you even had that and so then that's not successful then you revert then you get successful then you have failures then you get successful then you have failures and the reality is it's constantly evolving for me right now success is time with my family only doing things I love not meaning only things I love like only the fun things meaning like I don't want to be in business with people who are not kind I don't want to if I can make five times the money, but I can have to be in business with someone that makes my day as hard.

11:01Like, what is the point? I think like I was listening to like a Marcus Aurelius summary and it was just like your most valuable thing is time. So what do you do? The only thing we cannot actually purchase is time. So what do you want to do with your time? So for me currently. My business strategy is opening as many things in New York that allow me to walk to work. and if I walk to work, that means I could walk home. It means I can be there in the morning. It means I can be there in the evening and you're not traveling for 24 hours to get two hours of work. And I also, it's a privilege that I have because I'm not worried about my rent.

11:41However, a lot of people who don't worry about the rent continue to follow that same path of I got to work, I got to work, I got to work, even when they have more than what they need, but they don't even know why they're doing it. And I remember another early conversation with Eitan where he, this was maybe 15 years ago, I had two clubs. And I would say, he'd say, what do you want? And it's funny, this seems like a very simple question, but at the time it wasn't obvious. He said, well, what do you want? And I'm like, I have two clubs. He goes, what do you want? I go, a third club. He goes, what do you want then?

12:09A restaurant. He goes, what do you want then? I don't know, a second restaurant. What do you want then? A hotel. The reality is he was trying to lead me to a place where I wanted was just happiness. And I thought these things would bring me happiness, but they don't. So instead of just starting to look for the monetary things you want or the financial things you want, try to look at success. A term that I like to use is 360 success, which is like, what does success look like all around? We know some people who are incredibly wealthy and have a very tough home life, tons of chaos. We have people who are blessed with five children, amazing family, and they struggle financially.

12:54And I think what you want to try to figure out is what 360 success looks like to you. And I think that's a balance of your personal health, your personal relationships, your connection with the creator, and your business. And you can slice that up however fits for you. But you can't be good to your family unless you have your health. Right. So if you work 20 hours a day, sleep four hours a day, you're going to make more money. So then later on, you can do more things with the family that's now older and gone. So you got to find that balance, personally. I think many people here, and whenever you're in a room with people, you can probably assume that one person's either stuck or at rock bottom.

13:33Have you had those moments? And then how did you get out of it? The biggest rock bottom moments come when I thought I was the most enlightened, the most successful, and the absolute smartest. and I paid no attention to anybody else but myself. So on like a very practical level, I can say my first nightclub was incredibly successful. My second nightclub was incredibly successful. My first restaurant was successful. My second restaurant was successful. And then I'm just thinking like, okay, I'll just do it like this. And what you realize is instead of coming at 9 in the morning, then you start coming in 9 at night.

14:10Instead of doing the work and caring about the people you work with, if you just care about the most influential person in the room. You start behaving like a segment of your customer base instead of getting back to the seed level of what you got here. And we went from, I think, four places to 14 in three years, and then from 14 to three two years later. So big success, big growth, big failure. And I think all of that happened mostly because of, I think, having extreme ego and then having extreme certainty that what you're doing is the absolute best thing in the world without really taking time to listen created a really negative.

14:56And I'll never forget it. I mean, I went to, I think we were in Las Vegas, and I took a private plane by myself to meet friends somewhere after spending seven days in Vegas on a work trip. But it was nonsense. It wasn't really a work trip. It was like five hours of work and five days of going out. And I was with six friends, and everyone's, I think the statement was, how can we be better? What was one thing, oh, this was one of us. It was, what do you want to change in your life this year? and I'll never forget I'm like nothing I have everything I've got it all figured out and I think right after that all the failure and some of the failure was through my own actions some of that was like bankruptcy of a two billion dollar casino which doesn't happen very often or a place that we built that we were we didn't do the construction probably so the sound went into the building and then the building created police and then the police came and padlocked our building and then we had issues with the SLA and all these other things.

15:59So what it did, though, which sounded like a disaster and actually felt like a disaster, and I used to say things like, oh, I have all the money I'll ever need, and then all of a sudden you put all that money into stuff and then that money disappears and you're like, oh, boy, I've got to go back to work, but I should have always gone back to work, whether I have the money or not. You should never live off your interest. You should never live off what you have in the bank. You should always, if you have desire and you have ability, you should always push forward. So going from 4 to 14 back to 2, 2 and a half, I went back into the restaurants.

16:29I went back into the pre-shift. I went back into the 9 o 'clock. I stopped going out late. I met my wife. I changed. Monica had a, you know, when she was talking about the clay and Michelangelo or some artist, and she was saying, it's not about what you do, it's about what you remove. and that that meant a lot to me because I found a way to remove a lot of pieces so it went from four in the morning to two in the morning for a little bit to 12 and now it's you know it's 10 p.m unless we're in the middle of something super special and I'm home um and so that failure I don't want to make this like a bumper sticker but that failure was a success that that that thing that felt like and by the way press stuff oh you know they had a bunch of places now and before it was like oh they're the big fancy company and then oh they don't have you know they're the bad company and you have to let go of a hundred people and you thought those hundred people were your friends and as soon as they don't get paid by you then you think they they all of a sudden tell you how they really feel um and so it was the worst best thing that ever happened for me and then that slow reset helped to build now there were spirals along the way but you know if life is in my opinion life should kind of go like this a little setback then up a little setback that's like the perfect life and then mine went more like up and then all the way down and kind of back this way and that way I think the lows started to get smaller the highs started to get smaller too so it just became incremental so I would fall or do things that weren't great, but they weren't as extreme.

18:13And then I would, and so just kind of building brick by brick as opposed to just like slapping something on there. I like that this room's a diverse group of people. It's not just 20s and 30s, although that was the initial intent, which is a good thing because I think that most people at some point in life when they haven't achieved success get to a place where I am not a successful person. If somebody is, let's say, at it for 15, 20 years, none of the businesses are working. What would be the first thing that you tell them? Or just purely professional success if they're in the same business for 15 to 20 years.

18:47Again, I know everyone's seen the founder, the McDonald's story, like he figured it out at 52. But I think you just assume that that's the one in the million. So unless you think you're Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Ray Kroc from McDonald's, then you should probably start thinking about doing something else because what's the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result. So, I mean, again, there's always going to be an exception. So you have to look in the mirror and be like, oh, I am that exception. I am 100 % that exception. Because if you're not, what you probably is is delusional.

19:18And what you probably are is incredibly comfortable being uncomfortable. And you should probably do something different. Because what is the downside? You could always go back to being unsuccessful at the thing you're doing. I think when I was 26, my first club, the guy came and offered me a deal. I was making$65 ,000 a year. The deal was 20 % ownership in this business and$100 ,000 salary. All I said was$65 ,000 is a studio apartment,$100 ,000, there's a one-bedroom upstairs. That's how small my goals were. I wanted a one-bedroom. I wanted a living room. And from$65 ,000 to$100 ,000, that would be the difference.

20:06And then my boss at the time, who was a big restaurateur, said, okay, I know you want to do this other deal. I'm going to give you a million dollars. I mean, literally, you're making$65 ,000, you know, don't have much savings. I'm going to give you a million dollars. You're going to get it in three years. It's going to be in three tranches. I want you to stay and work with me. it's a nice company I had an executive job and I got like pneumonia right after that I've never been sick in my life and I got like incredibly sick and you know for four or five days I was home and I called my partners that I was going to do the new deal with and I said I'm so sorry guys I got offered a million dollars I'm going to stay working for this person and then I got sick then I came back and the first day I walked back and I walked into the lounge I was running and I saw that table where I was where I host and where I care people and I said the hell am I going to do this for the next few years I can always come back right and get this job and if I go to this new thing and if I fail there I'll still be better to someone coming back a lot of the people who I find to be great team members are people who have started businesses and then failed because the failure is where the growth is as opposed to just being under someone successful and being mediocre the entire time so I called the partners up I said just kidding uh would you mind taking me back and they said yes and then that was it and I've never looked back but I think it's you gotta get uncomfortable now at the same time don't quit things in six minutes and if you're if your life energy is you try something, you move, you try something, you move, then the opposite is probably true for you, which again goes back to there is no linear line.

21:58There is no one way. But yes, at 15, 20 years, if you're doing something and you're unsuccessful financially, but then I would ask, are you incredibly happy? And then you'd have to explain to me what your definition of happiness. So if you're struggling financially, but you're incredibly joyful and the only negative that you have is you can't get some stuff, whether that, I don't know what that means, Now, again, if you can't provide for your family, you should go do something else. But if you're not as successful as your neighbor Bob or Bill, then you should really think about what's going to make you happy.

22:28Because maybe this is arrogant, but in my head, I think I can be the biggest hotelier in the world. But that means I have to be on the road 250 days in a year, and that will not make me happy. And there's a balance there. And I think that's how I would think about that. So 15, 20 years, you're in the same thing. you're not professionally happy, you're not personally satisfied, you must do something else unless you just have this vision that no one else in the world can see and it's right around the corner and then you just, you're going to have to have some long conversations with yourself to try to get through that.

23:03Right. I like what you said about risk because I started my company at 24 and people are like, you just took a huge risk. I'm like, I'm 24, single, broke, like there's no risk. You know, like it doesn't work out. I'm in the same spot that I would have been if I didn't do this thing. But I also look at other people that have started the same exact idea and company. One of them are very successful. The other one isn't. They work just as hard. Do you believe that luck plays a factor in that? Would you call it something else? What is luck? I think we'd have to define luck, right? So if luck is, I mean, there's some technical terms like hard work meets opportunity.

23:33That's luck. If you're not in the game, you can't catch the ball, right? There's all those particular things. I think the world, I think there's certain parts of our lives that we're driftwood and we're just going with it and then there are forks in the road and we get to choose left and right. I think we have the ability to make certain decisions and then certain things are put for us, but I think we make the decisions at the fork in the roads where we go left and we go right. I also want to say something. It wasn't the biggest risk of your life. It's not even close are the biggest risk of your life.

24:07When you did that thing at 24, it's because you probably weren't going to be successful in a corporate setting. So that's the other thing about entrepreneurship. It's not because we're just so, we're so dare devilish. It's because we would be terrible in corporate America. And that's why we take entrepreneurial jobs. So it's not entrepreneurial or corporate. It's just like, I would do bad if five guys got to tell me when I would get a raise and when I would be able to do a different project, it would not work for me. So it's not the biggest risk of it all. And I had to go back. I would say things like, you know, I suffered and I gave up a lot to do what I did in my 20s.

24:43I miss birthday parties. I miss family things. But I'm lying. The truth is there was nothing more that I wanted to do. I didn't sacrifice. It's exactly what I wanted to do. Now, it sounds like sacrifice because it makes a better story and it makes you feel better about yourself. But it's not true. I didn't sacrifice at all. I literally did what I wanted to do. At 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, I went into the basement of the club that I worked at, and I emailed every single person that came in that bought a bottle. I didn't think of anything that I would enjoy more to do than that. I did not think it was, I did not think going to watch football with my friends was more interesting than that.

25:17So I wasn't, so I just say, like, we've got to be careful with the word risking it all. Like, none of us are at war. None of us are risking. We're just doing what we are a little less comfortable, but I believe for you knowing you that you weren't risking it by being an entrepreneur. You had no choice. Who you are, you have to be an entrepreneur. It's just, in my opinion, the only path for some people who go into the entrepreneur. Then there's certain people who should not be entrepreneurs. It's okay to have a really great corporate job, security, that balance. People need to know who you are.

25:51It's more important to know who you are than what you do. It's more important to understand what you are made of and what is really going to make you 360 happy. I mean, that's what this place is for, right? This place is for not to see the 1%, but to see the 99%. Otherwise, we'll live in the 1%. We'll chase ourselves in a circle. We'll get exhausted. We'll wake up. We'll chase ourselves in a circle. We'll get exhausted. Then we'll die. And then there'll be nothing else to do in between. Yeah. Yeah. You spoke about ego a second ago. If I didn't have my parents, I'd be out of control. I'm still out of control even though I have my parents.

26:23So what would be your advice to somebody who's seen an initial bit of success as far as either controlling the ego or why they shouldn't even go there in the first place? When you get early success at a young age and old people tell you to do something different and then you don't listen to them and you get success, it's very difficult to then start listening to them after because you think you've cracked the code on how to be different. The reality is there are some structural things later on in life, if you continue to ride that way, that you will not just slip, you'll fall and you'll fall far.