How I Built 12 Companies Without Investor Money | Cameron Johnson DSH #1076

I think what's going to be more interesting is whether or not people actually own cars.

Because right now, 95% of cars are not used on a daily, you use your car 5% of the time a day.

And so you've got all of this expensive, if you call it a car real estate, you've got these expensive car real estate.

They're just sitting in parking garages or sitting in a driveway or a garage at home all day.

And so I think ultimately, you know, you can see a lot more shared ownership.

All right, guys, Cameron Johnson here, our first Amfest together.

We were just talking about how fun it's been.

It's been great.

Great turnout, huge event, lots of speakers.

Everybody's having a good time.

Yeah.

And you're not a beginner to entrepreneurship.

Your first company at nine years old.

Started my first business when I was nine years old.

It was a small business, a printing company, printing greeting cards and stationery.

And it was when I was 12, I started selling beanie babies over the internet.

You remember the craze, or you might not have even been born.

I caught the tail end.

I heard of them.

I never have it.

Okay.

Well, it was right in my childhood.

And so when I was 12, I started selling beanie babies over the internet.

I was making 50 grand a year.

Crazy.

And back then, that's decent.

It was a lot of money.

It's still a lot of money.

I'd probably be almost six figures right now.

Right, exactly.

With inflation these days.

Yeah, inflation's nuts.

So those kind of fell off, though, right?

Beanie babies.

Yeah, fortunately, I migrated into some internet companies that were a lot larger.

But I actually got out of the beanie baby business only because I was heading into middle school and I didn't want to be teased or known as the beanie baby kid.

So that's why I got out of the business.

But I started an online advertising company called surfingprizes.com.

And we had 200,000 customers in 60 countries.

When I was in middle school?

When I was 14, and we were doing 100,000 a week in revenue.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

So why didn't you just drop out at that point?

Well, I wanted to graduate high school.

I did not plan to go to college because I always told my parents, Michael Dell didn't graduate college.

You know, go down the list.

Richard Branson didn't graduate high school.

I would always cite all of these successful entrepreneurs.

My parents wanted me to go to college.

I went to Virginia Tech for one semester.

I raised 10 million for a company I started and then I dropped out.

Once you got the money.

Once I, yeah, I then dropped out.

Yeah.

Similar to me, I wasn't at those numbers, but once I had some revenue in my business, I think they're more receptive to dropping out.

Yeah, exactly.

I had a plan at that point.

You know, it wasn't like a one-hit wonder.

Yeah.

How tough was it raising that money?

So this would have been 1999.

And so the dot-com craze was still going on.

They would say 2000 was really the bust.

So, I mean, I actually went out to raise 5 million and my partner and I ended up being offered 10 million.

We ended up turning down the venture capital, though, because what we're good at is being entrepreneurs and sort of being CEOs.

And if we had taken on the money, we would have been minority shareholders.

And we saw that as, oh, well, now we're just an employee.

So sure, it sounds like a lot of money, but it's not going to us.

It's to fuel growth.

And we thought that we wouldn't be calling the shots anymore that the investors would.

So we actually turned it down.

That makes sense.

I'm too young to remember the internet bust.

I was four years old in 2000.

Talk to us about what happened then.

Did you see that coming at all?

So I didn't necessarily see the internet bust coming,

but the bust was mainly companies that had no revenue.

And so it was, you know, a pets.com back in the day and all of these different dot-com one-hit wonders that were raising a ton of money, but they had no revenue.

And so

that was really what the bust was primarily.

My businesses were always profitable.

I had 12 before I was 21, millionaire before out of high school.

They were all profitable, but that's because our expenses were always low.

I didn't go out and you see all these companies at the time that were getting these really expensive, huge office buildings.

We didn't do any of that.

You know, we were teenagers starting a company virtually.

My partners, my two partners in serving prizes, we had never even met in person when we started the company.

So we built a multi-million dollar company when we were 14.

We never even met in person.

That's nuts.

I think operating lean is good.

I was never a fan of companies raising pre-revenue unless they absolutely needed the money.

Right.

Right.

But most need to be in some specialized industry, healthcare or something else.

It's unique to be able to raise money pre

revenue.

It just doesn't make sense.

But just the psychology of using someone else's money is different than how you're going to use your own totally and um i always you know you you respect your own money because you worked hard to earn it and so that's why i've never still to this day never taken outside investor money you never raise money even to this day which is impressive because you're running some huge companies exactly how many companies do you have right now running um so i'm an investor in probably 75 plus startup companies and they're not all startup now hopefully they've all grown it to some level um and then i own a chain of car dealerships in virginia called the magic city auto group um and so yeah yeah, you're a fourth-generation car dealer, right?

Fourth-generation car dealer.

So, I took the proceeds that I had made from my internet companies and I said, you know, I preached everything starting up as go lean, right?

Start from, you know, at the time, it was my childhood bedroom when I started my business, um, but keep your overhead low, and then it's so much easier to reach profitability.

Right.

Now, I do the complete opposite of that.

We have really, really expensive assets, um, you know, 50 plus acres of land across across our dealerships, hundreds of employees, the exact opposite of everything I did growing up.

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But of course, in the car business, that's what you've got to do.

And yeah, it's fun.

So, what I did was I took those proceeds and I bought out all of our family members, got it out 15 years ago.

Nice.

You probably meet some cool people in that space, at least, though.

I've met a lot of cool people that are other successful entrepreneurs growing up my entire life.

Yeah.

And then also in the car business, there's a lot of successful, there's a lot of change happening in the car business now, too, which is good.

Yeah.

So, what are your predictions with that with electric?

Like, every year it gets more and more, right?

Yeah.

So, EVs are only growing at a really rapid pace.

They've slowed a little bit in the past year, but I'm sure that'll pick back up.

What's really interesting is, I think, what's next with self-driving.

You know, when we're here in Phoenix, where they have Waymo.

I took a Waymo back from dinner last night.

I've done it many times.

I've been in Phoenix.

And I think it's going to be interesting what happens ultimately with car ownership.

So forget whether it's an electric or it's an ICE engine, internal combustion engine.

I think what's going to be more interesting is whether or not people actually own cars.

Because right now, 95% of cars are not used on on a daily, you use your car 5% of the time a day.

And so you've got all of this expensive, if you call it a car real estate, you've got these expensive car real estate.

They're just sitting in parking garages or sitting in a driveway or a garage at home all day.

And so I think ultimately, you know, you could see a lot more shared ownership.

Yeah, I love that you're being proactive about that as a car dealer.

You know, that must worry a lot of car dealers, but some might not even be aware of that, that trend.

Well, and I like to look at it from the other angle, too.

So if ultimately, if I'm not selling to the end user, well, maybe I'm the one that owns the cars that is leasing them in the the fleet to when people need them or where maybe I'm the guy that owns the Waymos that are out on their, on the roads.

I took it in San Fran.

Is that Waymo in San Francisco?

San Fran is, yep.

And they're also here in Phoenix.

I couldn't believe it, dude.

I took it to dinner, took it back to the bridge.

It was nuts.

It's a third of the price.

Yeah.

It felt unreal.

Yeah.

Like I literally got in, no one was there.

Right.

I know.

You're like talking to yourself.

It's like

AI is really a dancing man.

Totally, totally.

Yeah.

Are you investing in AI companies right now?

I've invested in a number of AI companies.

And then you've seen, obviously, the boom.

You know, I look at AI as almost similar to the 1999, 2000 dot-com boom and dot-com bust, only because it's hard to know what to invest in.

It's hard to know what's actually going to stick.

And as much as we talk about ChatGPT and all the names that Jim and I and all the ones that we can name, who knows what's ultimately going to be, you know, the one that everybody ultimately uses.

Yeah.

Is that why you invest in so many different companies?

You're kind of hedging your bat.

You're trying to hedge the bet and spread it around.

Yeah.

Cause if you invest in five, then none of them hit.

Yeah.

And what I try to do too is I'm usually usually trying to bet on the entrepreneur themselves, right?

Bet on the jockey, not the horse.

Yeah.

And so over time, I feel like I've gotten better and better at that.

Have you looked into the alternative media podcast space at all?

As an investment, I haven't, but I'm obviously aware and seen some of these deals that have gotten done.

Crazy deals, right?

Last week, Hot Ones, the show where they eat the spicy wings, 82 million.

Yeah.

It's insane.

It's nuts just for eating wings.

And they weren't even profitable.

That's the crazy part to me.

Right.

They removed.

I don't want to call that to bust, but a potential bust.

But I mean, that's an expensive investment for something that is not profitable.

Yeah.

I mean, they got the views.

So, so if they tie the right product or service to, I don't know how many views are getting a month, but it's a lot.

Right.

I could see it maybe in ROI, but it's a, it's a tough one.

Yeah.

That's your space.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's good for me.

It's definitely good for you.

All these deals are good for you.

Yeah.

These Spotify deals, Caller Daddy, Rogan.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You listen to any shows?

I do.

H-Y-S, Rogan, for sure.

And

soon I'll be listening to yours on a regular basis.

Yeah, I've gotten familiar with your background.

Amazing.

Yeah, it's hard to be Rogan, though.

I still listen to Rogan on the stuff you guys are.

Yeah, he's great.

I mean, a lot of his guests come on and I'm like, I'm constantly studying him.

He's the GOAT.

He is.

Yeah, he's awesome.

2,500 episodes.

Well, what's next for you, man?

What's next for me?

You know, I always have been asked this question since I started my first business 30 years ago.

And, you know, I always say,

people used to ask, what's your favorite company that you've ever had?

And I always say the one I haven't started yet.

Love it because I am always looking for something new and whatever the next challenge is.

Do you still have that same hunger you did when you were in your your 20s starting out?

I have the same hunger, but I don't know that I have the same risk appetite.

So I like to take risks, but calculated risks.

Whereas when you're younger and you're living in your parents', you know,

your room at your parents' house or in your college dorm room, that's why I always encourage young people to start a business is because you can take all the risk in the world and your house isn't going to get foreclosed on.

Your car is not going to get repossessed.

Right.

And you've got that sort of that safety net.

Of course, I've got a nice safety net these days, but my risk appetite's probably changed.

I love it, man.

Where can people find you?

CameronJohnson.com.

And, you know, a quick Google search.

Awesome.

Check them out, guys.

Thanks for coming on.

Cool.

Thank you.

See ya.