The Exchanges

Q course business, having done a bunch of it being kind of like near the top of the game there, which is like, first and foremost, who's crushing it when it comes to courses? What's a model you look at where you say, just from a pure, like respect of the way that that business works, I respect this course business. What stands out to you? It might be your own.

A Great, great question because Crushing it and who I respect are totally different things. Let me break that down. Who I respect, I respect, um, people like Marie Forleo, who has a awesome business. She's runs it her way. She launches when she wants to, which is sparingly. Um, it's beautifully done. And she, she just loves the way she runs her business. That's awesome. Um, I also respect people like, uh, like some of the, the legacy people in our industry, Jay Abraham, who I just saw for coffee two days ago. Uh, he's one of my mentors and he's been around since the Eighties. And in fact, even before Brian Dean, high integrity, uh, Matthew Hussey in the dating space. He's great. He's a friend of mine. Um, and then I think reforge is interesting. Although I think that that is quite different because it's venture backed than what the typical individual wants to create. So what I admire about all those folks High integrity. And we can talk about why integrity is lacking in the course business because it is, uh, they run the business the way they want to. Each of those could easily double their revenue. Easily. If they did a couple of different decisions, they don't. Uh, and, and, and that's why I respect it.

AI assessment note: “Who I respect, I respect, um, people like Marie Forleo, who has a awesome business.”

Q also have a title that is kind of catchy and kind of cringy. Um, so we've talked about kind of our feelings on it. Give us your take on both your name as, as well as doing names like this. So give us the kind of like, what's your, what's your mindset? Is it all pros? Are there no cons? Are there a mix? How do you think about it?

A No, there's a lot of cons. I'll tell you, I'll tell you the, the, Blunt truth. So I created, I will teach you to be rich while I was a student at Stanford. And I was helping my friends in the dining halls with their personal finance. And I had learned and I built my own system because I took some of my scholarship money and put in the stock market. And, uh, here I am Trying to help my friends. And they were like, oh, that sounds awesome. Cause I got an overdraft fee and they would never show up to my free classes. So I was like, okay, I got to name this to make it more catchy. And then event, and that didn't work. So eventually I started the blog. Looking back, I want to first say I was sober when I picked the name. Okay. So, and it was catchy, but I will say, um, it's come with its downsides. For example, you know, I've been sitting on panels. There's like the CEO of a fortune 500 company, another CEO or senior VP. And then there's Ramit Sethi, CEO of I will teach you to be rich. And the first reaction at some of these places is not good. Okay. But Even though many of my really smart friends, including some venture capitalists and others, they were like, you got to change your name. You got to change your name. Early on, I was like, you might be right. And then I started going, well, there's sunk costs. I've already invested all this time. And then it just became too difficult…

AI assessment note: “No, there's a lot of cons. I'll tell you, I'll tell you the, the, Blunt truth.”

Q Isn't that a big energy suck? Why? Because it's fun for a while. It is fun to slap down trolls for a bit, but for me, it gets exhausting. But you seem to thrive on it. You seem like, even right now, I could see a little pep in your step just thinking about it.

A Well, I remember listening to a Navy SEAL who said, when others do pushups, they get tired. When I do pushups, I get strong. And I found the same because Dealing with trolls keeps me sharp. Um, and I'll tell you why. It's not just, you know, for kicks and to make fun of them. It's that in my life, you know, I'm hanging out with guys like you, smart guys who are dissecting business models and, and healthy, whatever. I don't get the chance to talk to someone who comes up to me and says, you know, vaccines are fake or Um, these sort of crackpot things. You're, you're only doing this so you can make money. Um, if I wanted to be rich, I would create a book on being rich. You know, I, I've candidly never had somebody come up to me in real life and say that. And in part that's because when people come up in real life, they're actually very positive, pleasant. They usually have very nice things to say. What typically happens with these trolls, now I've, um, had conversations with thousands of them, and I save and cross, um, catalog all these conversations, so it's fascinating, right? Over time, you can build a corpus of what's going on. Remember, I studied psychology, uh, technology and psychology at Stanford, so I'm fascinated with human behavior. So I want to know what's going on in your life that you would reach out out of nowhere to somebody who doesn't know you and go, fuck you. S…

AI assessment note: “when others do pushups, they get tired. When I do pushups, I get strong.”

Q Like the fanciest hotel in New York City. And the general manager or some like a, some manager type gave us this like one hour specialty tour of this like three or 4000 dollar a night hotel. And I was like, Dude, how do you, who did you email to get this?

A So I like hotels. I like hospitality. And whenever I go to these hotels, the manager will, when you're staying there, the manager will come up to you at a certain point and greet you. So I'm always like, hey, I'd love to like learn more about the property. Do you have any time? And they love it. They love it. So we went on a walk and it was December at the time. So I said, what's your occupancy? And they had something like 40 keys or 40 hotel rooms. He said, um, it's about to get busy. Christmas is our busiest of all, but we always keep one room off market. And I'm like, why would you do that when it's the busiest, most high demand, most expensive time of the year? He goes, luxury is about always having something in your back pocket. He goes, maybe our regular guests who come every year for the last decade bring an extra family member. We need to be able to accommodate that. So I will hold it off market. And I'm like, ah, that's a very expensive thing. But I think about my mom growing up, she always had extra food if we brought a friend over. Luxury just at a different level. So same thing with money. I want to always build in a buffer so that if something happens, we're good.

AI assessment note: “I'm always like, hey, I'd love to like learn more about the property.”

Q Okay. I took it. I took it two years ago. I've taken a couple of yours, but your business is different than Sean. Sean's was the cohort one. Have you ever, have you done one of these cohort classes?

A Yeah, I've done several. In fact, I'm doing one as we speak right now. Uh, cohort classes are definitely hot. Um, it's fun to watch this new model. If you trace, uh, the history of courses, I mean, they've been going on for generations, but let's just say in the last 20 years, um, you know, first off was ebooks, and this is, they were kind of hot in the early 2000. Um, you had dating ebooks, you had a Famous ebook on how to train your parrot. Those were typically between 10 dollars and about a hundred bucks. Um, then you started seeing video being added. Video added higher pricing. Um, and it was technically very difficult because they didn't, YouTube wasn't even out when somebody started. Then it went on to higher value. Uh, people got more sophisticated with topics. You added masterminds, which were hot, and they've kind of fizzled out over the last few years. Now you have cohort-based courses, and There's some focus on completion rates, which we can talk about. That's a terrible decision to do if you choose to do that. We can talk about that. But yeah, cohorts are hot. Doesn't necessarily mean they're lasting, but they are certainly hot right now.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I've done several. In fact, I'm doing one as we speak right now.”

Q But this guy has got this huge cloud of mystery around him to me from the outside. And I, and I think that's the vibe he purposely gives. So like, for all I know, he could be a billionaire. I have no idea like what this guy's story is. I, he's just this like business, like guru type of guy. What, what is his story? What's the truth about him?

A So the, the truth is that he, he was doing highly innovative marketing, um, for the last 40 years. He would go into companies like gold companies. Um, umbrella companies, all kinds of random industries, dozens and dozens of industries, and he would show them ways to exponentially grow their, um, their sales. Icy Hot was one of his, and he has a fantastic story. He bought remnant radio advertising. He paid a hundred percent of the first fee to the radio station. So it was no risk to them. And then he took the long-term profits and grew that business in a massive way. So I'll tell you what I like about him. I like that his ideas are extremely powerful. In fact, on my bookshelf, I have a very highly curated bookshelf of some of the best marketing books that I've ever read. I have two of his that are on that bookshelf. Um, he, he takes a multi-dimensional approach to business. So for example, he, he would tell me early on, Ramit, put your customers at the center of your world. I said, okay, what does that mean? And he's got this thing called the theory of preeminence. He would say, look, tell them explicitly, tell them you are here. You might not be ready to buy today. That's fine. Enjoy my free material to use it for as long as you want. When you are ready, I will be here and I will be here for the rest of your life, which is totally true. And you know, I do some things in my busi…

AI assessment note: “the truth is that he, he was doing highly innovative marketing, um, for the last 40 years.”

Q Did he tell you any good stories about Icy Hot or one of the brands that he helped?

A Icy Hot was one of, one of my favorites. It's in his book and he's told me all about it. He told me about gold and how he, um, helped this gold business that was sort of struggling and they repositioned the way they sold gold and it exploded their business. He's got tons of great stories in his book. Uh, my favorite one, it has a terrible title, but it's a great book. Um, getting everything you can out of all you've got is really good. One page in that book helped me build a multi-million dollar product. I was sitting on a Wednesday. Wednesday, I have strategy days, and I just read, and I think, and I read one of his pages, and I, it all clicked for me, and I launched a multi-million dollar program of ours, uh, called Ramit's Brain Trust, and it was all because of that book, so.

AI assessment note: “Icy Hot was one of, one of my favorites. It's in his book”

Q What does that even mean? That's so, that's so crazy to me. I don't understand it.

A I'm about to tell you because these guys make me want to wring their neck. So these are founders who have done very well in their business. Either they have a high profit business generating considerable amounts every year, or, um, to some extent they've had an exit and now they're doing their next thing. I go, hey, what are you doing with your money? They go, oh, you know, I'm putting it into my business. I go, cool. Like, what about investing? They go, no, no, no, no. I can make more money in the, in my own business. This is where my voice starts to tighten up and I bring out my hand as if I'm about to wring their neck. I go, how many businesses do you know that are still around 50 years later? And they go, well, not many. I go, do you think it would be good to maybe take a little off the table and Put some in the market where you can get really good returns. And it just boggles their mind because they've never thought about it. They see themselves as an entrepreneur, not a boring mom and pop investor. That is a very, very costly belief that they hold. So I always tell them like, Hey, take a little bit, put it in the market, boring Vanguard funds, do this stuff. Of course they haven't read my book, do this stuff in the book. And when you do that, you will be wealthier than you can possibly imagine. And you, your risk will be decreased dramatically.

AI assessment note: “They see themselves as an entrepreneur, not a boring mom and pop investor.”

Q for you to even have to pay back anything. Otherwise, you could basically have that outstanding forever, and it's only accruing interest at a one percent rate. And you could use that money to live off of, you could use that money to invest in other stuff, It's astounding to me. Am I, am I, Rami, you have a smirk on your face. Am I, am I getting this wrong?

A Well, I have a, I was born with a smirk on my face. So let's just, I'm smiling inside, but, um, I just look like this. So you, in general, you are right. In general, you are right. It is almost unbelievable. The average investor does not have, um, the ability to do this. They have access to it. They just don't have enough money for it. But I do want to .1 thing out. A lot of these seemingly too good to be true things have sprung up and become popularized in the last 10 years. Is there anything else that might have been going on in the financial markets for the last decade? Maybe that would have enabled these things to become popular, such as record breaking bull market and historical low interest rates.

AI assessment note: “So you, in general, you are right. In general, you are right.”

Q That's a really good. Yes. Okay. So Google it. He wears like a, kind of like a scarf tucked into a tie. And like, you would imagine him smoking like a pipe, right? Rami? Am I wrong? Like he like.

A In fact, let me add to that. I once asked him Jay, cause we're close and you know, he's been a mentor for many years. He tells me, you know, I flew to Asia and you know, I said, Jay, what'd you wear while you're on stage? Cause he loves, he's a sartorial. He's into it. He goes, well, you know how many suits I take for a three day presentation, right? I go, One, he goes, 40. I said, what? And he said, they're hiring me, not just for the information I'm going to teach. They're hiring me to be theatrical. It's a show. And so at every break, he changes his suit. Now, to the typical Silicon Valley utilitarian, they're like, that's so stupid. What's the metrics? There's more to life than metrics, you Silicon Valley nerds. That's a huge mistake that all these ROI attribution positive. Sometimes, in fact, the best companies know that's why they advertise in Times Square. They can't track that, but they do it because it's the right thing to do. And it's about branding. Jay's a genius at doing that. That's why he's been at the top of the game for decades.

AI assessment note: “In fact, let me add to that. I once asked him Jay”

Q feeling type of business. And also on here, you mentioned the company Agora, and you're saying that I asked you, can one, can some of these course businesses reach a hundred million in revenue? And you said, You, sometimes they can, but it's incredibly hard. But the ones who do, they're really just, uh, they're like huge newsletters that sell courses. So yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you.

A Okay. So let me take you back and I'm going to share a couple of stories from the history because we have, um, created over 30 programs and we have served, you know, tons and tons of people. So, um, a few things I've learned. First of all, I remember our first major course we launched was called Earn One K. And the reason we created it was that I went on book tour. And I went around to 13 different cities, and I was like, hey, what should I create? This is way back in the day, uh, 2009, in the depths of the recession, and they go, love your stuff on finances and automation, but I really want to know how to make more money. Okay. That was fairly unusual back at that time. So came home and we identify all these different, uh, areas of making money. We created a program on freelancing because we know it and we could teach it. We recorded that in the back of the automatic office. So we got hooked up with Matt. He was like, okay, you can record it in the back. We didn't have any fancy camera equipment, but the content was good. And we launched it and it was 497 dollars at the time. And The thing converted way better than we thought. It converted too well. It was around two percent, if I recall correctly. And I told people in the last email, I was like, guys, this is actually converting way better than I thought. I'm going to raise the price. And a lot of people were like, ha, ha, ha…

AI assessment note: “let me take you back and I'm going to share a couple of stories”

Q And if you were going to rebrand, had you ever come up with a backup? What would you go to?

A Yeah, we, we, we've played around with some ideas. I do think there's room in our future business for an extension, um, for different names. But, but with all that said, you know what? I love clear names. Some of our best programs are find your dream job. We've helped people get 50,000 dollar raises. That's like right on the money. Earn one K. Help you earn one K on the side. And for many people, it turns into earn a hundred K on the side. So I do love clear names. And in our copywriting program, we say, be clear, not clever. Clear, not clever. It's really hard to be crystal clear. It's super easy to create marketease and be clever, but in the grand scheme, we believe clarity wins.

AI assessment note: “we've played around with some ideas... But, with all that said, you know what?”