Ep807: Mike Koenigs – A Founder’s Character Is Bigger Than Their Charisma

Andrew Stotz 00:03
John, Hello, fellow risk takers, and welcome to my worst investment ever. Stories of loss. To keep you winning in our community, we know that to win in investing, you must take risk, but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. And I want to thank you for joining this mission, especially those who are listening in Mexico. Hmm, fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host, Andrew Stotz from a Stotz Academy, and I am here with featured guests, Mike Koenigs, Mike, are you ready to join the mission? Yes,

Mike Koenigs 00:41
sir, I am locked and loaded, and I'm ready to autopsy my seven figure scars. So risk takers dodge the bullets.

Andrew Stotz 00:49
Okay, that sounds exciting. We are going to get into that and a lot of other stuff. So let me introduce you to the audience. Mike is a serial entrepreneur with five successful exits, a 19 Time Best Selling Author and a top strategist for founders post exit, he helps build powerful personal brands in just one week, and pioneers generative AI for executives speaking at Elite Events like abundance 360 MIT and Tony Robbins gatherings. Mike, take a minute and tell us about the unique value you are bringing to this wonderful world. Well,

Mike Koenigs 01:24
after building and selling my businesses, I realized I love creating and launching them, not running them. So right now, we build and launch businesses and brands in less than a week that go from zero to seven figures in 100 days. We've done over 100 in the past seven years so, and then I also have an AI company, and we train executives all over the world on how to use AI in their businesses.

Andrew Stotz 01:49
Well, I can imagine that a lot of people want you know what you are doing. And I thought one of the interesting things that I thought about was I have a product or service that I've been in the process of building and launching, and maybe I could ask you for some advice, and my listeners and viewers would be able to gain from that. What do you think about it? I

Mike Koenigs 02:12
love it. You're ready to do a little bit of rapid fire. I'll walk you through a framework that I use, that I believe can solve any business problem, especially when you want to create and launch and become an expert and authority and be known as what I call a category of one brand. Okay, so

Andrew Stotz 02:27
then, why don't I just briefly introduce what I'm been doing and what it is? And then, yes, why don't you take it over from there? How about that? Yep.

Mike Koenigs 02:34
And then I'll ask you a couple of questions, and you'll just go, boom, boom, boom. And from there, I can give you some advice on what I'd do if I were you, and what I've seen work over and over again, also what I wouldn't do. Okay,

Andrew Stotz 02:44
fantastic. And then we're gonna get into the question of my worst investment ever. So for those who are listening and viewing, this is a chance to think about your own product and service, and how could you map it into this product or into this process? So let me explain what I've done. Basically, I had a business in Thailand. I still have it. It's 30 years old. It's a factory, and it's coffee factory, and we did pretty well up until about 2016 and then I made a mistake, and I let my accounting and finance slide, which was crazy, because I'm a finance guy, but we were expanding so quickly that our accounting system couldn't keep up, our accounting team couldn't keep up, and then we lost control of the accounting, and our margin went from a very high, strong margin down to about 1% in 2019 so what happened in 2020 COVID? Our worst revenue months went down. Revenue went down 80% prior compared to prior revenue. We had 100 people, we had a factory, and we had to come up with a lot of cash to make sure that we could survive it. Now, we survived it, and through the work of my best friend and business partner, Dale and his team and myself, we got it out of that crisis, and we managed also to maintain our shareholding ownership levels in the company. We didn't lose our position in the cap table, which is basically 40% each, and so. But then I needed to help the company really get out of this problem, solve the profit problem, generate a lot of profit, so we could rebuild our cash levels, pay back any debts that we had, and then really build a cash, a lot of cash so that we could really invest for the future. And I did that by basically creating the profit boot camp. And it's a 12 month program. It's for mid size family businesses to help them double profits in 12 months, guaranteed, if they don't double their profits in 12 months, I return their fees 100% and basically what I did is I put the management team through an intense program of learning and implementing, and as they learn every single week, and I have a discussion with the team. I meet with the team, and I hold them accountable for staying on top of the material and implementing. It's almost impossible that you don't double your profit and. That's really what I do. And I do that for family businesses in Bangkok, where I go out and work with the team and all that. But about six months ago, there was a guy that really challenged me to say, you need to make this global. Because I believe that, you know, I also have another course, an online course, that's a global online course called valuation master class, and that I've had more than 1000 people go through it, and I've done 20 iterations of it, and I know how to deliver the back end of the profit boot camp. And it's going to basically be similar instruction. So I'm ready to launch globally. And there's a lot, lot in place. Everything's in place now, but boy, would it be interesting to map this into your framework.

Mike Koenigs 05:39
Okay, so I'll set this up a little bit before I ask you the questions, and I'm going to show my screen, and then I'll walk everyone through who's listening. After I sold my last company, I went through a little bit of identity crisis myself. I had started my first real company was one of the first digital marketing agencies. It was called Digital cafe. The second and third were software companies. We had push button marketing systems early SaaS for generating SEO. It's called traffic. Guys are an instant customer. I created one of the first two way interactive mobile text marketing platforms. Exited that and then another one called you everywhere now, which helped businesses and business leaders write books, become best selling, authors build their personal brands, which multiplies the value of everything they touch for the rest of their lives. All of this will blend in, and then in between, there are a couple other companies. So when I went through my process, I wrote a book. It's called your next act, and we'll make sure we give everyone a copy of that, but inside it is a framework that allows you to multiply the value of everything you touch for the rest of your life, but also really get clear on what you need to do. So this is where I'm going to share and show off my screen, and then we're going to walk through it. I'm going to ask you which of these, what the answer is to each of these. So the first and most important one is, what do you believe and what does your brand believe? These are your non negotiable personal and brand values, also known as mindset. So if I said Andrew Stotz, the profit boot camp, what does this stand for? What do you believe? And what are the hard lines of where you say you think right or you don't think right what would show up for you? What declarations are you willing to take and make?

Andrew Stotz 07:25
Profit solves everything, okay? And loss destroys everything.

Mike Koenigs 07:39
I love it. That's a great place, and it's concise. And the way I always frame this is Steve Jobs started Apple Computer, arguably at any given time, one of, if not the most valuable companies in the world. He's been passed for a long time, but Apple stands for something. But I have to if I asked you who the CEO is of the car you drive or own, or the jewelry you wear, or the cable company you have. Most people would say, I have no idea, and that's because the brand doesn't stand for anything, whether you like them or hate them. Elon Musk stands for something. Okay? He's the only guy talking about going to Mars and actually making it happen. So that leads us to the next which is, who's your market? Who do you want to be a hero to what we call your ICP, or ideal customer profile? So if you are going to summarize who is the profit boot camp for who's your perfect customer, and who do you want to attract and who do you want to push away?

Andrew Stotz 08:36
So there's three elements to my perfect customer. It must be mid size, yep, which means revenue, revenue above, okay, $10 million per year. They must be a family business, and they must be in pain and want to double profit.

Mike Koenigs 08:59
And if you are going to identify the core pains that they typically are experiencing. They might be what

Andrew Stotz 09:05
cash flow crunch being crushed by competitors, not having the cash to invest in research and development to build a lasting business, and the final one for family, is the risk of having no legacy for their kids.

Mike Koenigs 09:28
Awesome, that is clear as a bell, and it'd be amazing right now, what you'll see is we can take this data, drop it into an AI, like there are a couple of agents that I use, and build out an entire marketing plan and go deeper and also identify who your core competitors are and effectively synthesize or grab their benefits and make yours better.

Andrew Stotz 09:52
Let me speak to the audience for a moment. And you know, one of the things that I find having taught for 33 years. And asking questions about, what are your goals, and things like that, is that the majority of people never achieved their goals because they never clarified their goals, 100%

10:11
and so that is precisely why we do this. Yeah,

Andrew Stotz 10:13
in this process, what's helped, what it helps for all of us is, and you should be thinking about it for your own business, your own products, your own service, or you personally, what do you bring to the table? And I would add one last thing that I ask people, which is, what is the highest value you can bring to the situation?

Mike Koenigs 10:32
It is great because that's number three, which is the model, your brand promise, your offer, and how you make dollars and frameworks create freedom. So your brand promise is, when you work with me, you get blank. What is it? So

Andrew Stotz 10:47
I help mid size family businesses double profit in 12 months, guaranteed.

Mike Koenigs 10:53
Fantastic. It's a great brand promise, even if, if you could fill in the even if, even

Andrew Stotz 10:59
if they feel overloaded at work,

Mike Koenigs 11:06
fantastic. And then you make money. Obviously, you effectively say, and do you have a guarantee or risk reversal involved? Or you just say, risk you on illegal for it. So

Andrew Stotz 11:16
the risk reversal is simple. We work together for 12 months with sincerity, obviously, and if you do not double your profit at the end of the 12 months, I will refund 100% of the money that you've paid. The risk reversal. But I would say the promise is and the reason why I only work with mid size family businesses is because where I can add the most value is, let's say you're a mid sized family business, and you're making $5 million in profit, and you know you have a much higher potential. If we can double that profit, I've now helped you create an additional 5 million. What is that worth to you? But more importantly, if you're listed in the stock market, or you want to list in the stock market, or you just want to exit at some point, I've done excellent academic research that helps us classify companies by their level of profit margin, and I've been able to say that if you're at a low level profit margin, your Pe is going to be x, and if we can move it up to the next category, your Pe is going to be x plus, so therefore we can double profit, but potentially triple value.

Mike Koenigs 12:34
Fantastic. Well, that leads us to the fourth which is the message the transformation. So specifically, in your sales copy, you are effectively saying you must believe this in order to even talk to me, get past the barrier, the border. And this is what we believe together. It's a tribal calling. That's the mindset the market. You've defined who you want to be a hero to. The third is the model, what your promise is, what you get. You're clear about that, 12 months profit, outcome guarantee. The message is the transformation you're promising, which you've pretty much already covered and just again, yeah, go for it, please. When

Andrew Stotz 13:13
I was 16, I was battling addiction, and I tried to kill myself a couple times, luckily, very poorly, yeah, and good job, yes. And I went through three different rehabs, and I hit absolute bottom. And at the absolute bottom, it allowed me to rethink everything about myself. And through 12 step program, I was able to recover with the support of my family and friends. And at the age of 18, I basically had stopped drinking any alcohol or taking any drugs, and for more than 40 years, I've been on that journey of transformation, personally. Secondly, in my company, we did great, but we left ourselves vulnerable, and we were seriously hurt during COVID, and I had to transform my company's mindset from loss and scarcity to high value, high profit margin. And we were able to take our profit margin coming out of the COVID crisis from about 2% up to our last, let's say five months, it's been about 10% and that transformed everything, money in the bank, confidence, strength. And that's what I can deliver to those people in pain that are ready for that transformation.

Mike Koenigs 14:37
I love it. So as I like to say, the promise is always Well, ultimately, it comes down to the Holy Trinity. Get Paid, get laid, live forever. So every business, product or service is a combination of a better life, which is, invest in this. You'll make more money, or I'm going to increase your expert status, your authority, your attractiveness. Beauty is beauty products free. So. Example, or increased health and longevity. The combined number of those, of course, is a better life. The Holy Trinity is when you strike all three and the venue, the way to get to people is you got to entertain them first. First. You've got to have reach. You've got to have attention, getting skills you've got to collapse the Speed of Trust and get someone to the point of the conversion. So the typical mediums we're already on a podcast right now. So it could be social media, can be print, it can be speaking from stage or whatever. Aside from podcasts, what do you believe your market pays the most attention to? What media channels will they access that have the highest probability of you being able to get them into your sales funnel, have that sales conversation and bring them in, and collapse that Speed of Trust, do it quickly. So

Andrew Stotz 15:53
I think for all of us listening and viewing, this is probably the challenge, most, hardest one, for me, the marketing channels, but I'll explain what I'm doing right now, and then let me let and then we can take it from there. Basically, because I focused originally on Bangkok, and I'm known in Bangkok, I have 11 modules in the profit boot camp. And what I do is I do a series of lectures that are really workshops in Bangkok every two weeks, and they're called the in three hours series, and in three hours, I cover each of the modules. So there may be a module on sales, there may be a modules on leadership, and I'll cover that in three hours, but it's really actually only about two hours of content and then interactions in this community of people that are trying to improve themselves. That gives me three hours of face to face contact and always having I have a passport so they can get a stamp, they can come to the next one. They can build their knowledge, and also they build understanding of what I'm doing, and they build trust in my ability to deliver. And that is a very simple channel that I go out locally. So the next channel that I need to go out on, I'm not exactly sure. Is it YouTube? Is it LinkedIn? Is it podcasts, as I go global? I'm not exactly sure. So that's my answer to this one.

Mike Koenigs 17:13
Great. So here's what I would do if I were you, and that is, first of all, I get on as many podcasts as I can that you know your listeners are listening to. So you can do deep research with chat, GPT or any other platform and find out what other podcasts have a high listenership of your ideal audience. The next one is anyone you'd create channel marketing partner opportunities and what I'd look for, and this would be a little bit of searching. Typically, when we're doing it, we come up with at least 100 channel partner ideas. And what I'd look for is anyone who already has those people as clients. It could be CPAs, could be professional services and financial

Andrew Stotz 17:55
advisors, lawyers, many, many places that we've looked at that definitely is part of it, and part of what I've done is, when we bring the highest value that we can bring to a situation, we can charge the highest price, and when we charge the highest price, we then have revenue to share, to be used for the marketing and sales process. And I make that very clear in my marketing material, my material describing the thing is that I use people to help me reach you who are in pain.

Mike Koenigs 18:25
Yeah, and you may find, like, if you could identify, let's say, 10 financial advisors or people who would be perfect guests on this show, that would be a great outreach. It's sort of like, Hey, I found you. You look like a respected authority. I'd love to talk to you on my podcast, and then, you know, either be afterwards, there's goodwill is developed, and it'd be like, Hey, I've got an opportunity to help make you some money, increase the value of the quality of the relationship you already have with your clients and customers. I will help them increase their revenue, which helps you. So this is a beautiful collaboration you could create, yep, and building materials that elevate both of you is what you want to do again. Your promise to them is more money, elevated status and authority. You're going to be more attractive to your body and attract even more clients and customers. And, oh, by the way, you can buy a lot more health and vitality and longevity with that extra money we generate. And we're gonna have fun. Yep,

Andrew Stotz 19:22
and so for the listeners and the viewers out there, we've gone through mindset, market, model, message. Now we're talking about media. And I just want to mention that, you know, some of the listeners and viewers don't have podcasts, and they are great ways to reach out totally one of the things that I love about my worst investment ever is that it's an odd request to get in your inbox. It's not a common thing. Hey, why don't you come on my podcast and talk about how great you are? Yeah, and so, but for the listeners out there, I would really, you know, recommend that you think about, if you say I don't know how to outreach and stuff. Podcast is a great way. You got to come up with your your method. Now I am thinking. About, and I've been working on a YouTube channel with the profit boot camp videos and story and ideas. And then after that, what I want to do is marry it with podcasts. And the idea being I will give lessons every week how to double your profit, and then I'll share different ideas, and I'll share all the information that I'm doing in there. And then I'll bring in two things. I'll bring in people who are doubling their profit, and, you know, case studies that I have. And the second thing I'll do is I also, because I'm a big part of my work, is to look at listed companies in the stock market, identifying companies across the world that are going through a transformation in their profitability, and asking their CEOs and their owners to come on the podcast and discuss, how did you do it? And so those are some of the ideas on this. So let's continue on. What is the number

Mike Koenigs 20:49
six are multipliers. So over the course of my career, which now is, believe it or not, 40 years, I have built an enormous library of strategies to get the attention of right fit customers. So I'm going to tell you about a couple of them. Some of them are what we call shake the trees campaign. So if you've ever had clients or customers, you've always got some people who didn't buy. The best thing to get in front of someone is something new. If you've got existing customers, you want to sell them. That's better, faster, cheaper, or another thing that you could do, for example, I have this technique. It's called the $1,000 cup of coffee. Now, the way I get people into my sales funnel, which is very replicable, is whatever the outreach is, they can I sell a little program. It's called the superpower toolkit, and what it does is it's a $37 report that is actually the summary and a detailed combination of some of my best books and techniques. And it's just a low cost info product, okay? And from there, it upsells that audience into a low ticket program, which is actually my framework that we charge $180,000 for. But it's a do it yourself product. So if you had to do it yourself, self paced program, and some people are like, No, I just want it. I want to do it. Have you do it for me? Yep. So that's how we stair step. But in between, I have something called the $1,000 cup of coffee. It's a skin in the game strategy. So when I'm talking to high value executives, they're like, I don't I just met you. I'm not going to stroke a check for six figures, but I'd like to find out what you have to offer. So my guarantee is you're going to get 10 times your investment value back in 10 minutes, because we do such deep research on you. So we use a couple of AI tools to do deep research, and in 30 minutes, I can promise I will help visualize a better version of your future self and show you how to make it true. I believe you could model that exact funnel for you, because you've got the system, you've got the process, it's a year long. It's a big investment. But what if there was an easier way to take a little bite first, so as soon as you've got your three hour workshop nailed and recorded, that could be turned into a special report, and with the help of AI, we actually build those in a day, you know, a complete marketing plan based on someone's vision and their knowledge. So those are just a couple of the multipliers. Like I said, I've got a library of 50, and some of them I talk about this is the shameless plug that will give away my book your next act for but that's at least the framework, and I have found over time, anytime I ever get stuck trying to solve any business problem like yours, you'd be the kind of guy we could workshop and build your entire marketing campaign and your process probably in one to three days. Yeah, and that is because there's always something to get back to. Yeah, there's many more.

Andrew Stotz 23:58
What I do like is that, you know, I have a lot of content, and I'm constantly improving that content, developing it, and therefore repurposing that into a research, you know, a report, a book, this, that is always something that's, you know, valuable so for the listeners and the viewers out there, you know, I think this is a great masterclass in, you know, how do you build a business, and what's your proposition, and what's your who's your target client, and what are you offering? And I think this was a great exercise. So Mike, I want to thank you for walking me through that. And I, I think we're going to have some great discussions after this call, how I can learn. So I want to put a link in show notes, you know, of what you guys do and all that on, you know. So just for the listeners out there, I'll have a link in the show notes that you can click on to go get in touch with Mike, get his resources, go through some of the stuff that he's talking about. Is there anything you want to any. Least you want to send people for that right now.

Mike Koenigs 25:01
Yeah, it's just my name, Mike koenigs.com, M, i, k, e, K, o, e, n, I G, s.com, actually, I'll use a shortcut link. It's paid for life.com/free. Okay, and that's a copy of your next stack book. And if you want to use AI to help do this, because there's AI tools that'll help you write books, create content and leverage it's at ai accelerator.com/free, fantastic. You'll at least get to witness some of these tools and resources for yourself. So thank you for that. I appreciate you giving me the plug.

Andrew Stotz 25:33
Yeah, no. And I appreciate you taking the time. And I love your energy and your expertise. Now it's time to share your worst investment ever, and since no one goes over their worst investment, thinking it will be, tell us a bit about the circumstance of leading up to and then tell us your

Mike Koenigs 25:47
story. All right, so I'm going to let you choose from one of three, or we can rapid fire through three. So one of them was a really powerful coffee brand. Interestingly, that was world famous. I know the founder and owner really, really well, and a combination of bad circumstances failed, but it was over a period of 10 years. Okay, so the second is a solar company that also I put a substantial investment in, and I know the founder really well, but the combination of pivots, bureaucracy, state law changes have caused it to stall, also, over 10 years now and then the third is a SAS roll up. It looked like an easy Sure thing that had two previous exits, and there were founder fights that have left it in shambles. Also, I can't take the loss because it isn't dead yet, but it also looked like it's a Ponzi scheme. So which one do you want to dig into? I thought I'd give it a choice. I'm

Andrew Stotz 26:49
going to AX the solar one because I just think that's, you know, the government and all kinds of other stuff that can be a mess. So that's that one. And I kind of like the coffee one because of my own coffee connection, but the SaaS one sounds interesting, too. So I don't know you pick the one of the two

Mike Koenigs 27:03
great well, we'll do the SaaS and the coffee one. Just look it was. Bottom line is, founder had everything going for him. Great personal brand, everything stacked. But combination of COVID started sizzling things, but also infighting with management and other shareholders, and never get kicked out of your own business. But we'll hit the SaaS. Here's the setup. Found out about this from a client who I'd spent time with. I got to know like and trust him, and he introduced me to this deal, and I actually helped him with his own pitch package, which sold deals like this. So it looked great, and I put in a substantial amount of money, and then I doubled down, because it got even better. And the basic premise was, it's a pool. The would go out and find SaaS companies that already had clients and customers, momentum and technology had a bit of a moat. They had to meet certain criteria, and because they had a package of them, round six, this helped eliminate, or at least lower, the probability of something failing, and the chance of potentially a unicorn, because they had had so much experience and so many successes, you know, multiple, I mean, as much as a 10x payout to investors in three years in multiple cases. So looked like a sure thing. Unfortunately, what happened? Big infighting. Both founders start going at it. One of them locked the other one out. Everything stops,

Andrew Stotz 28:30
and this is the shareholding of the founders at the time that that conflict was going on,

Mike Koenigs 28:34
enough that we as investors did not have 50% say in this so,

Andrew Stotz 28:43
so they had a majority, and were they equal? Or were they not? Yes, they

Mike Koenigs 28:47
were equal, which made it even worse, which is another thing you always got to make sure that it isn't equal. In fact, it's best that there's a third party. They tried to negotiate. They got legal. They start emptying the coffers, one of them, the remain Remainer, remaining founder who locked out the other founder, shut him down out of everything, someone who was doing the books became a whistleblower and said, there are shenanigans going on. I have proof that this guy is siphoning off money, building a house, going on super big trips, private jets everywhere, flights to Dubai. It got uglier and uglier and uglier, and the shareholders filed lawsuits. Got the SEC involved. I mean, it went downstream.

Andrew Stotz 29:32
Was it listed, or was it in process of listing? Or what? Yeah, not

Mike Koenigs 29:37
listed in the process. So, no, it's FTC, sorry, not sec, rather, yes, thank you for the correction. Bottom line is, so what if you file a lawsuit? You know how long it takes for everything to get out there, and how little of time your money lasts? So years have gone by. Now it's still locked up. We're getting no financial reports. This Excuses, excuses, and this guy's turned out to basically be a gigantic scumbag. And I trusted my the guy who initiated this deal. I love him. He's a great guy. He's got a long history of successful investing. But all of us, all of us got suckered in to the quick and easy money, and in this case, multiple successes. I mean, there was no indication other than I kind of felt like, Yeah, this guy kind of feels a little bit something, but I didn't listen to my instincts. So

Andrew Stotz 30:37
let's review the lessons that you learned. Yeah?

Mike Koenigs 30:41
So one of them, here's a big one that all three of them face time kills deals, okay? So if, if, anytime you know some, I've never been in a deal that didn't take twice as long as the projections, okay, over that period of time, laws, regulations, bureaucracies, change, partners don't get along. So I'd say that's the big one. And character does not equal charisma. Character is bigger than charisma, so crooked founders will gut you faster than any market downturn. And I'd say the other big lesson I've learned is if I would take all the investments I've ever made, which have been a lot in angels and startup deals, statistically speaking, they don't work out. I would have been better off when I started investing 20 years ago, to put all that money into index funds and let it compound. I don't do any angel deals, any startups anymore. I invest in property. I do have crypto and in my own personal brand, because that's the greatest multiplier you can ever make, is your own business, and then take a chunk of that aside and stuff it in index funds, ETFs, and continue building that brand, because that's what gets you past the velvet rope.

Andrew Stotz 31:59
Okay, so my and my takeaway too, as I'm listening to that, is the only way to invest as an angel investor is to invest in 10 startups. Yeah, and if you are not prepared with the money and the time to do that, don't do it, because most of them will crash and burn. And if you have the money and the time to do it, and you build a network of other people that are investing, and you get into these things, and you've got 10 or 20 of these, that's a different world for all those people out there that thinking, I want to invest in a startup. This is mistake number six of my six most common mistakes is investing in a startup, because you will lose everything, and you will have a dream that you won't but in almost all cases, and even if you survive. And here's an interesting statistic, Mike. I talk about it to my in one of my classes, I basically go through the number of businesses in America, which is a huge number of businesses, millions and millions of businesses. And then I say, but most of them are one man show or less than 10 employees, and then most of them have a small amount of revenue, and most of them have this and once I go through that, I end up with about 10,000 businesses that matter in America. And what I also say is the goal of your business, ultimately, should be that you're paying dividends in the future. And out of those 10,000 maybe it's 6000 or 5000 that are paying consistent dividends. So when everybody says there's, you know, 50 million businesses in America, sorry, there's only about 5000 that are successful and paying consistent dividends to their owners. And that is shocking, and it's something that we have to keep in mind, you know, out there. So anyways, is there? Let me ask you, based on what you learn from this and what you've continued to learn, what advice would you give for the listeners who are facing the same exciting opportunity. What is one action that you'd recommend they take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Mike Koenigs 34:07
Yeah, so I've invested in, at this point, dozens of deals, and the key thing is, unless you're a full time VC with deal flow, customer channels or an exit mapped, keep your money in things you can control. All right, if a founder can't show and this is what I these. These are my criteria. If I were to invest in more businesses a they already have to have customers, or they have to have relationship with someone who's got a channel two customers, and one of the investors ha already has them. They're basically saying, I want to multiply my wealth by giving you a bunch of customers. So it's a shortcut. It's and then the other one is they need to know who the buyer is, and they'll be like, we'll figure it out. And be like, Nah, you got to have a relationship with a buyer, and you've got to show them you've got to activate their greed glands by showing them that if they don't buy now the price key. On getting higher and higher when you're

Andrew Stotz 35:01
saying the buyer, the buyer of their business, of the business. In other words,

Mike Koenigs 35:05
if you're a shareholder, your best exit is for a big company to come and buy what they believe is money at a discount. Yep. And that is, and that usually is, a private equity firm before it becomes a publicly traded company. You know the PE firm is going to sell to them. So you got to, I just wouldn't deal with anyone who's not a sophisticated business builder, because the chances are, like one in 100 not one in 10 and and life goes by fast. No, yeah, it's like one day you wake up and, damn, I just turned 59 so exactly, I was 27 not too many days ago, exactly. So what's a resource that you'd recommend for our listeners? Okay, so we covered you know this is definitely pour into as many podcasts and resources as you can to learn how to build a personal brand that'll elevate everything you touch for the rest of your life. So one of the good things, if I had a good investment strategy, I get into deals now, because I can go in and someone wants to also give me shares or options, because I have a substantial reach and following, and I have a capability to multiply the value of the businesses I get involved in, and so that means I can get twice as much for half the price. And anyone can do that and this. So, you know, part of my whole life has been building brands, and the shameless plug is my book. Your next act is a great tool to do that. The second one is, I believe that every business in the world right now that doesn't do physical stuff with a gigantic moat around it has 18 to 36 months to start using AI effectively. And if they're not doing that, you know, IP doesn't mean anything anymore. The only thing that matters is, what is the speed of innovation and iteration collapsing, the Speed of Trust, which is accessing customers who buy from you over and over and over again, and then reaching an exit and and so immerse yourself in AI, and I want to keep this on a positive note, but you've been warned, there is no moat that AI can't burn through quickly, especially in the future. It is literally a time machine, yeah, so dive in and learn it now. All

Andrew Stotz 37:29
right, last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months? Oof,

Mike Koenigs 37:33
so I am here right now living my wife and I have been living in Baja, California, Mexico, which is an hour north of Cabo for five months, where our normal home is in San Diego. We've also been building a home in Malaga, Spain. So our goal and we're also becoming EU citizens. So the whole idea of being international citizens, I believe entrepreneurship is an international language of peace and prosperity. It's continue our beautiful life of multiple locations and working with more entrepreneurs worldwide. I've been mostly north america centric, but I just love speaking and educating and training. So it's more of the same, but in more places.

Andrew Stotz 38:19
Great. I was just listening to Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams. McAdams talking about peace and prosperity on the Ron Paul Liberty report.

Mike Koenigs 38:27
It is, yes, I'm in very close alignment with the mindsets. And if I were a voting card carrying anything, it would be libertarian. Yep.

Andrew Stotz 38:37
So listeners, there you have it. Another story of loss to keep you winning. Remember, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives, and AI is getting me there fast. Right now, as we conclude, Mike, I want to thank you again for joining our mission. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience? Go

Mike Koenigs 39:03
out there, build your personal brand. You will get access to better deals faster at a discounted price. That is the best advice I can give someone. And that's

Andrew Stotz 39:13
a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our Well, fellow risk takers, let's celebrate that. Today, we added one more person to our mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast host, Andrew Stotz saying, I'll see you on the upside. You.