From Bankruptcy to $1.3 Billion: Peter's Bold Journey | Peter Khoury DSH #1154

Migrants coming in, and there's

not enough houses.

So the government's saying they have to push for an extra 160,000 over the next three years.

But the industry over there, you know, they say we need to do this over here.

But on the other hand of things, they make it quite difficult to do what they need to do with regulation and bureaucracy.

It's a lot of politics.

Yeah, all that red tape.

I mean, they want to.

I just don't think they're capable of hitting that target now.

All right, guys, all the way from Australia.

We got Peter here today.

Thanks for flying in.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Pleasure to be here.

That's a long flight, so I appreciate that.

Yeah, but it's time travel, right?

So we're tomorrow, right here.

So

I flew back into the past, and tomorrow I'm going back into the future.

There we go.

How are you liking Vegas?

Is this your first time here?

No, not first time.

I actually came here after the, I went to see the Brazil World Cup.

We've done Brazil, Argentina, Vegas, but then a lot younger, a lot of different circumstances.

Wife and two kids, so it's a very different Vegas experience than single man going and taking it on after the World Cup.

I love this.

You're a big football fan.

Yeah, I mean I think it was more experienced.

I'm actually a big basketball guy but yeah when you get the opportunity to go to the World Cup you don't say no.

What's your favorite era of basketball?

You know what?

I like it today.

I do like the whole three-point world.

Yeah 53-pointers a game.

Yeah, exactly right.

Exactly right.

I'd like it more if I could shoot more but yeah it's definitely fun to watch now.

These guys are just different now.

They shoot from everywhere.

They dunk from everywhere.

Less limitations.

They're doing a totally different world right now.

Is it big over in Australia, basketball?

It's very clicky.

I mean, I suppose it's quite large, but nothing like it is in the States, right?

So, you know, probably about 25-30% of the people love it, and then the rest of it just accepted it.

Makes sense.

You guys got a few.

You got Ben Simmons, right?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, he's, I mean, Josh Giddy.

We've got, we've actually got a fair few right now.

I mean, Patty Mills has always been our Patty Mills is good.

Our poster boy.

And then we've got, you know, you know, there's actually a crap load of us in there right now.

Dyson Daniels is killing it right now.

He's, what, he's doing like four to five steals a game.

Yeah, he's killing it.

Delavidova, right?

Yeah, Delavidova.

Yeah, I don't think he's playing in the NBA this year.

I'm not sure.

He's getting older now, yeah.

But he had a good run at the Cavs.

Yeah, Thighball as well.

Thighball.

He's good.

I mean, we've got a really good squad.

I mean, we've done all right.

And I don't think the last Olympics are done well, but the year before.

I think next year we're going to have a really a lot.

There's a lot more merging guys coming out.

So

what sport are you guys known for, though?

Australia's got Aussie Rules, so it's got that AFL.

Probably you don't know it.

Cricket.

Oh, cricket, yeah.

Yeah, cricket, AFL, rugby league.

Okay.

So it's basically, you know, a very different sport to American football.

Tried to watch that yesterday.

Don't understand it.

A lot of start stop, man.

I don't know what exactly was going on.

It's too slow for me.

Yeah, yeah, but it's like they were playing in the ice.

So they were playing the snow.

Oh, that game, the Buffalo Bills game.

That was just nuts, right?

That was like nuts.

Man, I was freezing looking at them.

I was sitting there eating a piece of pizza going, man, I'm cold.

It doesn't make sense.

But no, we've got a lot of sports up there.

We're a very sporting country, and we punch way above our weight.

Nice.

Like, if you see, we've got like three people in the Formula one when you compete oh really yeah like you got that's more than us well i think you guys had one but it got dropped yeah yeah we're not good at racing yeah yeah i mean you guys got your own little version of it right nascar and right that sort of stuff like we got our v8s but yeah australia is a very much a sporting country we take it very seriously like our population is so small yeah compared to you guys we're like 24 million total but we still compete yeah we got states bigger than that yeah i'm telling you i think your gdp of california is three times the size of australia's wow yeah that's crazy we're a small little place Yeah.

But it's a good thing, too, for guys like you in business.

Yeah, I mean, it's very good.

You can definitely do some cool things there, dominate, get a lot of stuff from overseas, bring it down there.

But the difference of business, obviously, market size, right?

So, which is why, you know, we're doing what we're doing here in the States.

When you talk about, you know, going mass market to Australia and 24 million people compared to, you know, 300, close to 400 million people, totally different ballgame.

Right.

There's probably not many billion-dollar companies over there.

A few, but like, yeah, you can count them.

Count them

on one hand.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'd say that, I mean, nowadays they're getting bigger.

I mean, the Fortune 100 is up there.

So you're saying about

150, 200, maybe more.

I might be talking out of my ass, but I'm sure there's stats for it.

But there are definitely some big players out there.

There's a lot of managed funds out there that are doing quite well.

But you've got to remember, Australia is also a very wealthy country, right?

Especially with their property market.

I think Australia's got the

largest amount of millionaires in terms of per capita, just in terms of Sydney, right?

Looks like like a million dollar house on average well yeah you got people they've never worked a day in their life inherited a house worth 200k it's now worth uh you know 1.2 1.3 right the housing market there's crazy which is you know why my my company in Sydney does so well but did you time that market like where you get getting stuff I wish I was that clever yeah we were working on it for a very long time and Australia's always housing markets always been growing yeah so that's not something you can kind of really time you just you know from the day you were born your parents bought one at you know 20k

and then by the time you got to 16 17 it was it was all right shout out to today's sponsor specialized recruiting group navigating the professional job search is hard you know the perfect job is out there you're just not sure how to find it the good news is you don't have to go at it alone you just need specialized recruiting group connect at srgpros.com we're here to guide you and help you find a role that fits all without costing a dime meet specialized recruiting group offering a tailored approach to find your next role go to srgpros.com and get on the right course your local specialized recruiting group team knows which businesses are hiring and can offer you a path to contract and full-time roles don't see the role you're looking for on the website well they also recruit for confidential roles so give an office near you a call to learn more take the next step in your career by starting srgpros.com you were three four hundred and you thought you were you were rich as and then uh Then just things got real crazy.

And then now it's getting even more so because there's like the housing crisis situation over there.

Yeah, there's not enough.

Well yeah so we've got migrants coming about 600,000 migrants coming in and there's

not enough houses.

The government's saying they have to push for an extra 160,000 over the next three years but the industry over there, you know, they say we need to do this over here.

But on the other hand of things, they make it quite difficult to do what they need to do with regulation and bureaucracy and a lot of politics.

Yeah, all that red tape.

I mean they want to.

I just don't think they're.

They're capable of hitting that target now.

I mean, companies like ours will help, you know,

and that's an Australian company.

They'll go a long way to helping achieve that.

But, you know, they kind of try to,

despite themselves, they could do it quite easily.

But, you know, there's a lot of bureaucracy to get past.

That's just governments all over the world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're not efficient.

Exactly.

It's not exclusive to

any one country, man.

They have a nice habit of shooting themselves in the foot.

but publicly claiming the victory.

I just saw one.

I forget the guy's name, but he got a huge budget to build electronic charging stations out here.

If he only built eight, he got like billions of dollars.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you can do better by going to the shopping batteries, right?

Yeah, it's crazy.

I think the best example I had was in,

I was traveling through Lebanon, and I was on one of those big highway roads, and it was just like pothole after pothole.

I mean, this thing was like

out of control, man.

And yeah, he's like, yeah, they just got a $30 million budget to fix these potholes up.

Like, I had that go.

I haven't seen a single person on site, but

that's going in someone's pocket, yeah, exactly right, man.

It's just the the way the world works.

I mean, uh, you know, they grease the wheels and don't get much done, but up to us, uh, private citizens, to do what we can to make it all happen.

How do they treat how does Australia treat entrepreneurship over there?

You know, listen, they fly the flag, but they don't help much.

They try to say, yeah, well done, good job, let's support you.

Um, but you know, I don't want to complain because all the opportunity is there, right?

Uh, so you can't spit in the face of opportunity in Australia because they kind of let you go your own way.

But I think it's,

Dana White said it best:

all you want from your government is to kind of protect you, uphold the law, and just leave you the hell alone, which is, you know, very much the same in Australia.

I mean, the opportunity is there, the marketplace is there, you can succeed, you can fail, you're all off your own merit.

You know,

there are government things out there designed to help people, but they're not really for

me.

So I wouldn't get too involved.

So I can't bad math it too much.

I mean, it's the country that feeds me and all the opportunities there.

But again, as little I can do, you know,

with them means I'm doing a good job.

I agree.

Stay out of the spotlight.

Just do your work.

I mean, we're involved somewhat.

We've got, you know, a really good

guy on our board who's

an ex-minister.

But yeah, I don't try to...

Play too much in that pool.

That makes sense.

I'm the same way, as least involvement as possible.

Yeah,

stay apolitical, man, because I mean, especially here, right?

Here, you got such different opposing sides.

Oh, yeah.

You know, you can't really be on both sides and be, you know, apolitical.

In Australia, we think they're both shit.

So

we get to live with the fact that in,

you know, Australia's freedom is that you just literally ridicule both sides and you're fine with it, right?

No one really likes either one.

Yeah, it's crazy how much American politics bleeds into other countries.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, Australia is probably one of the most influenced places by America in terms of, you know,

if Australia, if America sneezes, Australia is the first one with the tissue.

So we're right behind you guys on pretty much everything, whether it be, you know, conflict, security, or what have you.

Yeah.

So, yeah, but again,

I'm so far out of that political world, it's out of control.

I just want to do my thing and focus on, you know, my entrepreneurial.

missions, but also my social causes, which is, you know, my reason for being.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we'll dive into the social stuff.

I want to first learn about how you scaled this thing because you scaled quick.

Yeah, you're talking about my Australian one, yeah?

Yeah.

Yeah, so our group in Australia is called R2B Group.

It's helping people buy properties out of deposits.

So for those who don't know the Australian property market, it's really expensive to get in.

So the average Australian takes 10 years to save for a deposit.

Wow.

When you think about rent, that's $500 a week.

You know, that's $260,000 you put.

to your landlord before you can even start paying your mortgage.

And then the thing about that is the housing market's growing so significantly that even if you're saving for a 40, 50K deposit, by the time it's time and you already got your 50K, it's now 100K, now it's 200K.

So the goal posts keep moving.

So originally the company was set up

to help people with the deposits.

And how we did that is we had nine different companies in the group.

So you come to me, Sean, you want to buy property.

So I go, okay, no problem.

You go through our process.

You pay us a fee to be a part of an incubator to get you ready.

You then go into our finance division.

We get your pre-approved for a loan.

and let's say we make commission off that three grand.

And then you go to our real estate division.

We source you a block of land.

Let's say you make 10, 20K off that, off the commission, just like a normal agent would.

And then we put a block of build on that block of land.

We build it for you.

Let's say we make 50, 60.

And then we go to our legal team, which we own a 50% stake in.

And then they'll do the conveyancing.

So collectively from a client, you own $80,000, $90,000.

Wow.

And then what we used to do is we take that money, put it into our credit license, our bank license, and issue that to you as a deposit.

And that's hard going, right?

Because you are literally funding this big operation, but most of the money that comes in actually goes out as an asset.

You're still getting principal interest on it.

It's still secured.

And that was the first three years of just pain, right?

And then, you know, year four,

year five, we decided to establish a managed fund, which was

a fund designed to raise money.

through the public.

And then from that money, we'd get the deposits in there so we could scale without

having having to dip into our own pockets all the time and that was quite successful so that really started going call it eight months ago nine months ago by the time we got through all the red tape and then all of a sudden we had other people's money so we went straight from having a three million dollar you know win for uh sorry revenue and a two million dollar loss because we raised some capital we invested it and then july 1st this year we kick off the the new fund And then we sign up about $80 million in business straight off the bat with about a 20% EBITDA.

And that went really good and really strong.

And, you know, we were ready for it.

We raised the capital, invested the right way.

But as soon as we got the fund going and everything was going really well, you know, we got a knock on the door.

And when I say a knock on the door, we'd been applying for what's called a debt warehouse facility, which is like a bank gives you a pool of money to

lend out underneath your own brand.

So I counted 167 rejection letters of me applying for this in the last six years.

And now that everything was going well, we had our fund.

One of the guys who rejected us about 30 times said, yeah, we're ready to pay.

We were originally applying for a $10 million debt warehouse, which gives us $100 million to lend out because we just did the deposits.

And we've come back to the table now with $1.3 billion.

So

starting February next year, we've got $1.3 billion to put out, which is $1.3 billion in sales.

So there's no way we can build all that.

There's no way we can do all that.

I mean, we've only raised a little bit, right?

So we've got to just work our ass off next year and go from a company that earned $3 million to $90 million in the last three months to

now being a company that can do 1.3 billion and uh thankfully man we've got we've got a really good team so we've got a really good ceo nice good board amazing bunch of general managers and a lot of people now and uh i think we're really up to the task man but it's going to be a really amazing next few uh months which is why you know when i came out here did the podcast and a few television interviews uh three or four days have to get right back man it uh doesn't stop yeah so it's exciting man it is man i'm pumped it's really a good time hey it's uh

what's What's the expression?

You know, you work your ass off for six years to become an overnight success, right?

But I'm not going to claim the overnight success title yet.

I mean, the work, when you win these contracts, the work doesn't stop, it starts.

Exactly.

So it's now the time to get really into it, get into the weeds.

And hopefully 12 months from now, we'll have a total different ballgame.

That's super ball, dude.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's super exciting, man.

Yeah, people say that about the podcast.

They're like, you blew up overnight.

Yeah.

I filmed 1200 episodes.

Yeah, no one ever sees it.

Yeah.

Everyone, I mean, it's funny.

It's a connection that us entrepreneurs have.

Everyone always sees you at the end when you've made it, you're successful, you're living a certain lifestyle.

But no one gets the bullshit it takes to get through, right?

The, you know, working through till 2-3 in the morning, the ideas that come at 5-6 in the morning that you have to just write down because it's, you know, killing you.

And then you're like, why isn't anyone watching?

Why is anyone coming?

Why aren't I making money?

I remember doing five, six million on revenue and feeling broken than I've ever felt in my life, going, what what the hell is going on in this place?

But, you know, I think it's a connection that we all just get it.

I mean, we all ask, how was the struggle, right?

Because

it's tough.

Yeah, we got that trauma bond.

Yeah, exactly right.

No, but

people see those revenues and they're like, oh, you must be rich.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, no.

Yeah, we keep like 50K a year.

Yeah, we call it

whiteboard rich.

Yeah.

Because my first company used to, you know, write up our contract.

We sign a deal, we put it on the whiteboard.

And then, you know, go borrow 10 bucks from mum to go have a coffee.

Yeah.

Come on, man.

That's awesome.

Yeah, whiteboardboy.

I think they call it Excel sheet millionaires or something.

Yeah, yeah, there we go.

It works the same way.

Maybe I started back in the whiteboard days before Excel was doing as I needed to do.

I remember those whiteboard sessions.

Those are, I'll never forget those.

Man, I still have them.

Like, I mean, my office at home, I put in a six-meter by two-meter whiteboard back in my office.

I love it.

Yeah, beautiful kit up.

I mean, we have that also that entrepreneur's insomnia, right?

So I wake up at two in the morning and go, oh man, I got this idea.

I just sleep.

We'll do it in the morning.

Like, nah,

I've got to get to my whiteboard and sort it all out.

I used to wake up panicked at midnight, like, for my Facebook ads.

Yeah, like, I was like, oh, I got to make sure they're running properly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, because that's the worst, right?

Because Facebook has this thing where they're just kind of, it's been declined, and you're like, you're doing the whole night, nothing's happened.

Like, oh, come on, man.

And then you got to make sure sometimes your site crashes and you're still spending the money.

Yeah.

Or like you get banned on Facebook.

Oh, man.

I'm getting, thank God, it's not my problem anymore.

Thank God I'm out of e-commerce.

The margins were too low.

Exactly right, man.

But it's, I mean, I'm now getting into it.

I mean, you're not setting me up for that.

You're not making me feel good about that one.

But yeah,

the margins are low, man.

But it's, I think the best thing about e-commerce is, and that's something I've played in for long, is the actual scale of the market you're playing with.

It's nuts, right?

Right.

I mean, you can get everyone.

Yeah.

I still run VizGrads for my events, and they're still really good, though.

Yeah, I saw some of your podcasts.

You talk about your networking events there.

Yeah.

Do they have those in Australia?

They have these networking groups.

They have these networking parties.

I've just joined one recently, which is more like

not high net worth, but people with 30 million plus in revenue in the company.

Pretty good.

Yeah, but

they're stupid expensive to get into.

I mean, they've got things like BNI and that, but you know, it's just a lot of work, a lot of commitment.

But they're small, 15, 20 people, 30, 40 people.

But yeah, maybe I'm not part of that scene.

I wouldn't know as much.

Even there is an entrepreneurial scene in Australia.

But again, man, when you're in the thick of it, you just don't have that time to commit to it.

Where it's, you know, whatever time you're not, you know, in the boardroom or in the office, you're kind of either schmoozing, shaking hands, or trying to spend time with the family.

I'm trying to make sure I don't miss these kids growing up.

So I feel that.

For me, it's important just to shake hands for potential podcast guests and sponsors or whatever.

And that's your bread and butter.

And you know what?

That was my bread and butter too.

I mean, nowadays I don't operationally get involved too much with my big firm in Australia.

It's more about

keeping up with investors, doing the big deals, shaking hands and all that sort of stuff.

But it's just a different point now in the cycle where I've got the, you know, i try to keep the ceo at the front of mind for everything i try to have him be the face of everything because at the end of the day uh the chairman isn't the one who you know everyone's got to you know get behind the ceo impacts the board and the chairman's vision right but the ceo is who you hire to represent you at every level so you know now he's the one you know a guy called phil lee he he's doing all the handshakes and kissing all the babies and doing all those photo ops.

So he's doing a great job of that and probably a lot better job than I would because he's got way more patience than me.

I love it.

You've had issues controlling your patience.

Oh man, I think it's just all of us, right?

I mean,

like, we're always thinking, we're always moving.

You know, when you're stuck sitting down for a few hours or two, you get yourself a bit antsy, right?

And don't get me wrong, it's not a problem.

I control it as much as I need to.

I'm just glad I don't have to anymore.

Yeah.

You know, I do what I want to do and what I feel benefits the company under the direction of the, you know, the board and the CEO.

do my best to get good results for the firm.

And

for everything I'm doing, you know, particularly to this charity effort, effort on social business I'm working on, it's doing what I want to do, what I'm passionate about, which means I don't have to control those things that, you know, you're in a child trying to just get out of his skin and run around and dance.

Yeah, less pressure behind the scenes.

There's pros and cons to both.

Yeah, man, I don't think I've got any interest in being at the forefront of things.

I mean, I think even now for Gift Kindly, I've just appointed a GM who'll be doing all the media stuff.

So this will be like, you know, one and done for me.

Australia has this weird thing.

Maybe it's not unique to Australia.

It's a lot of tall poppy syndrome.

I've heard of it.

Yeah, it's like when you're,

and this is a big cultural difference between Australia and the US, right?

In the US, you guys really get behind your millionaires, billionaires.

You kind of go, you know, you've done well, good on you, congratulations for all you've done.

And by the way, I'm not in those categories, right?

But

in Australia, it's kind of like, oh, look at this loser.

Oh, really?

Yeah, pull your head in, mate.

So generally speaking, you don't want to be seen as that guy who's doing those things.

I prefer to be the legacy guy, which is creating difference, making a change.

But I'm happy to do that, you know, just behind the scenes, you know, pull the strings in terms of the charity stuff.

What, you know, it's between me, my family, and the big man upstairs or whatever.

I do.

So, you know, the behind the scenes is contrary to what I'm doing today, but definitely where I prefer to be and where I'm more comfortable, where I think I can make more impact.

The less they see coming, the more you can do.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, I like that.

So, is that why you started Give Kindly?

You wanted to make some impact?

Man, so Give Kindly, I started was 13.

So, uh, 24 years ago, that was, it's always been my only mission, right?

Um, so 13, I done a you know, mediocre job of doing whatever I could, but it wasn't a social, uh, digital team back then.

So, that was you know, first failure.

And then I failed again at like 18.

I tried to do it again with again, very small budget.

Uh, and then uh, 25, 26, I gave it a real shot,

failed again.

But what I mean by real shot is I spent on the marketing, but didn't spend on the development, so that crashed.

And now I'm 37, going on 38.

And I just said, you know what, this is, it's it.

I'm now

decently capitalized.

I'm not, I haven't got enough,

you know, I've got nothing else holding me back right now.

So I just thought, you know what, if I

give this one last really good shot.

I've always said I wanted to do it in the States as opposed to Australia.

So I just thought I'm not going to do the Australia soft launch and make it happen there.

I was going to put all my energy into the US and try to see if I can make a real impact.

And I think that's what it's always been about for me.

So even gift kindly, I mean, R2B, as much as I'm passionate and love it, that's helping people for a living, right?

Every company I have has to have that ethos, helping people for a living, because I feel like when you fail, you succeed.

And thankfully, you know,

I've done a lot of businesses,

call it, you know,

12%, 14% strike rate of big successes compared to miserable losses, but each one was a lesson.

And now Gift Kindly is at, you know, zero fear in trying.

I'm basically committing basically a big stack of all my wealth to doing it.

My wife's behind me.

Everyone's behind me.

And we're just going to give it one big crack.

And we've got a good team behind it now.

Yeah, I'm really pumped for it.

I love it.

Could you explain the concept of it?

Yeah, so simply put, I think the the world has enough charities.

Didn't want to be an extra one.

The whole purpose behind Gift Kindly is not just giving, but giving people opportunity to give.

One thing I've always found with all my philanthropic endeavors and all the things I've been involved with is the everyday Australian, everyday American, they all want to give.

So what the Gift Kindly platform does is quite simple.

There's a e-commerce market out there.

People buy products that they want anyway.

So right now we're focusing on women's clothing and accessories.

A percentage of each of those

items from our profit goes towards a charity of your choice.

So you have an affinity with that purchase because that affinity of that purchase is going towards your charity, something you believe in.

So the whole point is to just get people doing whatever they want to do regardless and having a percentage go towards a charity of their choice.

So now it's again women's clothing and accessories, but the long-term vision is to basically fund charities so the charities can do what they do best.

Because I believe charities get a lot of heat, heat right and and some rightly so and some not so much

but they're people are putting donations in to you know feed the homeless to expect food to get to homeless but charities have operational costs they need to employ staff they need to you know have a building some of them they need to you know get their websites going so not every dollar goes towards that and the nature of the people who run these charities aren't like us in terms of being entrepreneurial.

So they can't take that money and reinvest it to have ongoing revenues going towards these causes.

And nor should they, because they can't risk people's money.

So the whole concept is to develop things that

develop recurring revenues for charity so they can do what they do best.

And us entrepreneurs can take the risk because I think that's our responsibility.

But not just that.

I want to demonstrate that you can make money off doing it.

So it's not a charity from my end.

It's a social business.

Because I feel like if I can demonstrate that, hey, you can do good things for the community and make money, it can be a model that people emulate.

You know, my long-term vision is having, you know, 13-year-old Pete out there, you know, saying, hey, I want to do this business, but I want to center it around a marketing focus on social causes and charity so that impact can make, you know, a bigger, that ripple can keep going and make greater impact.

That's cool.

Yeah.

One of the issues with charities is like how they use the funds too.

Exactly right.

And it's very regulated in Australia.

But again,

I get two elements of it, right?

Because people look at a cupcake stand and say, hey, 100% of that money is going to charity, but you've now made $600,

right?

But then you look at those big institutions where, you know, where you're actually having to house 1,000 people, feed 1,000 people.

You know, you need to market.

You need to go out there.

You have to put the publicity out there.

You have to run these big events.

And yes, they maybe got a billion dollars in there and $500 million going towards those causes, but that's 500 million compared to $600.

Fair point.

So they're making greater impact.

They're doing more, but the percentages don't align because just like we were talking about before, you had your business.

They're seeing your revenue.

They're going, hey, you should be rich right now.

The same world applies to them.

But they live in a really different world than us because we make money, we reinvest the money, and then we grow from there.

For them, they receive the money as a gift and they have to spend it.

And then they have to beg for it again.

And they have to spend it and they have to beg for it.

The system doesn't work.

So, you know, the system where it works the most is where there's institutional partnerships and, you know, there's a company that has, you know, a partnership and they have an alignment to a cause and they say, as a company, I want to support that cause.

And, you know, and we saw it firsthand.

Like we built a disability center in Zimbabwe.

It cost 30K,

which, you know, in Australia doesn't buy your letterbox, right?

But it was our company deciding this is a cause we wanted to support them back.

There was no tax deduction associated with it because it doesn't go to a charity.

We've physically built it.

But that alignment worked, but really it's not sustainable unless there's a corporate edge to it and people are making money somehow for it to go there.

Right.

Because, yeah, I get their perspective.

They want to get all their money towards the right things, but it's not the way the world works.

If they just did that, they'd be able to do it once and then they're done.

They're closing doors.

That's why your model makes more sense because they're getting purchases every day.

Well, yeah, it's recurring.

Eventually the goal is that they can count on it.

They can expect it to come every single month.

That's the big vision.

And then when that comes, they can drop their reliance on generating more revenue and they can just live with the fact that it's coming in each month and play towards their strengths, right?

I mean, my ultimate vision is that the charity focused on feeding the homeless just focuses on feeding the homeless, right?

Yeah.

And again, I can't begrudge them not doing that now

because the system doesn't work in their favor.

But I definitely feel that they need some support and help.

And the only way I can make a change beyond myself is just demonstrate that, hey, you can be very successful, make money for yourself while supporting these causes and hope that either, A, we're successful enough that we could do it off the back of Give Kindly,

but ultimately we could just demonstrate that Give Kindly is successful and then a thousand other people come to compete against me, maybe do better and then they take the batten and

live the burden of trying to make a legacy and impact.

I love that because either way it's helping people.

Yeah, man, I don't, you know, I think the first launch I had at 18, I talked about the metaphor is, you know, the person who's cold

and homeless doesn't care what you thought about when you gave that jacket up, you know, into that homeless being.

They just want to be warm, right?

So that impact, I didn't care if it comes from me.

I didn't care if it comes from anyone.

Right.

i just want that change to happen that that impact to happen and i think what it will have is a you know a ripple effect on society because people feel good about giving right and the more people feel for good about giving the more they feel good about themselves and you know the more they feel good about themselves the more they do with themselves right so uh it's trying to be breed a culture of giving and intertwine it with the culture of entrepreneurialism and uh hopefully the side effect is lots of people make a lot of money and lots of good things happen love it i've seen a similar model at grocery stores so when you check out I'll say you want to round up.

Yeah, well,

that's the thing.

They're asking the consumer to round up.

Why aren't they just putting up a bunch of people?

And I usually say no, to be honest.

Yeah, and I feel you too, because there's also a lot of pressure, right?

Yeah.

And especially here in, sorry, man, in the States, this whole tipping culture's gotten so confused, right?

You have to tip on takeout orders.

Well, so you see a receipt, right?

You see a receipt, it's got like the price, 478 different taxes to it, and then you're finishing, okay, and now you have to tip again.

20%.

Yeah, and then I don't begrudge it, but it's confusing because then they're going to ask you on top to put more money there, right?

So

in Australia, it's not commonplace.

And again, I'm not.

Oh, you're not supposed to tip?

Well, I mean, you can.

It's not.

But they're on an hourly wage, probably.

Yeah,

yeah, here they're not on like very minimal hourly wage.

Yeah, I think our minimum wage is 25 bucks an hour.

Damn.

Yeah, it's like $2 here, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we would go to jail for that.

Like seriously, we would go to jail for that.

But yeah, it's a different culture altogether.

But again, asking the consumer to put on top doesn't make any sense.

I mean, are you trying to do good?

Are you just trying to look good by making people do good for you?

Right.

And they get to write it off.

Yeah, exactly right.

It makes no sense.

So for us, we give the money from our profit side.

And for the meantime, because of technology, this is our minimum viable product.

For the meantime, we are writing that off.

But

our goal is within six months' time is that you will get that receipt.

Yeah.

So you will get that written off.

So step one is get them to buy what they would otherwise buy already and the percentage goes towards a charity.

That's step one.

Step two is to get the tax benefit for that as well.

So we can actually start getting our deductions out to the community for doing good.

That makes sense.

So we're not out there to make the

big hits on this.

We're trying to make lots of littles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My issue is too, if you actually look into the charities that they're rounding up for and you look at like how they're spending their money, it's just, it's not good, dude.

Yeah.

I mean, it, it's, there's a lot of that going on.

And I think as well with this as influence, right?

If you're the person who can provide the capital, you can basically put some kind of requirements to that capital.

If you're generating 60, 70, 80K a month right now, you know, to the one cause and it may be a small and a medium charity, you can have the conversation going, guys, we're now giving you this money and we're happy to give you this money.

to maintain that we're going to have to see some kind of results from that and there's accountability to that right now i don't think there's that much accountability at all but but also again i don't know how it works in in the States, but some of the guys who go out there to raise money for charity, a percentage goes towards the Salespeople.

Yeah, I think that happens here.

Yeah, 30% to 40% or something like that.

Damn, that high?

Jesus.

Actually, I know it's in the States because I think there was one of those

YouTube clips of what do you do for a living?

Oh, Daniel Market.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then, yeah, so just the percentage goes towards them.

I'm like, okay, I get it.

You got to eat.

Everyone's got to eat.

And for the record,

I don't begrudge anyone eating, man.

It's hard out there.

You got to do what you got to do.

But

I just think there's

a sanctity of the whole charity thing that you have to preserve.

Right.

Because if you ruin that image to the person out there,

you can't recover from that.

You see it nowadays, you know, with what you're saying makes sense.

You know, how they're spending their money, it doesn't make sense.

And that one person, one company that's doing it, is then going to ripple affect other charities.

But some of these charities need to exist.

Otherwise, nothing gets done.

Well, right now, just donating, for the most part, isn't a pleasant experience because I've donated to save the children and a few others.

And they send me shit in the mail every month asking for more money.

Yeah.

But then that comes back to the system, right?

What choice do they have?

Right.

They need to erase it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have to.

I mean, again,

it's, it's frustrating.

It's annoying, but it's logical that that's what they have to do.

Right.

I've done the same thing, right?

Because they, if the, okay, so let's say you get your ultimate outcome.

They spend your money on saving the children.

Right.

That's your ultimate outcome.

So if you're giving a thousand bucks, you want that thousand dollars to go to that cause, right?

That's your ultimate outcome.

So, then what?

So, if they got a hundred thousand dollars now come through from that drive, people have come through, they've now done exactly what you wanted to do.

Do they close shop the next day?

No, they got to keep doing it, they got to keep doing it, right?

So,

again, it's not ideal.

Uh, the system's flawed, uh, it relies on the donations of people.

It's uh, you know, it's annoying, it's uh constant, it's somewhat aggressive at times, yeah.

But you kind of get it it because if they got that cash from you, they've made a difference, they want to keep making that difference.

And there's no system out there right now designed to give them recurring revenue to keep doing it.

Right.

And it's not like they can take your money and go, okay, I'm going to invest in this business now so I can have a recurring revenue come into the firm.

Some companies or some churches and charities do that in Australia, but they use their own money from

the people internally first, right?

But sustainably speaking, charity only, they got no choice.

And that's what I feel Give Kindly intends to be.

It intends to be that choice where they can stop breaking everyone to give more cash

because they know more money's coming in next month.

Because I can only imagine, man, like if your goal is to spend every cent on your cause, then you can only do it for one week.

Yeah, that must be stressful for charity owners.

Yeah, I mean, you get the perspective.

Again, I'm not coming to the, you know, giving them a hurrah and they're saying they're doing a great job.

I don't know specifically which ones are, which ones aren't.

And I'm sure there's a lot of them that are doing a rubbish job, but I'm sure there's also a lot of them doing a great job.

And where Give Kindly intends to be is

to, you know,

work with your angst and go, let me take that responsibility off you.

Let me instead take that burden off you and go, let me be the one to give you that cause through my entrepreneurial endeavors.

Let me make money by doing it

so I can show the world this system works and keep it going.

And I'm not the first to do it.

I mean, shout out to there's a lot of social business adventures out there, like Tom Shoes is one, for example,

that make direct impact.

So I'm not a pioneer of intermingling social endeavors with business.

But what I hope to do is get rid of that burden from the individual who just has to keep redipping into their pockets because, you know, there's only so much you have as well, right?

Right.

You're in in the same water as them.

You have to keep making more money to keep supporting them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I could definitely see that it's a big problem.

If you could solve it, it'll do well.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the dream, that's the goal.

And I think that's how everything starts, right?

Yeah.

You have your big long-term vision and goal and, you know, just kind of chip away at it, just like R2B, right?

We, we had our big dream of getting that warehouse, and it took six years to get it across the line.

And, you know, Sometimes it could have taken 20 years, sometimes it takes 30 years, sometimes it doesn't happen.

Yeah.

But, you know, this one one has now been going 24 years since 13.

It's just that how to make the impact happen and, you know, with the support of the people.

And if they believe in the same vision, hopefully we can work together to make it a reality.

Absolutely.

And you started at 13 and you had humble beginnings.

So you weren't wealthy back then.

I mean, no, I mean, like, listen, I want to give all credit to the parents.

They gave us, you know, every opportunity out there.

I mean, they.

They struggled like hell to put us in

a decent good school.

And,

you know,

they done their best to not show us any of the struggle.

But, I mean, there was also a lot of benefit to that, right?

So when, you know, my dad, may rest in peace, got sick.

And, you know, me and my brother would go to the,

he had a printing press at, you know, four or five in the morning before school and school holidays and do some things, you know, just to keep it going while he was dealing with his MS at the time.

And, you know, looking back at the time, man, they were the best times because they teach you so much.

You know, we came out of, you know, we're living based out in,

you know, overseas, moved to Australia.

And from there, my parents just tried like hell to make things happen.

My dad, again, may rest in peace, just kept trying different businesses.

Some went really good, some, you know, struggled.

And

we saw the struggle through him, so we knew what to expect.

While my mom just, you know, worked her ass off.

She was a corporate kind of person and just kept putting food on the table together.

And, you know, so they set the blueprint of what hard work was needed.

And me and my brother and sister took the baton and done the best we could.

I love it.

Similar with my parents, my dad was the entrepreneur, and my mom was the corporate.

It's good to experience both perspectives.

Well, you need it, right?

Because the entrepreneur is

rich one day, broke the next, right?

And then

the grinder who sits behind the desk and does what they need to do just keeps the, you know, keeps the mortgage going, keeps the food on the table, and struggles through it all because you just don't know.

And, you know, I remember when I got engaged to my wife, I said to her, understand it's not easy being married to someone like, you know, entrepreneurial.

Yeah, yeah.

Because, you know,

A, there's a lot of risk and my risk is your risk.

And the nature of my risk is I continue to keep taking it, right?

Because,

you know, most people's job, let's say you're a builder, you start, you do the slab frame, you build the house, do what you need to do.

An entrepreneur takes his money.

puts it into a pit and hope it comes out together quite well.

And sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

And you always have to be the lead investor, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Australia's investment culture is very different to the US one, right?

Companies don't invest in a company until you're profitable.

So it almost defeats the purpose.

Whereas, you know, the States has this,

you know, it's actually something I commend them for, a really good investment culture and pre-seed seed and all those funding rounds.

In Australia, that doesn't exist unless you're, you know, the son of a fund manager.

Right.

Without connections.

Yeah, exactly right and again even then it's it's so rare it's just so limited yeah no that's a great point it's tough dating an entrepreneur i've made and lost my money twice yeah since i've met my fiancé and she's been with me both times yeah and uh yeah she easily could have left me man yeah man it's it's it's uh i mean we went so we had a house in in kellyville that you guys won't know where that is it's in uh you know western sydney and we had like four investment properties just got married uh

went on this massive tour lived a good life had uh our first child.

A month after our first child, we were packing our boxes to the house, house for sale,

to go move in with the in-laws

facing bankruptcy.

And, you know, best thing that ever happened, because I'll tell you right now, R2B started that day.

Damn.

Because what happened was the property market in 2018, nothing was selling.

December 22nd, 2018.

Me and my co-founder, a guy called Yusuf, were sitting in my house having Shisha stressed to the balls, right?

I don't know know if you can say balls on the podcast.

You can.

Okay, cool.

We were stressed hard, right?

And I got some insurance money from a small boat that got hit by

a car anyway.

December 22nd, we're now really stressed out.

Like six grand I got.

I gave three grand to Yusuf, three grand to me.

I got it.

We'll just figure it out next year because I'm trying to sell all my houses.

Nothing's moving.

So I went on social media and I put, you know, screw this, I'm just going to sell it myself.

No real estate experience.

I was a financial planner before then, but I I had a bad investor.

That guy's in jail now, but lost a crap load of money.

I went from being super wealthy, super wealthy to like super broke.

Anyway, and I mean like super broke.

Anyway, moving in with your in-laws broke and then your mother broke out.

That's right.

Yeah.

So and they're awesome people.

So it wasn't a bad experience.

But anyway, that night, December 22nd, I put up a post.

Why when you can buy deposit finance provided?

And I put up photos from my Kellyville house.

It'd been up with an agent for a good three months, not a nibble.

And

it was December 22nd at 11 apm when Yusuf started leaving to go towards his house, an hour drive.

And I get one response and then a second and a third.

We stayed up that night to 4,700 inquiries.

What?

Yeah.

And then we, okay, well, I'm not going to just sell my house now.

It makes no sense.

Called a developer friend of mine in Queensland, which

was a cheaper market back then.

And I said to him, for these houses, they were going for $550, $600.

Would you give me 50K comms commissions on them?

He's like, ah, I go, please.

He goes, okay, I'll give you five for them.

So December 22nd, we started from those leads.

I converted a sale on December 25th.

So Christmas, December 26th, the day after Christmas,

I got a client to commit to one of those places

in Queensland.

Still having no idea how we're going to do all this, right?

So I got the commission, 60K.

That's 10%, put it through, whatever.

And then January 3rd, got an investor for 300K, just a friendly, one of my clients from financial planning who'd been with me forever.

And then by

May that year, I paid them back their money times too.

And then we started really, the first two years was just figuring out how to try to make money from it, right?

Yeah.

So that was the tricky part.

And then there was like this acquisition pathway of buying different companies because even during that time, as you know, COVID,

trying to find people to work for you was hard, right?

The job rate was just so high.

Yeah.

So, you know, we ended up opening an office in South Africa, opening an office in Philippines just to get more people.

And then we went, screw this, we just have to start acquiring.

And the best way to do that is have people believe in your vision.

And they came on.

But when you talk about that, you know, loss and make,

it was literally probably about a week before bankruptcy that, you know, RTB group started, right?

So it was,

you need that real push, man.

Everyone asks, you know, how do you do it?

I mean, it's just necessity.

Side of that, that, I don't need.

Yeah, when your back's against the wall, you find ways.

Yeah, exactly.

I can't even think of it.

Yeah, I mean, and that's exactly.

And, you know, in that period, like

we'd lost my financial planning firm, you know, a few months before.

We didn't go bankrupt, which was good.

We just threw in the towel and paid off our bills between me and my brother and sister.

But I had like a year, and I just tried everything, man.

Like, I tried.

give kindly again.

I tried all these different

things over and over and over again.

And in that year, you know, my number two youth have just stayed with us.

He took a stupid pay cut just to stick around because I'm big picture, he's detail.

Yeah.

You can't have one without the other.

And I know my, I think that's one of my biggest strengths as an entrepreneur is knowing my weaknesses.

And that is, I'm not the guy you want, you know, running the organization.

I'm the one you want with the ideas.

The visionary.

Yeah, the vision and the sales.

I mean, I like to think I'm pretty good at getting the deal done.

Yeah.

But the vision is where, where

where the company needs me.

But a vision without execution is just the dream, right?

So I need my detail guy around.

So he stuck around for a year and we tried different things.

And literally just three days before Christmas, man, we started it.

And then,

you know, December 22nd, 2018 is the launch date.

So every December 22nd, we have...

We have my big company Christmas party.

And then me and Yusuf go off for a nice

drink and a shisha and just go, shit, here we are.

I love it.

Yeah, you gotta remember, man.

You gotta remember, because you could be there again tomorrow.

Absolutely.

There's no doubt.

You can't forget where you came from, man.

Well, I mean, that's business, right?

Like, you know, that's why I said to you, I'm not going to declare the success title because, man, it's ruthless.

Oh, it is.

You screw up, man.

You're back there again.

And there's, it's the only world you could be really rich and really broke the next day.

100%.

I went from, yeah, similar to you, millionaire on paper, and then lost it all.

Yeah.

Then just control alt-f5,

refresh that shit shit and go again.

Classic, yeah.

When it happened the first time, I was like, all right, I'm young.

This won't happen again.

But then the second time, I was like, damn.

Well, now you build it because you know it can.

Yeah.

I mean, the way I built my company now, there's nine different subcompanies.

So we have the construction company, which operates the construction company, real estate company operates as real estate company.

Each company has got its own GM.

And that company's GM is

bound by profit outside of the R2B client base.

Got it.

So that means at the end of the financial year for us, which is

June 30,

we take the balance sheet, we take the profits and profit and loss statements and we go, okay, get rid of every R2B client from there.

Are you still successful?

Are you still profitable, right?

And that's what you're measured on.

Because if something happens, you know, these are your influences, right?

You've got your regulation issues, you've got your media issues, you've got...

you know

anything that can really happen to headco i still want to be able to survive with a law firm, construction company, real estate company, and all that sort of jets, right?

Because now, when you build it with a bit more of a mature mindset, it's like not

can it go wrong, when can it go wrong, when will it go wrong?

And you have to build that mindset now because I can't restart again.

You know, I've got kids at school and uh misses, but not just that, man.

All my staff are shareholders, a large portion of them are.

All my key guys are in it with me.

Um, and you have the responsibility of all your staff who have to feed their children, and you have all your clients who now back you.

So, you have to take that responsibility seriously

because

it's one bad decision from you that topples everything over.

So, you have to have a bit more of a risk-averse mindset now that it's built.

100%.

Peter, it's been fun.

We'll link all your companies below and everything.

Where can people find you?

Perfectly appreciate it, mate.

So, the big thing here in the States is give kindly, of course.

I don't think there's too much you can do with our 2B group.

So, we're available on the Apple Play Store and the

Apple Store and the Play Store.

There's an app called on the gift kindly side.

And there's also giftkindly.com, G-I-V-E-K-I-N-D-L-Y.com.

So yeah, if you guys can show some love there, get us some support, get some traction going for us.

If you get proof of concept with this MVP, guys, you know, I'd sincerely appreciate it.

I'll chip in on that.

So I'll buy something tonight.

Awesome, man.

It's all women's clothing apparel stuff.

Oh, yeah.

Bye for my fiancé.

Otherwise, I'd like to see what you dress in the next podcast.

Anyway, all right, guys, check them out.

Thanks for watching.

Thank you so much, guys.

Thank you.