Eddie Maalouf Says No to Almost Everything | Digital Social Hour #122

So what about AI?

Do you see AI as a fad or it's here to stay?

I think AI is the biggest thing we've seen in the last hundred years, probably since like since like the car was made.

Wow.

Dude, Samsung had the biggest in AI history, probably for the next 10 years.

Really?

Its engineering team went in and they basically uploaded all the proprietary information of their chips to ChatGPT to ask it how to optimize it and make things better.

It leaked and now people would go on there at ChatGPT and it would spit out their proprietary chip information.

No way.

Samsung banned AI use in the entire company like next day, effectively.

Welcome back to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis.

What up, what up?

And our guest today, Eddie Malouf.

What's up?

Man, how's it it going?

Good, man.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Absolutely.

How are you feeling?

I'm feeling awesome, dude.

Just got off the plane.

Right.

Ready to dig in.

Came from Mexico, right?

Yeah, I came from Mexico and walked in, and there's a

car sitting on the chair right before I got on the podcast.

We like to mix it up.

Yeah, that's how we do it over here.

We love that.

We get the best people from their space, which you're one of them.

And I'd love you to explain people watching what you do.

Yeah, so long story short, I do digital marketing.

So I got a company with about 120 employees right now.

And we basically focus on Facebook ads, YouTube ads, pretty much anything online, creating content, email marketing.

Mainly we push like e-commerce revenue on Shopify as well as some pretty big people in like the coaching and info product space right now.

Nice.

And how did you get good at marketing to be able to start your own marketing company?

Yeah, so originally I wanted to start my own fitness supplement company.

I basically wanted to create a bodybuilding.com in the Middle East.

So when I was like...

19, 20, which is like 10 years ago at this point, I basically created a business plan.

I got really deep into marketing.

I figured out Facebook ads before like anyone knew how to use them, influencer marketing.

And I basically wrote down like a 30, 40 page business plan and took it to supplement companies, like really big ones, billion-dollar brands, so that they would give me the rights to distribute in the Middle East solo.

And I got exclusivity from all of them.

And then I basically went to the Middle East, started implementing that plan with like influencers, Facebook ads, stuff like that.

Long story short, a lot of politics got involved.

And then I started taking the skills to like my family's companies.

They had like water parks and things like that.

And I like tripled their business in like a year uh and i realized what i could do and then from there people basically started talking and i started taking on clientele wow building a company out of it nice and which platforms are you seeing success with this year youtube and facebook yeah youtube and facebook definitely we probably spend at this point maybe 10 million a week jesus uh maybe more than that probably probably 10 to 15.

what's your roi on that monthly oh depends on every brand a month maybe no that'd be insane no i mean it's probably 10 million a week he's spending.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

So, in a month, it's probably like 160 million.

His RI has to be over 100.

He's spending 10 million a week.

Yeah.

Wow.

So, like, I'll give you an example.

Like, right now, we just ran like a webinar this last week.

We spent 120K on that.

We made maybe like 700K.

So, like, the ROI webinars are still working.

Oh, dude.

We're doing like 35 million a month in webinars and challenges and things like that.

You got to watch a webinar, Wayne.

Wow.

100%.

Has anyone done a podcasting webinar yet?

People do podcasting VSLs, which are like video sales letters, essentially.

Basically, what they are is like just a shorter webinar and pitching people.

A lot of people do that.

I've tried a few.

It didn't work out for me.

It's kind of niche, I guess.

A lot of people are introverts and don't want to start a pod.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's probably part of it.

So what about AI?

Do you see AI as a fad or it's here to stay?

I think AI is the biggest thing we've seen in the last hundred years, probably since the car was made.

Wow.

Yeah, that's how far it's.

I think that's how big AI is because it's self-accelerated.

It learns on its own.

I was actually,

and here's actually the biggest problem with AI, and I don't think people have realized this yet, but I've noticed that like, let's take ChatGBT, for example.

Let's say I'm in one account and I upload a formula of some sort to ChatGBT.

Let's say my custom supplement formula.

Hey, what can I make this better?

Because it's AI, it's actually saving it into its server.

And if I go to someone else's account, I can technically technically prompt that question.

And if someone else has uploaded it, it will know the answer and give it back to me.

I don't know if you saw Samsung.

Have you seen Samsung's situation?

No.

Dude, Samsung had the biggest f ⁇ ing in AI history probably for the next 10 years.

Really?

Its engineering team went in and they basically uploaded all the proprietary information of their chips.

to ChatGPT to ask it how to optimize it and make things better.

And it leaked.

It leaked.

And now people would go on there at ChatGPT gbtin it would spit out their proprietary chip information

samsung banned ai use in the entire company like next day effectively yeah like imagine coca-cola leaking that doesn't mean that the information is still not in there oh the information's still there it's too late but they're trying to stop it from the future

people can literally duplicate what samsung is doing they didn't patent the chip i mean you can't i mean even if you patent it right a company like hawaii or whatever from uh from China is going to go in there and just make their own version of the chip.

You know what I mean?

They don't care.

If you're patent code or like the way way it's ability to do stuff, you can patent the chip, but the information in it is, I mean, it's information.

So, what jobs do you see AI taking over and just wiping out all of them?

No, I wouldn't say all of them.

I'll tell you what jobs are staying.

Like handyman work, construction, things that require physical labor.

Kids don't want to work no more.

Physical labor will be the robots' jobs.

Kids don't.

But how long before we get to robots that are like repairing your house?

Let's be honest.

Like 20 years, decades.

It'll take 20 years, right?

But I feel like

from a software standpoint the i feel like the humans will be controlling the robots in a sense but that's just but like how long before we have a robot no so there's phases right it's like phase one like we have the robots that actually can do the handyman work phase two is like getting humans trust to allow a robot to step into their house yeah to do the work itself you know i think i think we're at least like 25 30 years yeah they don't want to work no more though that's the problem so that but that industry is not going to go anywhere that's the demand is going to get higher it's going to get more expensive i i see a lot of a lot of success in that industry.

Even now, we're starting marketing agencies and trying to buy like HVAC companies and renovation companies, et cetera, because we know we can market them and we know the prices are going to go up because demand is going to get stronger, supply is going to go down.

Ironically, the first jobs that are taken are creative jobs.

I thought that would be like one of the last ones.

Copywriting.

Yeah, copywriting music, dude.

I mean, 10 seconds, I can go write a song that's better than

the shape.

I've been looking at fake Drake songs all day.

Those are pretty good.

Fire.

They're amazing.

What?

They're not even, dude.

They're on the charts, bro.

It's like

fake drakes all day.

I'm sorry.

Them shits are fire.

If I was a record label owner,

I'd be sweating right now.

So, what record labels have to do, and this might be a little far-fetched, but it'll make sense.

I feel like they're going to have to own the artist's tones and the melodies.

You're going to have to own those.

So now you can push that over.

So even if the artist does die, which pretty much a lot of them do, they're still able to make songs, but they have to own the rights to the actual voice of the artist.

Wow.

100%.

Someone did that.

Then that's when you actually yeah, yeah, that's when you actually stop AI because now you actually own the tone of the artist so so the Drake and weekend big song came out, right?

Was it Drake and Weekend?

Yeah,

it popped right crazy, and then they're like they're trying to shut it down They're trying to stop everything from going and then another big artist I forgot who but I think it was a female artist.

She was like, hey, just give me like 10% royalty.

She's a must baby mom.

I don't mean to say it like that, but it's gribes.

Yeah.

She actually created an app that enables people to actually use her voice and likeness, but she takes a 50%.

I think she do a 50-50 split on it.

Like, that makes sense.

That, as an artist, that is how you win, bro.

You just give other people 50% and let them rip the best songs they possibly can with your voice.

I feel like most artists should do that.

I think Drake should team up with some of these AI writers, bro.

Them songs are fire.

Dude, you can get hundreds of millions of views and take a 50%, 60% royalty rip on them and do no work whatsoever.

80%.

That's what I'm saying, dude.

Just from your voice.

Yeah.

That's what I would do.

Yeah, that's what I would do as an artist, man.

100%.

It just makes sense, right?

It's just, you don't have to go after everybody.

It's like, yo, y'all put it out as long as you don't put me out dissing nobody.

Have fun with it.

And I want 80%.

You're not going to stop it.

That's the thing.

These guys actually think they're going to stop it, bro.

There's billions of kids on their computers just sitting here writing songs and just hitting that.

What have been the most viral ads, highest ROI ads you've seen, and what do you think made them so special?

Okay, I was just talking about this with someone yesterday.

So like, I'll give you a reference point on ads.

Like a 1% click-through rate on social media is considered like good.

Really?

It's like a good baseline.

It's like if 1% of everyone that sees the ad clicks on it, considered a good ad, right?

Yesterday we were talking about an ad that was 27% click-through

like 27 times like the normal baseline.

So three out of 10?

Yeah, and it was about a baby sleep course, for example, to teach you like how to put your baby to sleep properly, sleep train them, whatever.

And the headline was, I thought my baby died.

You know what I mean?

Because they were asleep for the first time and whatever, right?

So like doing things that are very polarizing and shocking in the ad headline is definitely like the way to go.

But how I view ads, and I think this is why we're successful, is I try to look at ads like I look at organic social media, right?

Same with you guys making the clips for this podcast, right?

You want a really polarizing hook, you want something that's interesting enough where the first few seconds people are like, oh, what the f?

There's no way this is what they're talking about.

Let me learn more, etc.

That's the same approach we take on our ads.

So, even when we make a good ad, we'll go and we'll rip like 10 different hooks and slap them all on the same exact exact ad just to see which hook is going to get the highest watch rate.

And that's how we're running it.

I think too many people play their ads wrong, and too many people think about how can I get people to click?

How can I get them off the platform as quickly as possible?

When the real game, if you really think about it, Facebook's trying to monetize, YouTube's trying to monetize, all these guys are trying to monetize, right?

The only way they're going to monetize is by getting as much attention and watch time on the platform as possible.

So, really, what you got to do is make the best ads that make people watch all the way through, not just click right away, right?

And then Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all these platforms will reward you because if your ad gets people watching four or five times longer than another ad, they're gonna charge you five times less, ten times less sometimes, just because your ad is keeping people held on the platform longer, their attention is there, etc.

That's why, like, even back in the day, you see, you see Ty Lopez run like a 50-minute ad and just talk to the camera, and people would sit there and watch.

And he'd do so well because, like, YouTube's like, dude, people are watching 40 minutes on average on this video.

Run it.

You know what I mean?

And that's the real formula at the end of the day.

And then what goes into keeping people engaged that long?

Is do you spend a lot on a video production team, or can you do that off an iPhone?

You can definitely do it off an iPhone.

For sure.

You guys know, like, interesting content is the first piece of it all.

It's like being able to consistently get people to stay engaged with whatever the next thing is and not just giving all the answers up front is number one.

I like to always, if I'm running like, let's say a 90-second ad, I'll say, like, hey, I'm going to tell you this thing at the end kind of thing.

And then it forces them to stick as I'm educating them, as I'm being funny, whatever it is that I'm doing to hold their attention.

I give them a secondary incentive that's like in the back of their head the whole time.

Like, I want to click off, but like, I want to know that thing that he told me he was going to give me at the end of this video.

And I see the timer and I know I'm almost there.

I'm going to stay on.

And so that really holds a lot of people, especially on YouTube, because you can't like sift through.

On Facebook, you can like sift through an ad, right?

On Instagram, you can't.

So being very particular about those platforms and holding people in like that is super important.

We do like little effects, like pinching in and out all the time.

I'm sure you guys have seen that.

Like we'll shoot, we'll shoot in like 4K so that we can pinch four times in.

And then we'll like pinch in on a word or pinch in on a face, pinch back out, pinch back in, pinch back out, pinch back in.

Because now, dude,

people's attention span is so low.

It's less than 7%.

I mean, seven seconds now.

Oh, way less.

I was sitting on a flight.

I think like three to two there was.

Hey, what?

That's it.

That's it, dude.

I wouldn't die.

I was sitting on a flight on the way back.

There's a 50-year-old man sitting next to me, makes tens of millions of dollars a year.

And I'm watching this guy, and I'm like, he's scrolling through TikTok like a child.

It's the same thing.

Scroll, oh, three, four seconds, scroll, oh, three, four seconds, scroll.

I'm like, dude, this is a 50-year-old man.

You have to get your point across now in like three seconds.

You got to be quick.

Yeah.

And so you got to treat ads the same way.

Just like you would organic.

You're like, dude,

I need it to hit big.

I need people to watch.

I treat ads the same way.

I don't make ads to be ads.

I make them to be the best organic post they can be, and then I put money behind them.

So although your business is very cash flow heavy, do you reinvest most of it back into the business or do you keep a lot?

Yeah, so great question.

I'd say the first few years, I invested pretty much everything back into the business.

Infrastructure, like you, right?

Camera equipment, this shit money, right?

Like all this setup that you guys have here, it costs money.

So at first, we were doing that.

We're building our offices, our infrastructures, et cetera.

Two things I'd say, like if you're building a business that are the most important things to invest your money in.

Number one would be your own brain, like your own mental ability to understand things like i probably spend five hundred thousand to six hundred thousand dollars a year just going to like events masterminds groups learning like educating myself as much as possible because i know dude like whether the whether crypto goes down whether the fed raises the rates on real estate what no matter what the

market crashes it doesn't matter like i i if i'm growing mentally i've seen my income quadruple virtually every single year because I've invested so much into my brain.

That's number one.

And at this point, number two, I invest pretty pretty much any chance I get to find someone extremely talented.

Not just like, oh, he's a potential good fit for the company.

I'm saying like, yo, I want this kid at all costs to work for me.

I will spend that money on them.

And that's where most of our money goes right now.

Last month, we spent maybe almost like 700K in payroll.

So like, I'm just trying to get the best talent right now because I understand this game.

And this game is really just a game of getting the most talented people.

You watch the biggest companies that crumble.

They rose because they went and recruited the best people from other companies.

And then the company got to a certain point where those people got bored.

And then they shifted over and started their own startup or their own AI thing or their own competitor or their own whatever it is.

And that's when you start seeing those trends where companies start like flatlining a little bit and not growing at the rate that they did.

And, you know, I've been blessed enough to understand that and see that.

And we invest a heavy amount of money into employees, even when we don't need them.

Like, if I'm like, dude, this guy's super talented, I don't have a spot right now, but I know if I pay him for 60 days, I'll have a pillow for him.

Yeah, exactly.

You know what what I mean?

And it'll be worth that.

So you hire him with no position.

Sometimes.

If he's exceptionally talented and I know he has skills that fit in the company, listen, I don't have an open spot right now, but let me hire you.

You start understanding the business and you can see where you can plug in.

And I know those people will make an ROI back.

That's crazy.

That's a crazy model because nobody does that.

What, hire good talent?

No, no, nobody hires you without having a position, like just to lock you in.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And I'm not saying we do that all the time, but if you're a special talent.

That's still a thing to think about that thought process.

Like, he's so special to like, nah, I can't let this dude leave my office.

100%.

I'm gonna hire you without even having a position.

Exactly.

I'll make one for you.

Think about that, bro.

That's that's a different way of thinking.

That's a whole thing.

It's good talent, the ROI is like insane.

Dude, it's hard to come by.

Yeah, exactly.

And bad talent, the ROI is insanely negative.

They come in

by the butt low, but again, your ROI is very low.

Yeah, and not even that, bro.

They affect everyone around them.

That's the thing.

It's like the rotten apple in the basket makes all the other apples rotten.

100% in the workshop.

Not work good.

Have you ever made a bad hire that just was terrible?

Plenty of times.

And here's the thing.

Having a good hire does not correlate.

Like being the smartest person does not equal being a good hire.

And I've fired people in the past.

I do this thing.

So let me put it this way.

I do this like

trick, I guess, in my company with my leaders twice a year.

And I spontaneously ask them to give me the bottom five culture fits in our company, company, like people.

I'm like, you're not allowed to leave this meeting until you slack me five names of people you feel are like the worst fits for the company so that I can see what you guys think anonymously.

I'm not going to tell anyone who voted who.

You give me five names and you can leave this room.

Otherwise, you're stuck in here all day.

And I'll have like my top 10 people in the company basically give me their five names.

And you'll start seeing eight votes out of 10 for this guy, nine votes out of 10 for this person.

And you start understanding, dude, like if my top 10 people in the company are telling me this person is in the bottom five fit of the company, like I as a leader need to take action.

And I remember firing this person and every single person voted for him, all 10, unanimous votes.

And every single person next to him in parentheses said something along the lines of like, but he's one of the smartest people I've ever met.

But he's, he's, his brain is on another level.

But, but, but, but he's number one on their list of five every single time.

And so sometimes it's very important to understand, like, just because someone's super smart or they're bringing you value, there's other things that are affecting the culture of the company that are affecting maybe the productivity of other people, how people perceive leadership, how much respect they have because they see this person not respecting leadership.

You got to cut those people, dude.

And that's been one of the hardest lessons, honestly, growing a company with a bunch of staff.

I like that exercise because people wouldn't tell you honestly, like, unless you just asked them that.

Well, he's protecting his workforce, too.

Right.

So he's getting the bad apples out of there because a lot of things can happen.

You know, a lot of companies get sued because they're employees.

You get asked me and stuff like that.

So when you're having those personal conversations,

your the happier your employees are the longer they stay the more efficient they are right So he's providing that happiness.

He's giving them the choice to be happy.

That's different.

It's cool, but it kind of stirs the pot a little bit.

You know, 100% But you got to stir the pot, bro.

Yeah.

Here's the thing dude.

If if you don't stir the pot, like everyone gets complacent.

Yeah.

It's the same thing like like i'll give you this we we never wrote up anyone like physically in our company we never like gave them a piece of paper that was signed like hey you did this bad thing we'd just be like yo hey bro like how many are gonna make this mistake You know what I mean?

This is like the fifth time.

Come on, let's not do this again.

You know what I mean?

Then sure, surely two weeks later, dude makes the same mistake again.

We went to a write-up system where we actually write people up if they do something that's like big enough to be a write-up.

Right.

Bro, straight as an arrow every time.

Like,

it could be the worst person.

You write them up.

The next 60 days, they're flawless.

They don't make a single mistake.

Everything's, and that's just because you stir the pot.

You're like, you're like, listen, no one here is invincible.

You know what I mean?

Here's a piece of paper that you sign that says all the things you did wrong, and it carries a different level of weight with people.

And I'll tell you, it's changed the entire organization of our company.

Like you will see people straighten out every single time.

Whereas we used to just be nice and say like, hey, man, be better next time or don't do that again or whatever.

And like, it just carried no weight.

And so when people see someone getting chopped off the block because they were a bad example, they start understanding that like no one here is invincible.

If this guy, who was like in this high position, who's super smart, everyone voted out because of this reason, then I need to step it up.

And I need to always show up every day 100% to work.

Otherwise, that could be me at the end of the day.

Right.

A lot of people get complacent.

Too many, dude.

Most do in the corporate world.

They're not earning a lot of money or decent, what they perceive as a lot of money, a decent amount.

So, how do you structure the money part?

Is there a bonus for like good work?

Yeah, so it depends on the position.

Not every position has bonuses, right?

I've noticed,

I've surveyed my entire company.

At the time, we were maybe like 80 people, and I asked, would you prefer higher salary and no bonus, or would you rather have same salary with a bonus

and I would tell you maybe 70 80 percent of people voted higher salary no bonus really yep yeah the reason why they do that because it's guaranteed but they don't understand that you can peek over that with bonuses yeah I would choose the bonus forces your forces you to work hard plus he'll notice you a lot more if you're in your bonuses you probably get promoted likely faster than the person he's just paying higher salary.

Yeah.

These people get complacent.

These people drive because they made $50,000 last month.

Now they're making $100,000 he's going to pay attention to them.

100%.

And that what you said is super important.

You said I would take the bonus.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, pretty much anyone that runs a company would take the bonus.

Yeah.

Because they understand I'm playing to my ceiling.

You know what I mean?

Any job I had before I started running a company was always in sales because I don't want a salary.

I don't want to be told that I'm going to make $5K this month.

If I'm as good as six other people, I should get paid as six other people.

You know what I mean?

And so that's the mentality of a business owner.

But most people don't think like that.

But I'll tell you, every single person I've gotten to quit their company.

So I've gotten people who run other marketing agencies, make maybe a million dollars a year, let's say, to come leave their company and come work with me.

All of them are on a high salary plus a very high bonus structure because that's the world that they want to live in.

They want to say, dude, I want to play my ceiling.

I don't just want to be, I don't want to like leave my company and come work for 150K a year.

I want to come and be able to work for 150K, but if I do good, I can make 300K.

You know what I mean?

And those are the high-level talented people.

And in the marketing and creative world, those are the people that are probably the best fits for like an aggressive growth work environment because they want to push.

They always want to push.

They want to show up late.

They want to show up on a weekend.

They want to do whatever it takes to hit those numbers to hit the bonus.

And in most cases, a bonus in my company, it's a profit share base.

So like you're running a department, you'll get a profit share of this department if it's a certain amount of profitability.

And everyone in that department will also get a bonus based on how profitable we are.

So we basically set a baseline.

Let's say, you know,

this department needs to operate as a 40% margin.

As long as you guys are a 40% margin, everyone gets 10% split up between all of you guys.

Just a normal pool.

Like a pool, an employee pool.

One of the things I love that you did was when you first moved into your college dorm room, you knocked on every single dorm in that building.

Why did you do that?

Dude, I'll tell you.

So my college, I went to the University of Georgia for reference.

It's fucking massive.

Like in the football world, it's like number one,

number two, always.

Yeah, my nephew's getting recruited there.

Great school, dude.

We have like, at the the time, we had like 50,000 students.

Yeah.

And

in high school, you know, I was very, I was out going and I played soccer and I played basketball and I did all these things.

But I had like an identity, right?

It's like you have the same identity from middle school to high school.

You kind of like carry it over, whatever it is, right?

And my dad was driving me to college and I remember sitting in the car and like coming to the realization, like,

you know what?

As of today, no one knows who the f ⁇ I am.

I can be whoever the f ⁇ I want to be.

I could show up and, you know, be super cocky.

I could show up and

be a jock.

I could be super like simpy.

Whatever the fk it is.

From this day on, this is what everyone's going to know me as in this university because this where I'm going to live.

So I was like, you know, I think the best way I want for everyone to identify me is like everyone knows me.

And if I can get everyone to know me, I feel like that's a status that doesn't matter good or bad in any way.

It's always good.

It's like bad publicity is always good publicity kind of thing.

It doesn't matter as long as everyone knows Eddie Malouf.

I'm okay.

I'll be able to get into every party.

I'll be able to get into every situation.

And it worked because I ended up being friends with all the athletes, all the basketball players, all the football players were my boys.

I go to all their parties.

I'd throw all the parties.

But yeah, I knocked first day of school, bro.

I showed up before school even started.

It was like the Sunday before first day of class.

Nine floors, probably

40 rooms, a hallway, 50 hallway.

Dude, and I knocked on

every fing door.

But guess what, bro?

By the first week, everyone knew the face.

Wow.

Everyone, because, dude, how many people are in this building?

And then they go and make 400 doors.

That's what I'm saying, bro.

They go and make 200.

They make 20, 30 friends each.

I know the whole campus now.

That's it.

You know what I mean?

Like, just like that, I have 20,000 people that I know indirectly.

So you just knock and introduce yourself.

That's it.

Hey, I'm Eddie.

I live on the fourth floor.

I'm in a room, whatever, 427, whatever the f it was.

You know, nice to meet you.

Hey, let's exchange socials.

Boom, boom.

So that's it.

How did that make your college experience easier as far as your network and grow and growth aspect?

Dude, I got whatever I wanted in college.

No, really.

That was it because I knew everyone.

You know what I mean?

Like, I wanted to get into a party.

I got in.

If I wanted wanted to get into a football game, I couldn't get in.

I knew someone who was on the team, get me in.

You know what I mean?

If I want to get into a bar and I didn't have a fake for whatever reason, I knew the guy who worked the door.

Like,

nothing mattered.

You know what I mean?

And in college, it's like virtually like no rules.

You know what I mean?

That's so smart.

I wish I had donation, like, knocked on your first day, right?

First day, bro.

And, and even to get to get crazier, first semester, I never sat next to the same person at any meal or any class.

So I was like, it's fucking all, dude.

It was awkward as sometimes Cause

you go to breakfast at like 7 a.m., right?

No one in the whole cafeteria.

I'm talking 400 empty tables.

One dude sitting on a table by himself.

You'll go sit next to me.

I'd be like, hey, bro, can I stay here?

And he'd like look around

and be like, what the f is this guy doing?

And I'd be like, sure.

And then I'll sit down and make a friend.

You know what I mean?

So

same with classes, like the auditorium classes, like 400 people.

I just sit somewhere new every time.

I'd be like, hey, I'm Eddie.

Wow.

And then, you know, by the end of the first semester, I knew literally like everyone on the entire campus.

That's insane.

Did you graduate?

I did graduate.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

I thought you were going to be like, no, fail, no.

I only, so I'm Middle Eastern, right?

I'm Lebanese.

And my parents, like, how I look at it is like they went through so much shit.

They pushed me through the entire school system.

I'm just going to finish for them.

But before I even graduated, I was already running a company.

Okay.

I was doing that supplement business.

Yeah.

And I remember going to fly to Vegas to have those meetings with those with the guys who owned the brand.

Some of these guys are billionaires, dude.

And

I remember like telling my teacher, hey, listen, I gotta go.

I gotta do this.

I'm not gonna be here for this exam.

And he's like, cool, I'm just gonna fail you.

I'm like, all right.

Imagine we're in a business class right now, sir, and you're teaching me business and I'm going to do it.

I have a company and I'm going to have meetings with billionaires.

And you're going to fail me in your business class because I'm doing the thing that you're trying to teach us to do.

I'm like, bro, let's be reasonable.

Anyways, long story short, he ended up giving me like a flush 80 or a flush 90 for it because he understood the situation.

But I was like, bro, why the f ⁇ you fail me for?

You're trying to teach me this and doing it.

I I always thought business and marketing professors were kind of ironic

because they never have experience.

Yeah, they only have textbook experience for the most part.

There's none.

None.

There was one teacher I had who had experience and was the only guy I ever listened to.

Every other class, I kind of chill, whatever.

Like, I do my thing.

Honestly, I was blessed where I was like very intelligent.

Yeah.

And like, for example, like economics, I would skip every class and the class would just tell me when the exams were.

And I would tutor the whole class.

I tutor like 20, 30 people not going to class.

The day before the exam that's how i studied i would like explain all the and i go to the class and do it and i'd be out of the class in like five six minutes so i was i was really blessed but this guy i remember it was uh like my statistics teacher or something he starts a class with i'm like whatever this guy's lame he looks like a bum he starts the first class with an intro he sold a company for like 30 million dollars he did this he did i'm like bro this is a guy listen to that class i never opened a laptop never pulled my phone out i was like I would ask him like real-life questions.

Like, what would you do in this in business?

Oh, I did this, this, this, this, this.

And that was awesome.

And I was like, dude, I wish every teacher, like, they just pulled in people to teach like one class and they would just be sick at business.

Dude, they can afford it with the tuition they charge.

I mean, come on.

I'm saying, bro, hundreds of thousands of dollars over the semester.

Instead of teachers being more

having that business acumen, which I feel like they should hire entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

They want you to have a degree and all that, but it's like,

entrepreneurs.

Dude, I just turned away someone who went to Harvard undergrad, went to Harvard Masters.

I just turned away someone from Harvard for a $48,000 job

because they were underqualified.

And I felt so bad that instead of just like denying them over an email, I had my team get on a call because I was like, dude, how distraught must this person be applying to a $48,000 project manager job?

And they have an undergrad in Harvard, a master's at Harvard, probably spent half a million dollars minimum.

No experience.

And they couldn't get a $48,000 job.

I was like, you need to get on a call with this person and deny them and explain to them how they can become qualified to reapply for this job in a month.

Because I can't imagine your whole life, you're like, I'm going to Harvard, yeah, and you work your ass off for that, and then you can't even get a 50k job.

I need to be honest, I mean, just experience nowadays, it's like YouTube University is like the main university,

bro.

A hundred percent,

even just courses online, bro.

You could buy a thousand dollar course right now.

Like, obviously, there's a bunch that are just a waste, but like you could buy a thousand-dollar course and make millions of dollars from the that you learn.

I used to watch a course a day, bro.

That actually looks better

on the resume.

I went hard.

You watched a course a day?

Yes.

Holy so, when I dropped out of Rutgers, I watched a course a day for probably six months straight.

Wow.

Beneficial, though, yeah.

Yeah, you were probably learning so much.

The most learning you've ever done in your whole life.

I used to, because I used to, I said this on the last podcast.

I used to think I hated learning from school.

Right.

But as soon as I started watching courses I'm interested in, bro, I was addicted.

Loved it.

You know?

Same here.

And also, too, the fact that a person made a million dollars or sold a company for a million dollars dollars looks way better on a resume versus, you know, just a degree.

You were more so look at the one.

Dude, I don't even look at the degree.

We didn't even realize she went to Harvard.

We like denied her.

And I was like, whoa, whoa.

Oh, you don't care about the college?

Bro, I don't even care about the college anymore, dude.

What experiences you going to college, tell me?

You can play beer pong?

I mean, like, sure, there's a level to like.

Organization and like understanding.

I know some people say you can start and complete a task, but it's like,

but can you?

I don't know.

I don't know what your actual college was like.

You know what I mean?

I don't know, like, if you depended on other people and group projects, or like, I'm not going to go calling your teachers and asking about you.

You know what I mean?

I want to know, like, what have you done?

Oh, I led a senior manager distribution team at Amazon and a warehouse for a year, and we did this.

That's cool.

That's experience.

Like, I got a marketing degree.

I know you're underqualified.

There's no way you're working in my company.

100%.

You know.

Yeah, they didn't learn anything about social media marketing.

Your marketing doesn't require

a degree.

Definitely not.

It was my degree, it was the biggest waste.

Man, what's next for you, Eddie?

I am building this company into hopefully a company that we sell for like $150, $200 million.

That's the goal.

Nice.

We're looking at like a four or five-year potential exit.

Nice.

But it doesn't mean I'm out of the game, right?

It's just getting rolled up by someone bigger and then probably playing at like a

public company level and just being a part of that bigger company and trying to play bigger.

Dude, at the end of the day, here's my thing.

And I'm sure you can relate to this, dude.

Once you make you know, multiple six figures a year, like you understand, like, okay, I can always make money.

Like, it's super easy to make money.

You know, once, once you get past a certain point, you're like, whatever, I can make money.

I just want to play bigger.

You know what I mean?

I know right now, if, like, if you took all my money, if you took my entire company, I'd still make seven figures in the next year.

Like, if you took everything, you just left me with like a laptop and a phone.

I'm going to make millions of dollars in the next 12 months.

It's guaranteed.

So once I realize that, I'm like, dude, I just want to shoot as big as I can go just to like tack on life achievements, not even money, just like sold the company $100 million.

check that was really cool never expected i could do that you know what i mean uh and things like that so immediately that's the next step but for now uh working with uh some of the biggest brands in the world some of these guys are top 10 shopify stores in the world um some of these i mean dude we have some accounts that do hundreds of millions of dollars a year geez uh and being able to manage that

so much experience dude so valuable so valuable to life and so much experience and being able to take that away and like whatever the future is you know i'm ready for it nice awesome man wayne dreams become nightmares nightmares when you don't chase them.

Mmm, bars.

Thanks for tuning in, guys.

Digital Social Hour.

See you next time.

Peace.