How To Raise Kids When You're Rich | Impaulsive Podcast

It's done, he says. What do you mean it's done? I said. It means no more checks. And I said to him, the dead bird under the nest never learns how to fly. And he said, what the [ __ ] does that mean?

[Music] [Applause] [Music]

Mr. Wonder, Mr. Wonderful, is that an, uh, Richard Millie on your wrist?

No, this is a hot new company. You know I'm huge in watches. Here we go. And, you know, listen, I don't own any equity in them. I just appreciate the art of making great pieces of entity, and they're out of Australia. And I always tell these young watchmakers, listen, I'm very supportive, but make me a single, one-of-a-kind piece that I can feature on Shark Tank. This is going to be this season's. This is a crazy watch. I mean, and you're not involved in the company?

No, sometimes I just want to help the artist. You know, I've made lots of money, and, you know, I want to give back a little bit here. But people know me as a watch guy, and, you know, they really look at what I wear, particularly on Shark Tank, all around the world. I got the red band. And so these days I got a lot of watches already, and I say to all these makers, look, I don't need another watch. I try and wear four a day and I still can't get through, you know, a tenth of the collection.

What's your skincare routine look like? You have incredible skin, dude.

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You do so much! You do so much! I was with Mark Roberts this morning.

Yeah, our mutual friend.

Yeah, he's like a stepdad to me. My Miami stepdad. Tell me what he owns! Tell the people!

Mark Roberts owns 11 and a plethora of other things: real estate, and he's a business common man. I said, "Yo, what do I ask Kevin?" you know? And so he told me to ask you about your routine.

Yeah, well, Mark and I get up at the same time, 5 a.m. 5 a.m. And I work out for now right away. Either I take my bike out on, you know, on the causeway, or I take a cruise down the beach or something, or I hit the machines. But I'm reading stuff from five to six. And then maybe I do a CNBC hit or something. Tomorrow I'm going to do Good Morning America. But I want to be wired by the time I'm on television. I want to be worked out, and I want to feel, you know, healthy.

And he's the same way, and that's how we sort of got to know each other—around that routine. And I just think it's a good way to live because you get that time by yourself to do your stuff. Nobody bugs you; nobody's up at five o'clock. I am. And you know, and I do a lot of work in the Middle East now, and I'm doing stuff in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and all these international investments. And people who work 24/7 anyway, so you can get a lot done.

Yeah, yeah. What are you reading when you read?

I read research that's sent out to me because my biggest business is financial services. And, you know, we make indexes for sovereign wealth and pension plans. So I got to know what's going on in the financial markets.

But you know, at this conference that we're all at here in Miami, uh, crypto Bitcoin 2022 for the first time on the first day, I looked out in the audience. It was all the giant institutional investors. They've never come to this conference, never. And I started asking guys, "What are you doing here?" and they're saying, "We sense the world's changing. We see the policy coming. We see these senators showing up here. We know they're going to make this thing investable. It's going to be huge."

You even gave your business advice to Mark!

Of course! I tell him what to do every day. He doesn’t always listen, but he's doing—

Are you the reason he's rich?

No, but we're in a couple of deals together. We really are. We invest together in some things. We've got a company called Immutable Holdings that owns NFT.com. They just launched; they're huge.

I'm an advisor.

Did you know that?

Yeah, I know that. I actually talked to Jordan. I mentioned we were going to get together, and I like what he's doing in creating that whole new vision of NFT.com.

A lot of artists approach me and say, "Listen, where do I put my infrastructure? Where's my building blocks?" I say, "Talk to him." Like, you know, Jordan Free is doing the right thing, and I know you're involved as well. But I've also got Mark in that deal, and we've gotten that to run together.

We did something with Wonderfy, which is a Canadian crypto. We own the entire Canadian crypto exchange license, and we're centralized and decentralized. We're taking that into the Middle East with the UAE and Brazil. What I'm trying to do with crypto is get the government's licenses so we're not rogue cowboy guys, so we can work with the government and build regulated exchanges because that’s what I think is going to happen.

Yeah, yeah, and the government loves that!

Yeah, sure! So UAE, Brazil, Switzerland, these guys are advanced. England the same way. So I think Wonderful will eventually become a giant holding company for all these licensed exchanges around the world.

Yep. How many different entities, verticals, industries are you in? Because you like everything that we mentioned; you have a company in, you know what I'm saying? Or you have an advisor on a board? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, do you own any cheeseburger or casual dining?

I actually own a bunch of food companies. But I tell you where I'm going with it. I don’t—there's a lot of, you know, Shark Tank's always two years ahead of the market. The deals we see are coming, right? I saw this one—it just aired called Magic Dates. So I'm into healthier eating now, and I don't eat a lot of shitty food. But she found a way to actually take date paste and make a very, very healthy snack that tastes sweet, that doesn't spike your glucose.

Her sales are going through the roof because mothers want to give their kids healthy stuff. So I found some strategic investors to join me in the deal. We're going to blow the company up because one of the great things about being a shark—everybody returns your calls! Like I could call the head of Walmart and get a call back and say, "Look, let's help this woman. She's a female CEO. Let's help moms buy healthy snacks. Let's blow this thing up together!" You know, it's just good business.

Yeah, and so I'm into healthier foods now. I'm trying to get out of the soft thing—I mentioned that earlier—but I got a lot of deals. I mean, I feel that celebrity—you should use it to help people, you know? That's when I—and you're doing the same thing. I'm trying to say, "Look, I'm an entrepreneur; you're an entrepreneur. You can't get your call returned. I can! I'll buy a piece; your company will go into the journey together. I can do things for you you can't do yourself." That’s being, I think, a good investor.

I found Mike on the street! He was literally—you should put him right back there!

Yeah, I still am! I'm still there!

No, that's not true!

But you're absolutely right! Putting people on is amazing, and I can't imagine how good you feel putting all that—literally changing lives!

Yeah, it's great! And look, you can still do business; you can still be an investor, but you've got to find things you're—you know, I like to spend my day doing [ __ ] I like!

So the—you know, I have a great woman here in Nancy Chung. She allocates the time. We do so much work, and then we say, "What are these things that I don't want to do?" Because I don’t have to do anything!

Yeah, that’s the whole idea of being an entrepreneur. It's not about the greed of money; it's about the pursuit of personal freedom. I do whatever I like, but I like to do stuff that's, you know, interesting. And so I surround myself with interesting people. I got a great crew; we do interesting stuff. We go all over the world, and we're investors.

And, you know, entrepreneurship is not the pursuit of greed. It doesn't work! People smell [ __ ] a mile away. You’ve got to be transparent.

What happens to a person who has too big of a heart? Because I feel like when I try to hire friends or when I try to, if I see an employee keep failing, but I know he's a good person. I know he has the capability. I feel like my biggest fault and the reason why I'm not where I need to be is because my heart keeps messing my path up like crazy.

You have to make that differentiation. You've got to put metrics in place. The worst thing you can do is hire your brother, sister, or uncle cousin who works for you.

By the way, your assistant—who is that?

My sister.

Yeah, but by the way, she crushes it! She's the only employee that I trust.

The hardest thing to do is get the whacking stick out when you know you have to do it. If you're putting a team together, if you're building a business, you've got to have the discipline of setting goals, achieving them.

And if they can't reach them, it's behind the barn, and you know what you have to do. You've got to move on. You've got to keep your crew tight. You have to make sure that everybody understands what they're doing, and particularly when you're building a business, you’ve gotta allocate. As you're building, it gets bigger, and you've got to find good people.

I've made most of my money in investments by investing in women. If you look at all these Shark Tank deals over 14 years, 75% of returns came from companies run by women. They're better at mitigating risk, so I'm already biased at backing women. You see my returns because they're, you know, they're all added.

You want something done? Give it to a busy mother!

It's true! They know how to use their time. And so I'm a big advocate for that. I'll invest in any idea that I think has merit, but I invest more with women now because I've made so much dough with them.

World of Women, dude!

Hey, listen, I'd give money to a goat if I could get a return! Like, I'm into it for the returns I'm making, but women are very good at this.

I'm super curious about this.

Yeah, all right, quick anecdote, little story followed by a question.

Sure!

I took a class in high school called Design Squad. I was a straight-A student.

Design Squad?

Design Squad! All I got were A's! We'd be tasked with these little missions on, you know, get a ball from A to Z and make it set off a mousetrap—that was the particular one we were doing this time. And yeah, just launch a rocket, whatever.

So are you an artist? Is that what you're trying to say?

Yeah!

Okay, so listen, if that's a true story, it's not [ __ ]!

That's interesting! I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to make stuff. And we only had certain materials, you know, that was the thing.

And so I'm two weeks into this project, it's due the next day, and I'm realizing I can't set off this mousetrap. And I'm looking around, and every other group could, and I couldn't set off the mousetrap. And I got—I failed the project! And I ended up, because I failed that project, getting an F in that class.

And throughout the whole process, I kept trying to make my thing work and kept trying to make my thing work, and it didn't. And I didn't have the guts to say, " [ __ ] I need to start over. It's going to be better for me if I literally start fresh." And I didn't, and I screwed myself, and I got to be in that class until my parents came in and talked to the teacher, and they had to give me extra credit. And then I got an A!

So thank you, Mr. Purdy, for making that happen!

So that's pretty amazing—you got your parents to negotiate a deal! Did they get a percentage royalty on that?

They did pretty good! I bought my mama a house!

Yeah, that’s a lot!

That's the right thing to do! I bought your dad a truck!

Bought my dad a truck, which he sold!

But I just love you, Greg!

But it was actually an amazing lesson for me because I learned sometimes you need to start over! If you're failing, don't be afraid to start fresh.

So when should entrepreneurs, if at all, pivot?

Wow, that's a great question! I have a very simple rule to this, and I tell them all when I invest in them: if you're not making money after 36 months—three years—you've got to take it behind the barn and shoot it because it's just a hobby! It's not a business!

And everybody says, "Oh no, no, no, no, people get so, you know, stuck on a bad idea." They just keep thinking if I keep working on it, it's going to fix it. So it doesn't fix itself. It was put on your journey to teach you what not to do. That's the whole idea!

If you don't realize the lesson learned, you're going to spend all your time on some really bad idea and waste it. You've got to pivot. I tell all my entrepreneurs, this one didn't work; I'll come visit you with a good bottle of wine, and we'll just drink it, and then we’ll take this idea behind the barn and shoot it!

You spend a lot of time behind that barn!

Yeah, I have! You know, not every idea works. But the most important thing is to say, "Look, it's not working; shoot it!" Like, and let's move on!

Oh, I can't do that!

Yes, you can! I'll do it for you! Like, it's a rehabilitation home for all—you've got to shoot it, you have to shoot it, and then you move on to your next idea! And then you only need one to work! You only need one; you get a winner, you go through the roof!

Yeah. All right, Mikey, sorry for interrupting!

Uh, no, I was just—I was going to go back to some superlatives. What is the most successful business you've invested in as a result of Shark Tank?

So the number one exit was a deal called Plated. Okay? Two guys from New York City started meal kits. Remember that whole thing where a meal comes to your door every day and then you cook it?

Yeah, that whole idea! Blue Apron was the big guy at the time!

Got it! So what happened was the grocers started to see this trend occurring, and they saw that Whole Foods was bought by Amazon and they went, "Oh no!"

So Albertson approached us at Plated and said, "We'd like to buy you!" They bought it for 340 million bucks! That was a Shark Tank deal! It was only 36 months old, and it had grown dramatically. And so that was the biggest exit in Shark Tank history. And that paid for a lot of my mistakes on Shark Tank!

Yeah, but there are deals now on Shark Tank, and there's one being negotiated right now. Can't announce it yet—it's actually one run by a woman—that's going to be the largest individual winner because I own a small fraction of the business, and she owns the rest of it. It's an extraordinary outcome, and she built something incredible.

And of course, we're going to track it on Shark Tank! Shark Tank knows about it, but the deal hasn't been announced yet. We're getting 100 million dollar deals all the time now in Shark Tank!

Wow!

Because the show does one thing: the real secret of Shark Tank is to understand that it reduces customer acquisition costs for its companies. 100 million eyeballs see every episode in syndication, so people see products and they order it online, and the company paid nothing to get the customer.

You want to get on Shark Tank and more; you want to get a deal with a shark so that you can actually be updated every year on the updates and that's seen in 42 countries around the world.

So we change lives on Shark Tank every day!

Now, who knew this was going to get this big? I mean, this—

No, you didn't know that!

We had no idea!

I remember Season 3, I said, "Well, you know, we got a dog and a cat watching this show; that’s it!"

Season 4, things exploded because we went into this recessionary period and started coming out of it, and everybody wanted to be an entrepreneur!

The reason we had you here today is, yes, we're looking to get a strategic investor involved from the outside for a small portion of, uh, equity in Prime.

I don't have any equity—

Do you want to try something?

Well, tell me what's in it! Is it too much sugar or not?

Well, I'm glad you asked, Kevin!

Yeah, yeah!

Two grams of sugar, yeah. 10% coconut water, 25 calories—it's a hydration!

25 calories?!

That's it!

Does it taste like [ __ ]? You tell me!

All right, give me the flavor!

Which are you like, sweet guys?

Great! Tropical punch; it's universal!

That's right!

Yeah, there you go!

Okay, I love that flavor!

I'm just going to let you know about the ball—it's going to rock!

This is a really competitive market, right?

Uh, yeah, yeah! Very competitive!

But we're, you know, we're competitive people!

Yeah, I get it!

And so you're putting your brand on this?

Uh, yeah, yeah, it is!

Yeah, me and my business partner, KSI!

That's not [ __ ]! This tastes good!

Thank you!

Um, it's doing very well! I'll tell you the sales!

Yeah, let's hear it!

Two months in, we sold 10 million bottles!

10 million bottles?!

How many dollars?

How are you getting distribution?

Yeah, one more—Target, Kroger, CVS, Vitamin Shop, GNC—they approached; they built this business up, then approached you to be a brand ambassador.

No, no, started it from the ground!

Really?

Yeah, we worked on it for, you know, eight months behind the scenes!

It's pretty good because in this category getting distribution is everything!

It is everything!

That's why it works. We—and we have some amazing things planned! I mean, honestly, we just scratched the surface in terms of what we're capable of doing!

Yeah, my partner is the biggest influencer celebrity in the United Kingdom; we still haven't launched there.

Those numbers aren't so—

So you're going internationally?

Okay!

I mean, you know, I probably focus more on domestic because if you've got 10, it's proof of concept! It's hard to get a million in this category! People struggle like crazy, but if you can actually break through—and I have to say the product doesn't—it tastes good! So you're going to get repeat, you know, repeat purchase!

Well, what we're seeing is the every single week, there’s—the sales go up!

Yeah, by drastic percentage!

And is that a health claim you're making or is it a boost, or what really is—I mean, it is a hydration drink, right?

It's a very healthy, low-calorie, low-sugar hydration beverage!

Right now you're on target with the 25 calories. People are freaking out when they're drinking 160 calories per bottle of Gatorade!

160 calories?!

Yeah! I mean, I know 24 grams of—sort of, and that's when you're trying to count calories, that's a lot!

People are when they're working out, but particularly in training programs, you don't want it! This is perfect—25 calories!

So that was the idea! I mean, when I see 25 calories, I immediately think, "Oh, it's going to taste like [ __ ]. It's going to have that, you know, fake sugary, fake long aftertaste."

Yeah, this does not have that!

And I think you're achieving it with just a small amount of sugar!

That's it! So congrats on this!

But man, if you got 10, you got to get to 50! And you've got about, I'd say, 18 months to get to $50 million!

They're going to do that in the next few months!

I have one question, and it is personal as well.

I've met my biggest fear is, God willing, being very successful and then losing my kid's soul in the process! Because how am I supposed to, like, raise—no, no, for real!

Because I’ve never met—and rarely, like one out of ten really wealthy people do I see their kids come out to be a great question! How do you raise your kids? I see in a humble life!

So that’s entitlement! That's the—that's the, uh—

So let me tell you a story on that one that saved my ass! And, you know, I’ve applied it to my own family. When I was graduating college, my mother came to the graduation. She said, “I’ve got great news; I’m coming to the graduation! But, um, I also have some other news: no more checks!”

And I said, “What do you mean?” because she’d been paying for college and my rent and everything. And she said, “The dead bird under the nest never learns how to fly.”

I said, “What the hell does that mean?”

She said, “No more checks! I’m not writing any more checks! You’re gonna have to figure this out on your own! You know I’ve—I paid for your education from birth. The last day of college—we're done!”

And I thought, " [ __ ]! " I mean, because I really had no job or anything. And I had a tough couple of years. I mean, I couldn't even pay the rent! But it worked out! And I got motivated! And, you know, obviously, I'm pretty happy about the outcome!

So when I had my first big liquidity event when the Learning Company got sold, I got sold for about 4.2 billion, and there were 10 of us that were founders. So we woke up the next morning and said, " [ __ ]! We're rich! " Like we didn't even think about it; we came back to work and kept going!

But when I went over—that was in Cambridge, I went over to Boston and saw the lawyers and said, "Look, I want to set up a trust that basically provides for my kids because they were like four and six at the time, and it pays for everything for them until they finish college, and then they get nothing!"

And he said, "What the hell's that?"

I said, "Well, it’s a way that I can provide for them to set them up in life but not entitle them."

I was taking a cue from my mother's strategy—the same idea. And I went home that day and I told my wife I was going to do this, and I sat down with my two kids, and I said, "Here’s how this trust works and everything’s good until even if I get run over by a truck—you're good to finish college!"

And they went, “Yeah, that's great!” They, you know, didn’t give a [ __ ] about it; they were four and six!

So I can't believe you—sat your four-and-a-half and six-year-old—I had to disclose what I'd done!

Years later!

Years later, we're still in Boston, and my son is doing really poorly in high school. He is sucking and just not applying himself. And, you know, his marks are terrible, and the way to look at high school is—it's just like a test to get into college! You got to pass a few things!

And so, one day he says to me, I'll never forget this conversation. Lynn and I were going out to a movie that night, and he says, “Hey Dad, one of my friends was telling me about his trust fund, and, um, what does my trust fund look like?”

And I said, “Well, I don’t know about your friend's fund, but here’s how yours works. If mom and I get run over by a truck, you’re good until you finish high school because it doesn’t look like you’re going to college!”

He said, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Well, the trust only pays till you finish college; then it’s done!”

He says, “What do you mean it’s done?”

I said, “It means no more checks!”

And I said to him, “The dead bird under the nest never learns how to fly!”

And he said, “What the [ __ ] does that mean?”

I said, “What it means is you should start thinking about taking advantage of this now because you're not! And you're, you're not—I don't know what's going to happen to you; you're not even going to finish high school here!”

And I think at that moment that the lesson of life, you know, given to by my mother must—he saw the abyss; he saw the darkness; he saw the situation he was in and went, “ [ __ ] this is bad!”

And so he knuckled down, and he started getting into, uh, in what he was into, and he eventually became an electrical engineer. And he was at the top of his class all through, you know, college.

And right into engineering, and in all these electrical engineering cohorts, they all build a combustion F1 race car and an electric one, and they embrace them all around the world against each other because that's how they're learning. If they're interested in electrical engineering, you're building an F1 formula car, and every year, MIT would win because they always built the best car!

Well, in Trevor's case, he became the captain of the team, and he worked on the software that released the energy out of the battery in a different way, and he beat MIT!

And so the Tesla guys came over and said, “Who are you guys?” And he went to college at McGill; he said, “We’re the McGill team!” and he said, "You’re all hired at Tesla; all of you—the whole team!"

Wow, that's where he works! That's where he lives—in San Francisco!

Wow! So that’s the lesson of the dead bird right there!

Yeah, yeah! Applicable advice too! I'm going to do that!

Yeah, yeah, because you can take care of them with health issues, but if you guarantee them a free ride and they never have to take any risk, they won’t!

Yeah, and you'll destroy their lives! It's the worst curse you could do. Everybody knows people that have really screwed up rich kids.

It's—and they made that mistake; they just made it too easy for them! It's not going to happen in my family, and my trust goes, you know, in multi-generations. When he has kids, even if they're not married, it takes care of them, right till the end of college!

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