The Grit Factor Podcast w/ Karl Jacobi

TGFP Audio Ep 37

00:00:00 Speaker: Average is the enemy of greatness. Comfort is the enemy of growth. Welcome to the Grit Factor podcast, where we strip away the highlight reel and get into the darkness beneath it. The real stories, the real battles, and the battle plans used to conquer them. I'm your host, Carl Jacobi, combat vet, entrepreneur, resilience and performance coach, keynote speaker, husband and father. I've built, scaled, and exited multiple companies totaling over forty million in revenue. But here's what that highlight reel doesn't show you. Life has been smacking you in the face with a two by four since that was just five years old. Broken home. Constant chaos. No playbook. No safety net. Just grit. And if you're anything like me, you know you've got another level in you, in your business, your career, your faith, your leadership. You're just not sure how to get there. That's exactly why we're here. Be sure to follow me for more great content, and check out my website success with Karl dot com. Now that's Karl with a K. Now let's get to work. All right, today we're back with a guest. In this guest, I have to say something up front before we even start. This man has been a coaching client of mine for well over a year. And somewhere along the way, he's become a good friend of mine, dear friend of mine, and he's one of the most kind hearted people that I know. And I admire this guy not only for his work ethic, but for his genuine, uh, just the genuine, uh, genius that he is when it comes to doing what he does. And we're going to dive into today, but do not. And I repeat, do not let this kindness fool you. This guy is an absolute machine. And again, I admire this guy for his work ethic, for his drive. Chemical engineer by training. Walked away from the corporate ladder to sell on Amazon with zero e-commerce experience. Year one. And this is what's fascinating. Year one seven figures. Year two tripled it to three million built entirely from a camper. And this I can vouch for because our initial call was him inside of the camper. And so, you know, again, entirely from a camper with his wife. Year three seven million in revenue, more than eleven million in total revenue, just under three and a half years. Guys, this is no easy feat. No easy feat. I'm telling you this from personal experience and those of you who've done big things, you know exactly what I'm talking about. He's traveled to over forty states, fifteen countries. Today, he continues to run his e-commerce business, and he founded a SaaS platform called Replen Pulse, which we're going to dive into as well. And he's still in the middle of probably one of the hardest shifts he's ever made. Matthew Hasler, my dude. Welcome to the show, my man. Thank you. Carl. You're very kind. Thank you for having me on the podcast and getting the opportunity to talk to you for a little bit. Yeah, man. Dude, I'm looking forward to this conversation. Every conversation I have with you, I always enjoy. Of course, you know, it's, it's usually one of our session calls, but it's truly one of those calls. I just enjoy being with you. And I, you know, you, you learn from me, but I think I learn more from you than you learn from me, if that makes any sense. But, uh, so let's get into this conversation because I feel like we could talk so long, but we gotta stay in the scope of our time together. And I want to respect that. So Matt, my dude, take me back to the chemical engineering days, you know, paint the picture to the audience, the listeners out there. What were you doing? Like, what did daily life look like for you when you were on somebody else's clock? Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so for a long time, I wanted to be a chemical engineer. Seemed like a good opportunity to make some pretty decent money and some fun work along the way. Um, so about seven or eight years ago, I started the life of chemical engineer. Um, the time was of course salaried forty, fifty hours a week. Fell in love with it. Um, you know, when your salary, I'd literally come in in the evenings when I was bored and work because I just enjoyed the concept of improving, uh, systems and, um, you know, hanging out with other people and making their lives better, um, over like three to four years, the work increased. We started getting some projects, uh, started working like the corporate projects, especially like multi-million like up to thirty million dollar projects was involved with. And those would have really, really high demand to them. Yeah. It's been as high as like one hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty hour weeks while being on call. So took a lot of, uh, motivation in those regards. I can imagine. I know there's a better word for it. Yeah. And, uh, you know, jumping back and forth went into management for a bit. Switched to a different company, jumped back and continue and just realized it just wasn't a, wasn't doing it for me. And I wanted something else for all that hard work. I get it, man. Thanks for sharing that. And just a very small glimpse into that hustle and sharing that. And this guy, is this the first time actually hearing that story and hearing this? I can easily see the translation, right? Translation of know, having a servant. Heart. Heart for people. Heart for helping others. And just your drive and ambition to, you know, fix things and implement systems and create things. And I, it all makes sense now. And not that it ever not make sense, but it makes a lot more sense. So you're grinding engineering, you're climbing the corporate ladder, uh, doing what you told success looked like, right? Um, you know, before Amazon was ever on your radar. What did it a good week look like for you? Um, I'd say a good week. I, let's just say it's fifty hours a week at work. I went and tried to find a bunch of other avenues. I was a realtor, temporarily tried to do some Twitch gaming, different aspects like that to try to make a hustle, make some money and provide better for family long term. Um, in regards to, I guess the other side of it, like the worst weeks. Nine days on. Fourteen hour days on call. Coming in at midnight daily as well. So that's, that was kind of like the stretch, depending on what kind of project we were running through. But a good week would be working from home or going to work for fifty hours and then coming home in the evening, spending some time with my wife, but then working on something else, another side hustle. Yeah. So I'm glad you mentioned this. You mentioned on your intake that you did some side hustles and you just talked about that, right? So during the day, you're working your W2 job, uh, in your free time. I remember seeing this on your bio. Quote unquote free time as in like hilarious, uh, you know, you're flipping houses, you know, every opportunity you got. Right? So take me into that season. Um, you know, share with me and those that are listening or watching, what were you chasing at that point in time? I was chasing the concept of a better life, to be able to have a free schedule, to be able to at least replace my income, but being able to make sure that I'd be ready in case whenever the opportunity has like have children, make sure I can attend like doctor's appointments was kind of the freedom and the flexible schedule that I was seeking at the time. Um, of course, being with being an engineer, there's a good income associated with it. So just making sure that I could set ourselves up for a replacement of that income and get the time. Um, one of those situations where I'm not required to answer a phone call at nine o'clock at night and know that I'm going to be gone for four or five hours for a problem. Um, I think that can resonate with quite a few people for sure. You told me that, you know. You spent a, you know, a short amount of time or a fair amount of time. Uh, when I say Fairmount a short amount of time with Logan in that season. Right. Um, what was, you know, going on between the two of you? Um, were, were you aware of it in real time, or did you only see it afterwards? Uh, at the time I felt so at the time she was saying she wanted more time with me, which was very, very real. Um, I'm of course prioritizing what I think is the appropriate thing with a career. Um, when it was nine days on, one day off, I spent that day off working on the house flip because we had a hard money loan at the time that was coming due. Yeah. So I was feeling the pinch. Um, looking back on it now, I can see that her needs were definitely not prioritized the way they should have been by me, and that I should have listened more and probably done more pushing back at work because I was probably being taken advantage of a little bit with the amount of hours, uh, when it probably wasn't as necessary. That's a that's a great point, man. I think so many people, myself included, I know I could definitely resonate with that myself. I know I've shared my story with you several times and I've shared it in public quite a bit, you know, not just in in the W-2 world, but even in, in my companies. When I was first, when I first started the entrepreneurial journey. Man, looking back, of course, hindsight is always twenty twenty. You know, you can always say, man, I wish I had, you know, seen X, Y, and Z. But at the time, you, you can't fault yourself because you're at that point in time you thought you were chasing the right thing for the right reasons. And looking back, I, I can resonate, man, I wish I had taken some time to be more present with my wife and kids and being more involved because once that time and once that moment is gone, it's never going to come back. You know, we can always make more money, but time and money, I'm sorry, time and energy. We can never get back in memories, you know? So was there a specific moment that hit you like, you know, we were talking about in agreement before we hit record? Was there a specific moment that hit you, a conversation, a look in the mirror or something that Logan said where he finally realized I worked too hard for someone else? Right. Because in this time, in this season, or somewhere around the long lines, you started to make a realization. Walk us through that, man. Yeah. So it's kind of the same story. I'd say it's like somewhat emotional with the amount of hours that went through it. So it was a really large project. It was coming off of like it was during Covid. So there was all these like weird expectations, demands. So it was nine days on, one day off during the start up, fourteen hour days, eight a m to ten p m and then calls in the middle of the night. And the day that I was off and I went to work on the property that we were flipping at the time. Um, she was really upset. Cried some made me feel really guilty, of course. Um, but of course I felt like I was being really pinched as a result of, you know, having all these different obligations, being the primary breadwinner at the time, as well as being stuck in a hard money loan that I needed to get out of. So I guess it would be like that moment, realizing that I was persevering, demonstrating the grit for a company that probably didn't value me the way that I valued my own time. Certainly not. And realizing that I need to be doing this for myself. So shortly after that project was finished and I got a little bit of free time back, you know, fifty, sixty hour work weeks. Instead, I started pivoting to something else that would provide me with that freedom to get away. Love it man. And I'm going to extrapolate this because we talked about it in the green room and you said it, but I want to put the laser pointer right on this because you said this in your in your bio or in your guest intake. It was when I had to demonstrate grit for someone else that I realized the same focus and dedication could be used for myself. Right. And. I don't remember what who it was I had at this point. I've had so many guests, it's a blur. Uh, but there is this perception that there is security in the nine to five. There is this sense of security that as long as we show up and do the, I'll say the absolute minimum, but do enough to not get fired. Right. That there is security in that. So to the person that's listening to you right now, they're like, oh, he's got my attention, man. Okay. All right. I feel like he's talking to me right now. Walk through. Walk us through this moment or through that person that you're talking to right now. That's probably in the same position that you were two, three, four years ago. When did this realization, like you talked to us about that conversation or, you know, the realization with Logan and in that moment, but how long after that point did you say enough is enough? It's time for me to execute. Walk us through it. Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, I want to say that there's really not the security and w2's that people believe so. So I think there was I was a year and a half in and there was a reduction in force that wasn't determined by management. It was determined by a parent company where they just wiped out seven percent of the employees. You know, no notice. So you're always in someone else's hands in those situations. So in regards to answer your question, um, that timing for that project and like flipping the house and the hours it was in November, um, I had at that point left my job four months later and switched over to a different company, one that was going to be less hours. It was when I was at that, that job that had less hours that I really started like diving into like being a realtor and shortly after dive into doing, um, selling on Amazon. So it didn't take too much long. I acted on it pretty fast, knowing that a change needed to come. I was pretty unhealthy. I was up to like two hundred and thirty five pounds at the time. Um, and then just three or four months later, just having a better work schedule and eating healthier and taking care of myself. I dropped like thirty five pounds, right? Just to show all of like the stress that I was undergoing. So that's incredible. And by the way, you, you look incredible. Um, I mean, in a, you know, in a bro, uh, manner, but, uh, you still, you're on a health journey, right? I know one of your goals is to get eleven percent body fat, if I remember right, or ten percent body fat by end of this year. And I think you're like within range, I think you're like one or two percent off. Yeah, ten point six percent this morning. Okay. Point six off. That's one of the things I love about you, man. You're a very precise. There is no like if or you're very like what Jim said when you you were on a podcast with me. Very matter of fact. And I love that about you, man. But yeah, man, that's a good point because, you know, early on and I've got I failed to highlight this in that season, man, you're you said you're physically exhausted, you know, seven eleven or seven seven eleven. Yeah, it is seven eleven, seven a m to eleven p m every day, right? No gym, no games. You know, nothing left reminded you of the person who you used to be, right? You described yourself, um, you know, just a worker at that point in time, you know, and, uh, you know, give us a glimpse into that when you, when did you first notice that that version of you was gone? You know, that version of who he used to be was gone? Um, do you mean the, the version that was a worker or the version of having an identity? Well, that's a good point. Identity. Yeah. I, I would say when I started working, uh, to the, the request was for us to work ten to ten. I had to get there two hours earlier. I'd get there eight to work eight a m to ten p m realizing that no one really cared one way or the other. It's kind of when I realized I started moving into like that worker just being a worker versus someone that was actually making an impact that was like visible. So I put a lot of identity in that. Um, I used to also put a lot of identity into the health aspect. So when I got on the scale, I think I saw first, it was like two twenty five. I started realizing that, uh, who I was was kind of fading away and just, um, accommodating whatever was necessary and only really prioritizing work at the time. Mhm. Um, that's a good point, man. And. Real quick, before we keep rolling, maybe life hit you hard. Business fell apart. Career isn't working out. Relationship ended. Health took a dive. And now you're standing in the rubble trying to figure out what the next move even looks like. Or maybe nothing blew up at all. On paper, you're winning. Sure, but on the inside, something's off. If you're not in crisis, you're at a crossroads. And the playbook that built the life you have is not the playbook that builds the one you want. Either way, you're stuck. Not broken. Stuck between who you were and who you're becoming. Most self-help just piles more weight on the load you're already carrying. I do not want to do that. I put together a free video series called the Grit Code Exposed, and I want to invite you to check it out. Seven short videos. That's it. The five laws that change everything for me in every client I coach. The same five that every person who's ever come back from the fire has walked through where they had a name for it or not. No fluff, no ninety minute webinar. No bait, just the free video series. You can start it tonight. Grab it at grit. Code exposed dot com one more time. Grit code exposed dot com. It's free. You don't need any more hustle. You need the next version and this is how you find it. Check it out. See if it speaks to you. And if it does, I'll see you on the inside. All right, let's get back to the conversation. It takes a lot of courage, dude, to to look in a mirror and be like, something's got to change. You know, and to have that conversation with yourself and I, and for me personally, I know it took too long in, in my opinion, even one day is one day too long. But unfortunately, people DeLay that conversation until it's too late, you know? And that's what saddens me, you know, is that people are not they're not courageous enough to look in the mirror, to see the physical change, to see the internal change. And that's hard to see. But when you look back, it's like, I'm not the person who I used to be. You know, I used to be ambitious. I used to have dreams, hopes and aspirations. But along the way, man, I just became a worker bee, you know? And not that not that there's anything wrong with that. And let me say this up front, entrepreneurship, being a builder, being a leader, you know, in leading companies is not for everybody. You can be an entrepreneur, entrepreneur as well. You know, you don't have to be an entrepreneur where you're on your own. You can be an entrepreneur, you know, working for a company where you have some autonomy. So, you know, I just want to make sure I clarify that. So, All right. So, you know, you you leave that season, right? You do it again, right? Uh, I think if I remember right, you know, w two plus travel forty, forty, fifty hours a week, um, plus a second business at thirty hours that's, you know, do the math. That's eighty hours. What made you think at that point in time it was going to be different that time? At that point, I knew I knew the concept wasn't necessarily different, right? The same total hours. Essentially, I moved into a position that would limit me to like fifty hours. So when I did that, I knew I was signing up for essentially still eighty hour weeks. Mhm. Um, I think the concept of knowing that when you're building something yourself and you're in control, you have the opportunity to make the decisions that allow it to be scalable if you're willing to let go of the reins. So that was one of the things that helped me to pursue that and not necessarily pivot at the time. So, you know, that first year when we were traveling full time at thirty hours a week, um, you know, I'm continuing to put in a lot of a lot of time and some money to start it up, but you can continue to see it like build on itself knowing that it's going somewhere. Yeah. Um, I mean, I was treated pretty well from a pay perspective at my previous job, so no gripes on there. You know, some pretty large pay bumps. Um, but there's, there's still a limit, right? You know, you don't get one hundred and thirty percent increases like we had, um, last year or, you know, um, so that's where when you're building it for yourself, you get to see the output more rewarding than, you know, I'd say on average, you know, four to six percent raise at a W-2 employer. That's a great point, man. It's not just the money aspect too. It's also the freedom, right? The freedom of being able to do what you want, when you want, within reason. And this is something I want to dive into because right now we're only painting a picture of what you've you've accomplished, but you know, you traded one job for another in some ways because even when you left your, the W-2 world or the corporate world, uh, you, you, you went all in on, you know, this Amazon business. Um, at some point you stopped running it in the wrong direction, right? Um, and you said more isn't necessarily better, which I completely, completely agree. What or when did that actually click for you? You know, was it something that was gradual that was building up? Or was there a specific moment that was like a straw that broke the camel's back that made you realize, hey, I'm out. I need to focus on Amazon. Yeah. Um, the target was for us to essentially replace income, um, is what it was. Uh, I did not hit it that first year, but we at least looked at what does it take for us to be able to like, live. So when we were in the camper, um, calls her a little bit cheaper. Not as cheap as people think, but if I made the same amount that I made, uh, you know, by selling a million and then with Logan, uh, being a travel nurse at the time, we knew that we could make it through. Um, we both knew that my enjoyment with engineering was really decreasing the fulfillment associated with it. It was becoming pretty draining, especially the projects that I was being assigned. Makes sense. We had the opportunity to travel, see the country, right? So that's an experience that it's hard to put a value on, especially when you're young and able to do those types of adventures. So we kind of just said we're never going to have. We won't have this opportunity again ever at the age we are. Um, and most people don't get to do the full time camper life until they're retired. And, uh, you know, fifteen mile hikes aren't as exciting when you're sixty as opposed to when you're twenty five. That's a good point, man. Uh, you know, I'm not there yet, you know? But, you know, I'm not. I'm not near where you were or where you are now. So I could definitely understand that perspective. Um, walk us, man, in this process, dude. And I want to hear your take on this because for me, you know, I have my, my perspective or, you know, my walk, but to the person that's listening to you right now, they're thinking, oh man, you know, uh, that sounds, you know, great. You know, he must not have been scared at all. There was no fear. It was like you had no fear. Like everything was perfect. Like everything was grandiose. Right. And, uh, so talk to that person that's listened to you right now because I, again, I have my perspective, uh, but I want to hear yours first. Was there any moments where you had doubts? Was there any moments where you were scared thinking, man, uh, especially after you left and now it's all on you, right? It is literally all on you to show up, whether you feel like it or not or whatever. Were you scared? Were there any moments where you had self doubt? Were there any moments where you wanted to give up? Yeah, I'll give an example from when we first made that switch. And then I have one from yesterday. That's really ironic. Um, so three months in, uh, we were doing like, you know, online arbitrage in the space. Um, I was doing a lot within like Black and Decker brand got a cease and desist. Um, ended up getting threatened for like lawsuits. So I got really nervous, decided to make a full pivot come out. I made four thousand dollars on two hundred thousand dollars in sales. So two percent net margin. Um, and I'm sitting here thinking I should have just stayed with engineering. Yeah. Um, we're about to go on like a three month prepaid vacation kind of going across the country. Um, I decided to completely pivot business models at the time to wholesale. So I'm getting pinched on money at the time, getting pinched on capability, rebuilding on new systems. And I know that my time is about to drop to like twenty to twenty five hours a week. Because when we were traveling, we were trying to jump from place to place. So I would say like really scaring and a lot of doubt. I came up with that. I remember talking to Logan and kind of feeling like a failure because of how much the income had decreased. And I made all these grand promises that I wasn't fulfilling at the time. That's, uh, that's deep, dude. And I'm glad you said what you just said. Literally what you just said word for word, because that is something that so many people think, but they don't say out loud, you know? And that was exactly what I was aiming. Not really what I was wanting you to say. That's why I was hoping you would say, because I can resonate with this, you know, and I know a lot of people who has tried to do anything great has had the same thoughts, right? And too many people are so close, man. They were like, right there like, man, this isn't for me. And they and they leave, you know, or they quit. And it's like, bro, if you just took one more swing, if you just made one more phone call, one more email, one more something that had been your swing to hit a gold mine, you know? And so with that, what made you say, no, I'm going to give it one more day or I'm going to give it one more something. What made it? What made you do that? Well, I like to put myself in positions where you can't go back. Right. I had already left the company once. I left it twice, and I said, I can't be hired back. Right. I think that's a great I think that's a great way to force grit, because if you don't have another option, you figure out how to make it work. Um, I knew I didn't yeah, I knew I didn't want to go back to engineering. So by essentially quitting and moving three thousand miles away, I kind of removed that option to go back. I, I hope that the if you're watching or listening, you just heard what you or I hope you just heard what I heard. He intentionally put himself in a situation where he had to move forward. He intentionally put himself in a corner and be like, or put his back in and so on. Like there's the only way through is through. There is no turning back there. You know, you're essentially burning the boats. Did I hear that correctly? Yeah. I think it's the best way to make sure you don't get back in the boat. Yeah. Yeah. You don't definitely want to go back into a burning boat or, you know, a bridge that you've blown up with some C-4. Um, yeah, that's a great point, man. When I, when I sold my companies and, you know, even when that transition, you know, didn't quite come to fruition like I had hoped and what we were promised and, and so forth. I mean, had it had that season occurred while I was still living in Alabama where I was literally five miles away from the gate of Fort Rucker up in Alabama. I, yeah, I could have gotten my job back and, and gone back to being a in that life, which I was miserable in. Um, but my back was against the wall. I, yeah, that's a great perspective, man. I appreciate you sharing that. So zero to seven figures in one year. Walk us through that because that's a pretty stout claim right. You know that doesn't happen by accident. So what did the infrastructure look like uh, for you to scale that fast? And you know, we're talking top line there. Walk us through what the bottom line looked like for you two. Yeah. Um, I guess going back, just to make sure I keep all the numbers straight, started in July of twenty twenty two through five grand into the business to get proof of concept, you know, buying some stuff for eighty bucks and selling it for two hundred on Amazon was a pretty quick proof of concept at the time. Um, I started doing like another five grand, um, continued through twenty twenty two, you know, build up to like ten, fifteen thousand dollars months. A lot of oh, sourcing ended up finding a good RA place back home that I was able to go to. By the end of twenty twenty two, we had fifteen thousand invested and my parents loaned me or loaned me five K as well as like zero percent interest, just trying to show the support. And they knew I was capital constrained. Um, and Logan was going back to school. So really buying into the concept, which was very nice of them. Yeah. Um, and then. In January, you know, we started traveling full time in the camper at that point, um, while I was still working the W2. So we ended up moving to Texas temporarily. I found a store that was closing down there, um, you know, spent like twenty five, zero zero zero with them, sold it for like one hundred and forty thousand, like crazy margins. So that was like a cash flow that we really needed help with. Yeah. So we jumped to like forty, fifty thousand dollars months almost immediately, uh, ended up going up to Massachusetts shortly after. And then this would have been, uh, may time frame found a set of four stores that are like, I'm gonna call it a clearance, but it's, uh, you know, it's a, it's a liquidation outlet for a main company. So, you know, Upcs they're all accepted by Amazon. So it's legitimate. Yeah. Um, literally jumped up to one hundred K within a month of being up there. That's incredible man. Yeah. So, um, for, for that first year, I think we finished out at like eighteen percent net. So it was pretty good. Um, it was our liquidation. It was a lot of work. Uh, we would spend every weekend doing like the same four hour drive, picking up as much as we could. And then we would prep all week out of the camper. I remember like Uline would come and drop off pallets and, uh, our campsite was not happy. I imagine not. Oh, man. I can actually picture this, to be honest with you. Uh, I had my warehouse. Uh, I know how how much they deliver and what the stack looks like, and I'm just imagining, you know, you line dropping off or, you know, whatever freight they're using for your area to drop off these pallets. Man. That's hilarious. Full semi going through the campground. Don't mind us. Yeah, I was at work though, so Logan had to deal with them. Oh, dude. Yeah, that definitely puts some tension between the husband and wife. Yeah. Oh, man. Logan, bless your heart, man. Oh my gosh, man. So you essentially started with almost nothing because, you know, oftentimes when people talk about building a scaling company, especially to the magnitude you've accomplished, man. I don't think enough accolades, if I could, about the best way I could say it has been given to you because scaling that fast, putting that much work into it, and doing what you've accomplished, that takes a lot of work, man. But to the average person, that's probably listening right now doesn't quite comprehend this. They think, oh, he probably started with five hundred thousand or two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand. Right. But you're literally, if I'm still correctly, you started with five thousand, started with five thousand. And we've only ever put in fifteen thousand. Yeah. So, um, you know, so it took it when I heard man or when I heard from you is it took a lot of work, took a lot of grit, took a lot of perseverance, um, to see it through, you know, and, uh, and making good decisions, which I want to dive into because this, I think this is an area I think you really excel in. And I mean that in a very good way. You talk about building on data instead of emotions, right? And I think this is what actually, I'm pretty confident this is what largely contributed to is contributing to your success, because you have that innate ability to sort out and hone in on a data with emotions removed. Um, so for the person that's listening, who's making purchasing, purchasing decisions and so forth, uh, and hoping it works out, break that down. Like when you say I go off of data instead of emotions, um, what do you mean by that? What changed in the swamp? Uh, for the structure there? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so obviously engineering background, I love math. I love data, you know, Excel sheets everywhere. Um, yes you do. One of the things we, you know, want to make sure we're always doing, especially on the purchasing side is considering all the data points. So depending on like a lot of different softwares, they don't account for like inbound shipping returns, prep fees, etc.. Um, so for a long time, we were pulling a bunch of exports from various softwares together to make those purchasing decisions. And then, um, one of the other things that we realized is especially depending on the model, we do a lot of like Replenishable, which makes our life a lot easier to scale. Right? And we purposely went that route because, um, it is scalable, um, accounting for like quantity that's already been ordered inbound, etc. you have about seven different data points. You have to track and put in different formulas to it and put in confidence intervals. Um, so we were doing like a bunch of Excel macros to accomplish this for like a long time. But even then, um, my ops manager at the time for about three hundred Asins was spending eleven hours a week on it. So, um, we wanted to improve that a little bit. Yeah, we ended up kind of like building out a proprietary, um, formulas and calculations that kind of led into replay impulses creation. Um, so now we, we currently have about nine hundred and twenty twenty nine hundred and forty active SKUs at any time or asins. And it's all loaded for us now using that calculation. So it makes my job really easy. Our buy list is created within thirty minutes each week. Now it would have taken thirty three hours for my ops manager at the time to do the same work. Wow. All right, so let's break this down for a second. You love you. You love math. Um, so what does that save? Uh, you know, let's talk about savings for a moment. Um, what does that save somebody? Right. Let's talk about economics for a moment. You know, dive into that if you don't mind. Yeah. So depending on whether you're using a VA or if you want to use like, uh, you know, the buy back your time principle, a quarter of whatever your hourly rate is, go for it. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, if you make one hundred thousand a year, you're making about fifty bucks an hour. So you take a quarter of that. So at best, at best case scenario, you can, uh, consider that twelve and a half dollars per hour. So for me, at thirty three hours a week, that'd be three hundred and forty bucks a week, which I do make a little bit more than that to clarify. And yes, you do. Four weeks a month. Uh, so at, you know, at minimum that would be twelve to fourteen hundred dollars saved. Um, you know, Vas can be like a little bit cheaper, but honestly, we try to pay really good because we have really good employees. So it's not too far off depending on who it is with bonuses. Love it man. I'm a huge proponent for looking at the value of what you're paying, right? Instead of looking at the cost. That was a perspective shift I had to make for myself was instead of looking at the cost of, you know, the surface level of the cost, whether it's a monthly fee or it's a, you know, a VA, you said you pay a VA as well. Um, if I'm understanding correctly, it's because you're, you're paying for the outcome, right? You're paying for the value you're getting in exchange, you saw that they show up, they, you know, there's, there's loyalty there, there's honesty, there's integrity, things that you can't train in people, right? So you want to recognize that you want to pay for that. You want to, you know, show certificates of appreciation. Or our mutual friend Jim loves to say that quite a bit. Um, but, uh, I, I'm a huge proponent of paying for value, not paying for cost. Um, so I'm glad you articulated that because when somebody looks at software or coaching or whatever, they look at the cost like, oh man, that's a lot of money. Okay. Is it? What's the cost of not moving forward? You know, with a software? What's the cost in your business, in your company? If you don't choose this software, that's only costing you a couple hundred bucks a month, right? I completely agree. In fact, in twenty twenty two, we, uh, we jumped into a bunch of softwares, right? Figuring out what, what really provides the value and output that we want. We jumped immediately into coaching. Um, obviously you and I worked together for over a year and I was coaching, which I'm grateful for. I think I've done a lot of that, got a lot of value out of it. Um, I was just pulling it up. Market pulse put out a statistic the other day that, uh, of like the total one hundred percent of available margin, it's only three point six percent is spent on software and tools, um, compared to everything else associated with it. Um, I know a lot of people in like the wholesale space are even lower than that because private label is more expensive. Yeah. But, um, any software that we have that can save us time and the confidence associated with it, right. Making sure that the numbers there are, are true and accurate. Um, what my lead source can go through like our software and make a buy list and I'm confident in the numbers, right? So yeah, being able to make it delegate able to your team helps out a lot. That's why we pay for like seller snap, right? There's yeah. You want the best of the best. Yeah. That that's a great point. And I'm glad you said this because or you touched on this, having the confidence in the right people, the right systems and so forth. Because here's what most people don't know or we aren't really talked about. Um, only that I know, uh, you know, the hardest part wasn't necessarily, you know, hasn't been scaling, you know, eleven million, right. You know, or even beyond that. Now at this point, um, we're just talking about this yesterday at goosebumps, man, just how, how this trajectory that you're on, man, it's just like, it's just fascinating, man. It really deserves front row seats to this, but it's been learning how to stop touching everything, you know, for the last year. You've been in the middle of a shift. And this is one of the things I know we've been working on is shifting from operator CEO, right? Stop being, you know, in the weeds of things and start elevating yourself to be the founder, to be the CEO so that you can focus on what God's gifted you with, right? And so talk to me about that. You know, what's the work you've had to hand off? I know we've talked about, you know, replant pulse and that, but, you know, what are some of the other, uh, work you've had to hand off? Uh, you thought that nobody else could do the right way? Yeah. Uh, lead review would be one because that all funnels into, like, the purchasing decisions, you know, some bad decisions there can cause really dramatically. Um, so I'm, I tend to try to be pretty conservative, a lot of checks and balances. So we, we have a lead sourcer who now goes and trains. So the lead submitted are better. We have a lead Sourcer that reviews the leads. We have an ops manager that reviews the reviewed leads. So again, it's a lot of repetition, but it provides me with the confidence that whatever comes, um, to me for like the final purchasing decision is kind of there. Um, so right now I'm still doing like the creation of the buy list, but, um, almost all the purchasing has been moved over to our office manager. She's really intelligent and trust her. She's very, um, it takes a lot of initiative. Nice. Um, which again, like having a great team makes a dramatic impact. Yes. Um, distributor outreach and identification. There's so many. I mean, I don't want to say it like too much, but there's enough AI tools to find good distributors now, uh, that the amount of workload. I'll edit that part out. No. I'm kidding. Yeah. The amount of workload is like very, uh, dramatically reduced now. Um, so I think moving those types of aspects out also allows me to focus on the bigger, um, items that move the business forward, continuing to build more systems. Um, you know, now that I have that free time, I also have the energy and bandwidth to think and determine what really are the major constrictions on the business. Um, especially within Amazon, you know, you either need more asins, more money or, um, more sourcers to get through those seasons, right? So it's always one of the three. It's either hire more money or more outreach. So just constantly working on those three categories. Nice. That's awesome man. I appreciate you sharing. I hope that I hope people are paying attention to this because I know there's something that everybody has that they feel like nobody else can do better than them. Um, and I just want to challenge that person that, uh, I bet there is, unless it's something that you're, that you genuinely love doing, then you probably are better than most people could do it. But that's different story. We're talking about things that you don't need to be doing that you absolutely hate. And you know, you and I have been jamming on quite a bit of this because there's a lot of stuff that you're doing that you're like, ah, bro, I don't like doing this stuff, man. Um, you know, fast forward a day, man, you know, your, your company is running at scale. I'm truly impressed. I, I'm not saying just to hype you up. I am truly impressed. Um, you know, replant pulse, uh, is as of this recording is going to be launched. Um, your, your team has doubled in the last two months. What are you most fired up about right now, man? Ooh, that's a good question. I'm not prepared for that. Um, I think the thing that fires me up the most is honestly the hiring. Uh, we give a salary that exceeds, um, a normal pay over there. We're constantly getting raises, bonuses. Every time I hear back from the team about something that, like the money made an impact for them, honestly feels the most rewarding at this point. Um, you know, we live pretty comfortably. So it's really just the impact that we get to do for other people now, whether, um, you know, tithing, giving, um, etc., or, you know, giving back to the employees, um, a lot of them are now getting familiar because we'll give bonuses at certain times of the year that are kind of like a surprise, but some of the ones that have been around a little bit longer are probably expecting it, but, um, you know, having an employee. Um, that made two twenty five an hour and now they're making like six, seven dollars an hour bonus is like pretty life changing for them. Yeah. Dude, that is life changing. Wow. And that, and that also says a lot about you too, man, as a person. Because and again, there's nothing wrong with what I'm about to say here. But you know, not to say that, but there's a lot of people that would take the delta of that and just put it into something different, you know, whether it's growth in their business or their own pockets. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. Um, but for you, you, that is your joy that brings joy to you to see yourself being able to have the capacity financially to change somebody's life. Man, I admire that about you, man, because we need more of that. You know, we do truly need more of that in our society today. Because the way the world is running, man, um, between healthcare and all these other things that's popping up, man, uh, people hurting these days, you know, and it's not like by the dozens or the hundreds, it's by the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, you know? So I just want to applaud you for that, man. Um, let's dive into, you know, something that came out of the systems that you built for yourself, kind of like throwing it out there a few times already. Um, you lived the problem before you built the software. So walk me through how this SaaS solution was born. What gap did you see that nobody else was feeling? And I'm kind of like looking to see here for a moment because I used to have a SaaS platform. I used to have a SaaS tool with Jimmy Smith and Greg Flint, but that's, you know, that's in the past. But talk us about that, man. Yeah. Um, a lot of variety of softwares kind of all touched to the point of restocking recommendations. Um, each of them have their own advantages, I think, um, between all of them, none of them had the following. None of them accounted for sales over like the last thirty days. They weren't tracking whether you were in stock or not. Mhm. Um, the other option was, you know, if you sold thirty units in three days, you probably need more than thirty units. Some softwares were saying you just need thirty units. Um, the other one that's pretty big, especially for like our business because we get limited on how much we can place per order, but we can place a lot of orders. Mhm. Um, being able to account for what's in transit, what's backordered, etc. and all feeding that into the same numbers and having a lead time that is essentially auto populated per Asin. Yeah. So essentially combining all of that and then putting, uh, you know, statistical confidence intervals around it based off of like the given data, Um, essentially that was all put into like the, the Excel sheet and that kind of just since switching over to doing that, um, systematically versus manually, um, I can throw out numbers, right? Like our, our storage fees are less than oh point two percent of revenue. So for perspective, so we, this past month, we were zero point one four percent of our revenue. Storage fees, um, low inventory fees was one hundred and twenty three dollars. So yeah, so that's essentially how efficient it is now. Um, and it's all automated. It makes it really easy to automatically know how to purchase all the items as well. So you get to stay in stock more, you get the benefit. And um, all overall margins are just improving as well. Real quick before you go, if you're still with me this deep into the episode, something in it hits you. Maybe it was the guest, maybe it was one line. Either way, you're still here. And that feeling in your chest right now, that's the signal. Most people get a signal like that and do absolutely nothing with it. They close the app. Life rushes back in. The moment's gone. Six months later, there are the exact same spot. I don't want that for you. So I put something together. I want to invite you to check out a free video series called the Grit Code Exposed. Seven short videos. The five laws. I walk every client through. The same ones that rebuilt me when everything else fell apart. And if you listen closely today, you heard them running underneath the entire conversation because everyone who's come back from the fire walks through these five laws. Some find them on their own, some get help, but the laws don't change. Free video series. You can start it tonight. No fluff. No ninety minute webinar. Just the series. If you're going to do something with what you heard today, do this before life talks you out of it. Go to grit Code exposed dot com one more time. Grit Code exposed dot com. And hey, before I let you go, thank you for riding with me this long. It means a lot more than you know. Thank you. This is incredible. So what you just touched on was another part of the savings that we never talked about, right? We only talked about the buybacks principle that, you know, you and I, uh, uh, share a common thread in with, uh, Dan Martel, but you shared the other side of the coin, I think is even, I would say more powerful, but you know, it, it adds to the bottom line, right? Savings on, uh, because if it's not in your pockets, in Amazon's pockets and their pockets are big enough, it's time to put them back in yours. But man, that's that's massive dude. I mean, that that truly is, you know, and so with that, you know, help, help the average person, uh, understand because your passion, if I understood correctly or your aim, I would say just your passion, but your aim is to help sellers that are in that forty, fifty ish to over one hundred thousand dollars a month plateau, right? To get them past that, right. Um, now that's pretty specific. Help us understand why that group, like, what did they get wrong that you see over and over again? Yeah. So I think, uh, first off, everybody has the goal of getting to a million dollars in revenue, right? That's just, that's the goal it starts to become when you can make like you could live a life off of it. Yeah. So I think people just kind of drop off in motivation, right? If you don't have a goal to achieve, it's very easy to become complacent, especially if they don't have the grit to get through it. Yes. Um, so for me, I find that a lot of people at that point don't have the systems. They have a significant quantity of self dependency. And as a result, they lose a lot of the essence or don't necessarily know how to be as efficient. I think, I think it was really easy to get to one hundred thousand, um, for us personally using like our Ras and doing a lot of work. Um, but we plateaued at like one hundred to one hundred twenty, one hundred and forty for almost a year. Um, I think it was like nine or ten months. That's when I was working full time. I didn't have the time to make the systems. So I was, I got thirty hours, I'm going to spend it. And that's kind of what it cost to get me through that. Give me to those one hundred K months. Um, so the whole purpose of like the software is essentially to remove all the time associated with buying decisions for the replenishable. Um, a lot of people forget about their asins. So, you know, going back for the last two years, having the repository, you know, gate checks, the up to date ROI calculations, etc. to make that a little bit easier. So that way they're spending less time sourcing and more time buying. Nice. And then just overall improvement in margins, right? If you have more money, you can reinvest more. Yeah, exactly. Or put more money back in your pocket one of the two ways. Yeah. Let it be your decision what you do with the money, not somebody else's. Or being Amazon's hands. They've got enough money. That's that's pretty good feedback, man. And you know, for for the person who's stuck at forty ish or forty or fifty that can't figure out why they're not growing. We're in your, in your belief or in your in your experience, where do they start? What's the best way, uh, to, you know, find, replant pulse or maybe, you know, to potentially figure out, get some advice of how they could break that threshold. Yeah. So I would say there's going to be two main things that you want to do. Um, one I am going to like suggest will help the efficiency just because will help you stay in stock more. Yeah. Your sales increases as a result of having like thirty plus days of inventory. Amazon starts to favor you. Um, and it helps you be a little bit more cost efficient. Secondly, start creating Lim videos of everything you do from an administrative perspective and get on Onlinejobs pH and hire an admin. I think that needs to come before sourcing. I think most people enjoy sourcing and are pretty good at it. No one likes doing admin activities. It's a drain on time and energy, and as you continue to scale and increase your sourcing, you're going to need more of an admin for all of those shipment discrepancies. So I think for the longest time, we were always told to hire Sourcers. That's true. So up until we doubled our team size. So up through January we would always have two to three Sourcers and we had three to four admin just because I really just like the admin work, but it helps us grow. And it's also really cool when you start to be able to say, hey, we need to work on this. Can you do this project? They might take a little bit longer than you, but when you get an output that's reasonable, you realize you really did save time and it puts a lot of ownership on them. Yeah, one hundred percent man. Um, you know. That's a great point. And it reminds me, I don't remember who it was, uh, specific, but I'll give Jimmy, uh, I love Jimmy Smith, man, his ability to systemize things and his approach to systems. Uh, what you said right there just reminded me of a conversation I had with him and somebody else where the person you're hiring for admin, that's all they're focused on, right? That is the only lane that they're focused on. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, you're focused on sourcing and all these other things you're trying to do and you're trying to be, you know, ten percent of their eighty percent that they're, you know, of what they could accomplish, right? Or may not be ten percent maybe higher than that. But the point is you're trying to do so many different lanes, so many different roles, that you can't be one hundred percent good in every single lane. Right? Um, that's a great point. And that's the first time I've actually heard somebody say that, you know, to focus on admin first, not sourcing. That's a good point, man. Very good point. Thanks. Yeah, I think that's one of our greatest aspects because we have a really good admin team. A result margins stay improved. As a result. You have less holes um, as a result. And I know I'm saying that result a lot, but there's a lot of results that come from it. Yeah. It also just reduces your mental burden. Oh I agree, I agree there is a cost to that man. The mental burden of that mental burden, the confidence, all of that man. There is a cost to that because it does wear down your energy. It does wear. it just wears you down, and it takes your focus away from the things that you should be focusing on, right? Yeah. Emotions play a really large part into it. So when you start seeing Amazon lost, you know, two hundred and twenty dollars of inventory, regardless of what scale you're at, you're just like this. You know, that's really frustrating. Disappointing. So now we don't I don't see it. We have a review once a month for essentially like a write off or escalation review, but we go ahead and set that up for like the end of the day. So I get to like decompress afterwards. It's not affecting work. And we normally go and play a fun activity that way. I forget about it. Um, yeah. Like that man. Thanks for sharing that. That's a good wisdom. That's some good, uh, action steps to take from, from this. If you didn't take anything from this call, it's, uh, one get replant pulse, but two. Yeah. To find ways to find an outlet to, to unplug from the day to day chaos. You know, I know you and Logan. I think it was pickleball or pickleball. That's what I was talking about, too. That's what we do for fun after those bad meetings. Yeah, I bet you, uh. I feel sorry for that paddle or pickleball. It's probably no longer a sphere. It's probably, you know, square at that point. Um, man, this has been such an amazing conversation, man. I know we could talk so much longer, but, you know, for, for the sake of time, we can't, unfortunately or fortunately. But as we wrap up, man, I got some rapid fire questions that we're going to go through that I ask every guest just to get your perspective in this, in this season of life, my dude. How do you personally define grit? Sure. So for me, grit is the absence of motivation and being able to persevere anyway, whether good or bad motivation. I think a lot of people focus on persevering, persevering through when you're going through a spell or a valley in life. Mhm. Um, on the other side of the valley is a mountain. And when you're everything is going really well, I think it's also hard to persevere as well because you don't have that motivation anymore because things are going the way that you want them to. So grood so good. I agree, man. That's a good response. I think this next question is going to hit you, or it's going to resonate well with you because especially in a season that you're in, going from operator to founder or CEO. And you know this about me too. You know, in the season of life, I have been focused more on subtraction. Addition by subtraction. Because you hear so much talk about adding right, adding systems, adding strategies. AD. AD. AD ad. So for you, man, what is it? What is something you're actively removing or subtracting to level up. It could be a belief or system or something. What is it that you're doing? Um, I mean, the easy cop out would be saying that I'm removing purchasing, which saves me six hours a week. Um, if you're looking for a little bit more detail we can talk about. Yeah. Uh, using you helped us with like cloud and co work, essentially putting everything within our businesses into their, um, allowing for there to be a repository for our team to speak to, um, helping reduce the amount of questions that come to me and just helping us be more consistent with our outputs to one another and to, um, external entities. Mhm. Love it man. I tell you, if you're not actively working on subtracting something, man, instead of just adding, adding, adding, you're going to get burnt out. So thanks for sharing it, man. Man. All right, last two questions. Uh, the last question is a two part. But before I get into that, This, uh, or, you know, the second to the last question, when the lights go out and you're in the trenches, man, what do you repeat to yourself to pull yourself out of that period? What it could be a quote, scripture, maybe something that you've heard like, oh, you like that? It just encourages you through that moment. Yeah. So, um, it's a, it's a poem that I first read in Think and Grow Rich. Okay. Oh, yeah. So it's, uh, I bargain with life for a penny and life would pay no more. However, I begged at evening when I counted my scanty store. For life is just an employer. He gives you what you ask. But once you have set the wages, you must bear the task. I worked for a menial hire, only to learn. Just made any wage I had asked of life. Life would have paid so, you know, within money it's pretty clear. But outside of that, you know, I think people only I think people's limits are set by themselves rather than what life would have set for them, um, whether in business or externally. So, um, always set a goal too high. And then when you achieve it, set it higher one. Um, because we're, we are our own limiting factor. MM. That's so good dude. I actually had goosebumps. I agree man, in fact, I, I, we didn't mention this or I didn't mention it, but you said something on your bio that we, I kind of threw up in the recording room or the green room, uh, that you said, uh, we are in control of our own lives, right? Nothing worth having is easy. And I think especially in today's times, we have this, this glorification of easy, like something should be easy in order, you know, to obtain it, you know, and, uh, so yeah, that's, that's a good way of, uh, of describing what you just talked about there in that poem, man. And again, that's one of my favorite books you and I talked about quite a bit for sure. Well, Awesome, man. Last question. It is a two part. I'll ask the last part first because I get excited and I end up forgetting not asking it. So what is one question that you will love to challenge my next guest with? Sure. Um, so how do you distinguish between pushing through and showing grit versus knowing when to pivot and reevaluate? Ooh, that reminds me of a book. You know what book I'm talking about. Don't you? Probably. Which one? Essentialism. If I said that right. Yeah, I've read that one a couple times now. Yep. Nice. I love that question, man. All right. Man. So my previous guest, Murray Smith, he he's a massive, uh, EOS implementer out of Australia. Funny dude, funny episode. Uh, but he had this question for you. And again, those are listening or watching. If you're watching or listening for the first time, they're the, the lineup is completely anonymous, so even with Matt, I didn't tell him, hey, no, it's completely anonymous. So that being said, how much of your life was planned and how much of it was related to luck? Oh, um, I'm going to give the cop out. Answer that. I don't believe in luck. I think we constantly work to put ourselves in situations that make it seem to be transpired as a result of luck, but it's because we're constantly looking for those opportunities that luck, you know, air quotes finds us. Yes. Ooh, I got goosebumps on that one. I agree man. Luck is when opportunity and preparation meets man. Love it dude. Awesome. Well my guy where for the person that is listening to you and you're like, man, I want to connect with this dude because I want I want to check out a software. Or maybe they just want to, you know, connect with you because they want to be part of your journey. Um, you know, where can they connect with you to learn from you or to even find about your software? Yeah. Um, a couple of different ways, but I think the easiest thing would be for them to go to Matthew hassler dot com. Um, my socials and emails will be on there. Um, I try to be pretty responsive, but I think that would be the, the best vocal and center point for them to look. Awesome. And for those that want to check out your software replant pulse, is there a separate website for that? Or you just want to go to Matthew dot com? Yeah. They can go to replant pulse dot com. Um, if they go through the one for Matthew Hassler, we'll have a thirty day free trial set up for them. Nice. So in other words, go to your website. Awesome, man. It's awesome. We'll be dropping all of this in the show notes guys. So if you're listening and or watching and you're like, man, I want to check out the software. And guys, when I say go check out the software, I do mean check this out because I've come from the SaaS space. I've, I've been where, you know, Matthew is today. Uh, and it is hard to find reliable software that will solve problems for you and have the confidence. You've heard Matthew say several times to have the confidence in the data that you're getting, and to be free of that mental energy to execute is worth every penny that the software costs. So all right, my dude, Matthew, man, it has been such an honor to have you today, man. I really appreciate you. You spending this hour with us and sharing some insights, sharing your journey, not just the highlight reel, but sharing the journey and giving us some tactics. Uh, you know, that people could chew on to actually take action and get where you, you're where you're going and, uh, where are you heading? So I appreciate you, my dude. did. Thank you. I really appreciate you having me. And as always, it's really nice just to be able to chat with you. Awesome, man, I appreciate that. All right. To those that are listening and watching, the gap between average and excellence is just merely action, even imperfect action. Listen, please don't just watch or listen to this episode. Take one thing that Matthew has described here or told you and talked about and implement it today. Not tomorrow, not Monday, Friday, unless the episodes actually dropping today on a Friday or Monday. I'll give you that alibi, but please take action on it. Don't feel don't feel like you have to feel ready. Actually creates the feeling. Be the reason someone doesn't quit today. Please don't just keep this episode to yourself. Someone in your circle needs this episode right now, so send it to them. Again, my dude Matthew, thank you so much for stepping in today, man.