There's Always More Than 1 Solution To A Problem

How I got here…

21: Graduated Vanderbilt in 3 years Magna Cum Laude, and took a fancy consulting job.
23 yrs old: Left my fancy consulting job to start a business (a gym).
24 yrs old: Opened 5 gym locations.
26 yrs old: Closed down 6th gym. Lost everything.
26 yrs old: Got back to launching gyms (launched 33). Then, lost everything for a 2nd time.
26 yrs old: In desperation, started licensing model as a hail mary. It worked.
27 yrs old: "Gym Launch" does $3M profit the next 6 months. Then $17M profit next 12 months.
28 yrs old: Started Prestige Labs. $20M the first year.
29 yrs old: Launched ALAN, a software company for agencies to work leads for customers. Scaled to $1.7mmo within 6 months.
31 yrs old: Sold 75% of UseAlan to a strategic buyer in an all stock deal.
31 yrs old: Sold 66% of Gym Launch & Prestige Labs at $46.2M valuation in all-cash deal to American Pacific Group. (you can google it)
32 yrs old: Started making free content showing how we grow companies to make real business education accessible to everyone (and) to attract business owners to invest or scale their businesses.

Today: Our portfolio now does $200M/yr between 10 companies. The largest doing $100M/yr the smallest doing $5M per year. Our ownership varies between 20% and 100% ownership of the companies. Many of them we invested in early and helped grow (which is how we make our money - not youtube videos).

To all the gladiators in the arena, we’re all in the middle of writing our own stories. The worse the monsters, the more epic the story.

You either get an epic outcome or an epic story. Both mean you win.

Keep crushing. May your desires be greater than your obstacles.

Never quit,

Alex

*FULL DISCLOSURE*
I make content to make money - just - on a longer time horizon than most. I want to build trust with business owners so we can find the best ones and help them scale. And if they’re awesome, write them a check and go all the way as partners.

[Malix_Labs]

> we could… we could just buy another chair

Lmao

[characterstrength]

Instructions unclear. I bought 3 desks + 3 chairs and 10x'd my productivity.

[AustrianEconomist]

I absolutely LOVE this type of content. Real snippets of tactical advice like this

[chrisallwhite]

this is also an example of working on the biz vs. in the biz:

alex's team are working in the biz - they're too close to the problem
whereas alex is working on the biz - he can create space from the biz and see the problem from different angles

[Always-Better-Than-Yesterday]

Feels illegal to be this early

Huge value as always though

[rebekahsteeper]

That is actually really funny. Thanks for sharing 😂❤

[adiiancu-us]

This is common practice in creative work, alot of times in regard of brainstorming. 🧠

In the idea collecting phase divergent thinking is most helpful for generating many ideas.

In the decision making phase : convergent, where the best idea is ideally described as 1+1=3 ( or better, 5 )

[keenheat]

That really depend on the business owner. Very rarely would an owner that chose to spend money first instead of doing these weird DIY hack. They hold the purse string close like clutching pearls. You end having to write like 3 page item request form for a 10 dollar spending.

[savegas]

In an employee world, who don't have a corporate card, you have to think of other ways to solve it besides money.

[dakshjain]

They could keep books under the chair
Simple and cheap as cheap as tbe books 🎉

[Nazy]

I like these style of videos tho

Just him, holding the camera

[jeedax]

I think the team did Divergent thinking to avoid the costs of buying a new chair, so that Alex can finally come and say, well, why don't we just buy a new chair?
Teammates be like: duhhh.. like we didn't think of it already.

[alesstortosatarancon]

Buy a cushion hahaha highest return, easier to find and cheaper

[vishal]

This solution will not work well in certain scenarios, the platform or the shaving could be better if thinking from an ergonomic point of view.

[chrislee]

This is a good example of… making something obvious seem wildly revelatory.

[bchd]

Seems like they came to you with a convoluted solution so that you would propose something more reasonable and be willing to pay for it.

[jasong]

How about putting a book on the chair?

[oisacosirhc]

Instructions unclear went bankrupt again

[stevenweaver]

"All of those problems, could work"

[adilsheikh]

I want to come across this quote that I love. If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. 😮