This guy makes two million dollars a month with a business idea many overlook. Sour candy. And I am someone who loves sour candy and hates a lot of things about the sour candy industry. I feel like I'm someone who had a lot of self-doubt. I had like a 2.5 GPA in high school.
You know, my whole life has been a whole bunch of side hustles. I still run this business and make YouTube videos and work on the clothing company. My best advice. to go all in your side hustle is to have kind of a strategy around the risk.
You say yes, and you figure out how to do it after. In today's episode, we are revealing what it takes to turn simple ideas into tens of millions of dollars. I never thought that I would have a life that was anything beyond normal.
This is the first time I've ever said this, but the American dream is real. If you have an idea, you don't need to have everything planned out. You just need to start.
Max, we're standing in front of what to me looks like a beacon of hope in the neighborhood. It is so bright, but it's a gorgeous home. Thank you. Before we talk about what your wealth has bought you, the toys and everything, tell our audience who you are and what do you do today?
My name is Max Tuning. I am a YouTuber, entrepreneur, dog dad. That's the most important one. And what kind of business do you run today? I run a...
Sour candy company actually that's the biggest focus do a lot of YouTube a lot in the entrepreneurial space but the new business that we've been running for about four years sour strips who was max as a young kid and how did you get into the business that we're gonna talk about today I was actually surprisingly more annoying back as a child I was a class clown. I was always trying to make people laugh. I was always getting in trouble.
I was always getting kicked out of class for running my mouth. So I think I lived very, you know, traditional life, grew up, went to college, graduated, got a full-time job. And then the entrepreneurial journey started.
Hey Paul, why don't we go check out the house? Let's do it. Man, gorgeous place.
Thank you. What was your childhood like, dude? Like what was the most impactful moment you think that that contributed to just you being an entrepreneur, a hustler, doing all the right things?
You know, I grew up in like the literal woods. I grew up in a place called Roanoke, Virginia, which is, I call it the boonies. I don't know if that's a real word, but it's like the, in the middle of the mountains on a whole bunch of acres. And Roanoke, Virginia, very small town.
Most of my childhood was spent outside, running in the woods with my dogs, my brother. You know, spent a lot of time with my family. And the thing that impacted me growing up from things that I took as a child is I was always, I was a candy fanatic.
If you were to ask a lot of my parents, my family, what I was like as a kid, did eat a lot of candy, they'd be like, yes. So it just makes sense that it kind of transcended into what we're doing now. Oh my God. I love sour candy. More than anyone on this entire planet.
It looks like dude needs a little bit of sugar boost. So why don't you take us to your current warehouse? That's where the sugar meets the road, right? Yeah.
I'm a big sugar fan. all the stock that you have, and maybe we'll just dive into trying some candy. So I'll follow you out.
So we're at your current warehouse. Yes. Why don't you give us a quick tour before we get in, tell us quickly a little bit about it. How many square feet, how long you've been here and so on. Yep, this is 15,000 square feet, 13,000 of warehouse, 2,000 of office.
We've only been here for a year and a half and I thought this was going to be the end all warehouse. We never outgrow this ever in a million years and we're expanding into something like three times bigger. like right now. So we're in the middle of a transitional period, but let me show you this bad boy. And then we'll show you the big bad boy later on.
So many bad boys. Freeze. Hey man. Dudes everywhere! He goes where we go.
He does. Yeah, so we have our lobby. We have a custom mural hand painted on there.
It's not even a sticker. No way. I thought it was a sticker. Which is unfortunate because now I've spent all this money and then we go to the new warehouse.
I thought I was cutting the wall out. You could do that. Yeah, and then...
Any suggestions on how to save this bad boy, comment below. The main meat and potatoes of this is right through those doors out there. Let's go check it out.
Come on, dude. Well, actually, dude's gonna stay back, right? Yeah, dude will stay back here. Sanitation and stuff. We've got food in there, so sorry, dude.
So, how many total boxes of candies do you have in this warehouse so far? At any given time we will have over a million units worth of candy in this warehouse. What is the retail value of that, Max?
What do you think? Retail value? Like four million dollars. Four million bucks? About three to four million dollars.
And that number is going to grow because you're going to expand to that, what, 60 plus thousand square feet warehouse. Yes. Is the idea is to have even more inventory, right?
You look at it as a lot of candy sitting in the background. I look at it as a lot of money sitting in the background. Every pallet is x amount of dollars, so five ...hunting that sweet spot, which is you're not gonna know that right out of the gate, so don't think you will.
There's gonna be times where you have to expedite shipping and it's costing you a bunch because you didn't store enough and a bunch of like POs came through and there's been times where, oh I shouldn't order this much and you know we have a lot of different flavors, so managing all of that is definitely a tricky situation, but we're learning. Did you have any side hustles before Sour Strips? You know, my whole life has been a whole bunch of side hustles. You know, I left...
Tell us about that. I left my corporate job in 2016 to work or to go all in on my side hustle, which was social media and my clothing company. company. What's up Dave Eating Family number 15! What's up guys, finally shirts are in!
Orders are done. Perfectly fine, my room is a complete wreck. Look at this.
This is what happens when you run a shop and ship out hundreds of shirts. You know, three years later in 2019, I started Sour Strips and now I've been trying to balance you know, running the clothing company, running myself as a brand, not only for my own YouTube audience but all the brands that I represent that I'm... been working with for a long time and starting this new company so it's really finding the perfect balance of giving enough time to each one and now sour strips has become the most financially successful venture that I've ever done by a dramatic amount so you know I still run this business and make YouTube videos and work on the clothing company so I don't really know what's the side hustle and what's the main hustle yeah that's cool dude So we're gonna go and take a look at your new space, which is over 60,000 square feet.
Quite the leap. Yeah. I mean, you're tripling it, almost quadrupling it.
So let's go check it out. Let's do it. All right.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you the new Sour Strips Headquarters. Dude, this place from the outside is just absolutely massive. I'm going to switch gears a little bit about your YouTube channel when you started 10 years ago plus. When did it start making serious money, quote unquote? How much were you making?
For the first two or three years, it really wasn't anything substantial. I was making a couple hundred dollars a month and then eventually maybe got up to like $2,000 a month. It wasn't really until the social media kind of boom happened where you could start working with a lot of brands and people are paying for sponsorships, collaborations.
So- But that's why it keeps me around because I started making for fun and then making money was a byproduct of just enjoying to make content. Well, let's fast forward to today. Are you willing to share your numbers for just the YouTube side of things?
What are you bringing in? Yes. I encompass everything into just like social media world. So that's brand deals, promotions, ad revenue, sponsorships, all that. Last year was a million dollars.
This year, pretty much about the same. That's awesome. So you guys can keep watching. Follow us. Wrong door.
Because this thing is massive, lights on, and what up! This is the newest expansion of our warehouse and distribution center. We are standing in a combined warehouse space of 56,000 square feet. This is just one half of them, by the way. Yeah, so we have two 28,000 warehouses divided by a wall with a bunch of doors that we can go back and forth between.
one's climate controlled one's non-climate controlled so it want to be for all the candy products and one will be for packaging supplies what do you do for marketing for a sour strips company what across you know facebook instagram anything that you want to touch so we are running ads on facebook and tick tock and instagram as well right we'll spend about a thousand dollars a day on ads at the moment to drive new customers to our online store but generally the bigger that we grow in retail the less people are going to keep coming back online because they now can just get in the store. So the online is really just for new customers. We don't spend any on influencer marketing, so we don't pay any influencers to promote our products. Oh my God. Oh my goodness.
Heck yeah. Wow. We just give it out for free at scale and that's kind of the spend that we do.
So it's product costs. And then we've recently started getting into a lot more presence at events. So we'll go set up a booth.
just give out candy. We don't even sell it there. We just give it out for free.
Any sort of events we can set up a booth, we're starting to do that more. If I had to estimate what we spend a month in marketing costs in terms of free product and running ads, probably say $50,000 to $100,000 a month in spend. Product costs mainly. Yeah. Probably half that's probably product costs because we give out a lot of product at scale.
So for somebody who has very little to no money, how hard is it to start a CPG company? Walk us through maybe the five, four, three practical steps that I could take today, you guys watching, to make it happen. Yeah, the first step is just, it's about solving a problem.
You're not necessarily, you don't need to realize invent the wheel. A lot of people can, you know, completely innovate in a space, but some people think that innovation means invention, right? Inventing a new, a new product, a new delivery mechanism, but you're just trying to solve pain points for people.
And that could be, you know, even the delivery mechanism, how it's packaged. The easiest way I look at starting any business is look at the products that you consume or like to enjoy. And what are one or two things you wish were different about them?
Could be a food product, could be. clothing. And it's just, you know, what do I wish was different? And I promise you, there's a lot of people out there that have that same mindset of you of love something, wish it was different. So you take something that kind of exists, put your spin on it of how of your improvement and put it out into the world.
So I think finding a problem and creating a solution for that is number one. And then from there, it's creating kind of like your, I want to say a business plan, but I am not a very business savvy guy in terms of I didn't sit down and sketch out the exact plan of here's what I'm going to do. And, you know, little lines and graphs going everywhere. It's just about starting.
So number two is like you just got to start. And then it's thinking of what does the brand represent, right? So what would you, as someone who is an avid lover, consumer of this space, this product, you know, what would you like from a brand?
What would you like the packaging to look like? What would you like it to feel like? What would you like the experience to be? because you need to be passionate about what you're doing or I don't think you're going to have longevity in it. And I am someone who loves sour candy and hates a lot of things about the sour candy industry.
So that's where I came in and was like, I think I can solve a lot of these pain points for people. And then you need to source manufacturing, which can be difficult. It took me six to nine months to source a manufacturer because in certain industries, there's a lot of big players in the game that control the space. I bet. And they probably aren't going to give you the time of day if someone wants to just try out a new business in the space.
So just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible to source manufacturers. And from there, the final step is putting it all together and just executing, you know, getting a good brand name, getting a good, you know, way you're going to execute into the market space. And then it's just close your eyes, roll the dice, just pray for the best. Yeah.
Yeah, and deal with the big boys, because all they want to do is squash you, probably, right? You know, yeah, but like... Space is big. I think if everyone that started a business that was so worried of these conglomerates, these giants are dominating the space, how can I make an impact?
Then no innovation would ever happen. And you really need, what you need to understand is that a lot of these big brands in the CPG space, for them, they love the entrepreneurial world, because what they're doing is people like myself are creating the... you know, new markets to see what do people want.
And so instead of the companies having to dump millions and millions and millions of dollars into research and development and, you know, whole new department in their business, they can be like, let the entrepreneur find problems in the industry, start a whole brand and see if it works. And they're essentially then, you know, potentially they could come in and maybe acquire them. But a lot of these brands want this innovation and they accept it with open arms, I think, because You know, people are looking at it through a different lens and seeing what's maybe some pain points because if people have been doing something for a hundred years one way, that doesn't mean that's the only way it can be done.
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It's just figuring out all the logistics of everything. You know, when I first started is how do you make a barcode? Where do barcodes come from?
You know, where do I find a manufacturer? How do I get in the stores? Who do I talk to?
What do I price it at? How much do I need to make it? What is a good margin? And I think it's just overcoming all of these, I don't know this and just diving in.
And it was all Google for you, all research on your own, no mentors. And here's the biggest tip, okay? Not everything is found on the first page of Google.
Sometimes you got to go to page two, but you never go past page two. Then it's just into the abyss of Google. Such a good point though, because I never go to page two.
They're like, if it's not on the first page, it doesn't exist. All right, Max, let's do Blitz. Guys, thanks for submitting.
Your questions, first one's from Ivan. When would you consider selling your business and what would be your next challenge as far as a business possibly? I am not interested in selling. What's with me?
At the moment, I'm not really interested in selling. I mean, the business is cashflow positive. I have such a passion for this business that I think that if anyone else took it on, it wouldn't go in the direction that I want it to.
So you're in it for the long haul? I'm in it for the long haul, but never say never. You know, someone comes, hey, here's a billion dollars.
Like, okay, good luck. Take your candies and run. This is from Tracy.
What are your best times of the year and how do you capitalize on seasons like Christmas or Easter? Great question. So our best holidays are actually Valentine's Day, Easter, and Christmas. At the moment, Halloween is not for us because we don't have smaller pack sizes, so people aren't going to want to give out. If you come to my house, you do, but people aren't going to want to give out, you know, three, four dollar bags of candy.
And that's just, you don't know what the best holidays are until they come around, but planning for them and learning from the previous years to increase your... Increase your inventory is key. This is from Black at Media. How did you manage to push through in the beginning of your business when things were small and it all seemed so daunting?
Take it day by day. You celebrate the small victories and you learn from the small losses and hopefully don't turn into large losses. And it's really just one foot in front of the other. Even to this day, I'm learning every single day.
Every new retailer that comes into our network of people we sell to, I'm learning how to... how to deal with them. So, you know, I don't think you have to know everything day one. I definitely did not.
And just wing it. Sounds good. What's your favorite? Actually, I'm gonna give you the biggest piece of advice. You say yes, and you figure out how to do it after.
What's your favorite flavor of sour strips? My favorite flavor is actually our least popular flavor. Tropical mango is so slept on.
I think it is the best, but our number one selling flavor, rainbow, because I think people are like, what does a rainbow taste like? And ours does taste exactly like a rainbow, so. Okay, awesome.
What is one thing many don't know about you online? Everything. Well, here's the thing.
I filmed literally everything for the past decade of my life. I think that the biggest thing that people probably don't know is that I'm actually, I feel like everyone says this, but I'm actually like an introvert. Okay. If I go to a party. where I only know the person I'm with.
If then they go in the bathroom, I'm against the wall kind of like on my phone. I don't do well like talking to random people that I've never met before at like a party or something. So I'm very much a homebody and an introvert.
Hard to believe you're really well on camera. All right, best part of being an entrepreneur? Freedom. I mean, the ability to do what I want, when I want.
But I think that's what it started with. And the biggest thing that I love being an entrepreneur now as the business has grown is giving opportunities to people and providing jobs. for so many individuals that now hopefully they continue to work for me and like the the longevity of you know they're buying car they're buying a house was because of you know an idea that I had it's cool to make an impact in other people's worlds. Cool.
What is the worst thing of being an entrepreneur? Cash flow! Yeah managing cash flow I mean it's just always being on I mean the the clock never stops with being entrepreneur and balancing that and learning how to live a normal life and you know spend time with your loved ones and still grow a business um is a is a challenging thing for sure last one what's one or two celebrities who absolutely need to try south strips today larry david slim shady there you go thanks for submitting your questions you mentioned losing your dad pretty early on how how many years ago now yeah 34. right so i was uh 15 at the time it was 2005. wow Tell us if you can be vulnerable a little bit about how that was for you as a young kid and how did that build character today? You know, it's a really kind of an interesting thought when I remember, you know, that point in my life because even at 15, I think I'm old enough to kind of process what's going on.
But when, you know, ALS, which is a Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS, you know, ice bucket challenge, you know, it's a disease that just rips a person apart. And from when he got diagnosed to when it took his life was a very short period of time, only a couple of years. And I didn't really process what was happening at the time.
I remember my mom came in to tell me that my dad had passed it. It really I don't know if I was in shock or it was just I just was like, OK, I understand. And it really didn't impact me until I got older and I started remembering the memories of my dad. And, you know, we were we were separated because my parents split up when I was early age. So the second half of my life.
After 10 years old, I was with my mom, so I wasn't with my dad as much. And then you start having regrets of, I wish I had spent more time when he was in the hospital and just being more traveling back to where he was. And it's one of those things that really impacts me a lot now as an adult because it just makes me realize how short and valuable life is and how the people that you see every day you take for granted. You know, you never know what's going to happen to them.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's something that definitely shaped me as a man, and it's something that every memory that I have with my dad is something that I want to make sure that I instill those same values into the children that I hopefully have one day. You quit your corporate job so that you can focus full-time on your side hustle and everything else you were doing back then.
When did you know it was the right time? Because a lot of viewers watching have side hustles, have a 9-to-5, and they're just not sure when to make that leap. Talk to us about it. You'll never know the right time.
And I was terrified every day when I was like, this is the day I'm going to call my boss because I was working remotely at the time. This is the day I'm going to call him and say I'm last day. And I was like, not today, not today, not today. My best advice to go all in your side hustle is to have kind of a strategy around the risk. So I tracked my finances for, I mean, throughout my entire journey.
But I said, I'm going to track my finances for a year of my side hustle. And if for 12 months I can make a pretty average consistent amount of money every single month in the side hustle, so it's not just one good month, you know, and then it's down to nothing. So I consistently tracked for about a year. And when I looked back and saw that it was, you know, give or take within 10, 15% each month of, you know, what was something that I could, you know, sustain my lifestyle with, I was like, it is not really 100% a risk at this point. It's pretty proven that I can make money from it, make a living from it.
Now let's go all in. And I think when you're missing out on the opportunities that you can take because your main job is hindering you, for me, it was networking, traveling. I had already used up all my PTO. I couldn't just travel to Texas.
I was in Virginia to do collaborations with people because I just didn't have the time. I was like, I'm missing out on opportunities. I'm missing out on the ability to grow my business and I'm financially supporting myself. It's the right time, but you're always going to be terrified. You're always going to be scared.
But when you do it, I promise you, you'll never look back. So what surprised you the most? A couple things about success in general. Have you ever seen the image online of what people think success looks like?
And it's like this upward trajectory, and then it's this squiggly line and backwards. And it's so, so true. I think it's so easy to look at other entrepreneurs and individuals that are doing crazy things, and you see where they're at, you see where they're started.
I feel like a lot of times. You think success is reserved for certain individuals and you think that like that couldn't that can't be me That's that's those types of people. That's this really smart people, you know, like no I couldn't be me and once you realize that success is this crazy Journey to get to the end result. I think that's such a valuable trait to remember and you're a guy who doesn't know anything Just I'd show you ring it out. I joke about it a lot And I think people think it's like my shtick of saying like, yeah, I don't know what I'm doing every day, but I really don't.
And I think, you know, a lot of times I sit down the computer and I've answered, I answer a couple emails and then I go, I don't think I have anything else to do. And a lot of people are like, you know, you see online, they're like, I'm working 13, you know, 17 hours a day, grinding, whenever sleeping, waking up at 4am. Guys, I watch, I watch the office at night with my girlfriend.
You know, I watch movies on the weekends. I'm not, I'm not working 24 seven, but there's times when you need to hustle. And there's times when work-life balance is going to help you succeed even more because you can kind of de-stress a little bit.
And, you know, meeting my girlfriend was actually one of the craziest things that helped me separate myself from the business a little bit. And I think it's helped me elevate my business. Talk to us as much as you can. And I'll let you speak a little longer to this as far as building the influencer network.
Like, what are you doing today? What do new entrepreneurs should do to build the influencer for their product? My number one piece of advice to grow your brand or your product in the influencer space is to give away your product for free as much as possible.
The marketing spend, instead of trying to run ads early on, try to get it into these micro influencers or just anyone that will respond. And my number one tip is to not ask for anything in return. You hope that they're going to post about it. You hope that they're going to tell their friends. But if you have a good product and a good brand, And nowadays you really need to create, if you're in the CPG space, you need to create a product or a service that is Instagrammable, which wasn't a word forever ago, right?
You need to make it that people want to post it. They want to talk about it. It's cool. It's content.
Nowadays, a lot of creators are looking for things to create content around. And if you have a product that fits into that niche or something unique, people are going to post about it. But you never want to ask for anything in return.
You just... kind of cross your fingers and hope and we've sent our products to thousands and thousands of influencers celebrities many have posted us many have not posted us i i think if you have something good generally the influencers will kind of come back to you go hey i really like that can i can i get some more and at that point You say, yeah, absolutely. I would love to send you some more. And you don't say, we would, you know, here's the line items you need to do if we give you another product.
You go casual. You say, we'd love to send you some more product. And if it's not too much to ask, we'd love it if you loved it.
If you could give us a mention in your story, we'd really appreciate that. Again, very kind of gentle way. That's only after the initial contact, right? Correct. That's when they're coming back to us like, hey, I love the candy.
Can I have some more? I'm like, you sure can. But you know, would you mind, would you mind a little Instagram story?
It's not, it's not a requirement. You're just like, it'd be great if you could. And in return, nine times out of 10, these people are going to say yes. And when you organically send out this product and you start building up this awareness of your brand and of your product, then the people that follow all these individuals, maybe they didn't buy off your website when a big influencer post.
That's why I wouldn't recommend paying for these huge ones because we've had some massive names that. you don't see a single spike like you think you would. You'd be like, oh, this rapper or influencer posted about us.
Let me go to the Shopify. Wait, no, wait, where's the influx of sales, you know? So that's why I think focus your efforts on maybe smaller influencers.
And the hope is brand awareness. I'm trying to smother the world in my brand, not trying to immediately convert a more long-term picture. That's beautiful.
So that when these influencers are continuing to post about the product, Then the people that follow them and they're walking down the aisle and they're like, Oh, that's that candy that so-and-so posted. Let me try it out. Right. Oh my God, I love it. You know, so that's the goal, but you can't track the ROI on it.
You can't look at the data, the analytics of the post conversions. I don't do any of that. We just, we're like, it's out in the world.
It's out in the world. Give it away and don't ask for anything in return initially. Unless they come back to you. There you go.
24 million dollars? I think most of us can't even imagine what that number is like. So what does it feel like to bring in that much revenue for that company?
I don't even... Honestly, just what... What does that feel like? I don't even know what 24 million feels like because that's not what's in the bank account.
Right, that's the truth. That's the revenue. But it is wild.
I think it's one of those pinch me moments every time the business continues to grow because I feel like I'm someone who had a lot of maybe self-doubt of what their potential could be because, again, I had like a 2.5 GPA in high school, applied to one school in college, got denied from it, went to community college, which... is great but at the time I felt it was very kind of like shameful. It was like you know you weren't smart enough you couldn't get in and I just thought that I had this very average life kind of planned out for me so when these big things happen I'm like to me?
To me? How? No no no no like that's that should be like for the people who know what they're doing. I'm just a goofy guy who had like some random ideas so it's very surreal and very humbling every single time we have a big success because I think it just goes to show of, you know, you don't have to have everything figured out. You don't have to be this guru of a person.
You can be a normal person with a good idea. You have good intentions, good morals, good ethics, and you just apply yourself and you see what happens. Well, we live in the United States, one of the greatest countries.
I'm an immigrant as well, so I think that contributes to it. But what does it ultimately speak to, do you think? You know.
You're not perfect in school, you don't have the college degrees, and yet you're still making it happen. What do you think that boils down to? There's no blueprint to success. I think that anything is possible.
And that's why I love the fact that I've been documenting this on my YouTube channel for so long, is because if you came into maybe my journey or my life now, you might have this perception of me and my upbringing and how I've gotten to this point. But go back and look seven, eight years ago. I mean, I'm... You know, driving a car with sagging headliner, I'm replacing the AC unit in my driveway on video, and, you know, in a crappy house with, like, roommates and stuff, and then, you know, I...
It's like everything was because I worked and I built my successes up, and I also didn't live outside my means to be able to continue to afford things, but it's a great testament to show that anything is possible, and, you know, something like... This is the first time I've ever said this, but the American dream is real. I think if you apply yourself and you, I think it comes down to just be a good person, have a good idea and like do right and good things will happen to you.
Yeah. So financial hardships, have you lived through any as a company for South Strips and how did you, how did you get through it? What was it specifically if you could share?
Yeah, this is definitely something that's more kind of like internalized that I just had to deal with. It wasn't something that I, you know, let all my employees know. So they think. The ship is running fine when really there's an iceberg kind of coming straight for us. And in the CPG world, when you start getting into retail, where 80% of our sales now are in the retail channels.
So it's not as much of the cash you're getting in one day, two days from online at high margins. You're getting lower margins with payment terms, which means they place an order. When they get the... the candy in my situation, they have anywhere from 15, 30, 60, 90 days to pay you for that.
So you need to float that amount of cash before you can start getting paid. And there were times early on when we first got into our national account with Target and we had some other promotional events going on at the same time, there was such a need for an influx of product because we're rolling out and they need these large kind of like initial PO's. that are gonna you know probably be larger than when you get into the normal flow of things but it's the kind of build up inventory and so if they want it in a certain month you have to buy that product you know months before to get it all ready to get it all packed you know in the formats that they need to ship it out and then once they receive it it could be another 60 days so I mean you're talking It could be four, five, six months from when you first bought that candy or product before you're actually going to get paid for it. So managing your cash flow is going to be so important, especially in the CPG world when you get into retail, when you have all of these payments. terms you have slotting fees which a lot of people don't know that when you walk down the aisle of any grocery store or retail store every product or brand that you see on the aisle whether it be in the chip aisle or the candy aisle those companies have paid to be in that spot and they're planned to be there and you're paying a certain amount of money per item that you have in there per store so you could be spending tens of thousands of dollars if not a hundred thousand dollars or more as a fee to just get in there so not only did you have to pay for the inventory way ahead of time get it all ready send it out wait for that money to come in the money that's coming in is actually going to be a good chunk less because you had to pay the fee to get into the store so the fee is separate from the profits that you're waiting on.
Correct. So instead of, you know, if it's $20,000 in fees for a one-time getting your product into the store, right, because it could be $15 per flavor per store. And if you have, you know, two flavors, like let's say two flavors of candy, it's $30 a store.
And if you have 2,000 stores are going into, you know, do the math. But instead of you writing a check for that amount of money, they will just deduct it from what they pay you at the end. So not only were you waiting for this cash for so long and having to stretch your money and keep in mind, that's not the only business that you're running, right?
So you have these one, two accounts that are, you know, you had to build up, you had to launch, you had to wait for the money. Your business is still running in that time. So there's other orders that are coming in that need product.
There's other costs that are going out. So there was a time when I got... down to the last, you know, not exactly, but, you know, last couple pennies in the account where it was depleted. I knew the cash was coming in, but it's just like, how do I weather this storm?
And it's very easy for maybe the employees to think that everything is fine, but I'm looking at the bank account being like, guys, we need to be really strategic with how we're spending our money because I know it's coming in, but it's not going to be for two more months, three more months. And then when you get it, it's way less than you thought because you have all these fees. Can you share with us the rest of the revenue streams that you have?
Just briefly at 30,000 feet gross. Right. So Sour Strips is going to break.
We've already broken over 18 million this year. So we're on track to do over 20. Ever forward, my clothing will hover anywhere between 500 to a million each year. It's kind of taken a little bit of the backseat because Sour Strips has taken a lot of my focus.
And then myself as a brand in terms of social media, brand deals, sponsorships, Everything that encompasses YouTube and everything that goes into that will be about 800 to a million dollars. Dude, that's solid. You've scaled really quickly, I think. Yes.
We've interviewed a lot of other companies. That timeline looked very different as opposed to yours. So what have you learned about leadership specifically through that journey?
Leadership, managing people, managing a team, leading a team is absolutely one of the most difficult things I've had to learn how to do. I've very, very much been a... a solo entrepreneur doing everything myself and we start delegating out you know you have to understand that people are never gonna care about the business the way you care about the business and you need to understand that and wrap your head around that and every single person on your team is not you so the way do you interact with them the way do you talk to them the way you joke with them the way that you know you you know, give positive affirmation. Some people may need like, hey you did a great job, not in this, you know, phrasing, but like, you know, you did a great job today, just want to let you know, say, like, I really appreciate what you did you know, today, and whereas like, I'm someone, I don't need any of that.
I don't need someone patting me on the back, giving me affirmations all the time. I'm just like, yeah, I'm doing my job. Right.
So you need to learn how each personality of each person is going to, you know, what, why, what, what motivates them to grow within the company? Is it just more money? Is it more responsibility? Is it, you know, making, reminding them that they're doing a great job and, you know, you know, making it a point to showcase. You know, victories with them.
But it's a learning thing every single day. And that's probably one of the hard... Besides cash flow, the hardest thing that I've had to learn is to be a leader. Because I didn't plan for it.
I didn't... I was just like, oh, I have an idea. I'm gonna, you know...
we'll sell some candy. Now we're managing 15 people. If you're looking to start, scale, and grow a business, you cannot miss out on tools that help you get there easier.
So head over to upflip.com to get instant access now. How important is fitness? Highlight on that briefly, because you started out the YouTube channel Fitness Focused.
How important of a role does it play for you in today? I think fitness is one of the absolute greatest things anyone can do. I think every single person, as much as you're physically able to, do some level of physical fitness.
Why? Because, I mean, not only on the physical aspect, right? You're going to love the way that your body is going to. change and look and improve and obviously a lot of the health benefits you're gonna gain so much confidence you're gonna understand you know structure and discipline because you can't just eat whatever you want you need to focus on certain types of foods certain making sure you're hitting certain macronutrients you have to have a schedule you can't you know dilly dally and go miss out in the gym or you're gonna waste all the progress that you've worked towards and the gym is something that I didn't get into until my sophomore year of college so I kind of was like a late start into it and I It was the most transformative thing that I've ever done in my entire life. What's your routine today?
I mean it's probably not much because you shared that you've kind of backed away from the hardcore stuff. Right, so for the longest time I was very, very into strength training and powerlifting. Got really into the deadlift, 650 pound deadlift.
501 pounds. Weighing how much? 165, 170. That's nuts. Yeah, so everyone watching is probably like, this guy doesn't look like he lifts. He's probably lying.
I've hit the numbers. You know, we've got proof. We do have proof. But now as I'm getting older and life is getting much busier and I'm looking to kind of, you know, start a family in the next couple years and settle down, powerlifting is not on the highest priority for me.
So right now I'm still working out four to six times a week. All right. Well, let's switch gears. Let's go take a look at more of the office.
Yeah, I can actually show you the podcast studio. You guys are building that out. Yeah, you want to see it? Yeah, let's do it.
Yeah. So this is the home of the new podcast. Coming in, dude.
Don't Be Sour, kind of a spin off of Sour Strips and kind of, you know, don't be butthurt about sensitive topics. That's the kind of idea. Life, the challenges of it.
Exactly. So the podcast is actually a newer venture. about a year into the making so it's an extension of my youtube channel much different type of content long form it's i've been really enjoying it talk to us about partnerships you mentioned earlier that you started this company with partners that didn't work out what did you learn from that experience so i started the idea of the company we never really got a lot of traction the main reason why i thought i needed partnerships in the early stages was because i didn't believe in myself enough and I thought that there's no way that I could figure all this out myself and I needed people in the space and I think it's a bad mentality to be in because although partners can you know accelerate your growth with their expertise it is so important to learn how to run the business ins and outs and if you're just the face of a company you're not I don't feel like you can have the same level of accomplishment when you have these big milestones because you you just are like uh-huh you know And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong or right, but I have such a passion and a drive, and I wake up every day motivated to work on this business because I remember the early days to now, and I remember being along on each of those steps.
But with that said, I think that partnerships can be a great way to, like I said, accelerate the growth if that's something that you want to... You have so many other ventures and you want this as a side thing, but if you're going all in, I think it's important to find people that are just as passionate as you. and have partners maybe that are also going to be in the business like you are. While we're on the subject of making good money, what are some of your guilty pleasures? What was the most expensive thing you bought, maybe besides the home?
Oh, that would be my Jeep. So I have a over-the-top Jeep JK Rubicon that has every possible upgrade on it. The vehicle itself was $30,000. And then I put in about a hundred and ten thousand dollars into that Jeep and you might be like well How is what could you possibly do with everything?
I did everything to it and I also did it myself with some friends So we've built a lady companies we can weld on we can weld axles onto Jeep So it's a passion project of mine back then and now I was able to afford the nicer versions of the junkyard parts I was buying when I was 16. So that's cool The entire time Other than that, like I bought a nice bracelet for myself. I bought a Cartier Juston Clou nail brace that is a gift for my 29th birthday. It's just a bracelet? It's a waste of money? Not a fake bid or not a watch?
Nope. Nothing like that? Nope. How much was that? $7,000.
$7,000. But you'll never see me buy a Rolex. You'll never see me buy a Lamborghini. I'd rather... Is that what you're saying?
It's just not my thing. First of all, I hate getting down into cars. I like getting up into Jeeps.
But also now it's just experiences. With my girlfriend, we love taking trips. We love traveling. We want to build a beautiful home.
I want to have money for my kids and create generational wealth is really my goal. And I don't need a whole lot. I want to go to Chipotle almost every day.
I want to go to Tex-Mex for dinner. I want to be able to order the large margarita and not stress that I could save two bucks by getting the smaller one. So that's luxury and a rich life for me is... You know, just doing the things I already love to do without stressing about the bills of them.
Yeah, the pleasure in the little things. Yes, for sure. Makes a difference. What did you pay for this place?
Because the backyard is amazing. You got the pool, you got the open water. Just curious a little bit about this place as a real estate agent. So this is actually my first home and it's also the first home that I even looked at. I kind of walked in, saw the potential.
We did a complete renovation on this. So I managed to get this in 2019, I believe, for $500,000. You bought it at the right time, dude.
I did not know that at the time, but although I got a great deal, it was a actual nightmare to do the renovation on this. It needed a lot of work, and then when you start going down the rabbit hole, one thing leads to another, and the renovation budget just went through the roof. What'd you spend until?
As much as I bought the house for. So I bought the house for 500 and I put about 450, 500 into the house. What is the biggest mistake that you can think of that you've learned something from and maybe you would do differently if you can go back?
Probably not paying attention. attention as much to cash flow. I think as you get into business, cash flow is king and understanding your finances is so important. And early on, if I had enough money to buy a, whether it be packaging material or a purchase order for inventory where they had payment terms of, you know, you can pay half now, I'd be like, no, I'm just going to pay it all now so I can forget about that money. But it starts tying up your capital and the intricacies of it start getting elaborate the bigger and the bigger that these POs get.
So I wish I had a better understanding. of managing my cash early on because again being a bootstrap company that I don't have millions of dollars of investors money and not really wanting to put my own money more I would if I needed to you know into it I wanted it to be it's self-sustaining and try to run it like a fully self-sustaining business and treat it like that so you know a lot of companies I think have the luxury of being more free with how they spend their money because they have a lot of cash in the bank from you know selling equity of the company where I didn't have that luxury so managing cash is a struggle and that's still a learning process even to this day because there's no one that's doing that for me. Guys, comment below as far as the mistakes you've made when you've started out in your business. Max, let's talk about cash flow.
What was it for you? We'd love to hear from you. If you had to leave our viewers with one piece of advice, what would it be? Don't be afraid to start. I think so many people get the paralysis by analysis.
They overthink and they overanalyze. everything they need to understand, everything that has to be set up in order for them to start, and they end up never starting or they miss their opportunity. So just if you have an idea, you don't need to have everything planned out.
You just need to start and everything else will fall in line. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to spend and waste a lot of money.
But those are the things that unfortunately you have to go through to make you a stronger and better, more successful entrepreneur. It's been a pleasure, my friend. Pleasure's all mine. Thank you, sir. If you're interested in turning your passion into a lucrative business, make sure to check out episode 167 with Kevin, who turned his love of gardening into a $7.3 million a year business.
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