From $65K Job to a $20M Hibachi Empire: Eddie’s Unstoppable Rise

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Hey guys, and welcome back to the Level Up Podcast. This is Paul Alex, and today I have a special guest.
He's actually one of my good friends, Eddie. And Eddie is a 24-year-old entrepreneur that just hit over $20 million in revenue.
And it's going to surprise you from what? Guys, we're talking about catering, we're talking about food trucks, and a specialty niche that no one is doing in the online space or that I've heard of do this much money in revenue from this business, Hibachi, guys. So get ready.
Here is Eddie. Eddie, what's up, my man? What's up, guys? How you doing? Eddie, the rock star here.
It's been an honor to come to this podcast. Thank you for inviting me, Paul.
And yeah, we should get started. Let me tell you a little bit about myself.
I'm 24 years old. I came to the States in 2016, which makes it a little over nine years now.
And I started here as a student. I came here as an exchange student.
But there is a program called Flex. I was a student in high school.
And then I had a dream to become a software engineer and you know how that come from humble beginnings and like coming from Asian culture is like you always have to be at the top you always have that cousin that's always like getting those degrees doing all this and that and I wanted to kind of come here to pursue my dream my American dream which thought would be software engineering, but I didn't realize that my life would turn to this right now, what I have going on, because I thought I was in college and doing this and that, and right now I'm totally different, and I'm in business now, and I thought that I would be doing a lot of things differently, but now I'm here. So Eddie, let's go ahead and let's break it down for the audience right here, guys.
Eddie, he is a savage when it comes to business, guys. Look, Eddie came to the States, the United States, only nine years ago, okay? Nine years ago.
And now he's a multi-millionaire. Are you the bloodline breaker in your family? I'm the bloodline breaker.
That's what I'm talking about, Hey, that's what it's about, guys. Generational wealth, going ahead and breaking it down and being that one leader that goes ahead and changes how your family is going to go for years to come.
So Eddie, where exactly did you immigrate from? Where did you migrate from? Yeah, so my country is a very small country of six million people in central asia it's called kirby stan okay it's right next to kazakhstan uzbekistan all those stan asian countries are a little different than the normal asian uh countries that you might think of like china korea and japan so it's a little different it's like our country is like 94 mountains and like we're totally different we're closer to the Caucasus than the actual like so it's like our country is like 94% mountains and like we're totally different. We're closer to the Caucasus than the actual like.
So it's like a rural area. Yeah, it is.
Yeah, it is. Amazing.
And did you speak English coming into the United States? I spoke broken English. I knew a lot of the grammar because we would go to like English schools, like take all those classes.
But like, no, I didn't speak any English. Like not like this.
Wow, that's amazing, man amazing man and then okay so you came uh nine years ago with the dream of becoming a software engineer uh did you always want to be a software engineer when you were a kid well that's the thing when I was a kid I was always like thinking of all these guys like Steve Jobs Mark Zuckerberg and I always wanted to be like like them for reason. And then software engineering is one of the paths that I wanted to take because I'm good in studying.
I was good in school. I was always an straight A kid, and I thought that would be the path for me, and that's why I wanted to do something in the field of engineering.
But then a little bit later, when I came here, I realized that software engineering is the path to go for me and that's why I chose it so then um how much influence did your parents have on your decision of coming to America and then actually pursuing that well it was well yeah my parents definitely had a lot of influence but it was my grandma my mom's mom that had like because she lives here um and then she lived here for a long time and then she would come visit and when i was little i grew up with her since i was what five or six years old so i was like would miss her and she would come visit every summer yeah and i was always like hey i wanted to go with you to the states and but i didn't know what it was like what it meant to go to the states because. Because like everybody would say, oh, go to America, go to America.
I thought it was the same thing, just around the corner. I didn't realize it was so far from family.
And in 2015, my grandma came down. I was like, okay, I'm going to take you to school.
You're going to come with me. And then next thing you know, I started doing all those exams, TOEFL, all those then I started like I passed them with like flying honors and Next year I was already here.
I was in Houston, Texas. I lived there the most of my American life and That's how it all started.
My grandma was the number one influence that I had I love that man because you know when we met and if you guys don't know, we met actually through a mentorship. One of our mentors is Andy Elliott.
He's one of the best sales coaches in the industry right now. And we met at one of the like after parties at the conference.
And then we got to know each other, you know, and, you know, I'm all about synergy, right? Energy and good people and people that like know and they're the best at what they do, guys. So when I met Eddie, I was so impressed.
I was so impressed because look, just think about your story, dude, how powerful it is. You were from another country.
Your grandma that came from the States came and inspired you, gave you the vision and was just like, Eddie, you can do so much more. You're a smart kid, right? Otherwise, if your grandma didn't have that influence on you, what do you think you'd be doing back in your country, dude? Well, I would probably still be there because if it wasn't for my grandma, like forcing, like literally forcing my parents to let me go, I would probably be there.
But I do think that I would still be doing some very good things there because I always had the vision of succeeding. I was always around that.
One of the biggest factors of me having that mindset was my uncle. He was always in the business and doing this and that.
That's my mom's younger brother. I spent a lot of time with my grandma and my grandma would come stay at my uncle's house and i would always see him on like business calls business meetings uh at one point he used to own the biggest um a company that would manufacture uh suits like in kyrgyzstan and it like my country is huge and it's like having that as your first mentor, my uncle, Alex, and having him like that, that influence was huge on me because I always had that, I would say the entrepreneurship mindset, but I didn't realize that until I came here because all I had in my mind was study, study, study, get a degree, get a job, and just go to the office, do this and that.
And there's nothing wrong with that. But now that I came here, I saw a lot of people doing a lot of different things.
It's like here in America, it's like land of opportunities, capitalism is great. And everybody can succeed because we don't have that back home.
And a lot of people don't realize that people that are born here, people that live here,'t realize how lucky they are to you know to have that for us it's like a dream just to come to america make like a few bucks and then go back home but now that i'm here making a little more than a few bucks and like i want to be here i want to grow here in america i want to have my kids here to to experience all this and you know to go through this all again because you know i want to help some people like me because there's a lot of people coming in here with the similar background that i have and like a lot of immigrants are very smart and bright but they don't have that person to kind of like show them hey look i did this you can do this too because like hey let's be real people coming in here they only have like school degree like they always want to be like engineers and this and that but there's a lot more than that because you can also use the degree to kind of capitalize on like a lot of different markets so i would say that um a little off topic now but munkle was uh yeah munkle was one of the biggest influences in having this mindset for me i love that man i man. I love that.
So you leveraged not only your wits, but your smarts. And then, okay, let's get to the point of your story.
So you go to college. You get your degree.
What happened next? Like, where was the transition where you were like, you know what? I'm going to try entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship yeah so the story is actually very wild because while i was in my junior year in college at the university of houston um like i was always like a part-time server part-time chef and um at one point you know uh covet happened and when i was a server the restaurant kind of closed down for a month but being in texas like we reopened back like right away in like different states and um we were doing like to-go orders and they were down a chef and i kind of seen everything how to cook and i like to myself and i was like okay japanese food is kind of easy to cook on a grill i just have to learn learn all the sauces and stuff.
So I went in to train, and after a week, next thing you know, I started becoming a chef, like as a sous chef to the head chef that we had at the location. And I was working part-time, and with COVID there, my school was online, so I started working full-time.
And next thing you know, it's like I'm already cooking up. I became a really good chef, which I didn't think because I had no idea that would be a chef like that.
And Eddie, before we get deeper into the story, what year was this? It was right when COVID happened. So it's 2019, 2020, yeah.
Okay. 2019, 2020, 20, man.
I remember, I remember COVID, uh, you know,

I was coming back from Egypt with a good friend and, uh,

I remember my mom calling me and she, I'm on the plane, dude,

coming back to California. She's like, mijo, she's like, hurry up.

There's a virus. They're about to shut down, you know, uh,

everybody coming into the United States. I didn't believe it.

And then, uh, no shitting you, dude. Two days as I get into the States boom they shut the boards bro and I was like whoa you know and it changed the world yeah right so let me ask you man how hard is it to be a chef well it is definitely yeah yeah it's definitely hard to be a chef but if you know your stuff if you're doing everything because like you don't have to invent anything because everything has already been like invented and you just have to follow the procedures and you keep everything clean and well it's also like i would say it's hard but it's also easy like so it's like from which perspective you look at if you're already a chef if you know what you're doing it's then it's it's easy and it's your lifestyle and that's how I started so but if you're not a chef I was like oh I can't never be a chef it's hard like you have to learn all these things but no anybody can become a chef with proper training wow how much are chefs making right now just based on your experience yeah well the chefs at restaurants they're not making much for sure it's like uh and I'm basing all this on like hibachi chefs because i'm not sure what the other chefs are making but hibachi chefs are making about four to five to six grand depending where they are if they're in california they're making seven eight grand but this is a month this is a month and um and this is the chefs that work at restaurants and they're very seasonal because restaurants are very seasonal and um they get laid out when it comes like to january that's it nobody has a job only the head chefs stay but with us it's like our chefs we we always in season well we are in and i'm sure we'll get into it a little bit later but we're in 33 cities right now and.
And if it's not a good season in one city, it's definitely a great season in another. So we always have those opportunities for our chefs.
And our chefs are making anywhere from minimum of five, six grand to 12, 15 grand a month if you're a head chef. And that's a lot.
I love that. I love that, man.
I would like to call your business concept a floating asset. Use that.
It's a floating asset opportunity, guys. Let's go.
Okay, cool. So you went ahead and you started as a chef and then what happened next? So I started as a chef and while I was in school, I was like, you know know always trying to juggle both school and my full-time job but then I realized that you know there's a lot of opportunities in becoming a chef and I can do my own thing but I quite didn't have the idea yet because like I always wanted to have somebody like something like a restaurant but like I knew that it's not profitable if you like don't know your stuff and uh uh i was just a chef and then it comes my senior year i graduate and i was still like looking for a job as a computer scientist and i was looking at it and um i found a job as a software developer engineering test um i got the job it was like 65 grand a year and i was, okay, I made it.
But then I... So let me ask you, Eddie, you get hired for that job at $65,000 after you graduated, you know, and what do you think? You're like, dude, this is a lot of money.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Like, this is a lot of money.
But then I get my first paycheck, all the taxes, social security, Medicare. Yeah.
I guess this is not much I'm making the same thing at a restaurant. I was like, okay What am I doing next and then I was like, okay, I have to do something and then at the same time At the restaurant that I used to work for they started doing catering events like a private events Like the chef would bring a grill to your house do those events I was like, okay, that sounds fun and they in a couple cities they started doing houston austin and in dallas i was like that's very interesting you can definitely scale that and i started like learning more about it how they do it and i transitioned from a restaurant to becoming a private chef and i realized that this could be scaled to every city in america how come nobody's doing it and the the company that I used to work for, they were owned by two Chinese guys.
And I came to them. I was like, okay, guys, I'm going to help you do this.
Let's grow together. I can grow this.
And they just laughed at me. They were like, you're only 22, 23 years old.
Are you coming at us, like saying all this, all that, all that? Okay. And I told them, okay, give me a couple months.
I'm going to going to show you so i grew i moved to austin i quit my job i moved to austin my job being my software engineering job and then i moved to austin i opened up like the location was already there but they weren't doing much and i started doing all the marketing and i was always had interest in like instagram marketing facebook tiktok marketing and at that time the social media was like the ads were doing a lot better than now but oh yeah yeah because that was a gold rush dude I mean you're talking about like during COVID and even like a couple years after COVID everybody got so used to being at home watching their you know your phone and all that jazz yeah and having a chef come to your house it was huge because nobody goes to restaurants at that time and and we would wear masks like six feet um all that stuff but the best part was the cooking was outdoors so like there were like zero uh like scare of like you know catching covet or whatever and uh and i doing that, and we quickly grew to a team of 10 people, and I was like, okay, let me expand to those other cities that you have, I was like, okay, no, we already have partners there, I was like, I'm not a partner, I'm just trying to help you guys grow, and they started, like, shutting me down, it's like, okay, we know what we're doing, and they started copying what I do, and opening up into different cities, I was like, okay, let me become a partner, partner we're gonna grow together and next thing you know they were like no you're like you're not gonna become a partner you're just chef and then I was kind of sad at that time I didn't know what to do because I had some money to start my own company like I said my uncle Alex that was in my, he also was here doing a lot of his businesses here as well.

And then I came to him.

I was like, hey, what should I do?

He was like, you should start your own thing.

I can fund this.

And I was like, okay, cool.

Push it to the limit.

That's what I'm talking about, dude.

I gave my guys one to two months of notice that I'm leaving. I'm going to do my own thing i warned them i'm gonna start this i'm gonna be your competitor and they started laughing i was like okay so you actually told your bosses yeah you're like hey bro you don't want to make me a partner so i got an investor i'm about to start a company against you and I'm letting you know a month or two ahead.

Yeah, that's what I told them, literally. That's what I said, and they didn't take me seriously.
They didn't think you could do it. They didn't think I could do it.
They didn't think I could become their partner. Dude, were they hating? No, like...
They were cool, but they were, like, passive-aggressive? They were passive-aggressive, and they were, like, in their 40s and 50s, so they had a different mindset than me. Of course.
And, but like, they owned like a couple of restaurants. So they were like pretty well off.
And that company was just like extra source of income. They didn't want to invest.
And the main factor was the investment part. They didn't want to invest to open in like many different states because they thought it was too risky with COVID and stuff like that.
But I had like, COVID was the single best thing that ever happened to this business because this business model wouldn't exist without COVID because there was no such thing as a private hibachi event before COVID. And like Japanese food is a staple in America.
And I've been here for about 70 years. And like everybody knows of Benihana.
Everybody knows the hibachi tricks. all love it bro we all love japanese food trust me yeah so it's it's definitely a good thing uh for the business and next thing you know i i moved to phoenix i moved to arizona and the reason i moved to arizona because they were already big in texas so i wasn't going to compete with them in texas i moved into arizona i Arizona I started why Arizona out of every state because it was warm like it was like year-round city and like even during the summer you can cook like just fine and just as long as you're out of the Sun for sure but Arizona was it's also one of the biggest cities by population in America's like fifth or something.
And that was one of the factors. It was either that or L.A.
And L.A. was a little too risky because of the regulations at that time.
And so we started. California, bro.
Gotta hate it. California.
But Arizona was a perfect middle between Texas and California. It's like, I to Arizona and I felt like I was in Texas still, which was great.

And I started there with a couple of my guys.

Some of the guys that I hired for that company, they used to work for them still.

And then once I opened my company, they were like, I want to come work for you.

I was like, OK, I'm going to pay you a little more because you're coming in from the beginning and you're gonna be like minority partners in some cities if you save up some money but at that time there's like no company it's like it's just me and a couple guys just like starting this we just have all those permits and llc that's it that's all i have to my name and um and uh you know i had a good chunk of investment money and i about 50 to 60 grand, which was a lot of money for catering. And I ended up, like, using a lot of it just to, like, get big in Arizona.
I partnered up with the biggest, like, influencers there. So you spent majority of the budget, the $50,000, $60,000 you had on marketing.
On marketing. That's what I'm talking about.

Marketing, sales, everything, dude.

Everything.

Everything.

I always tell people these three things, Eddie.

Look, the three main pillars you guys need in any business,

it doesn't matter what people do, okay?

You could be in real estate, you could be a plumber,

you could be an electrician, which is big right now.

Those businesses, they're huge right now

because all the boomers are leaving, right?

So you need new operators, or you college kids out there,

to go ahead and take over those businesses. But here's the thing.
Majority of those boomers, dude, remember your ex-partners or your ex-bosses? They're boomers. Dude, they're boomers.
They didn't think, hey, dude, let's pivot to social media and market the shit out of our business and then expand, dude. Everybody has a phone a phone you know you can get in front of people but you gotta be smart dude that was a great move bro that was solid yep and that was the best thing that i've ever done because if you look at it that was a big risk because if it doesn't pay off i'm out of money yeah and but the good thing is i had a backup i had my uncle like i'm gonna give you more if it doesn't work out yeah and but he told me to make it work it was like he literally told me you gotta work you gotta work yes and um next thing you know we started partying with all those companies started hiring a lot more chefs and in the next couple months we opened up in texas because we realized right away we can just open up if the business not going well we can always close down it's like and it takes like about four weeks to get all the papers then just easy for catering is a lot different than having a restaurant because we don't have a brick and mortar location and basically we opened up in like in less than five months we opened up in 10 15 cities um and in five states and we started growing from there and they saw like my ex-bosses they saw the growth that we had and they started investing in their uh business like in their kid they hired some young kid and um to do that it was probably their like relative or something i never seen the do the marketing.
To do the marketing, to expand, to hire chefs. But like a lot of their chefs were from restaurants.
It's like when you just get started, the main problem with the hibachi catering service is you don't have a constant flow of parties of events. And so your chefs don't get paid.
Got it. And those chefs would work at restaurants and then call in sick when they have events but it was like it wasn't sustainable at all but with our chefs as i hire anybody but most of our chefs were like uh younger guys a little older than me a couple years they're hungry yeah they were hungry they were all working and uh they were all immigrants so and they always wanted to come here and they started as chefs at restaurants like the first 15 chefs they were like full-time restaurant chefs and i told them if you come work for me believe me we're gonna make a lot so and i would pay their salary from my own pocket like even if they don't have events i would still pay them yeah and took care of your people yeah i took care of my people they took care of me and that's how we were able to compete with everybody else with them because those guys my ex company was a lot bigger at that time and they had a lot more chefs and uh now we have a lot more chefs than them they're also in a couple cities and uh but we are in over 30 cities right now, 15 states.
We open August of 2023, and it's a little over a year now. So, Eddie, let me stop you right there before we keep going ahead, because this is exciting stuff.
This is very inspiring, especially, you know, I know a lot of my friends, a lot of my family members. I know a lot of my network is going to watch this're gonna be like dude we need to meet Eddie Eddie the rockstar but um no dude so okay how many employees did you have before you hit your first mill before I hit my first or when you hit that one mill like how many operators did you have with you? About 20 to 25.
Dude, that's amazing. 20 to 25.
That's amazing. I like to call that lean and mean.
Lean and mean, yeah. Which is good.
That's how you build. You know, and one thing that, you know, I can relate to you, bro, is that you build a culture.
You build a vision. And you lead by example.
You know, you took care of your people even though there was was no income coming in. Majority of new business owners, you know, they get the million dollars.
Everybody's like, oh, my God, a million dollars. What a lot of the younger business owners do nowadays.
They end up taking the profit and spending on stupid shit. Right.
And that's how you run out of business the fastest way, guys. Don't do that.
And reinvest in your business like Eddie. OK.
And then you can scale up to 20 million so okay cool all right so you went ahead you had uh you're inspiring these uh these operators and you're making them minority partners how does that look like let's so let's say you know um i i see you on instagram okay and i'm like hey, I just graduated from culinary school. I'm hungry.
I'm young. I'm like 20, 21.
I want to be a minority operator. How would that look like? So it looks a lot different now than it used to back then.
Yeah. Because we were just getting started.
We didn't even have a structure. We didn't, like, we were just getting started.
And right now that we already have the structure, we already have everything, it's a lot harder to become that partner in the company okay and most of the partners that are becoming partners now are the chefs that are used to work with us for a long time that since the beginning and uh but what it looks like is they can work for me and they show that they can handle the pressure. They can handle being a team leader, sharing the vision.
It's definitely a must because in the company, we have the culture of like we work for the vision. We don't work for money.
We look at it. We look at the end goal.
And money is just a side effect of doing things right. that's how we look at it but some people coming in they only want to make you know it could cash and then just go do their own thing which is okay they always also make me money by working but those guys that that end up staying and and um becoming partners they definitely have to share the It's like we're a growing company.
It's our second year now, second full year. And now that we are kind of established and we have that social media presence, we have the presence in the catering industry because nobody else does this like this.
There's a lot of different companies that companies that you know do like similar things but they don't take it seriously like us because i know those guys that started those companies and they're doing pretty well for themselves they're making money but their chefs are not making money their company is not growing right it's not going to be sustainable for a long time yeah whereas of course in my company i'm making money but so is so is everybody else everybody else is getting the share that they work for and i think that's the best part about the culture that we have is everybody's growing and if they want to invest money in the company they open up a new city for example if uh you just graduated from a culinary school you coming in like okay i don't want to come work want to come work for you. You work for me for a few months.
You show that you actually mean it. And then you want to become a partner.
Then we have the talks of like opening up the city. For example, we're not in like Seattle.
You want to move to Seattle and have our franchise there. Right now it comes with a food truck.
In any new city we open, it comes with a food truck. So you invest a certain it comes with a food truck so you invest a certain amount of money the most that i allow my partners to become uh to get is like 30 but the minimum is like you can get as little as five ten percent and just work but it's gonna be worth it if you go like a little more and um and every city is priced a little different because of the market research of nearby cities.
For example, we weren't in Vegas for a long time, but we were in LA, we were in Phoenix, we were in Salt Lake City. And then Vegas was booming.
Our chefs would drive from Phoenix to Vegas for events. So we opened up Vegas.
And one of the chefs that would actually drive five hours for an event, he wouldn't even ask for gas money because he wanted to become partner there and I was like no you can't do that dude and I would still pay for him for gas but it's like he would do it from like from his heart like he was like hey I want to help the company grow it's passionate yeah it's passionate and I was like okay you want to become partner he didn't even say anything here and I actually was the one to offer him that I was like you already go in there a lot but you want to become partners okay let's do it and he had a lot of family members uh young hungry guys that wanted to make some money and they came in for training and a couple months of training they started becoming chefs now Vegas is one of our biggest locations I love that yeah dude mean, Vegas is such a hub because you have like a lot of tourists here in there. I mean, we're just talking about the ClickFunnels event with Russell Brunson, dude.
There's going to be literally like over 10,000 marketers there, business owners, all that stuff. And all these people, they all make money, right? So at the end of the day, it's a big, big, big area to go ahead and invest to.
You have anybody in Miami? We have a lot of people in Miami. I love that.
Miami is also one of our biggest locations because of all the tourism, all the batch parties. I would think so, dude.
Yeah. And not only in Miami, we're in Sarasota, we're in Key West, we're in Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville.
So we just took over Florida. I love that.
I love that. Okay.
So, all right. So you went ahead, your business is now booming.
Okay. What are you focusing on now, dude? I know that when we talked to at Andy's event, you were like, Hey dude, you know, I'm thinking of getting into food trucks and then start building them and like, you know, putting them out there.
So talk about that right now. You transitioned from Hibachi, and now you're just stacking more businesses.
So let's talk about the food truck industry. Yeah, so going to Indy's events and also going to default for PBD, one of the best things that he talked about that stood out with me was just adding on to your business uh i'm not sure if you were there but he had a like a diagram of all his businesses they're like they're all connected they all bring some kind of profit to one another and i realized i can do the same thing and having restaurants is good but it's not very profitable right now but having food trucks is like you generate do the same thing.
And having restaurants is good, but it's not very profitable right now. But having food trucks is like you generate almost the same revenue by not having the same investment.
So I thought about it. And last year, we started our first food truck in Phoenix last year in April.
And it wasn't very well at the beginning because it was hard. Like, we didn't know what to do.
And it was very hot as well, Phoenix. And so we started.
And then after a few months, we kind of, like, knew what to do. We kind of caught the hang of it.
And we started, like, doing a lot of sales. Our, like, first real month was about 50, 60 grand.
We thought it was really nice. Wow.
And we net about 30% of no restaurant nets 30 of their revenue dude no restaurants are usually what like underneath 10 percent underneath 10 percent yeah once it's 10 it's like the the revenue like the net that they get from the revenue in it and it's very sad yeah because you work hard yeah you work hard invest a lot of money and you get less than 10 and it it's like okay it's bullshit but food trucks was one of the best things that we ever thought of and then we opened up in Dallas and we kind of slowed down on that because we didn't know like how it would work out and it started working out great and now we're in February we have eight trucks now we have we have tune ph Phoenix, two in Dallas. We have Austin, Orlando, Miami, Houston.
And we're opening up a lot more. And we're rolling out at least one or two food trucks a month to come in those cities.
Because we already have a lot of existing cities that need food trucks. And getting into that was huge.
And that revenue that I had $20 million was solely from catering. It was from private events.
And now looking into this year, private events, it's also going to be good. It's also going to do a lot of revenue.
But food trucks, definitely going to add a lot. Yeah, it's definitely going to grow like that.
What are you projecting? We're projecting. Well, it all depends on how many we have more.
But from what we have right now, we're at least going to double in revenue this year. I love that.
I love that. So you're looking at a $40, $50 million a year.
$40, $50 million a year. That's awesome.
Which is huge for us because we're only like second year in business. Yeah.
And we're still learning a lot. And I can't wait to like our third or fourth year because by the time, we're going to be the sharks the business yeah right now we're baby sharks we're learning we're learning from everybody taking in all the advice but right now i'm only 24 i'm going to turn into 25 in a couple months it's like what is next for us because all like when we go to all these events everybody's a lot older than Yep.
And they're at least in their 30s, like early 40s.

Yep.

And they already made it in life.

And everybody is like already successful at that period of time.

But I still have 15 years on those guys.

Yeah, you do.

And so I still have a lot of room to go.

No, you have a lot of room to grow, dude.

And you're just going to grow and grow and grow.

And you're going to be massive, dude.

Like I can't even see your guys' business like demolishing benihana yeah i mean let's be real you know what i'm saying it's it's it's time it's time but um okay so let me ask you so for like investors or anybody watching right now let's say they're like dude this is super inspiring i want to work with any of the box star um. Is the investment to invest in one of your franchises? I know you talked shortly about the hibachi business, but is the food truck business a different investment? Yes, it's totally different.
So if you invest in a food truck, we have a couple of different investment options. If you want to become a silent investor, just invest your money, park your money in a food truck and do that that's also good but we also have investment opportunities for chefs that want to come work and own their food truck and they would own some share of that franchise and we would all share the profit and but we would be helping with all the marketing with all the paperwork and everything we would be the ones to take care of that is like like a turnkey business basically coming in you invest your money but you have to know you have to go through like rigorous training you have to because like working in a restaurant and working a food truck is totally different it's very similar in a lot of ways but there's a lot of factors they need to take in and food trucks are a lot harder to run than a restaurant and there's a lot of regulations they have to follow because once you get caught with not following like regulations you get shot down you you can not open in their same a density in that city anymore and they that's why you have to if you do decide to work with somebody like that because there there's a lot of different opportunities for investment in different companies other than us, but you have to choose to work with the right people that know what they're doing.
And the ones that take care of all the compliance part, it's huge. Because once we grow to this amount, it's like, because we grew very quickly.
It was literally like vertical growth. And we didn't take didn't take care of a lot of things.
And we made our mistakes. But the best part about it is we learned from them now that a lot of things we're doing is, like, totally different.
And we're always looking for new partners, new, like, even if you don't have money, you can come work for us, make money, and then become a partner. I like, I love that.
I love that. That's, that's a massive opportunity, man.
I mean, you know, the fact that you're, you're giving someone who doesn't know anything about business an opportunity to come work with you, learn from you, which to be honest, guys, I think that is the biggest key takeaway here. If you're listening on Apple, Spotify, or you're watching this on YouTube, the biggest key takeaway is, it's not the money when you initially start in business.
It's actually the mental assets that you consume. Just like you said, dude, you guys are baby sharks.
You guys are consuming everybody from the different entrepreneurs and networks that you're in right now. Everybody that's like my age or in the forties.
And dude, you're going to be a beast. I mean, you're already a beast, but like we're talking about nine figures like killing the game bro so um i don't know if if it's okay if we could talk about like what what would be the range for like a silent investor uh is that is that something that we could talk about yeah for sure we can definitely talk about that okay and um so so somebody right now let's say um somebody is doing good money they're like, I want to park my money somewhere where it grows.

And with somebody like you who knows what they're doing, what would a silent investment look like for a food truck?

Yeah.

So we do a lot of different investments and starting from 50 grand and up.

And we even had some silent investors that invested seven figures in the business and they're generating passive cash flow and which is good for them because they're already succeeding in life and they're not worried about this but if you believe in the company if you believe in like what you invest in you're definitely like we have a lot of opportunities so So something basic'll be looking at is about let's say a hundred thousand dollars you invest a hundred thousand dollars so you can expect ten to fifteen percent of that a year while still having that equity in the business and but as of right now we're like shifting to it's like we have a lot of cash flow and we don't really need silent investors unless it's somebody that can bring value to the company my man yeah so that's what we're like we're shifting towards it because you have to yeah because our biggest problem right now is the people to run the businesses to run the food trucks to run all the cities and that's been the biggest struggle having the right personal having the right people that can do that. So if you have the money, it's good.
But if you also want to come make money, because you're going to make a lot more if you're actually active in the business. Exactly.
You're going to make a lot more. You're going to learn a lot.
And I would say the biggest takeaway for all the investors that I have is the mindset shift. because they're coming in like a lot of the chefs didn't they don't know much about business they only know how to cook but that's good that means you you can learn and it's easier yeah it's easier to learn then have somebody that came from an existing business that probably didn't know what they were doing or probably failed and they bring those bad habits they absorb everything exactly because you're the expert yeah dude that's awesome dude you know we might have to talk up to this but but no I totally get it and you know in business man I mean this is for me like having able to employ you know gratefully over 200 people in the past four years is that you, one thing that I learned is it's hard to find people that are passionate.
You know, you want to be able to find and groom people and basically make them a copy of you. Exactly.
And have the same heart, culture, drive, passion, because at the end of the day, what grows the businesses? Conviction. Conviction.
You know, you got to be like, we're the best. And we're like, but nobody knows you but we're still the best right and that's just the way it goes dude so let me ask you man okay so hibachi to food trucks catering and I know we you you were like dude I'm sorry nothing best in real estate so why and like you got all these booming business bro why real estate um because it's all it's also connected to my business to catering to the food trucks yeah let's talk about it and i always want to like if i put my money in something i am and if i put my time into something i want to make sure that it benefits my other businesses as well so like i said we have over 100 people working for me right now and they need housing so it's basically like they pay rent but they don't pay rent in a way like if the house is like two thousand dollars they pay only some part of it uh it's like another way of like of me like giving back to my people and uh and they save money and but also make me money which is good and like by owning those houses I can like eliminate a lot of the the cost that already have for example if I would rent a house if they would rent a house like like a five bedroom house for five people it would be like three thousand dollars in Arizona but if I would own the property the monthly payment would be half that.
And that would save them all the money. Like nobody can find a house for like a $1,500, like a five bedroom house, which also has all the nice things and the features.
But it's like, how do you say like, it helps my business because it also grows and it saves them money so it's like like integrating all that into the hibachi business because all of our chefs need housing in different states and and my goal is to have at least one house in 33 cities that are already in because they're already making money they're they're paying rent anyway so why not just own those houses and just own the property just like McDonald's like you know what they're doing it's like they're making all the money from real estate from all those guys because they're renting it out to the franchise exactly and that's what we can do that's what I'm trying to do right now I'm investing in five cities right now I own five houses one here in Fort Lauderdale and uh which is good and like it's also like going up in value and uh hopefully it's gonna keep doing that but i'm not very like my focus is in the catering and in hibachi yeah whereas like buying a house was very simple but also like i'm not trying to go heavy in the housing business just yet like because i don't want to yeah like i don't want to make sure that my focus stays where it's at right now and we keep growing because that's the main source of revenue and that's and that's a smart move man because with a lot of beginner entrepreneurs um dude i've legit ever since joining uh you know the digital space back in 2020 myself um i've talked to hundreds of thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs, clients, my network, you know, great entrepreneurs like you, dude. And the number one thing, the number one mistake that I see with beginner entrepreneurs, which you're pretty squared away, like you're very knowledgeable, bro.
It is the fact that you are focusing on your main source of income. Majority of people, once they get a little bit of money, they end up going ahead and diversifying and they're forgetting that they need to focus on the main bread and butter.
It happened to me last year, dude. I was running two eight-figure companies.
I was running a high six-figure company and dude, I was lost in the sauce, bro. Like I was depressed.
I was like, why am I getting older? was just like, damn, like, what's going on, right? But in the outside, right, in the social media world, everybody, my friends are like, oh, this guy's super successful. He's able to handle it, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But I'm like, dude, no, like, no, dude, this is like, I feel like shit. So it's great, dude.
You're investing in real estate, but you're doing it to help your team, which is phenomenal because I know now that you're helping them with housing. One of the biggest needle movers for me back in 2021, I actually, my first two employees that I had hired for one of my eight figure companies, I told them, I was like, I had a penthouse in San Diego.
I was like, Hey guys, like I got five bedrooms. Like why don't you just come stay with me? And they were like, okay.
So those guys, they ended up being the best, best employees I've ever had, dude. One of them helped me grow the two eight figure businesses.
And now it's traveling the world, dude. Like he's in Africa.
He's going to go to Dubai. He's going to go ahead and travel to Columbia.
But now he's building his own business. And he's just like, dude, like this is amazing.
the other guy he started a sales agency and he was like he came from Vietnam he was 20 years old now he's 24 but he's like my my like my CRO my chief revenue officer one of my companies and he's going ham dude he's living life and that's what it's about dude it's all about people your people man you got to invest in your people the culture everything I love that man so cool so you're investing in real estate but it's not to go ahead and make rental income it's more to help your business by providing that to your employees exactly and like i'm not like really looking for that revenue from because it's not much it's like it's more about having those people stay somewhere nice having those people with no problems from like landlords and stuff like that like i would be their landlord but i'm not making any money from them they're just making minimum payments to the house and which is good for me but also good for them so it's good for everybody it's a win-win and that's what i strive for and um we're uh like like you said i'm not looking to like diversify what i do right now because

it i don't see a point in that i see the vision that i have for the company it's at least 100

million dollars yeah and we're trying to like you know grow it to a point like that and uh talking with a pbd and uh he has a guy his name's aaron and um he's a very smart guy he's a little older than me and but I talked to him a lot and there's like the vision that those guys have it's and it's also at the LA group I Bryson is my guy he they have that vision for my company it's like I didn't have that vision I mean that's a lot I met them because like I was thinking if it can do 20 million which is great that's it that's it. That's the ceiling for me.
But no, right now, it's not even the bottom anymore. Because we have a lot of room to grow.
And if we do everything right, it's going to be a $100 million company in a couple years. Brother, you know, majority of new businesses, majority of them, they end up failing within one to three years it dude you you are outlier you you like the feet of the odds and like all the haters their previous you know bosses that were like you're like you know get out of here you know I'm dominating and that's awesome now that you told us your secrets bro you gave us a secret sauce um let's talk to our audience man so anybody watching this right now i mean you're a young guy dude you came nine years ago bro so when you were like what 15 i was 15 16 years old yeah dude 15 16 years old and you came in there you're like dude i'm gonna go to college i'm gonna basically live the old school american dream that's what i like to call it old school american dream but you're living the new american dream bro you know you're your own boss you're young you're killing it and you have that vision of creating a nine-figure business and you're dude you're getting made to buy now figure out entrepreneurs what what more do you want so for anybody watching right now that is possibly like let's say in high school college they're figure out their life.
Maybe they're in a rut, you know. What type of advice would you give them about going and starting a business? Like what would be some key takeaways that really helped you? I would say the number one thing is like you have to be able to work for somebody if you want to be your boss.
Like if you want to become the boss, you have have to be able to work under somebody that's one of the best things that i was able to experience because becoming an employee is like you know if people look at it like all the young kids right now like they don't want to work for somebody they want to have their own business but then they don't realize it's like if you're an employee you work from nine to five but if you're a business owner you you work 24-7. A hundred percent.
So people still have that illusion of they think that being an entrepreneur is easy. But no, it's easy in some ways.
You have your own schedule, but it doesn't mean that you have no schedule. It means you just make your own schedule, but it's a lot more stacked.
It's like you have to be able to manage. If I had to give one advice to somebody, it would be to have a mentor.
If it, like that was. To make things easier.
It literally makes things easier for you. It's like, why would you want to have all those, like have the learning curve, like two, three years, do all the mistakes when there's somebody that's already made those mistakes and can teach you, like show you the way.
it's like right now if like somebody is getting started in catering it's like like i didn't have anybody to learn like in that niche but then i did it myself and it's good but as somebody that's like starting if they fail they might lose motivation they they might not have enough cash to keep going and there can be a lot lot of factors and when you have a mentor you know that that guy is going to show you the way he's not going to do it for you there in no means he's not going to do it for you but he's going to show you the right way and i think like it's very like under like it's very underrated it's like you also need a lot of like training and sales also it's like 100 sales%. Sales is everything.
Sales is everything. It's like, you and me talking right now, I'm selling myself to you.
It's like, literally like, the number one skill that you should have is like, sales. You have to get good in sales.
You have to be a good leader. You have to lead by example.
And you just have to get started. Honestly, like, too many people are just waiting for the right opportunity for the right- Perfectionist.
Yeah, exactly. You just have to get started.
You have to fail. And if I fail right now, I'm still only 24.
If you fail in five years, I'm only 29. And you can still succeed.
It's like, why not just stack up all the experience? All the, because failure is good for you. It's like, that's how you learn.
Exactly. They don't teach that in teach that in school in school it's like if you fail you get an f and you're not encouraged to fail but in real life you should fail you should fail as many times as you can to like to learn from those mistakes and like succeed and i think that's one of the main key takeaways that i've learned from a lot of different entrepreneurs that I talked to from my

mentors. You just have to start.
You just have to start somewhere. You just have to start in perfect action.
Don't be a perfectionist. Work on your time management.
I mean, dude, you're preaching to the crowd right now, dude. Like, seriously.
All right, cool, man. So talk to our audience right here.
Let them know. Give them some words of encouragement, motivation from a 24-year-old multi-millionaire that came to this country nine years ago and give them that sauce bro all right so like i said i came i came here nine years ago i'm only 24 now i spoke zero english when i came here and i was able to make it in life I was able to make it in the new American dream that means anybody can do it you can do it too all you have to do is just keep your mind like be focused on what you're doing like don't get distracted by all the social media right now and stuff like that there's a new study that came out that was 82 hours of distraction every week it's like more than a full-time job and like patrick badeo has a video on that it's

like this year of 2025 is a year of surprises and a year of distraction there's going to be so many

like things that will take away from you from your path and like but you have to be dialed in

you have to get into the monk note whatever you're doing you can be in school get into studying you can be in like starting your own business you just have to get dialed in you have to pay for those mentorships you have to get into the sales trainings and you have to succeed like you have to do whatever it takes like it doesn't matter if you're just getting started or if you have some money if you some money, it's good. You can invest all that in yourself because the best money you can invest in will be in yourself.
And self-growth, self-improvement is the name of the game right now. If you're young, if you're under 30 years old, there's so many people to learn from.
And I would suggest you start doing that now. Don't wait for the right opportunity.
Don't wait for the right moment the time is now and it's like Dana White said it's so easy to succeed in today's age because everybody's so lazy everybody is like doing on like I don't know on Instagram YouTube whatever TikTok but if you're dialing in for six months to a year you you'll be surprised how your life can change and um i think that advice can apply to anybody if you're already successful too if you're making seven eight figures if you dial in for six months you can make nine figures it's like it's that compound but the effect that you have on your life is like if you focus in if you dial in it's same with me right now i don't smoke i don I don't party. I don't go out.
I don't use social media. I'm just dialing on my business and that's it.
I think that's the secret sauce is just keep working, keep grinding. There's no secret.
Some people are looking for the secret way to do this, one way to do it, but no, you just have to get started. You just have to do things.
Don things don't think too much just have to go ahead and do it keep failing and that's you have to carve your way to this to success and that's your path and everybody has a different story so make your own story write your own story and it that's why like i'm here i want to like if you're looking for somebody to learn from i'm always here i'm young and you can learn from me i'm not going to charge you anything we can be friends this and that because i met a lot of guys at like the the n-d-gall-a-d-event's young guys are my age and but they they're not where they want to be in life so we just you know i show them the way i kind of they they have their own path, but if you have good mentors, you're definitely going to get there. That's what I'm talking about, bro.
That's what I'm talking about. You just dropped a couple of things on there, bro.
So where can the people find you, dude? Um, IG, YouTube, like all social media platforms, where do you want to direct? Yeah. So if you're looking directly for me, you can find me on Instagram at Eddie, the rock star.
But if you're looking to work for us, if you're looking to work for Rockstar Hibachi, that's literally Instagram at Rockstar Hibachi. You can DM us there.
You can file a form on our website, rockstarhibachi.com. Anything.
If you have any other questions with like catering or whatever you want to get started. and if you want work for me or would it be anything else just dm me on instagram at eddie the rock star and i'm your guy there there you guys have it guys eddie the rock star founder and ceo of rock star hibachi guys 24 years young multi-millionaire came to this country just nine years ago man what inspiring story.
I highly recommend that you guys share this with your family, friends, anybody that you care about, because this will set anyone on fire. I'm pumped right now.
I'm pumped right now. This was a solid, solid interview podcast with Eddie.
Guys, make sure to check us out on Spotify and Apple and on YouTube. This is the Level Up Podcast with Paul Alex.
We'll catch you on the next time. Let's go.
Peace. Thanks for listening up to Level Up Podcast.
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