Andrew Warner: Hey there, freedom Fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy, where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. And joining me is Jesse Pujji, the founder of Gateway X, the venture studio that I partnered with to Build, well, a new company called Bootstrapped Giants, where we support Bootstrappers, who have this big ambition.
All right. I want to find out how he was thinking about his business and frankly, just chat. Here it goes.
All right, Jesse, we’ve been working together now for almost a year and our relationship I feel has changed a lot in the last year. I feel before we were working together, there was a lot of like buddy, buddy text messages, and you’re killer at that. I, uh, I, I keep trying to do that and it’s not fully me, but I’m getting closer. Then we were in like, building Infinite Possibility Land together, and that was really exciting. And then it got to this, why the fuck is Andrew not doing this? And me going, why is Jesse constantly coming up with different ideas all the time? And it went from Buddy Buddy, to World of Possibilities, to This, I don’t know. I don’t, how would you describe where it is right now?
Jesse Pujji: know, I, I think every business has, uh, and every relationship has different arcs and seasons, right? So I think that’s where I start with it, which is like, that’s somewhat, it’s not totally abnormal. Um, I think that it’s been interesting from my vantage point to watch you kind of sort of the creative genius version of you versus the businessman version of you, they’re pretty different.
Um, And, and I think that like, for my vantage point, it was like, Oh, there was this creative genius who just like saw something in me. And part of the reason I wanted to start doing this podcast with you is like, we can actually get out and get back to that, get back to the things that make us make you great, make us great together.
And versus the, you know, I think the side of the business stuff is like, Oh, you’re running a business and like, you want to run the business? Like I would run the business, but that’s, you’re not me. So you’re not going to do that. So it’s going to kind of feel weird to you all the time. And it’s never going to feel great.
And like, I think a big part of this whole thing working well for me with everybody is, is like letting them be the best version of themselves, not like a shitty version of me, um, or my methods. And so it’s, it’s constantly like a question of how do you take those, absorb the stuff, but make it your own. Uh, and I think that’s like a, there’s a lesson there, I think for anybody
Andrew Warner: You know, that’s been a big wrestling match for me. Like how much do I amplify who I am and how much do I take a step back and say, no, Jesse’s got a different approach here that I’m trying to learn from. Knack has a different approach that I’m trying to learn from. Rachel has a different approach. How, how do you integrate, how much do you integrate and how do you just amplify the part that’s. That’s mine. How do I amplify the part that’s mine? That’s been challenging
Jesse Pujji: Yeah, I think it starts with knowing what your zone of genius is, is, and it’s like, in some ways you can say that’s a difficult thing to figure out in other ways, it’s like, well, what do you feel most energized and excited about? What do people compliment you on the most? What, like, you know, in your case, I think it’s pretty obvious.
It’s like, you’re amazing at, at directly supporting and networking, getting, showing entrepreneurs and helping people do that. I think you’re amazing. You have a great taste and content eye and perspective. You’re very curious, like. You’ve got all these things and even as you look at your history, your career and all that, like it also becomes very obvious.
And I think once you’re clear about that and you’re willing, but you know it and you’re willing to stay inside of it. Like the second part is the hardest. That’s been the hardest thing for me. I like learned my zone of genius at Ampush. But I wasn’t actually willing to commit to my zone of genius until I started GatewayX.
Andrew Warner: What was your zone of genius and what could you not like what what did you do outside of it? That was hard to break
Jesse Pujji: I knew I loved coaching and teaching people. I knew I liked starting new things and kind of like the entrepreneur energy I knew I liked. Learning new things or, and, and, and building relationships and developing relationships. But when we were at Ampush, like we tried, we tried investing in startups off of our balance sheet.
We bought a company, we, um, we, uh, we, we launched something called Ampush X, believe it or not, it might sound familiar because I was like, Oh, we’re going to go start a business. And, and so I knew what I wanted to do. Like, it was very clear to me what my genius was, but then I was still the CEO of the company.
And so ambush X went nowhere because it was like a weekly meeting with me and two employees who were not staffed on any clients so that like, Oh, let’s go, let’s go start a new business idea. And it just went nowhere because I wasn’t engaged at the level I needed to be. Cause I would like, every time a client called, I would, I would run away.
Um, and you know, when I, when I like left a CEO, Rick actually, he gave me sort of his feedback, which was right as it always is, which is like, he’s like, no, you should say a CEO, like make John the GM of ambush. And get it out, get it off your plate so you can go do whatever it is you want to do. But don’t, you know, don’t fully give that up.
And in my case, I just sort of said, okay, I’m out. Like it’s not working. I’m out. I’m going to go start something brand new. But willingness to actually stay in your zone of genius, because when something goes wrong somewhere, when a client’s not happy, when something’s breaking, when, you know, you know this, because you, you see that issue.
And so the thing I see in you is you kind of know your genius, but you’re not willing to commit to it. And usually you’re not, people aren’t willing to commit to it because they don’t trust. They don’t
Andrew Warner: don’t feel like I know my genius and I also feel like i’m the person who does the everything I I have to go and do every part of it and show people that i’m a part of it and partially it’s because I love Being with people like,
you know, we’ve got these
Jesse Pujji: but let’s start with something like, what, what are the, what’s the things, what are two or three things? We don’t need to nail it perfectly. What are two or three things that, you know, you’re really good at that also energize you?
Andrew Warner: I got two. One is, I do love this, what’s your problem, customer discovery, let’s talk through and iterate it together. And the other one is, how do I bring people together, persuade them to try this new thing, you know? They’re kind of similar, but those are, those are the, the big ones.
Jesse Pujji: And, and what are things that, you know, actually, you’re not actually that good at and they de energize you.
Andrew Warner: Writing a first draft of anything, even though I feel like, alright, I know what to say and I should just be, I could tell a writer this is what the first
draft should be like, and then I go, no, I should just go do it, because now it’s taking too long to even
explain to them. That’s one example, for sure.
Jesse Pujji: So how many times have you done that in the last year to date?
Andrew Warner: The only reason that I can’t tell you infinite number of times is because I just broke. I couldn’t keep, keep sitting
and looking
Jesse Pujji: But you’ve done it a lot. You’ve probably spent 20, 30 hours of your year doing that.
Andrew Warner: That’s fair.
Jesse Pujji: So are you willing to just commit to not doing that?
Andrew Warner: You know, when you say that, I feel like such an irresponsible prick. Why can’t you just sit down and type out what you want to
do, or what you want to say? Why does Jamie have to write the first version?
Jesse Pujji: Well, but here in lies, here’s the in lies the issue with why it’s so hard to commit to, you can know it now you literally know it and we do have very specific and tactical, you know, you like
bringing people in and doing things, but you’re not. And so the whole framework is like, you’re at 75, 80 percent of your time is in your genius
and you’re clearly not there.
You’re a 30%. So not only are you less effective, but you’re also more burnt out. And what keeps you there, what keeps everybody there is the stories. And it’s scary. Like when I started gateway X, like the first time I saw Adrian doing something weird, I wanted to grab the steering wheel from her and go, no, no, no, no.
Go here. Right. Or like one extreme version is grab a steering wheel from her. Another version is like, yell at her, tell her what to do. And, and like, none of those are right because those aren’t, those just aren’t like, they would have led me down this other path. Right. And, and I think. It was hard and it still is hard sometimes to commit into my zone of genius and be willing to go, no, I’m not going to like go run the staff meeting for growth assistant.
I’m not going to go pitch the client on the upsell. Those are, those are two things that are, I would pull my zone of excellence, by the way, like pitching clients for sure zone of excellence. Like, does it, you know, doesn’t necessarily energize me sometimes it does, but, but doesn’t often energize me, but I’m amazing at it.
Um, And so I think that it’s, it’s a pretty high bar and it’s a pretty, in some ways, I think most people just kind of like roll their eyes at it, at being unrealistic. Um, I think it’s one of the most life changing things that I’ve done for myself.
Andrew Warner: I do feel it’s like, it’s understanding and persuading is probably it. Like in one moment, it’s the understanding through customer development. What’s the problem that they can’t solve? How would they want help solving it? That’s customer development. The other one for me is persuading. Like, I wanted to have this dinner tonight here.
I wanted to have the speakers of the conference to come over to my house. And I knew that there’s like a path to doing it, to understanding, to persuading. Those are the two. What would you
Jesse Pujji: Yeah. There’s something else though. Yeah. There’s something,
Andrew Warner: you’re seeing something in me I’m not seeing in myself.
Jesse Pujji: yeah, I mean, there’s, have you’ve done, done the genius exercises?
Andrew Warner: No, I’m afraid of doing
too much with Dave Kashen by going, Okay, help me plan, and I got updates for you on that. Help me deal with this other stuff, and also help me deal with Zone of Genius. So,
that’s where
Jesse Pujji: put them to work. I mean, that’s his job. Um, I’m like his Chirag. I like, I get everything I can out of it.
Andrew Warner: You know, you are really good at that. So, I keep telling Chirag, here’s what I’m watching that Jesse does. Like, for example, I always thought you have a coach like Dave Kashen working with me. The thing is, I have an hour with him every two weeks. That’s the limit of what we paid for, that’s the limit of what we have. And you said, go text him in the middle of the week about this thing. And then you said, if you’re having an issue, just message him right now. I go, but text, he goes, it’s too much. And you said, he’s an adult, he’ll tell you if it’s too much. I actually have a question for you about that. I don’t know if now’s the right time, but,
um. Okay, you will say, ask this person to do the thing, they’re an adult, they’ll tell you no. I get that, and I do think I need to ask more, but I wonder if you realize the power that you have over people and their inability to say no to you, and maybe that’s on them that they should learn. But if you’re asking, say, a writer to also edit something else, or a video producer to also, they won’t say no to you the way they might say even to their mom no.
They feel like they want to please you, and that’s What do you
Jesse Pujji: Yeah, I think, I mean, look, I, I think it’s important. There’s two pieces to this, right? One is like this concept, I think from conscious leadership around a hundred percent responsibility. Right. Which is like when there’s between two people, there’s 200 percent of responsibility and we should each take our a hundred percent.
And if I, if I worry about asking you for something that I’m taking more than my a hundred percent in our relationship versus you being independent and me going, Hey, Andrew, will you do this? And you go, no, I can’t do that right now. I can do it tomorrow or whatever that trend. So I think, I think practicing that as a general frame is really valuable in every relationship, even in your marriage, like the, the concept, you know, the, the, the lingo that people use is, is heroing someone, right?
If I asked my wife, can you wake up in the morning and. Uh, cook me breakfast and take care of the baby and drop the kids off. And she’s like, well, he’s tired. I’m going to hero him. Like I’m going to do that even though I don’t want to do that. That’s called heroing. And when you hear of someone, you’re taking more than a hundred percent responsibility for, for like your relationship dynamics.
And what happens, what do you think happens when you do that with someone?
Andrew Warner: think if I’m heroing someone, I, there’s resentment that just
builds up and then You break the person,
Jesse Pujji: That’s a hundred percent what happens. Right. And, and so it’s not like it’s, it’s not like it’s costless. Like, yes, in the moment it’s easy to hero some situation, right? The opposite of heroing is like. Either blaming someone or you’re pulling back and being the victim and saying, like, I’m not going to, I’m not going to do my part here.
I’m going to, I’m going to run away from this. And that’s kind of this whole concept of a hundred percent responsibility on both sides. So I think I like to stand for the concept of a hundred percent responsibility, which is, which is yes, I can ask for anything I want. And you can also tell me yes, no, maybe, or negotiate it back.
And so some of it is just teaching people that and getting to know it, I think. And with that said, I think that, you know, you do have to be mindful of power dynamics. Um, for sure. Right. And, and I think like power dynamics and for, for a junior employee versus whatever, like calling it out, it’s okay to say no here.
And I want to ask you for what I want. So the idea behind it is, is to, is to create the space, but not like a, you know, sometimes people call it negotiating against yourself. If you already start to go and say, well, I don’t want to put pressure on them today. So let me wait until tomorrow to ask them. And you’re all of a sudden you’re playing all these games.
That are very actually energetically draining if you think about it, because you’re like, well, I don’t want to ask that person now. Let me ask them tomorrow. And this person, this, and then, and you kind of go to school. Hey, you can say no to this. And I want to ask for my a hundred percent. Uh, Dave sent me this thing one time that was like, ask for your a hundred percent, a hundred percent of the time.
Be willing to hear no and negotiate for a win win. And I think that’s the best formula version I’ve heard of it. Always ask for a hundred percent of the time you ask for your a hundred percent, but you’re also willing to hear no. And then you’re, and then both parties are willing to negotiate for it. And if you think about where it breaks down at one of those things, either you don’t ask for your a hundred percent.
That’s one way it breaks down. You don’t do it a hundred percent of the time. So you only do it some of the time, right? You’re not willing to hear no, or the, or both parties are not willing to actually have the conversation around a win win. Right. And if you, of all four of those things are true for both people all the time, it’s, it’s an incredibly like healthy and empowering relationship.
Um, and I think it’s important to train people. And the best way that I’ve done that, by the way, as a leader is like, I let people say no to me. And I’m like, Oh, I’m so glad you said, okay, let’s, but let’s find the win win. Like what’s okay. You can’t get it done today. Let’s get it done tomorrow. Or like, can you stop doing that other thing?
And I think once you get people trained in that way of being, it’s like highly addictive.
Andrew Warner: I like that you could say no to me, but I’ll ask you for the hundred percent. I do think that makes it easier for me to ask for things. Because I do struggle with that because I feel like I want to protect people and part of protecting people
is protecting them against imaginary problems that they don’t even tell me they have, but I’m assuming that they don’t want to take on this extra responsibility.
And sometimes it’s the opposite. They do want more.
Jesse Pujji: but here’s a, here’s a, here’s one that might stun you. Andrew is you’re taking on the hero position. Can you see that?
Andrew Warner: I do that all the
Jesse Pujji: What is that? But what does that mean? You think about the other person? Because
Andrew Warner: because
Jesse Pujji: hero spot, where, where can they
Andrew Warner: weaker than me.
Jesse Pujji: correct?
Andrew Warner: You know, I do,
Jesse Pujji: you’re treating someone like a victim. You’re literally saying someone is less than you. When you take that posture,
Andrew Warner: not only do I not only do I do that sometimes I do that intentionally as a way of building myself up like I’m going to do this because now I’m seeing how strong I am
and it’s it’s little things like I’m going to show how strong I am at doing this work and that maybe you need to get done sometimes it’s I’m going to show you how impressive I am that I can now drink you and still show up the next morning to go
take care of the baby and you’re not even checking on what I’m doing with the baby.
You don’t even know that I have a baby. But in my head, it’s like the way I build myself up.
Jesse Pujji: Yeah. And I mean, and that sounds consistent with the pattern and you’re, you’re a three in the Enneagram you’re like, you have some deep fear that you’re not enough or that you have to keep proving yourself. And so these are all these various ways that you,
Andrew Warner: Yeah.
Jesse Pujji: to, to make yourself better than everybody else.
Andrew Warner: Yeah. I, I do. Um, yeah, there was, when we were doing that 833 meeting with other founders and it was another one who was a three and I said, not only do I need to know that. To have people tell me that what I’ve done is great, it has to be absolutely, irrefutably great. And I need, like, evidence. And then I could go, Okay, this is good. Which is why running is good, cause I could finish a marathon and know, Okay, I hit this number and I’m good. But if you just say, Hey, great work, Andrew. I like this article. I’m like, Did ya? How do I know that it’s really right? Where’s the metric? Where’s the outside proof? Where’s the rigor? By the way, I’m drinking a shake now. been, You know I’ve been working on how much I’m eating. How the hell do you not eat all day? Especially with the stressful work that you have and everyone else dumping their problems on you. The shake is, is not even doing it for me.
Jesse Pujji: I’m not, I’m not, I, I still another two or three hours till I have my shake.
Andrew Warner: Yeah, don’t you feel like you get stressed? So the worst thing about working from home is there’s always food around.
Though I remember the Gateway X office also had my, like, number one snacks, which is like nuts and seeds, that kind of a thing. How do you, how do you go to whatever, what are we now, 1230? Without eating. Especially when other people are dumping their stress on your head.
Jesse Pujji: I go till two or three, I think, as long as I stay busy, I think on these calls or whatever, like I, I don’t really, I find the easiest thing for, honestly, once I start eating, I find it hard to not keep eating during a window, but as long as I’m not eating a lot of liquid coffee and water, I feel like I can, I can really block it and then I can, and then I can start eating.
Andrew Warner: yeah, there’s something about having a no in my head. I know I’m not eating until noon, so it’s not a question anymore.
Jesse Pujji: Yeah, exactly. I think that works in a lot of things.
Andrew Warner: Alright, so you were saying that you see the genius that I’m not noticing. How, how do I get to notice this?
Jesse Pujji: I mean, there’s a couple of exercises, right? One is there’s, there’s this exercise, the CLG people have, which is just email the 20 people in your life and ask them like, when have you seen me most energized? What do you think I’m best at? And by the way, they say that genius is like asking a fish, if they’re a good swimmer, they don’t even say, they say, what do you, what’s water?
I don’t even know what water is. So I don’t even know what you mean by the question. Like when you tell me that I’m so good at like riffing off of people and giving them feedback, like it just, it’s so natural to me that I don’t even realize I’m doing something like that. And so you, I think getting other people to reflect it back to you is a really powerful way to figure out what your genius is.
Um, there’s a couple other exercises of like reflecting on times you worked your best. There’s the energy audit, which, you know, you look at when, when you’ve been energized versus not.
Andrew Warner: I did do that actually. Before we were working together, you gave that to me, and now I want to go find that Notion doc where, it basically, what I was doing was keeping track, keeping this Notion doc on my computer all day, and anything I did, I would, Mark what I was doing and then write whether it gave me a reduced energy.
Jesse Pujji: Well, there’s something about you, Andrew, around information and content that you have a genius around. Like you can, it’s some of it’s, you have this unique curiosity where you constantly ask questions or you, you, you sort of probe and ask these questions, like, here’s an interesting example. We had that very private conversation with Rick Elias, where he shared a really private thing about himself and was like, you know, and he wasn’t going to do that, he just said, I had a tough, I had a tough couple of years and everyone was like, okay, and I wrote a satisfied and you were like.
Give me a real example. And then, and then the example he shared, we were all in tears, right? It floored all of us, but like, so there’s something you, and I think the same thing with me, you’ve done that a lot of times, like I think the whole sales accelerator was a function and many, much of what bootstrap giants is, is you, you doing that, you found these situations where you’ve been like, um, well, hold on, wait, how did you get that meeting?
How did you meet super sell? Like what was that client? And there’s something that you’re really naturally good at digging in. Uh, that I think is part of that. And then you find an angle or you find the unlike you then connect it with the people who need it the most. And I think there’s an element of that too.
But, uh, yeah, I think that, I think you shouldn’t undervalue your taste and your ability to kind of like see something content wise or information wise, other people don’t see.
Andrew Warner: Yeah. I see what you mean. Do you feel like you’re, I know you took this big change in your life this year where each business was going to get one day. I know that your calendar was chaotic. Do you feel like this is reducing the chaos and allowing you to live in your zone of genius?
Jesse Pujji: That’s a good question. Um, what, so I think the context switching has been helpful. Uh,
Andrew Warner: to on the same day ox, uh, bootstrap
giants unbloat and
Jesse Pujji: giants in the afternoon. And then, and I think the clarity for everyone else has also been super helpful of just like, if you work on ox, you’re like Jesse’s available Tuesday. Um, I mean, this is a great topic to talk about cause it’s very present for me right now. I think what it has also led to is that like everyone crams everything into those, these days.
And then my days end up these three, the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, end up feeling like crazy for me. Um, And if I’m a little off energy wise, or I’m not fully there present, like I, it definitely just drains me by the end of it. Um, and then I think what’s happened with Thursday and Fridays is, you know, Friday has become this like marathon networking or like all the other calls basically get dumped into that day.
But then, you know, it just ends up with a situation where my calendar is completely packed. And it’s not even that I like want to get any work done. You know, I don’t like doing work. Like that’s not a thing I like to do. But it’s, it’s honestly like, I, like, I’m more, more I’m growing in my spiritual journey, my personal journey, like type seven, one of the things about the Enneagram type seven is they like to fill their calendar with things.
Cause if they have free time, they literally feel anxious. So they’re like, it’s a way they avoid feeling. And now that I’m like more in touch with my feelings than I ever have been, I actually find the, that I don’t like it as much. I just want spaciousness. Like I literally want an hour where nothing is booked, where I can, I can putz around and like not do anything.
Or pick up something that I haven’t done in a minute or read. Like another thing I realized is like, like listen to podcasts or read, read stuff. Like, I don’t, I don’t have any time of my day for that stuff. And that stuff can be really valuable and important. Um, so it’s not, I think I’m like, it’s, it’s better in some ways, but it’s not fully, uh, it’s not fully where I’d like it to be.
I don’t think.
Andrew Warner: yeah, I feel like you’re not quite where you need to be where I think you’re your genius is in coming in and doing what you did this morning for our members where they had this problem and you came in with this solution for them and that’s where you’re great. And I feel like instead we end up putting you into. Look at these slide sessions, and why don’t you give this kind of feedback on this thing saying the thing you’ve said 12 times before?
Jesse Pujji: Yeah. I mean, the way I would describe it at a high level is I think I’m still pretty heavily operationally involved in all the businesses. And I think that’s probably not, that’s probably more zone of excellence stuff. Um, and I think, I think some of it is, I’m also the flip of it, by the way, is like, you, you know, this from the Dave work, like I can resist the reality of where we are now.
I can change the reality of where we are now or my willingness to participate. And I can say, guys, nevermind, I’m not going to do this. I’m, I’m the chairman. You know, you get, you all get, you get two hours a week with me each and you talk about your problems and I’ll help you build a business. That’s all I do.
So that’s one way to solve it, which I could do the other flip of it is like, no, that’s, this is like where we are right now as, as like, this is where the thing is right now and accept where it is and show up with a hundred percent against it. And I think like, when I look across the businesses, like, you know, Carolyn just started doing marketing for growth assistant, you know, they, they just finished kind of a one big cycle of iteration.
She’s figured out what channels she wants to prioritize. She’s doubling down on those, like hopefully within the next few months, there’s going to be more of like a emotion there. That’s. That’s going right. So there’s certain things that we wrote the assistant that’s like, they’re operationally involved.
Ox right now is I’m engaged with the case teams. I’m helping Casey recruit some senior people. Those are pretty operational things, but like, again, they should create more scale, like some more like independence of that business and BG we’re, you know, we’re figuring out various things. We’re still making content.
So I think part of it is also just accepting where I am right now and all of this, and like it being. Like it’s going to be part of the journey of getting it to the point where I can be that zoomed out, I believe, and, and holding myself accountable to not falling into the trap of next quarter, signing up for more operational stuff.
Um,
Andrew Warner: GatewayX, it’s better for you to just buy companies that have some momentum but don’t have, but they’re blocked, they’ve hit some plateau?
Jesse Pujji: yeah. Have we talked about that?
Andrew Warner: No.
But I’m, I’m seeing that this
Jesse Pujji: that. Yeah. You’re you’re
Andrew Warner: and this is the messy part of entrepreneurship and I can see that you’re good and excited about it.
And it’s much more, let’s make it up, which is creatively fun, but it’s also draining and little things.
Jesse Pujji: yeah, it’s fun. It’s funny. We, I thought we, I mean, we’ve talked about that a little bit, maybe like, you know, we decided not to start a new business this year. Partially because of all the things we’re talking about, partially, like, you know, this is another good sidebar we could take is like, I’ve also learned to trust my energy a lot more.
My energy has become like, I’ve, I’ve, I think it took me a while to learn what it was. Then it took me a while to trust what it was, but now I trust it. My energy is like, Nope, don’t do anything new. You’ve got plenty going on. Um, but I, I, I think given that we’ve got more scale across all of the stuff we’re doing now.
That plus like the, the starting a new business every year, even co founding with you, co founding with Casey, like your experience is like, and for Casey, for, let’s say that first year was tough. The first 15 months was up, but now she’s like got a real business. It’s got employees and like, it, it’s not going to, it’s tough in different ways.
But my experience has been the slog of the freaking first year of every business every year, which I think I was super hyped about for a minute. And now I’m like, like, just not as excited that that might, I might start another business in two years, maybe, maybe not. But it’s definitely driven me to going like, yeah, wait, I think I do want to start it.
Like, I, or I think I do think MNA is a more interesting path for me. It solves a lot of things. It solves that issue. Right. So you get, no matter how good the idea is, I think Ox is one of the best business ideas I’ve ever had and we’ve ever built. And yet it still took us a good two years to get it to like some sort of, I call it gravitational force, right?
You kind of have to like the first cranks of the shaft, you have to do a few times. And it’s all like, man, I’m like a little sick of that slog and I just don’t want to do it. I think that’s one thing that’s driving me. I think the other thing that’s driving me is leverage. Like, again, it takes time to get these businesses to leverage.
Whereas you buy something, you can get a lot more leverage very quickly. Um, and then I think the third thing is, uh, is like, it will be different for me. The expectations will be different for me to work on the business versus in the business. Like I think co founding a business with someone, there’s just an expectation that I’m going to be part of the building of the business.
Whereas if I’m like the owner, I bought it. It’s like, Oh, he’s, he’s not like, there’s a business that runs and he’s sort of helping make it better, but he’s not in it. Um, and so I think that’s, that’s driving it. And I think the other thing we’ve proved a lot of interesting things. Like we’ve learned from ox that like.
Growth marketing can be a really effective lever for, for, for businesses you buy. We’ve learned from bootstrap giants that there’s a ton of founders out there who are stuck and there’s like ways I can unstick them and I can actually have a lot of impact from the outside in. Um, so I think there’s like all these interesting things coming together.
Then there’s this whole AI thing, which is another vector we’ve been spending time on of like, now can you bring AI into the picture and what does that look like? So I think it does it like, I am getting excited for maybe the next season here to be more about M and a. And at least to try it, like it, it might not work, but, but I’m open to trying it.
The other thing, by the way, energetically is like wanting to take a big swing. Like all these businesses we’ve started so far, like GA, Ox, BG, they’re great. They’re all like, they were like high confidence businesses that were going to work. I think they didn’t feel like hugely risky businesses. And I think like I’m, part of me is craving a little bit bigger of a swing.
Andrew Warner: So what’s a big swing meaning like, um, roll
Jesse Pujji: Like go buy a 50 million company.
Andrew Warner: One 50 million
Jesse Pujji: fuck up. Maybe maybe maybe I won every two years. I don’t know like but but it’s a big swing It’s like no go do go like go go try something like that You don’t know how to do that. You haven’t done that could fail
Like none of these businesses felt have felt that way.
Andrew Warner: That, so is this you though, going back to the way you were before where you needed risk in order to really perform?
Jesse Pujji: I Don’t think so. I don’t think it’s not fear driven. I think it’s just like a it’s like a I feel like Honestly, I feel like fear has driven my decision making around some of the more boots, some of these bets. Like I didn’t want to fail and I think I actually have more of a willingness to fail than I did in the past.
Um, to have like, just like a bigger platform and more upside. Like the other, here’s another frustration I’ve shared with NAC that’s an interesting one. It’s like, because of BG and a bunch of things we’re doing, we have so many smart people, like let’s use Michael Riley as an example. We have so many smart people around here and we can’t keep Michael Riley because we can’t, like, we don’t have, we don’t have enough going on here that can pay him enough and make it upside, more interesting and all those things.
Like somebody like
Andrew Warner: problems, too. Yeah,
Jesse Pujji: And like, we’ve got, we’ve got tons of smart people who want to work with me and work with us because of this. And I don’t have enough. And that’s like one cool thing about a private equity firm. And Ox re showed me this, like Ox has all ridiculously smart, motivated people. We’re paying them all a lot because it’s like a premium business.
And I’m like, Oh, it’s so nice to just work with tons of smart, motivated. People, um, it’s, it’s a different person type of person. It’s, it’s like a, it’s like a Lauren who you’re talking to, like just a different level of a person
Andrew Warner: Lauren and Ben, Lauren and Ben. I still want to talk to you about both of those, but AI keeps coming up. I’m wondering what, what you’re seeing in AI, because the little bits that I see don’t feel like they’re big and I don’t know what you’re, what you’re catching.
Jesse Pujji: I think that, um, You know, when we, when I first started working with Facebook ads, we were trying to convince brands that they were going to be something. And. They weren’t at the time. Like you could get likes, I think they work for daily deal sites. They were these right hand rail ads. They were pretty shitty.
And then one day, and yeah, we’ve talked about this the past. I like, I love the concept of sandbox entrepreneurship. Like you find the right sandbox, you plan it, and you’re going to figure out what’s there. Then all of a sudden the mobile phone became important. Then the newsfeed became important. And next thing you know, you know, Facebook ads were the most important thing that was out there.
And so I actually think it’s interesting and the hype cycles are what they are and, and so on and so forth. But I think from what I can see from AI and like in the, it’s a really interesting situation where the level of advancement is unlike, I think anything we’ve ever seen since maybe the mobile phone or the internet or the PC, like it’s, it’s that level of, of scale, but hype is even more than the reality, like the hype is absurd.
And I think that’s, that turns a lot of people like you off that, oh, there’s too much hype there. I think the, the few examples of, I invested in this business called figure, the robot company, and like, I know the founder, it’s a crazy company. I mean, it’s, it’s like a, I invested at a 350 million valuation.
It’s getting valued at 38 billion right now. Uh, it might make, it might make me more money than ambush made me. Um, which would be hilarious. Um, but the things he’s showing me are crazy. I mean, these robots are teaching themselves what stuff, what stuff is the first time they’ve ever seen it. And, and when I see that stuff, I go, okay, that is all, I believe all that.
And then you go back to our world and you’re like, can we make a transcript of a, of a thing? Can we make a Twitter thread? No, we can’t. It sucks. And actually for me, Andrew, that’s what gets me excited because I’m like, wait, the DFS versus the current reality is so far away that there’s going to be massive opportunities.
Now, if we were all like relatively tech forward, we’re in the circles, we can’t figure it out. Think about these like private equity owned businesses that OX is helping with. I mean, OX is doing work. That’s 10 or 15 years old at this point for a lot of these private equity backed companies. Like the stuff ambush was doing 10 years ago.
We’re now doing that at OX for certain of the private equity backed businesses, right?
Andrew Warner: I
Jesse Pujji: So I just see a massive opportunity of being an early adopter to something that I think is going to be huge, even if it hasn’t yet proven out that, that there’s a, a there there. Like I B I see the value in being someone who goes and figures out how to put it into play.
Andrew Warner: Yeah. Talk to Casey from ox. And I said, is there an opportunity to create an ox for something else? Like what ox does is marketing advice to private equity firms. And I know she says it in a different way, but she thought, well, do the AI version of ox, is that what you’re thinking of where you go into businesses, private, I guess, yeah, you go
into businesses.
Jesse Pujji: I mean, I would either probably start that as a part of Ox and just make it a practice group inside of Ox. Um, cause Ox already has the relationships and the distribution and it’s sort of indifferent for me. Well, we’re thinking is like the first thing I want to do first with growth assistant is actually AIFI growth assistant.
Right. And, and what does that mean, Jesse? I, yeah, I don’t know what it was. I mean, I mean, I could give you examples, but I don’t know actually, but that’s exactly the point is that I want to go there and go, okay, sales team. What are your problems? Oh, you know, you don’t know when to upsell someone. Oh, people are using different scripts.
Okay. Can I use AI? And it could be gone. It could be third party tools. It doesn’t have to be, you know, some core language stuff or how is Carolyn doing marketing? How’s she writing emails? Let’s go try to solve a bunch of problems. And even the product itself, how do we enable the GAs to have AI knowledge and what does that do?
And at the end of that, there’s, there’s, you’ll end up in one of three places. One place is we tried this for three to six months and it was useless, which either means it doesn’t work or we’re too early. Right. And I would go, okay, that was great to learn. I’m glad I could learn that before I went too crazy on it with a company I knew, and it was low risk and I own, you know, like the second other, the flip side of that is, holy crap, like the, the, the DFS for it would be, we double, like I told Adrian was like, we double the revenue of the business.
And if we do that, not only do we have more financial resources internally, but holy crap, now I’ve got a way that I can go buy businesses or I can transform businesses that like, I only, I know I literally authored it with my own company. Right. And then the middle one is like, there’s there it’s somewhere in between one of those two.
And in that case, maybe you start a consultancy. Maybe, maybe there’s some other play that maybe there’s a product you figure out that you can turn into a SAS product or something like that. But, But it’s part of it is you, I, I, at least, you know, we, you and I debate this sometimes, cause you like to research and talk to people.
I like to go do things and I like to figure them out experientially. And I’m like, if it works, like, I don’t want to talk to anybody about this AI stuff. I want to like, go do it. And I want to see what happens.
Andrew Warner: You invested in this. The other thing that I thought was super interesting is you and you invested in a private equity fund.
Jesse Pujji: Hmm.
Andrew Warner: I saw the amount that you invested. I saw the direct connection. I didn’t know that, that you could do that as an individual. I got to ask you, just give me some, like, what are some of the things that you invest in?
What do you do with your money?
Jesse Pujji: Um,
Andrew Warner: Is this awkward?
Jesse Pujji: no, I, no, no, no, not at all. I don’t think, I don’t think I do anything that special, I guess is where I was going to go. Like I, I probably. You know, if you, if you say, say I have 10 million, right, just made that number up, um, I think of it as, well, there’s a couple of different ways I think about this right at a high level.
One is like, Uh, you have a certain amount of income you earn every year. Let’s call it a makeup numbers, a million dollars a year. You spend say 600, 000 a year. You keep adding some cash every year, that thing. And then what’s the portfolio that it goes into. And my DFS is probably honestly, like 50 percent of the index at this point, I’ll tell you what I used to do, but like 50 percent of the index and like 25 percent private equity, private credit type stuff, like the private equity fund, or there’s some other interesting private credit things and 25 percent real estate.
Um, that’s kind of my DFS. What I’ve
Andrew Warner: regular real estate is what you’d like to buy,
Jesse Pujji: No real estate funds, real estate funds, or there’s like, there’s these operators, I can send you an example, but they’re like, They go buy apartment buildings in Arizona and they have a, you know, a whole system that they use, whatever. Um, what I’ve done historically, you know, we’ll see how it all nuts out.
I think one is if you look at my, like, it’s, it’s probably more like 20 percent random angel investments, which I’m like done doing. Um, even if this figure thing pays, like, it’s just, it, I got attracted to, cause I like entrepreneurship and I want to work with entrepreneurs. And I was like, Oh, cool idea.
Write this check, write this check. And then it takes forever. And like the liquidity thing is so annoying and such a huge issue. And then even, and then you’re like, you’re losing money and you’re not really involved with the companies. Like, I just didn’t find it to be gratifying at all or exciting or enjoyable.
Um, and I think I’m pretty shitty at it. Like my, maybe I’ll, it’ll, I’ll pull it out at the end, but I don’t know that it’s going to have good returns. And then the other thing I was doing that I’ve stopped doing is stock picking similar, like I thought I was so smart. And by the way, I’ve made some really good bets.
I. Well, the best one I’ve made, dude, is, is when we were selling Aush. I can tell you it was October, November of 2022. Okay? We’re getting term sheets for Aush and we’re getting term sheets at like 10 to 12 times cash flow of the
Andrew Warner: This is the final part of Ampush.
Jesse Pujji: Final part of Aush, they’re selling the company Facebook stock because, you know, apple had done that thing where they had changed the data and.
And basically like, Oh my God, you know, advertisers aren’t knowing where they’re going. Everyone’s freaking out. Their stock had dropped to 90 bucks a share, which was six times Facebook’s cash flow. And I was just like, this makes no sense. Why would ambush his entire business is built on Facebook be worth, you know, double as a multiple.
And then I called John in the middle of this. I’m like, Hey, are you, did you, did you figure this out? He’s like, yeah, we figured it out. Like we know exactly how to solve the Apple issue now. And of course I knew Amplish was on the bleeding edge of figuring things out. And so I bought a ton of Facebook stock at 90 a share and look at it today.
Like I bought a
Andrew Warner: on.
Jesse Pujji: I’m just holding it. Yeah. I mean, there’s
Andrew Warner: How much did you put into Facebook at the time?
Jesse Pujji: like a quarter million dollars and
Andrew Warner: today.
Jesse Pujji: you can go back and look at that. But anyway, so that was a pretty good stock pick. I guess I’m not the worst stock picker, but in general, like I think the reality of it is. Outside of maybe one, one or two instances like this, like most of the stock picking I did, it did not go well, like I bought some SPACs or whatever, and the index just works, right?
And if you just do the math on it, if you have, you know, 10 million and you put 300, 000 in a year, and this is another funny mindfuck of all this stuff is, and you compound it at 7 percent or whatever, like, you’re gonna have, as long as you keep earning money, even if you don’t, by the way, like, you’re gonna have 50 million bucks by the time you’re 70 years old.
And then the question is more interesting, which is what the hell do you do with that money? Because my, my big issue is like, I don’t know what to do with the 10. What am I going to do with the 50? And it’s like a funny mindfuck is because you, we spend so much time we’re trying to earn money. And then you
Andrew Warner: are you thinking of?
Jesse Pujji: with it?
It’s, it’s been like a weird existential issue for me. I’m like, I don’t actually know. I don’t want to leave much to my kids. Although that starts to see that’s actually seeming more attractive these days, because of all the stewards of it, they actually seem like they’ll potentially be the best stewards of it.
Right. Yeah, I want to give a charity, but charities, even like as someone who’s like a hard nosed entrepreneur, I like, look at what they’re doing. I’m like, I don’t think you’re good. You’re going to make a lot of use of this money. Well, so should I start my own charity, like my own nonprofit, like that’s a thought I’ve had, like the gateway X version of, of like a nonprofit, then you can give it to the government.
No thanks. Right. Or you can spend it. And expending has become a more interesting option, honestly. Um, and you know,
Andrew Warner: Did you ever not enjoy spending money? I do see that you, you got a second house, maybe even a third, I can’t tell. You seem to be actually enjoying the skiing, the relaxing, the taking space.
Jesse Pujji: Yeah, I think, I think it’s been a part of my personal spiritual journey, for sure. I think, um, it wasn’t always easy for me. I think, I think you just thought, think it
Andrew Warner: Why are we calling it spiritual journey when it comes to like spending money and having fun? Is it, is it just the way
Jesse Pujji: Yeah, because, no, because, because I think, no, no, no, not at all. I think like, uh, shifting from fear and scarcity around money to, to like abundance and, Uh, and love and like openness, like that’s, that’s the shift that’s actually made me enjoy money, not the money itself. Cause I think before I would be freaking out about like, okay, what are the scenarios here?
I need to run them. Or like, I, I shouldn’t spend X on a second house. That’s indulgent. It’s unnecessary. Like I grew up in an immigrant household, like that’s, that’s crazy. Right. Or just like, or like, like buying a business. Like I was talking to my dad the other day and my dad is like, uh, you know, there’s a bunch of real estate that he’s built himself in San, in, in San Diego.
And my mom was texting me and complaining because they, they flew to Dubai where my grandparents, my grand, my grandfather lives and they went premium economy. Right. And, and so, you know, and I was like, why, why aren’t you flying business? He’s like, it was 8, 000 round trip per ticket. And Anomaly is like, yeah, that is a lot.
Like, that’s offensive. I, even when I say it right now, I’m like, oh, that’s a lot of money on a plane ticket. And I was like. You’re this many years old. Like, you know, I was like, I donate 20 percent of my inheritance. So you can travel business class for the rest of your life, because, you know, there’s this really good book called die with zero that Dave Cashin had me read after we sold Ampush.
And it was so powerful for me. Um, because I started to really, and that’s why I’ve called spiritual journey, because a lot of it for me has been in, in allowing, like allowing myself to enjoy it.
Andrew Warner: When you say spiritual, are you talking about like my spirit, meaning my energy and what lights me up, or spirit as in like the way that we say religious when we don’t want people to think that we’re nuts. Okay.
Jesse Pujji: spirit, uh, I mean, there’s some part of the religion, but spiritual means that like, there is a part of me. That’s not this physical body and not this physical form. Right? And the more we’re in the physical form, then money is also, it’s like all these things matter. It’s like the, you know, it’s like when you lose perspective on something, you’re fighting with your wife about the pen on the table, and why is the pen on the table?
And it’s like, how much perspective have you lost? But like, day to day, we lose perspective. We go, this is my, this is me. This is my whole life. This is everything. The, my bank account is my life. That is everything. So when I say spiritual, I’m like, no, you let go, once you let go of attachments to that stuff, You, you spend it more freely.
Like, for me at least, I, I can’t speak for anybody else. Like I, some people spend it out of insecurity. By the way, , my mind was the opposite. I was like, no, no, no, I gotta hold onto this stuff. Like, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna lose money, I don’t wanna mess this up. And as I’ve gotten a little bit more less attached to it, I’m like, yeah, like spend it.
And there’s been a bunch of things that have helped with that. Obviously, like starting, starting more companies and those being more successful. Like, there’s been things that have helped me get to that point. But, uh, but spiritual, like the spiritual journey has definitely been a part of it, which is just being more of like.
This is not, I’m more than, than this body, than this bank account, than these other things.
Andrew Warner: not buy real estate directly? Is there, I mean. Is there the same benefit to having someone else manage your real estate, uh, and be a part of someone else’s real estate portfolio versus owning it yourself?
Jesse Pujji: I honestly just haven’t been able to make the time or get excited about it. Is the honest to God truth. It’s, it’s on my list as a, like, my dad’s like, why aren’t you buying multifamily buildings? Why aren’t you putting real estate? It’s the only asset. And I’m like, you’re right. And then I’m like, I don’t want to go look at a bunch of eight unit buildings in St.
Like, or wherever, and then have a property management business. Of course I can do it. I have the energy. I mean, I’m starting a million things. But I just haven’t gotten being able to get excited about it. And then I see these guys who are good operators and it’s like, this is their business. Like, let’s just write them a check.
Andrew Warner: Is your brother doing this on the side? What is he doing?
Airbnb or something?
Jesse Pujji: my brother in law does a lot of real estate stuff. He’s done it since he was like 21. My younger brother works with my dad and owns a multifamily place in San Diego with my, alongside my dad, uh, my older brother, my older brother and I basically have just never sold a house. So I still have my place in San Francisco
Andrew Warner: You do? You’re renting it out?
Jesse Pujji: yeah, we just rent, I mean, like just kind of like the, I mean, I have a 3 percent 30 year mortgage, like in, in Noe Valley.
Like that’s going to be a great asset.
Andrew Warner: lived so close to each other and we didn’t even know it.
Jesse Pujji: That’s
Andrew Warner: I would have thought we’d run into each other at the farmer’s market. All right. I like this. You know what? This to me is like, if you talk about, I don’t know that I’d say this zone is genius or not, but this is one of my favorite things to do, to just have conversations like this.
And I do feel like our relationship needed this. Frankly, I feel like my wife, maybe I should just do an interview with my wife and then save it in our, in our file. I feel like we could use
Jesse Pujji: you came and met my wife, she was like, damn, how did I get so deep with this guy so quickly?
And it’s so funny because, because that happens with you and Dave cash in, in totally different ways. Yours is more like a podcast interview where all of a sudden you’re like, well, why that? And what do you think about that?
And dave is like she’s crying within 10 minutes of talking to dave because he just like He asks a piercing question and then just stays quiet as you know, and then next thing, you know Like the tears just start flowing out Um, that’s so funny
Andrew Warner: All right. So we’re going to do this more often. We’re going to post it. And I have anxiety about the numbers about it. I have anxiety about people seeing that it doesn’t have millions of views. We should talk about that in a future session. But I have to say, I do enjoy this a lot.
I
Jesse Pujji: All right likewise
Andrew Warner: Thanks. Bye everyone.
Jesse Pujji: Bye