Ep629: Will Basta – Step Outside of the Rat Race Box

Andrew Stotz 00:02
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 that mission has led me to create the become a better investor community where you get access to tools you need to create, grow and protect your wealth. Go to my worst investment ever.com right now to clean your spot. Fellow risk takers this is your worst podcast hosts Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guest Will Basta. Will, are you ready to join the mission?

Will Basta 00:44
I am happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Andrew Stotz 00:47
I'm excited to learn more about you. I want to introduce you to the audience. Will Bastan is the co founder of Ascend Ecomm, an e-commerce automation agency and investment management company, the only company in the industry capable of combining logistics, wholesale distribution, and E-commerce growth all into one. With two years in the business. He's made Ascend Ecomm a company comprising of 500 plus clients, two warehouses in Dallas, 100's of employees, and millions of monthly revenues. Will, take a minute and tell us about the unique value that you bring into this wonderful world.

Will Basta 01:28
Yeah, so again, thanks for having me here. You know, I like to just draw it back to the region of starting the organization that I currently run and Cologne, you know and co founded it. You know, this is an industry that is obviously booming, we see Amazon everywhere we see people buying online impulsively. Now, it's just part of what society is turning into, which is more of a digital society. And companies, we weren't the person, the first company to invent this model. But it is an industry full of ineffective providers that are lacking ethics and lacking true execution. Right. And so my business partner and I are able to diagnose that issue, see a model that had a lot of potential and that was broken, and then revamp it, and really legitimize the industry and flip the script and really bring ethics from the top real infrastructure, and a sustainable approach to investing in E commerce, unlike anyone else has before. And so that's the value we bring to our clients, and we plan on bringing them value throughout the long term partnerships we have with them over these, these next few years and beyond.

Andrew Stotz 02:40
It's interesting, because when you look at capitalism, when a new idea comes along, greed drives everybody into that idea. And they swarm into that idea. And, and then and then all kinds of bad actors come in. And when I was young, they use my mom use the term Caveat emptor, as in Buyer beware. And we, you know, you relied on trying to protect your own interests and all that. And then what happens is that eventually, all of those players get washed out, there's a wash out, and then only the strong survive. And I think that every industry goes through that to some extent, I think we're seeing the crypto industry going through that pretty massively, but the whole, you know, industry of E commerce and all that, particularly in relation to Amazon, and on all the people that can use those tools that Amazon's providing, seems like there's a wash out that's happened over the years. And you know, what I like about what you've said, is it you know, you've built your you're building a reputation, a reputation based on solid business and solid business

Will Basta 03:50
ethics. Yeah, it's very,

Andrew Stotz 03:53
it's amazing, because I taught I teach a course in ethics. And I tell students that you can build a competitive advantage just in ethics. In fact, you'll be a very rare person.

Will Basta 04:03
Apps. Absolutely. I mean, we that's, that's the one thing we brought to the business when we first started, that didn't involve any capital he'd already made. Yeah, we came in. And we came in with, you know, ethical leadership, from everything from how we build our business model to how we teach our ERG treat our employees as a trickle down effect to how they treat our current clients in our, in our investors, to how we face problems, because we're not a perfect company, where there's issues we face them out with integrity, and honesty, and we, you know, we figure it out, we handle those problems. We don't run away from those buyers. And that's something that historically has not been done in our industry, which you call the automation industry where people invest in companies build them ecommerce businesses, and he was really as I'm not saying every company out there is, is bad, but there's just a sea of that. And so we've been able to grow at such a pace that you know, there reason why we've shined and we became a leader. And I'd say pretty much the number one provider in the space at this point, in such a short period of time, I would attribute majority of that, to being ethically forward in our practices, which leads to organic growth, and leads to trust and leads to those hiccups that we have being, you know, clients can take them for what they are, and they understand that will persevere through them, right? Because they know that the people behind them, and their partner, you know, has their head on straight and has a moral compass. So very important.

Andrew Stotz 05:32
Yeah, I just love the idea of telling young people that you can build a competitive advantage in ethics, and you don't have a genius, you know, like you just act right. And it's great. But maybe you could just describe like the typical, who is the typical customer of yours, like and what pain are they facing? What are they trying to accomplish that you help them do?

Will Basta 05:54
Absolutely. So our clients come from all different backgrounds, right? We have school teachers, we have retirees, we have veterans, we have real estate, investors, financial, you know, people from Wall Street, all different professions, the commonality is, they're already financially comfortable. And they're looking to diversify into a new sector, new asset class outside of their traditional investing of stocks, and real estate, especially in a time right now, where things are volatile, in the country, and around the world, right. And they see that Amazon is everywhere, it's a, it's a, you know, a $5 trillion industry that people want to tap into. And they don't have time. And they want to find a partner they can trust, and they want to drive passive income, and invest in something to make their money work for them. And why not an industry that even in this inflation that we're currently facing, and this economic downturn that we're currently in, why not invest in an industry that actually is growing between five and 8%, this q4 over last year's q4, even with the current state, so it's sustainable in that mine. And essentially, yeah, people who just want to build passive income streams, or they want someone to do it for them, we do it for on behalf of our clients, leveraging our infrastructure, and we accelerate them into this ecosystem, doing something that they couldn't do on their own, because they don't have the warehouse, they don't have the team or the experience, or the time, frankly, so they pay a premium, they partner up with someone like us, provider like us, and we do everything for them. And then we make that business profitable and share and part of the profits. So we're incentivized in that state. So essentially, to sum that up, it's people with all different backgrounds, but they want to earn passive income. They're already financial account financially comfortable, they're looking to get into E commerce and don't know where to start. And they just essentially want to invest in a new asset class.

Andrew Stotz 07:49
So does that mean that when there's people that are providing capital to you, and then you're deploying that capital by helping these e commerce businesses, and then the providers of the capitals are getting the return from that? Is that what that means? Or maybe

Will Basta 08:04
yeah, so they own the business outright. So essentially, you can come you have zero Amazon experience, you come to us, you pay an infrastructure fee, right? Yep, X amount of money, one time fee, we then open up an Amazon account for you, with you under your name. And then we have a set team that's designated to your account, that sources the products with your capital outside of that initial upfront, so you'll need working capital outside of that. So credit lines, etc, sources, profitable products, sends them to our warehouse, we prepare them, send them directly to customers, or to Amazon's warehouse to be a prime product. And we handle the management of the store online strategical growth initiatives, everything that's associated with managing the digital business, and Amazon's paying them out based on their bank account. And then we track the net margins of that, right, and then we invoice the client based on what they've made that month in true net profit.

Andrew Stotz 08:57
And how would a person normally do that? Like, they'd say, Oh, I'm going to do that on my own. I'm gonna sign up, I'm gonna figure out the products. I'm gonna get all this stuff. Is that how someone would normally do it? Or

Will Basta 09:07
yeah, I mean, I've even if you want to rewind, you know, seven, eight years ago, I bought a course on Amazon at one point, you know, even longer than that. I wanted to learn how the system works, right? And so anyone can open up an Amazon seller account to be competitive, the whole different story, right? And so you have to look at data, everything's data driven, we have a unique way of approaching it. There's plenty of software's out there where people can learn how to do it via Youtube to some extent, but there is a ceiling for all of that because you literally have to use multiple software's, but not only that, to be competitive. Now, in order to get a product to a client and get into Amazon's warehouse, you need to actually use a three PL Center, which is a third party warehousing system, which is not sustainable for this kind of model. If you want to have quicker returns and higher margins, or have it sent to your house First, and be doing this out of your garage. And no one wants to do that. And so our facility is the middleman in between a product getting sourced, and it getting to the customer and or getting to an Amazon Prime warehouse, right. And so if you're doing this on your own, you know, you're gonna have to be a lot more hands on. So it requires a lot more time. And you definitely have to hire someone, if you want to make this scalable, and actually make returns that are respectful. In terms of money.

Andrew Stotz 10:25
I was thinking about a friend of mine here in Thailand, who started a rice cracker business. And he's manufacturing these rice crackers in Thailand, packaging them, and then he's selling them only on Amazon, basically. And then eventually, he realized he needed to set up some sort of operation or some sort of warehousing in America, and his sales were going pretty well. And then all of a sudden, now he has a lot more complexity to it. And it sounds like that type of thing is the type of thing that you have, once

Will Basta 10:57
you get to the next level, there's always going to be more infrastructure that's needed, right? So you can be we have plenty of clients who come to us who have plateaued in what they can put into their business. And they need, they need a partner that's got everything that we have in order to take it to the next level. And then people will come in blindly with no business at all right? So it just varies, but he made a good point there. As things grow. And if you really want to not put a cap on your growth and your scalability, you need to have infrastructure. And that would come with that comes complexity, more just essentially more resources and everything you would need that we provide.

Andrew Stotz 11:32
And for somebody that says, I think I need this service, where's the best way for them to find out more about you guys?

Will Basta 11:38
Yeah, I mean, we're all over YouTube all over Instagram, YouTube, is it send me calm Instagrams, send underscore, e CLM, ASC and D, underscore acplm. And then a website's pretty resourceful. We have all the podcasts, we've done Forbes articles, in all publications, and then some infographics on our model and some videos about us. And that's WWW dot HSN, decom.com. And you can book a call with us there directly.

Andrew Stotz 12:01
Fantastic. Well, what a great introduction. And now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, then tell us your story.

Will Basta 12:15
Yeah, so I actually I come from a lower middle class family and upstate New York, I got two older sisters, both of which are extremely intelligent. And one of which went to Columbia. The other one went to Wayne, double masters, Ivy League, a lot of big shoes to fill, right. Great universities. Amazing. I, on the other hand, you know, not saying I don't have intelligence, but you follow the path of your elders a lot of times and what society pretty much puts in front of you. Generations have evolved immensely. Times have changed, things have become digital, it's never wise to look at what was going on in the 60s, through the 90s and apply that exactly to what makes sense in the mid 2000s. Right? You just never know. And it's all relative. So leading into this, you know, what's the next path after high school? You know, you go to university, you go to college? That's even if you don't know what you want to do, you don't have any I mean, no, I had thoughts of, I was pushing myself down the pre med direction. And I thought, Okay, well, I have to go to college, I have to do I have to I have to I can't be behind I have to do this. Okay, well, my mom's an English teacher. My sister's got full ride, I didn't, she required, she said she would take $20,000 out in a loan for me. And the rest would be me. Essentially, what you'd be me taking on my own loans. So I ended up going to university and spending well over $100,000 in student loans, and came out with a very general degree. And so leading into my worst investment ever, and this is not applicable to everyone. Because some people have specific things they want to go for. Some people generally want to go for certain things. And I just feel like I felt like I've rushed into university without taking a step back. And I put myself in serious debt. And I don't really see anything out of that university experience, specifically, academic wise, that has been at all applicable to where I am right now, in my entrepreneurial career. So I would say that is the worst six figure investment I've ever made.

Andrew Stotz 14:34
An hour Okay, so let's think about the lessons that you learn. How would you describe those?

Will Basta 14:39
I learned it's a big thing to learn that you need to not, you know, there are things that are laid out but what different generations have done that seem like it's the right way to do things. But things change all the time. So you need to be able to step outside of the box of the rat race of the path that is always laid out in society the system little pat that gets just laid brick by brick and you see all this stuff on TV and whatever. And you hear about all these things, and you and your parents say this and whatever, you need to be able to take a step back out of the situation and take a breather, and assess things and, and understand there's a lot of time. So I learned that there's a lot of time. And you don't need to rush into what's next immediately. Oh, he's right. If I had done this, again, I would have taken a full year in between me deciding University and be graduating high school, maybe I still would have gone. There's a good chance that one of though, too, you know, I you know, that's a big lesson for me. It's also knowing that like, the university isn't 100% necessary? Yeah, it is not. It was a huge thing. In different generations. My mother going to school, college, she's 75. Huge thing. huge accomplishment, way different era. Right. You know, but me going into college and getting a basic business communications degree. I mean, shit. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 16:05
So, maybe I'll share a few things that I took away, you know, yeah, you know, the first thing I wrote down is, you know, somehow we have to acquire knowledge, right? You know, like, we got to learn some basic stuff. And the amazing thing about the world today is that there's so many options for acquiring knowledge. The second thing I wrote down is government ruins everything. What do I mean by that, you know, government just pumped in money into the student loans and, and stood in into funding debt. And when they did that, to the tune of trillions of dollars, it just, what it does is, is it distorts the free market, and it causes a huge amount of demand for education. And the educational institutions now have this huge amount of demand hitting them over the last couple of decades. So they can increase price. And it's an endless supply of money being pumped into the industry. And this business, yep. And when government gets behind just about anything, they ruin it, eventually, and they ruin this one. And now the government is an you know, it, the government is the source of this awful problem. If it was free markets and universities having to compete and students having to figure out how to finance it, and not our blood. Yeah, it would be a whole different world. And I think that your that made me also think about, you know, the decision that you had to make was a very different decision than I had to make. When I was, you know, at that age, I went to Long Beach City College, I went to Laney College in Oakland, and I did college, my first couple of years there, you know, was 50 bucks per credit hour or whatever that was. And then even when I went to Cal State Long Beach, you know, I you know, it wasn't that expensive, maybe $100 per credit hour or whatever. So when I asked my parents in my final years, I said to my parents, like, if I could, if I could get you guys to finance me and pay my monthly expenses, I could complete university in half the time. And they agreed to do it have after already me support ourselves for a while. And so my parents gave me about 500 bucks a month at that time. And I live right and down from the university, I had a student loan, so I was able to pay. And I just took the bus back and forth to university and I knocked it out, you know, much faster. And I left university with some debt. You know, I had been kind of been ambling around with different universities over time. So I took me a while to get my education. But you know, I had $20,000 in student loan debt, which was for the university and for also, you know, my living expenses for probably five years. I could manage that. But now $100,000 In freakin debt.

Will Basta 19:02
I mean, I will say I didn't go to a state school, I didn't decide on doing that. Right. I said, if I'm going to university, I can't I'll be depressed if I stay local. So I made the executive decision myself to say, Hey, I'm going to take on this debt. I'm also an 18 year old isn't what the hell he's doing. But I'm going to take on this debt for the experience, right, and I'll find my way out of it. Fortunately, I've become successful to the point where that debt is irrelevant now at this point. But you know what I mean, it's just one of those things that is just, and I am a firm believer in education in general. My mom was a teacher, my other sister is a teacher. It's a very important thing. It's the foundation of the youth and how this country goes in different directions. His foundation is education, and making sure it's funded properly. And we have great teachers and all that. But university education is the difference became a business that I just think has been. We've been cornered into it. Regardless of if you know you're doing and it's been a rushed process directly after, I just think there should be a year in between a gap year is very important, after high school to sort of assess where you're at, and what direction you feel like going. And then you can make an educated decision about, you know, and the way I look at it is, hey, for those out there that are doing that, and might be on the fence, you know, a proposition to your parents who believe that you have to go to college, okay, let's say it's, let's say college is 80 grand over four years, you can propose, well, hey, if I can make that amount of money by working it less and less time, when that make a little sense, for me to like, at least give it a shot. Because we all know now the way that companies are looking at, they're looking at experience, and that's the most important thing, you know, a lot, there's I don't have the data here, but there is for sure reduction, and having that bachelor's degree as a requirement for entry level positions, way less than it used to be way less. So

Andrew Stotz 20:58
I also wrote down game changer because I was thinking about your mother. And you know How significant was I know, my family, my father's side of my family came from Germany in 1839 to America, without any edge of formal education. And that was my great, great grandfather. And my great grandfather started an architectural firm in Pittsburgh without having any formal education. But he was able to make money from that enough that he could get his son who was my grandfather, up to a master's degree in architecture. And then my grandfather's son, my father got a PhD as well as his sister got a PhD. So you know, in those days, it was a big game changer for families to build. And nowadays, it's just such a causing, taking the free market out of Education has just destroyed this game changer component of it, I would argue, so,

Will Basta 21:56
yeah, it's either gonna it's either going to be free, or you take it or it's one of the I mean, like, we just we have this kind of thing of trying to be a capitalist society, mixed with trying to have ethics to some extent. Sometimes those don't really go together. And it becomes just like a wishy washy situation and an implodes interface. I think that we have right now

Andrew Stotz 22:17
the big implosion happens when government intentions which are always good, yeah. Aligned with government outcomes from government programs, and totally, almost always bad AI based upon what you learn from this story and what you continue to learn what what action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Will Basta 22:38
Hey, I think I actually said it a couple of times already. Take your time. Take your time. Yeah, life goes by fast things go by fast. But be aware of the rollercoaster that life is and be cognizant, taking a step back in different benchmarks and chapters in your life. And one of the chapters I think is important, is, you know, everyone's pushing college applications, your senior year of high school, but if you're in that kind of period of time, yeah, maybe do some apps, but take a step back. And that would be taking a year after high school. That's just one year, and it can make a massive, it could redirect your life. You know what I mean?

Andrew Stotz 23:19
So I have traveled the country traveled the world, try some

Will Basta 23:21
other world. Hey, traveling, I've been in over 50 countries I traveling is my thing might not be everyone's thing. But I've learned more traveling, that I apply to my business interactions than anything I learned in four years that Arizona State University.

Andrew Stotz 23:37
Yep. So what's a resource that you'd recommend for our listeners?

Will Basta 23:42
Ah, I think that's applicable to this or just in general. I mean, I think, you know, a resource, a resource overall. I can talk about a book that I am rereading right now, which I think is awesome. It's one of the most impactful books by Aubrey Marcus, on the day on your life. That book touches on pretty much everything from you know, waking up in the morning to food to professional life, to sex to partnerships, two, you name it, and as snippets of all that, and I think it's applicable to reread and reopen that all the time, and I read that book at a very important part of my life, which led me to where I am today. So I attribute a lot to that book and, and how it's really, you know, positioned me so I recommend that

Andrew Stotz 24:31
you're the first one to mention that. And I'm just looking at I haven't seen that. So own your day. Just looking for it right now.

Will Basta 24:39
On the day on your life by Aubrey Marcus on the day. You've got a podcast that's pretty extensive now. But that was his first book he came out with it's really well written. And he started a nutrition company of which he sold to Unilever, I think this past year, but he's a good guy there. I met him in person, but in terms of his opinions, doesn't push agendas, which I think is very, very important for people out there that have presidents to not to state facts and explain how they do things, but not not push an agenda on anyone who doesn't know, right. And that's how he approaches both that book in his pockets and how he does things. So I respect that. Great, great

Andrew Stotz 25:23
recommendation. All right. Last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Will Basta 25:28
Number one goal for the next 12 months, is to keep bringing value to our clients, we were on a speed train right now we have 500 clients that we want to take care of. So that's the only thing I'm thinking about, is making sure that they see that not only they see value, but value comes out of their investment with us. And in the next 12 months, we're going global. So we'll be going into the Canadian, the UK market at some point in the next 12 months. So those started go hand in hand. But yeah,

Andrew Stotz 25:59
fantastic, fantastic. Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't yet joined the become a better investor community just go to my worst investment ever.com right now to claim your spot. As we conclude, we'll I want to thank you again for joining our mission and on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status and it didn't even cost you 100,000 for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Will Basta 26:29
Ah, stay positive. Stay on the path. Understand that being present is extremely important as much as you can. That's

Andrew Stotz 26:41
great advice. And that's 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 hose Andrew Stotz saying I'll see you on the upside.