Bootstrapped entrepreneurs always have the last laugh.

A son of Iranian immigrants turned a single LA retail store into a $1,000,000,000+ ecommerce giant.

All with $0.00 in funding

Here’s the story 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ Richard Saghian was born in 1982.

His family was a minority group of Jewish-Iranians who fled during the revolution.

After moving to America, they got into women’s fashion retail.

In 2006, Richard followed in their footsteps…

2/ He started his own store. His idea was simple: affordable, unique clothes to wear to the club.

His goal was to open 100, but he stopped at 5.

Early on, he had the idea of opening up an internet store...

3/ The web dev he hired quickly talked him out of it, “where will you get traffic?” was a question Richard couldn’t answer.

After a few years, the retail stores were going nowhere…

4/ In 2013, Richard noticed several stores online selling the same clothes for over twice what he charged.

He created an Instagram account, took some of his best selling styles and started posting them every day.

At first, crickets.

But then, something magical happened…

I've heard Google Cloud or AWS will provide up to $100K in credits for new products/startups.

Anyone know about/done this? Where can I learn more?

Cc @AWSstartups @googlecloud

In February, I launched my first DTC brand.

I put my name, $, and reputation on the line.

It was an utter failure.

Here is the story and what I learned 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ After ~10 years of running Ampush as CEO, I stepped into the chairman seat.

Ampush had helped countless brands build and scale customer acquisition including: Dollar Shave Club, Birchbox, Stitch Fix, and many others.

I had the obvious idea: why don’t I start a brand?

2/ I was eager to get back to “early days entrepreneurship.”

I spent 2020 both decompressing and anxiously thinking "what's next"

Investing? Another company? Something else?

I love the process of building businesses so I went for my dream: A venture studio.

But now what?

3/ After going in circles towards the end of 2020, the new year started.

I realized: I have to stop thinking.

I have to start DOING.

I’d build the venture studio from the ground up. So now, I needed an idea.

4/ I have seen so many brands grow from obscurity into huge success.

What I wanted to learn:

- How cheap/fast can I stand up a store
- What does it take to get a supplier?
- How do 3PLs work?
- Will my expertise in growth help me win?

I brainstormed ideas with my wife…

Startups are hard!

One of the hardest parts is managing your team.

How much guidance do you give? Do you do it yourself? When to track others to-dos?

Starting out, I wish I had a cheat sheet for management.

So I wrote one.

23 Hard Won Lessons In Startup Management 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ Feedback is a gift.

Don't just give it frequently but seek it all the time, in multiple different ways.

Create a culture where feedback is viewed as a gift and given frequently.

2/ Almost without fail, if at any point you think in your head, "this person is not good, we should let them go," then you are probably right.

Try to do it as soon as possible but compassionately.

3/ Leading and managing people well is NOT an innate talent.

Get a coach and a mentor and learn as much as you can.

You will improve continually over time.

4/ Bring on an "HR" person earlier than you think you should.

Let's face it - most folks want to complain/vent to someone.

Without an HR person, you are that person.

As a founder, you take this complaining too personally and too seriously.

1 Year Ago Today, I co-founded a business. Totally bootstrapped.

Today, it’s doing >$3 MILLION in ARR growing 20% per month.

Here’s the story...

I keep a long list of biz ideas that I've come up with over the years

Last Jan, I decided to stop trying to find the “perfect” biz

Instead, I’ll start a few!

If there is a big mkt, a clear value prop, I can build the right team and I have an “unfair advantage” I will start it

Worst case, I shut it down.

But I wanted more shots on goal...

So here’s the story: I’ve invested in 10+ DTC brands. I meet with their marketing teams regularly.

I am consistently surprised by how UNproductive the “in-house” teams are. What they get done in a quarter takes an @ampush team <1 month.

I started to ask why…

It turns out in-house marketing teams don’t typically leverage “off-shore” talent.

Both McKinsey and Goldman had huge teams overseas to do all the “rote” work of consulting/finance.

Formatting slides, reporting data, reach outs, simple research, etc.

“Targeting” doesn't mean what it used to in the marketing world - the days of targeting different ages etc are GONE - algorithms do that now.

“Targeting” means crafting messages that resonate with your customer.

Starting a company is hard.

The hardest part: the euphoric ups followed by the VICIOUS downs

I wasn’t satisfied that this was “the way it had to be”

I started digging. Worked with a coach. Read books

Here’s the #1 I learned to fight the ups and downs

I do it daily 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ First, let’s back up.

One thing entrepreneurs all have in common is that we are HUMAN.

Newsflash: Humans weren’t designed to be happy. We were designed for one thing: survival.

Now if you were designing an animal to survive, what are some things you may give it?

2/ How about an alert system?

Something to let them know they should be careful or stop doing something: EMOTIONS

Fear - what wants to be paid attention to?
Anger - what wants to be stopped?
Sadness - what wants to be let go?
Joy - what Wants to be celebrated?

What else?

3/ You’d want this animal to be able to use these emotions and quickly spot threats.

In fact, humans are built to walk into a room and first pay attention to anything that could harm them!

But these days, we don’t often experience threats aren’t to our physical survival…

Facebook & Instagram are NOT listening to your conversations.

What they are doing is MUCH more effective!

Here’s how it works👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ The two most valuable pieces of software on earth are:

1. The FB pixel
2. The FB newsfeed

When you wonder how $FB is worth > $400BN while Twitter is < $30BN, these two pieces of software are your answer.

What are they?

2/ The FB pixel is a tiny piece of code that nearly every website/mobile app on the planet has embedded.

It collects anonymized data for FB to aggregate: websites visited, how much time was spent, did you buy or not, etc.

3/ The newsfeed algo looks at that as a signal along with hundreds of other data points like age, friends, what you click on, and even where you post to determine which ad to place in front of you, when.

All of this is done in aggregated groups.

Not personal/specific to you.

4/ When it works: right message in front of right person at right time….everyone wins.

A brand finds a new customer.

You find a product you want.

FB makes $.

Everyone has ONLY one problem.

And it's the SAME problem.

It's called: The Upper Limit Problem.

Here is everything you need to understand and solve it 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Each person has an "inner thermostat" of success/happiness that was set for us as children.

When we exceed our "setting," we unconsciously sabotage ourselves to come back into the familiar/comfortable "temperature."

The classic example: a lotto winner.

It's a proven fact that most lotto winners, regardless of the size of the prize, report similar or LOWER happiness 5-10 years post win.

So much "success" in one area overwhelms their neurosis and they "bring themselves down" in other areas

There are plenty of other examples too

The rock star who develops a drug problem.

The entrepreneur who makes it big and then loses it all.

The sports star who gets a huge injury.

Often times, success in one area leads you to "lower temperature" in another area.

Big financial win, you fight with your spouse.

Got married, your startup fails.

Book published, you broke your leg.

The question I get most often in my DMs is: "Will you invest in my company?"

But a close #2 is for book recommendations...

Here are 11 of my favorite business books, each one is worth reading twice👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success

This book changed my life.

2/ Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

A must read for anyone who's job depends on persuasion. That's everyone BTW.

3/ Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days

@jesslivingston wrote this book and founded Y Combinator. It's a case study in high growth startups.

4/ The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

One of my favorite memoirs, documenting a startup rollercoaster from beginning to end.