Meet The Homeless Man Who Bought A Bugatti | TheStradman

[Applause] What's up you guys? It's Graham here! So a little over four years ago, right before I started making YouTube videos, I met James, also known as The Stradman, through a close friend of mine, Gordon, also known as F-Spot. We started talking cars; both of us had previously owned a Lotus. We were both car enthusiasts, and for the longest time, both of us had wanted a Lamborghini Gallardo. Except there's a difference between James and I: he actually got the Lamborghini, and I got the house. But we kept in touch, and over time, James's car collection continued to grow and grow and grow, to the point where now he just recently purchased a million-dollar Bugatti Veyron at 31 years old.

However, what many people don't realize is that not too long ago, James was homeless, living in his car, earning just a few dollars a day. He was able to go from that to now making over two million dollars a year, buying exotic cars, and that is something worth discussing further. He's also going to be breaking down his income: how much money he makes, how much money he spends, where he spends his money, how he invests his money, how he runs his business, and also why he chooses to do everything himself.

So if you wouldn't mind smashing the like button for the YouTube algorithm, it would greatly help me out a lot because these videos take me a very long time to create and produce. Not to mention, I was able to borrow a Tesla Model S P100D, which does 0-60 in 2.5 seconds, to race the Bugatti Veyron on a private airstrip. So if that's not worth a like, I don't know what is! So thank you so much, and with that said, here's the inside look into the business of The Stradman.

You know, my dad is a CPA, my mom's a teacher. We grew up with very humble beginnings. I have three older brothers and was born in Newport, Oregon. You know, we lived in this tiny, tiny little house in Newport. My dad is, you know, the cheapest human being on earth, and I love him for it. He's taught me how to, you know, spend wisely and, you know, take the right risks when you have the opportunity, but be smart about it. I like to think that I'm self-made, but I'm not. You know, my parents didn’t really help me. They helped me financially; like, you know, I had a good childhood. You know, they taught me how to work. My work ethic comes from them being cheap; it comes from them being smart with my money. It comes from them, so I really truly owe them all of my success.

I love this car. Yeah, I've had it for two years; it's got the full 1016 kit, an FI straight pipe exhaust. This is an on-demand flame thrower; you rev it up, boom, boom, boom!

So I graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in accounting and finance. I always wanted to have my own business, always loved cars. My motivation to make money is to buy cars. Like, I don't care about anything else. I don't care about fancy clothes, I don't care about fancy watches. None of that stuff interests me; it's just cars.

I graduated from college; obviously, the economy was in the garbage can in 2011. I couldn't get a job, moved back home with my parents; nobody would hire me. I could not get a job for the life of me, so I started this business buying and selling cars, but it just—it just wasn't working out. And so I packed up my 2002 Audi TT and I moved here to Utah. Didn't know anybody, didn't have a job, didn't have a place to live, slept in my car the first night.

Next morning, found an apartment, signed a six-month lease, still didn't have a job, and then a couple weeks later, I got a job up at the Montage Deer Valley in Park City, making $17 an hour. Worked there for a year or so, and during that time, I actually started my YouTube channel. So I was a car spotter, which meant I just go out and take photos of cars. It sounds so dumb, and it was dumb, but I would just catalog the cars that I would see. I was doing that on the side, started the YouTube channel, and then one day the guy who worked next to me, I found out that he was making more money than me, and I thought that was an injustice because I was constantly taking stuff off his workload.

So I went to my boss's office and I put in my two weeks. My thought was, "Oh, I'm too good; I'm irreplaceable. They're to give me a raise; I'm going to make more than this guy." My boss is like, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, man. You know, we love having you work for us, but best of luck in your next endeavors." So two weeks later, you know, obviously, rather than backing out of it, I move forward, and I lost my job.

I decided to live in my Audi TT in Beverly Hills, California, and I would car spot. The reason for Beverly Hills, obviously, there's so many cars—there's supercars left and right. I could go there and just film cars, and that's what I did. And so that would involve me parking the car somewhere where there's free parking, walking maybe, you know, a mile to Beverly Hills, and I would just stand there on Rodeo Drive for eight, twelve hours a day, walking around just hoping to see cool cars. Then every evening, I would go to McDonald's; I'd park outside McDonald's, edit my videos, use their free Wi-Fi, post the video, and then I would find a different residential street every single night to sleep in the car. Because I didn’t, you know, I wanted to be in a different location because if I was outside the same house every single day, somebody would, you know, get upset.

Did you get caught sleeping in the car? Because that's a tiny car. It is; it is. Windows were not tinted. It's weird. When I was in Beverly Hills, I never had anybody wake me up in the middle of the night. There were a couple times when I’d go to car shows, you know, up in North Los Angeles or whatever, and I'd sleep in a mall parking lot. Security would come knock on my door and tell me I had to go. I lived in the car for 58 days. I showered one time at the beach in Malibu.

Didn’t you think to get a gym membership or like park there? Yeah, I like—I was so like—I've always been so cost-conscious my entire life. Like, I don't spend money. So this is the one you just bought? Yes, so I bought this like four days ago. It's a 2017 Nissan GTR, 700 horsepower roughly, but it's gonna soon have a lot more. So my goal with this car is to make it faster than the Bugatti; so I'm hoping for like 1300 horsepower.

So when your parents see you in another state, sleeping in a car, making seven dollars a day, wouldn’t they just say, "James, here's 20 bucks a day; we're going to help you out here"? Right? The gym membership, for sure. For sure! Weren't they worried about your safety? They were. So my mom was obviously worried sick about me constantly.

And the car—so my Audi broke down while I was living in it, and at one night outside of McDonald's, I came out; the car wouldn't turn on. And that's when I realized, like, this is a bad situation. The car wouldn't turn on; the car was broken down. Audi Santa Monica quoted me like $1,200 to replace the fuel pump, and I didn't have that. I only had like $800. My mom offered to pay for the repair, but I was so—like I had so much— I had such an ego. I was like, "No! I put myself in this situation; I have to get myself out of it." You know, I was 24 at the time, so I wasn't like a little kid. Like, I was a grown man in the sense—even though I was doing something that a nine-year-old would do—but like I still knew that this was all my fault.

Like if my mom would have fixed the car, it would be like, "I can't do this YouTube thing." I had to get myself out of the situation. So yes, they offered to pay me or, you know, to give me money, but it was just like, "No! I had to achieve the dream on my own accord." And looking back today, when I think about it, it's like I'm so glad that I didn’t let her pay for it because otherwise, everything that I've created, although I give my parents a lot of credit, it wouldn't feel quite the same because they would have bailed me out of that situation.

So how did you fix the car? So I ordered a fuel pump online. I got it for like 200 bucks. Where do they ship it? Exactly! They don’t—You can’t ship it to the 2002 Audi TT on Santa Monica Boulevard. And so I discovered that with the USPS, you can actually ship something to the post office, and you can go there and pick it up. But I got this fuel pump, got back to the Audi, and then the next morning, I just—I was like a surgeon; and I’m not great at working on cars, but I’m average. But during that, you know, eight-day, nine-day window, I’d been studying online how to change it. I’d been going, getting the parts that I needed, the tools that I needed, and I changed it. Like, I don’t know, maybe an hour and a half.

We’re gonna pop it into sport mode and go distraction! And then I ended up living at home for, I think, another six months or so. I got a job as a night auditor at a hotel, making $14 an hour, and I didn’t have any friends. I worked alone at this hotel in the middle of nowhere, had to wear this silly outfit with a tie and a sweater and big clown shoes, and you know, I had no social life. But what’s great is this entire time I was still pursuing the YouTube dream. Like, I never wavered one single time from the moment I had 200 subscribers till now; it never wavered.

And I remember when I was working at that hotel, you know, I had a couple vacation days, and when I got the job, I had this trip down to Florida for the Gumball 3000 that I had planned, and, um, you know, I flew down to Miami, slept in my rental car; couldn’t afford hotels. So I was still doing this, like, you know, bootstrapping the business as best I could. And then I finally got my big break. It all happened in one week, and it's the craziest thing! So there’s an event in Sun Valley, Idaho called the Sun Valley Tour de Force; it’s a top speed event where they shut down the state highway and cars can test their top speeds. I filmed six Bugatti Veyrons like testing their top speed.

What’s crazy is that one of those Bugatti Veyrons is this car right here! Really? It's the exact same car! And that weekend, I filmed a video called “Bugatti Veyron Super Sport Hits 246 Miles an Hour,” and it was on the front cover of Yahoo.com. I had probably 2,500 subscribers; the video got just over a million views in 24 hours, and I think I made like five or six thousand dollars. Wow! Like, this is back when I was making $14 an hour. Like, that money changed my life! Like, that was what I would make in like two or three months.

And so I filmed that video, and then I filmed a couple other videos that week, and then also did just like huge views. And that was when I realized that I was right because at that point, I was like, "Well, imagine if I can get a million views every single day! What if every single video could get a million views? Like, I’m onto something! Like, this is it!" And so then that same weekend, I wanted to move back here to Utah, and so I had a job interview for a job cost accountant job up in Park City.

Had the interview that following Monday, so I filmed a viral video on Saturday, and then I had the job interview Monday, and that’s where I met a guy named Nick. Nick hired me. He should not have hired me! Like, this guy should not have hired me! I was not qualified; I didn't deserve the job. I was late to my interview because I missed an exit; like, I didn’t deserve the job, but he gave it to me.

Sorry, I’m like getting emotional. Oh yeah, you’re good! That's right—I haven’t said this story in so long; it’s just like so crazy to think how you can be down and out. Wow, that’s nice! It’s weird! It’s so weird how you can be like down and out, and then in one weekend, things can change so quick. Did you ever think like six years ago you’d buy an event today? No, no! I always felt like I could fake my way into like a Gallardo; yeah, like a hundred-thousand-dollar car. Like, just save up every single penny imaginable and, you know, get the car. But not really be like in a position to actually afford a Lamborghini, whereas like the flagship V12? Never, ever! Never imagined!

So I was entry-level accountant, $45,000 a year, job cost accounting. So, you know, I'm sitting in front of a computer screen every day, 40-50 hours a week, you know, Excel spreadsheets, but I'm making $45,000 a year. So, like, you know, that's not crazy money, but for me, it's like, "This is amazing!" And I've always been super cheap; I don't spend money on anything! And so I'm still doing YouTube on the side every weekend; you know, I’ll go to a car show; I’ll do whatever I can! Every vacation day is spent trying to grow this YouTube channel.

Um, but you know, the priority is my job. And so I worked for Nick for what would have been like maybe a year and a half or so, and it was a year and a half I had decided that I was going to buy a Lamborghini Gallardo. You know, I was saving every single penny; like, I wouldn’t go out and eat, I wouldn’t buy new clothes. I was living in an apartment for $600 a month; like, just not doing anything! I knew that if I actually owned a supercar myself, my channel would be so much more interesting because up until this point, I'm filming behind the scenes, I’m filming other people enjoying their supercars, and I was like, "Imagine a young kid with nothing else driving around a Lamborghini! That would be interesting!"

And so I saved up—I can't remember what my down payment was; it was like $50 grand, I think—and I bought a 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo. Put a bunch down, got the car, and almost instantaneously, I was right. The channel just took off! Early November, I filmed the video titled "Lamborghini at Age 26: This is What I Do for a Living,” and I filmed that video, and I think it was like a Thursday; I posted it on like a Friday, whatever it was.

And then that weekend, I went canyoneering down in southern Utah, and we were out of cell service. And I remember on the drive home, we got cell service back, and my phone just started going off like crazy, and the video had started going viral! I think I made like $20,000 or something like that. So it's a half-year down payment! Exactly. And that's when it kind of sealed the deal. I knew YouTube was my future; I knew that I had to do it the smart way, the right way, because of what happened in the past. I was like, "I can’t mess this up again! Like, if I do this, a lot more is riding on it because I have a car payment on a Lamborghini! Like, I gotta make this work!"

So I knew that I had to continue working for Nick for a while, and around February of that next year, you know, I work in the accounting department. I can tell that maybe the company's not doing as well as we were hoping, and people started quitting, and they weren't being replaced, and I was taking on more responsibilities.

April 1st, 2016, I think it would have been, uh, Nick walked into my office, closed the door, and I think my first words were like, "Wait, is today the day?" Because I knew! I knew it was going to happen. It was a Friday, the first day of the month. Like, I just—I remember the day before, I was also—April 1st. It’s like, "Well, right, it’s April 1st; that’s a great day to pull a prank." But you know how, like, you just know? You know the writing's on the wall? And sure enough, the company was going under, and I was in the first round of layoffs.

But April 1st, I was like, "Well, here we go—this is the moment!" And I just started filming like crazy every single day. It's every day, I'm constantly working at it. I'm a one-man operation to this day! I edit all my own videos, film all my own videos, do all the sponsorship contracts—everything! I do everything on my own. I basically spent the entire day in Ubers and in Teslas, but it was well, well worth it!

As you might say, ladies and gentlemen, views on views! The idea of having like employees that I have to pay and that are, you know, relying on me for their livelihood kind of gives me stress and anxiety, and that might show through on my videos because my videos are all about having fun, you know, being stress-free. So I need my life to be stress-free, if that makes sense.

This here, you have how many cars at this point? So I have eight cars. What’s the total payment for all eight cars? So eight cars; seven are paid off, and the Bugatti is financed. So I paid $880 for it. I put down $580, finance the remaining $300, and my payment is $4,765 every single month!

How much money do you have in cars? I'm trying to do the math—um, let’s just—I'm going to round the numbers to make it easier. Let’s say $250,000; $250,000—let's just say $900,000; that’s $1.4, uh, $1.485 million. The Gallardo is probably $100,000; the 430 Challenge maybe another $100,000; let’s say $1.685 million. The Gladiator, another $100,000; $1.785 million. The Raptor, let’s say another hundred; I’m being a little sure. I’d say $1.9 million in cars.

But I see every single car as being a different investment, a different business. And so in my head, I have a very good idea what the ROI is on every single car. The Bugatti probably doesn't make business sense from just a straight ROI. Like, if that's the only metric you're using, it doesn't make sense—$880,000; the service was $34,000 on it. But it just adds that memorable element to my channel. He’s like, “Oh, he’s the kid who has a Bugatti.” You know, people remember that!

It’s a purple Bugatti! When that thing’s driving down the freeway, people remember it; they'll find my channel, they'll talk about my channel, they'll come watch all the other videos. And so it just kind of adds that level of uniqueness as well. All of these are like owning a little bit of real estate except in car form that you’re able to get content from. The best car I’ve ever owned per view was the Supra. I paid $60,000 for that car; I was averaging a million views plus with that car—like views to dollar! Yeah, couldn’t be beat!

But no other investments? Stock market? No, so I was a sophomore in college and I decided that I was going to get into the stock market because I had this dream of buying supercars one day, and that's what you do to make money. And so in September of 2008, early September 2008, I took my entire summer savings from an internship that I had at the Department of Transportation and I invested all of that in the stock market. Didn’t know what I was doing; I became a day trader overnight. I had great success; I think the first day, I made like $900 bucks, which was amazing!

But then the stock market crashed in September 2008, and I lost, I think, $900 bucks like the next day! Like, it all happened very quickly, and before I knew it, my entire summer savings was gone. I think I invested in General Motors, and they had filed for bankruptcy; I can't remember exactly, but I lost everything. And it was at that moment that I decided that I wanted to invest in stuff that I had more control of. You know, where it’s me making the decisions. I go buy a car that I’ve decided is a good deal and I flip it and I make profit. And so I haven't invested in the stock market since.

Are you going to? Can I convince you to start doing that? Maybe! I need to do it. You're absolutely right; I just haven't. Okay, you’ll need to at some point! Absolutely! I agree with you! I think this makes more sense right now from an ROI standpoint, but I think long-term can you do this forever? Right? Do you eventually want to scale back? And that’s where I think other investments come in.

Absolutely! I 100% agree! How many income sources would you say you have now? I mean, it’s all focused around YouTube; yeah, so you could say one. Now, if you break it down, you have AdSense, you have sponsored content, you have merchandise, but it’s all YouTube-focused for sure. Everything's views on YouTube.

Yeah! Can you talk about income? Do you feel comfortable talking about that? Just as a very rough number? In 2020, I’ll make about $2 million on YouTube. Wow! That’s from everything—that’s from merch sales, sponsored content, um, ad revenue. Congratulations! Thank you! Thank you!

It has a W16 8-liter quad turbocharged 1001 horsepower. Yeah, fastest car in the world when it came out—254 miles an hour, $1.7 million brand new! Why is there a dent here? Was that... why is there a dent right there? There’s not a ‘gun’! I was maneuvering this car last night and it was super close to the GTR. I was like, "I better not dump this car!"

How can you do me like that? I thought we were friends! What’s your total overhead? So I have the payment on this car, which I mean, $4,765 bucks, right? That’s my big expense! I actually, when I signed the one-year lease here, I actually just paid the whole thing. I just wrote him a check for the whole amount because it's just easier. It makes my life simpler—one less thing to worry about! And so I—and then it’s just like it’s a sunk cost; like it’s gone! Yep!

And then the land; my payment is like $2,000 or so. But then, you know, insurance on all the cars, obviously, is significant. $1,500 a month for all the cars? Yeah, no, it’s not as bad; no, it’s truly not. A lot of the mods that I do for the cars, those will cost money; like the Liberty Walk kit on the Roadster, you know, that’s $50,000, $60,000. You know, so I’m taking a lot of the money I’m making, I’m buying more cars; I'm buying nicer cars! But as far as outside of the business, nothing!

I mean, food, I eat cheap; I live in a bedroom for $800 a month; I don’t spend on anything! All the clothes you’re seeing that I’m wearing, I like get for free too!

You can rev it if you want! Really? Oh yeah! Yeah! Alright, this is the only time in my life I’ll probably get the chance to do this! I’m nervous! Nothing's gonna happen! Nothing's here! Good! Wait, I’m really nervous!

So now, of course, we got to ask, how many credit cards do you have? I hate disappointing you, Graham. I have one! Why? Because I don’t like the concept of credit. It bugs me! Oh no! I know! I know! I’m just—I'm cut from that cloth, you know? Like, my parents—I was like 18 years old when they got their first credit card. Like, I don’t like financing stuff!

And I realized that yes, that’s the right thing to do; credit score is so important. And it’s weird; like I understand all that stuff, but I’m such a, like, mental person that, mentally, I have to feel the right way. And so getting a car financed, you know, I hate that! Putting stuff on a credit card, not just paying for it in cash, bugs me!

Imagine putting $1,500 a month, yeah, of your insurance on a credit card that you immediately pay off from a checking account, right? You’re going to be racking up a whole bunch of points to travel anywhere you want to for free! Within one year of spending, anywhere you want to go, first class can be free! Just—I don’t have a good answer for that!

Yeah! If you guys want to try—well, I mess it up! You say it; you gotta destroy the like button for the YouTube algorithm! Yes sir! Yes sir! Let’s do it! Just right down there, boys! Right down there; smash that like button!

How many hours a day would you say you work? When I’m filming, I usually wake up at 8:30, and the goal is to start filming by 9 a.m. If I'm lucky, the video will be finished by about 7 or 8 p.m. The non-film days are a little bit more relaxed; like yesterday, I was in Ubers all day getting these Teslas for today, Ubering up to Salt Lake, I picked up the Aventador yesterday. Kind of getting this set up for today.

I just like doing everything myself, you know? Like, I have relationships; you know, I picked up the Aventador; I have a relationship with MiX and Models. It’s good for me to see the guys, uh, you know, drive the Aventador back. Maybe I’ll do some Instagram stuff as well. On those off days, you know, do film it. I filmed TikTok yesterday.

So YouTube videos, the other days I’m doing other social media stuff; maybe I’m uploading on Facebook. Do you buy Starbucks? No, I can’t afford it! No, I do not drink coffee; I do not drink alcohol, and I’ve never done any drugs in my entire life.

And the main reason I don’t do drugs is obvious. Obviously, the main reason I don’t drink, though, is financial reasons. When I was in college, my friends would go out to the clubs and the bars; they’d spend a fortune on alcohol. I love cars so much, and if YouTube were to crash and burn right now, I have enough money that I could retire, and I could go live in a van and go hiking around the world, and I'd be okay with that. I’d be so happy with it!

Is that what you would do? I would do that! Yeah! My goal is to have 100 acres with a racetrack on it, with my house on it, that has an airstrip that can also double as a drag strip, that also has a helipad. That’s my goal! So I want to have a place where I can go race cars. I want to get my pilot’s license, fly airplanes, add aviation to the channel, just do adventures with transportation!

Here’s my only piece of advice—if I’m just gonna say any unsolicited thing in the video, it’s just this: If I were in your position, I would take $360,000, $30,000 a month, put it into an S&P 500 index fund, and that’s it! Just pretend you’re making $360,000 a year less than you actually do! Put that in the stock market and forget about it; walk away—just pretend it doesn’t even exist!

It doesn’t—it’s not there! Have it set up on the first of the month, every month, $30,000 goes in. $30,000 goes in! Just treat it like another bill! No matter what happens to YouTube, you’re always gonna have that to fall back on! I think that you are a hundred percent right; absolutely! Are you gonna do it? Yes, I’m gonna do it! I’m looking at every single camera directly! Yes, sir!

So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching! And for anyone who wants to see the entire 40-minute interview completely uncut, I’m going to be linking to the full video down below in the description on my second channel, The Graham Stephan Show. So thanks so much for watching, and also thank you to The Stradman for making all of this possible!

Make sure, by the way, if you haven’t done this already, to destroy the subscribe button, like button, and notification bell! Also, feel free to add me on Instagram; my posts are pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there as in the second channel, The Graham Stephan Show! So you could watch this entire interview completely uncut.

And also, if you guys want to get four free stocks, use the link down below in the description, and Webull is going to be giving you four free stocks when you deposit $100 on the platform. And those stocks could potentially be worth all the way up to $1,600! So basically, at this point, it’s free money! If you want free money, use the link down below; let me know which free stocks you get! Thank you so much for watching, and until next time!