Remember being a kid who thought that every big and crazy dream you had was right at your fingertips and can easily become a reality? You could have dreamed about owning a mansion, a palace even, and dreamed about owning a Porsche. You dreamt about traveling the world as a hobby.
Such are wild and crazy dreams. But what if we tell you that it’s possible to make these dreams a reality?
That is exactly what Jeremy Schneider did.
Jeremy started an internet company in college (RentLinx), grew it with no outside funding for 12 years, then sold it at the age of 34 for over $5 million! Now, he’s the Founder of the Personal Finance Club, co-Founder of Nyckel, and is currently starting two businesses!
He is now living his dream, and in today’s episode, he’ll share how he accomplished such amazing feats before 40, how he built amazing companies, his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and aspiring investors, and more!
Join us and learn how Jeremy’s incredible entrepreneurial mind works as he shares his story with hosts, wealth manager Lee Michael Murphy, career advisor Sergio Patterson, and attorney Matthew McElroy. Tune in to this week’s episode of The Free Retiree Show.
What You’ll Learn:
- Top qualities to have to succeed
- Advice to people with analysis paralysis in investing
- Tips for aspiring entrepreneurs and aspiring investors
Surprise! Use the code “thefreeretiree” to purchase Jeremy’s course at 25% off! Promo runs until October 1st only so visit How to Build Wealth by Investing in Index Funds – Personal Finance Club now!
Welcome in to the Free Retiree show, your go-to podcast for your career, your money, where we help you avoid the big mistakes and where we learn from people that have done amazing things. I’m your host wealth manager, Lee, Michael Murphy. And I’m alongside Silicon valley vets and interview coach, Sergio
Patterson,
what is up everyone.
And the only attorney that it’s acceptable to like like Matthew McElroy. What’s going on. Welcome into a business and thought leader. Addition to the free retiree show. We’re going to call this episode making big, crazy dreams a reality. Have you ever wondered, what does it take to turn a business idea into a multi-million dollar company?
Well, our next guest did just that.
Our next guest. He is probably on his way to doing that. On three separate occasions, we are stoked to be interviewing Jeremy Schneider. He’s a wildly successful entrepreneur. He was the founder of an internet company called rent links. He’s also the founder of personal finance club, which helps companies.
Which is a company that helps people achieve financial success. And he’s also the co-founder of nickel, which helps companies utilize machine learning in college, Jeremy attended Michigan university. He turned down a lucrative full-time offer from Microsoft to start his own company. And with no outside funding, he is able to start the internet company in college and eventually sold it at age 34 for over $5 million.
And currently he’s on a quest to grow personal finance club into millions of followers. Get over a million dollars in revenue a month and grow nickel to over 1 billion guys. Are you impressed?
Yeah, again, like,
how’d you get there? What did you trick over into? Like
we told her, what was your trick? I would say,
Hey, this is going to be Oprah we’re Oprah’s guys.
And they generally fall for it. And so Jeremy we’ve got him the same way, but, uh, guys, this is awesome. Obviously an impressive resume. What characteristics do you guys think? The people that have achieved this level of success have, and I think why I’m really excited for this episode is I just really want to pick Jeremy’s brain and figure out, like, how did you do this?
Not just once, but maybe three times in your lifetime. So what characteristics do you guys think these people like Jeremy tend to have?
Um, I think probably two that I can think of right away are consistency, discipline. Um, you
know what I mean? Those, those are, I think those are key for it to be successful and yeah. Yeah. I was thinking, uh,
belief in yourself. You know, when you talked about Jeremy turning down a lucrative offer from Microsoft, like that’s not easy to do, like he believed in himself.
So I’m thinking like most successful entrepreneurs. I know, like they have a true, like belief in who they are and what they’re, what they’re passionate about. I think that’s. Number one
for sure.
And I’ll throw my guests in here and I’m looking forward to hearing what Jeremy has to say, but, uh, I think for a lot of successful entrepreneurs that reach that level, it’s that ability to overcome failure and adversity.
Um, I know Jeremy’s, journey’s been like exactly, but I’m sure it hasn’t been that easy. We’ll find out, but yeah, these are all like, Solid things that we’ve seen. And it’s going to be really exciting to hear what he has to say. We’re going to go to a quick break, but before we do so make sure you like our show share us.
And if you have questions for us, financial related career related, legal related, or even a question for Jeremy, make sure you send it to ask@thefreeretiree.com. We’re going to take a quick break, but when we are back, we’re going to sit down with Jeremy.
Welcome back in to the free retirees show. We are sitting down with Jeremy Schneider, Jeremy, how are you doing buddy?
Great. Thank you for having me on the show.
It’s our pleasure,
man. Like you have one impressive resume and starting off, you know, we were trying to figure out, you know, what do the people like you, the, the, the people that are achieving doing big things.
What is it that helps you accomplish that high level of success? I mean, you’re going to you, you might do this three times in your lifetime, three crazy big audacious goals. Achieved in your lifetime. What’s your secret man?
Uh, well, yeah, I mean, I should be clear as some of those things you said are true and have already happened in like two of those, you know, two to the companies that have, you know, one is currently happening and one is in its infancy.
And so like, I do not currently have a billion dollar company. I hope to, uh, I think maybe then I’d be maybe a picture, a bigger land of a podcast guest. Um, yeah. And what’s my,
you also wouldn’t be on our podcast.
That’s why we’re getting it now, when he gets that.
I’m done. I’m really going to Oprah. Um, yeah, what’s my suit.
You know, it’s such a tough one question to answer because people like, you know, what do I, it’s such a broad open-ended thing. And so, and you guys kind of gave some of your guesses.
And so when I’m asked that question, it’s like, how do you succeed? I basically say, do two things. Number one is persistence.
And that’s actually exactly what Matt said, which is like, You just can’t give up. And like, when I started in college, you know, starting my company in college, my main asset, I think was just like, ignorance. I didn’t know what I was going up against. I know how hard it was. Um, I guess I had some belief in myself.
I more just had a belief that I didn’t want to work for Microsoft at a time, but didn’t really like, like that job. And so, um, but then it took a long time. I was doing a very bad job for years and, you know, any rational person would have quit. Um, but just persistence is totally necessary because if you’d quit at the first.
Sign of it not working, then everybody would quit because it doesn’t ever work right away. Right. So persistence. And then the second half of that coin is improvement or what I call like consistent daily improvement. You know, over the course of years, which is what it takes to like achieve one of these big audacious goals.
You have to knock it up first. And then every single day you have to come in and do something a little bit better. And those two things in combination kind of like paint yourself into a corner where if you never give up and you’re always making yourself better, you’ve painted yourself into a corner.
Like the only place left to go is like eventual success, right? Because. Ratcheting up what you’re doing. And so, and it doesn’t need to be huge improvements, right? You don’t have to like, you know, learn how to do nuclear physics overnight, but just like one little thing each day, like, you know, one little on the website, better social media marketing, better at, uh, building a product, better email marketing, better sales, whatever.
And just like one little thing per day. Over 365 days, that’s 365 things you’ve done better. And if you don’t give up for 10 years, then as 33,650 things that you’ve been doing better. And those things, this has kind of cumulative snowball effect, which ended up having these like big successes over time. But, you know, and one of my favorite sayings is overnight success takes about a decade because when you see it work.
You know, when you see someone who’s been successful or see something that looks really great. You’re like, oh wow. Like they just figured it all out. But what you don’t see is like the grind of 10 years of them doing stupid shit. And eventually I’m allowed to swear on this podcast and then eventually figuring it out.
So, yeah. That’s my answer.
Talk to us a little bit about those, those rough times, you know, like you said, you kept believing in yourself. There were probably moments where you’re like, should I be doing this? .
When I started my company, my first company, I was literally 21 years old, like graduating senior in college.
I was a graduate with a master’s degree, but I was complicated concurrent things. So it felt so like undergrad and. You know, I drew this line in the sand. I said, okay, if I can’t, uh, have health insurance within a year, then I need to like, go get a job. I need to quit. And so my first year of, of this business, I think our top line revenue was like $14,000.
And that’s before, you know, whatever meager expenses I had trying to like sell websites or whatever I was doing. Um, and it was a tech company and I was just doing like custom websites at the beginning. Um, and so I didn’t have enough money to feed and you know, house myself. And so I was paying for, with a credit card.
I’m going to first year, I racked up about $10,000 in credit card debt. So between. Yeah, $14,000 of revenue minus maybe 4,000 of expenses. So I took home $10,000 to live on, and then another $10,000 in credit card debt. I lived on like $20,000 that you already know that was in the year 2002 or three or something.
So a little bit different than today’s numbers, but still like not a very, uh, big amount of money to live on. And then, you know, the next year, a little bit better, I was making. Uh, I don’t know, we make them like 20 or 30,000 a year. And then I, my credit card debt went from 10,000 to $12,000. And then it was in year number three, where I basically was making enough to live off of.
And so, you know, and looking back as like now I’m 40 looking back. It seems like it was a blink of the eye, but like, you know, two years, 24 months, month in, month out where he just, you see a credit card debt going up part of it’s belief myself, I also had the privilege of.
Had a pretty good safety net, you know, both with like parents who weren’t Colombia starved, although I never took any handouts from them, but I knew I probably wasn’t gonna end up on the streets. And also like my real estate now is I consider it was like, I could just call it Microsoft. I’d be like, Hey, is that offer still stands?
Not Microsoft, someone else? Um, yeah, so I mean, early on was, it was pretty rough and, you know, gala knows and had, you know, uh, you know, tried to sell things didn’t work, you know? Um, but over the course of years finally got it.
So one thing I noticed is
like you have three projects that you’ve
done. You had rent Lake’s personal finance club, you’re working on nickel three very different companies.
Q2
So like when you’re deciding to take on an entrepreneurial endeavor, what is that thought process like? Is there, is there a strategy behind how you pick these things? Or did you say like, well, I think I can make money in those spaces, or did you have an
interest.
I’ve actually started two other companies that I don’t think I’ve mentioned to you.
So you’re
a psych, a serial entrepreneur.
It sounds like that it’s over the course of 20 years. And so it’s like only one every five years or whatever, and one every four years. And so it doesn’t feel like a lot, but except for when you’re saying them all out loud in the first five minutes of knowing someone, but, um, yeah. I think they’re all different reasons.
Like I, but I think it’s all like a moment of inspiration, like a spark. And so, you know, my first one, one I sold for $5 million, like, uh, it was just literally, I didn’t want a job. I didn’t want to go for Microsoft. And I would have maybe joined the peace Corps, densely and crazy like that in my early twenties, but I was staying in my college town to stay near my then girlfriend.
And so I was like, well, I’ll just start a company. And so I was just literally, , that was the thought process then, um, another one, , you know, personal finance club, I literally started almost by mistake. You know, I was basically super bored during the pandemic and, um, you know, I, I was not retired at 36 and I was just growing my hobby of helping people learn about personal finance and, um, really important than registered it as a company that started selling something.
And then the first week of personal finance club having a product, we sold over like $110,000. So it was like my first week of personal finance com was better than my first one. Uh, you know, three years of, of Rentlytics my first company. Um, yeah, so different reasons. Nickel was even yet another reason where my buddy had started that company and I was helping him just like, as kind of like a consultant advisor friend.
And then I got really, you know, I started thinking more and more about it. I was like, dude, I’m thinking more about your business than not my business. You know, can I have a job essentially? Or can you make me a co-founder? Um, and he said, yes. And so, you know, you know, that one’s like, can we make this into a billion dollar company?
I was like the real deal. Like, not just like the fun hobby. So yeah. All different reasons, I guess. But, you know, I feel like businesses, like a very wide range of thing and kind of be whatever there’s really no rules other than like a biding by tax code. Otherwise it can, you can do it.
I love how, , every time you get somewhat bored, you end up making something amazing happen.
So that’s a unique character. I don’t think we’ve had anyone that we’ve interviewed on this show before, but good for you, man. That’s
awesome that you’ve been able to do that.
Thanks. Yeah. For one, one year after I sold my company, I was born on it. I installed StarCraft on my computer and then for like a year I played StarCraft two and a half.
I’m like very mediocre gamer. And then I was like, I hated it. I was like, it was one like Christmas break where I like, went on vacation. Didn’t play for a couple of weeks. And I was like, what did I do with that year of my life? I didn’t build anything. It’s like, I I came back and I uninstalled it and haven’t played since.
Um, cause I, I prefer having, looking back at a year, well actually I built something it’s like, that’s fun for me.
Why don’t you tell us a little bit about the personal finance club? Uh, I took a look at the Instagram and you got some amazing graphics on there. I mean, you kind of take some really complex financial things and break them down kind of into plain English and make them simple.
Thanks. Yeah. So like after I, so I sold my company at the age of 34.
I quit that job. I saw I was working for the company that acquired us for a couple of years. And then I quit that job at the age of 36. I’m very good terms. I still love the company, but I was ready to move on. And then I was like, you know, unemployed, retired, whatever I was living off of my, you know, the sale that company I had maybe, uh, two or 3 million bucks in the bank at the time, because when I sold the company have to pay tax on it, all that stuff.
So I. Two or 3 million bucks. Um, and then, you know, played StarCraft two. And then what I really love doing like my hobby, you know, some people like paragliding, some people like surfing, whatever I like helping people learn about personal finance. And so one of the things I do is like meet with my friends who have never invested a penny and helped them open up a Roth IRA.
Um, and we were joking. They call it personal finance club. Yeah, drink and go to fidelity.com and buy index funds and just call it personal finance club. And so then, in my early retirement boredom, I started an Instagram account and I called it personal finance club. And then just, yeah. Kind of like Kind of like what you guys talked about earlier with, uh, you know, the persistence thing.
I was like, all right, I’m going to become a social media influencer. I’ve just decided. So I’m just going to read the books on how to do it. I’m going to follow the instructions and I’m just going to be persistent. It’s like I started posting like once a day, every single day, like just cranking out new content.
And my early content was like trash. It was really bad. Just ridiculous stuff that didn’t connect with users at all. But I was trying to constantly accept feedback and learn what is connecting. What’s not connecting and then growing. And so, yeah, the first, you know, I remember I was messaging people who had like 500 followers.
ooh do you want to partner? Like, you know, we’re like, I had like 30 followers. Um, yeah. And they said no, because I was nobody and now I have 280,000 some followers. So a couple of years later, and those guys now have like a thousand followers, you know? And so I think they’d partner with me now.
You’re a loss on names, small Instagram
accounts.
Yeah.
I think what I, what I like is you’ve made super complex things like super simple. Kind of what, like what Matt said. I really liked the 10 principles and I
think
like Lee, I know you’re trying to do this as
well, but , we need to dumb down the financial
industry so that the average person
isn’t so intimidated.
To get in a lot of my buddies, they’re just intimidated. They don’t know what to do,
but it’s not that hard. , you know, I think that’s why my early content was so bad, which as I was trying to like, be this intellectual and try to speak on these like complex financial topics and you know, the more I do it, the more I realize.
Nobody knows how any of this works. Nobody knows just like the most simple basics, you know? , you know, you know, I can’t make a simple enough post. Like, you know, the more simple I make a post, the more successful it is because that’s what connects with people and it makes them, you know, You know, what is a stock or what is money or what is interest or, you know, how does compound growth worker, you know, like I can’t make it too simple because when you do make it simple, then people are like, okay, this is accessible.
This is something that I can do. And then you kind of like coax them into saying, okay, you know, A few few concepts here maybe takes a few hours to learn such that you can set yourself up for investing for your whole life. But, you know, we never really walked through that in school. Many of us don’t have like great financial role models in our parents or our guardians or whoever who have like walked us through that.
So yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do with personal finance stuff is like break down these like seemingly complex topics that can seem very scary when you like watch Hollywood movies of like. You know, stock traders waving frantically white pieces of paper and like the stock exchange and be like, that’s not really what investing is investing is literally just putting your money in a different type of account instead of a bank account.
You put a investment account, like buy a simple investment and leave it and let it grow. Um, yeah. So thank you. That’s what I’m trying to do is make it simple.
Did you ever feel like there was something that ever held you back from investing? Did you ever feel like it was difficult? Like what were your personal feelings like going through the process?
No, I, I, I was fortunate. Like I had a dad who talked to me about investing. And so when I was 16 or 17, I got my first paid job where I was , actually like filing a W2.
And then he very cleverly opened up a Roth IRA in my name. And, you know, the law of the land is. Contribute more to a Roth IRA than either the limit, which is this year of $6,000 or your earned income, which in my first year of having a job was like $2,000 or $1,500 or something. And so my dad actually like took $1,500 of his own money, put it into my Roth IRA to like follow the letter of law.
And then he let me like keep it the 1500 bucks cider and does a 16 year old. But he like told me what he was doing. I understood that he was , gifting me this money. I understood that this was an investment. Yeah. We picked out some mutual funds together. This was kind of like pre index funds, the popularity they are today.
And I was under the impression that this was a typical experience, then, you know, everyone’s parents sat them down and picked out mutual funds. And now as a 40 year old, I understand that it’s very atypical. I think, I mean, there’s some people maybe like 10% or fewer really are , given that sort of education.
You know, normal people are in their mid twenties, thirties, sometimes forties when they’re kind of wake up and be like, whoa, I don’t want to just, uh, grind my whole life. Um, so that’s kind of where my early financial literacy came. And then when I sold my company, For a bunch of money and I became a millionaire overnight.
I really didn’t want to be one of those like, uh, stories where the garbage man becomes a lottery from winter and then becomes a garbage man again. Yeah. Um, and so I was like, I don’t want to become a garbage man again. So I just started reading every book I could on investing. And then he read like 2, 3, 4 of these books and you’re like, wait a minute.
All of these books say the exact same thing. It’s not this like complex, crazy web of Oreo. It’s like Trump is world. It’s like simple, like spend less. Invest the difference. Put it into the market, buying hold, minimize fees, like a very few set of like best practices and everything else is just noise and people trying to sell you stuff.
Well, why do you think there’s so much like, um, hesitation with people? Cause I think you’re doing a great service. Uh, for all the people that are out there that are curious about it, but
Q3
why do you think so many people have like analysis paralysis when it comes to investing?
I mean, at the core, it’s just, it’s just education and experience, you know? you know?
And so if I’m a brand new human to the world right now, and I walk in and just like walk down the street and then see what comes my way, there’s going to be like, you know, insurance salesman and Bitcoin. Day traders and, um, you know, multilevel marketing schemes and private investment deals. And like, you know,
and, and basically everything I just said is all other people’s interests, trying to get your money into, you know, into their system, right. It’s not, it’s not for your interest. And so to like, have the confidence to say no, That’s all noise. The real thing is this thing over here, that’s being quiet and no one’s talking about because it’s boring and there’s not big commissions involved and stuff like that, you know, it it’s scary.
Right. And to, to make the step. And so, yeah, it just comes down to education. I think, you know, when people see it and you know, they learn it and then it’s explained just like I had an epiphany. I was like, oh, it’s everyone says, it’s all saying the same thing. And. For me, I read a few books on investing, listen to podcasts, whatever I like, you know, did the self-education, but you know, frankly, like this is my hobby.
It’s not most people’s hobby. And so I don’t blame someone for, you know, dipping a toe in here and be like, whoa, that’s a scary world. You know, I’ll just do nothing because it all seems dangerous to me.
Yeah. No, I love where you’re going with a lot of the content you put out there because I think you brought up a good point. There is a lot of noise out. Yeah. Uh, people trying to pull you in all different directions, with products like insurance, annuities, all that stuff. And, um, on our show, we’re big believers in, you know, trying to sift through all the noise and just try to look at the data, the financial research that, you know, Nobel prize winners have put forward economists and trying to look at that stuff instead of the fluff.
And I think you’ve done a really good job with that personal finance club.
Thanks. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that’s why I’m a big believer in index funds, which is just a simple way to like, get your fair share of market growth and, you know, no one’s pushing the next one because there’s not high commissions involved and they’re not very sexy because no one gets rich overnight with index funds.
But you know, when you hear getting rich overnight, it’s, you know, it’s luck, not skill, but people, you know, misinterpreting, , you know, they hear someone who, who bought GameStop at the exact right time and, and, you know, made a hundred grand over. And they’re like, oh, I should be doing that because they did that.
I was like, no, that’s a
gamble.
That’s gambling right there, total gamble. And that happened to get paid off. But like, there’s a thousand other stories that you don’t hear about people losing all their money because they didn’t pay off. Right. And so I should kept my AMC shares. I mean, dude, dude, with hindsight, I would be a Bitcoin billionaire living in Fiji, swimming in a swimming pool full of blow, but like,
that’s going to be a quote right
there.
Yeah. With, you know, with hindsight, it all seems obvious, but you know, looking forward, it’s just not so clear because we don’t know what’s gonna happen. So, yeah. Um, but you know, I actually am a proponent of with like, you know, taking a small portion of a portfolio and like doing some, you know, speculative gambling, because I think it kind of is like a release valve, right.
Desire to like, get your big next thing. And like, it is like a lottery ticket, right? So you have 90% of your portfolio. I have a 90 10 rules with 90% of your portfolio. You buy and hold index funds never sell anything until you’re tired. Just let it ride. Keep putting more money. And every time you make more money and through 10% go nuts, whatever you want.
Oil futures, pork bellies, doge coin. Right? I know, and if you lose your 10% while you still got your 90%, like don’t, don’t go dig into your 90%, you know? And if you do happen to call AMC right next time, then Hey, maybe, you know, if you know, all you need is a little, if you’re that good at beating the market, you know?
Yeah. That’s, that’s kind of a safe philosophy that we’ve had on this show is like, you know, just know that 10% you can put it there. Don’t expect it back, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s out there and there’s, there’s no reason that you should expect it back. If you’re, if you’re not investing with anything, that’s backed by years and years of research and it’s time, time tested.
Right. Um, so where do you see personal finance club going? Um, you, you, you’ve obviously made a wonderful following. People love what you’re doing. Like what’s the next
step for you guys? You know, I would love to be like the de facto go-to source for, you know, no strings attached, no ulterior motive, just wise financial advice.
Um, we’re actually gonna release a show. Actually. I had mentioned this isn’t this is actually the first time anywhere anyone’s ever heard this news. That is breaking news. Actually, actually almost
thought it was Oprah.
We’re going to take it anyway.
We’re going to start a show. We’re going to be like you guys mentioned before about a live show.
Like I’m planning to do a live show once a week, where. I just, you know, talk about a topic of the week and just, you know, but it’s going to be the same thing every week, but I, I hope I can have a blend of like, making it interesting enough for people to want to tune in, but still not falling for any of the hype.
You know, I’m not going to be predicting the next cryptocurrency or whatever. It’s just going to be the fundamentals over and over and over and over. You know, I think we need a source to just keep getting those fundamentals beat into our heads because there’s you know, so much other noise out there.
That’s always competing for our attention. So yeah, I would love to, yeah. I’d love to grow to, you know, like you said, a million dollar a month line of revenue, you know, and we, we, we give 98% of everything away for free and we sound like one little course, we sell to actually drive revenue. Um, and, uh, yeah, just be a great resource, like web book podcasts.
YouTube Instagram. There’s like, no, it’s, it’s an amazing time. There’s no shortage of ways to get the word out. And just a matter of like putting the work in,
I mean,
um, I’m seeing another, like another reason why PFC is awesome. Like you donate 20% of your sales to charity. Like that’s like.
Yeah, it’s crazy move.
Um, I agree. And it’s not 20% of profits. 20% of profits would be crazy. That’s 20% of sales, which is even crazier because it could mean it could put us into the red or whatever. Um, and the reason I was born is when I was bored during the pandemic and turn this into a company, I was going to give everything away for free.
Cause I was like, um, you know, I’m not super rich. I’m not even in the 1% right now I have like four and a half million dollars or something at this point. Um, but I was like, I can live forever on this and I’m happy. Like. You know, more is going to make me happier. And so I’m like, why am I charging for this?
It’s not just enrich myself. And I came up with a bunch of reasons. One was that people don’t really value free things and stuff. I gave this like really detailed course about how to invest for free people. Wouldn’t value it and wouldn’t take it when finish up whatever. Um, another reason was. Find the free content.
So, you know, if I could hire to like help edit videos or help create content, we can grow the mission faster, which I have since done VV I’ve hired high Hy-Vee. There’s two of us at this point. Um, and then , you know, another reason is what she just mentioned, which is like, I could make this an engine for good and say, Hey, if forever.
Dollar of, of course we sell, we give 20% away. And yeah, like I said, in the first week of doing personal finance club, we did, we did over $110,000. And now we’re 10 months into, we’ve done about half a million dollars. We’ve donated, I think, 90 some thousand $95,000 so far in the last 10 months, which is crazy.
Now we’ve run some $20,000 checks, like, um, they’re big numbers, even for someone like me. Um, and you know, the charities are glad to get them, so it’s just. It’s just a nice thing to be able to like, do something that you really like and, and help hopefully have it be an engine for good. It’s
awesome. And it makes me want to, uh, makes me want to sign up.
I’m checking out the website
now. Great stuff. Nice. It’s all a big trick. I literally said, I said, I put that in. Like I’m like in my marketing when I’m like, you know, I’m also an entrepreneur. was like, I was like, the reason I’m doing. Is to trick you into buying this, like the reason I’m saying this right now, these words coming out of my mouth, it’s to trick you into buying this thing.
You know, like when I do sales, I was like, I am currently running a sale. I just made up this number. I just made up the sale. I’m only running the sale to like, like, get you to buy a thing. Like other companies also do that. When you see an , you know, Amazon prime day, or when you see like whatever, uh, you know, whatever sales at Walmart or Kohl’s, we were like, A trick of businesses to try to get you to spend more money.
It’s like your job to try to limit this thing. So you can build your own wealth. I’m currently playing that kind to you by running a course. And you know, it still works. Like people buy the course though. Yeah.
I’m
um,
I lost. Yeah, I’m gonna, yeah.
I was just going to ask that. Does this kind of maybe tell us a little bit about the course in what way? Yeah, so, you know, there’s no secret. It’s just basically it’s called how to invest or how to build wealth by investing in index funds. I think that’s, what’s called how to build wealth investing in index funds.
And it’s just literally, if you were a regular person who wants to start investing for your future, whether it’s early retirement or, uh, You know, normal retirement in your old age or whatever. Um,
Investment
there’s basically two things that I think are good to invest in. It’s like stocks and bonds, you know, the market and invest in real estate.
And so. Nice. I love when a financial advisor agrees a hundred percent and like, those are the two things. Those are the two wealth generating engines of our economy. Right. You know, everything else is, is nonsense. Like insurance products and crypto, and boy, you you know, and I’m not trying to knock crypto. Like I have a very little bit of crypto myself and you certainly can’t argue with it’s backward looking performance going forward.
Is there like a really like fundamental analysis reason for it to continue? Yeah.
Yeah. And then there’s also,
you hear the success stories. I think there’s more people that are going to lose their money in crypto. The next you make it, because they’re going to make all the mistakes along the way. But yeah,
the topic I don’t want to get to.
No, I agree. I look at crypto from six years ago. I was like, but people don’t put their money in six years ago. People put their money in six months ago and it’s down since six months ago, but whatever. So, so yeah, index funds. Yeah, the market and investment real estate, uh, you know, there’s tons of courses out there and stuff about investment real estate and, you know, frankly, a lot more work you have to , you know, buy and deal with properties, but index funds.
Inexpensive cheap, easy way. And so I basically have a course that walks through a, to Z, like, what is a stock? What is a bond? What does a mutual fund? What’s an ETF, what’s a Roth IRA. What’s a 401k and it’s got videos and it’s got interactive quizzes that are kind of learned by doing quizzes. So it asks you questions and you kind of figure out what’s happening.
And then we kind of discuss in the video afterwards and it just. People’s love it. It’s you know, and like I said, like I had this position of privilege having a dad who basically taught me this when I was 17. Um, but when you know, people see it walk through very systematically, it’s like the light switch goes on there.
Oh, I just put my money and it turns into more money. Got it. Yeah. So that’s what the course is. It’s on personal finance club.com. If you want to check it out. Yeah.
How much is it currently? Are you currently selling it for,
yeah, it’s 79 bucks for unlimited lifetime access, you know, , you know, if I was trying to like optimize revenue, I probably would have sold it for like a thousand bucks.
I think most courses of this type self, like 300 bucks, um, you know, it’s 79 bucks and we often have sales on my, not often we do it like once every three to four months, not to bug people too much. And we put it on sale for like 59 bucks. Yeah. In fact, this also wasn’t planned, but if you’re listening right now and you want to get for 59 bucks, you can use coupon code the free retiree.
Oh,
I love that. I love the
sales skills that I love
about to say, it’s a trick you into spending money that you want to spend. Otherwise, this coupon code is only good for two weeks , because we don’t like that those coupon codes hanging around forever. So if you do hear that. Is this, is this going to air, but probably not going to hear for a little bit after.
I
mean, we can push it up. Could we push it up? Push it up.
We gotta get this discount. We gotta get this, this October, October. Okay. It’s good. Through October 1st. I’m literally only saying this because studies and experience show that if, if there’s no deadline, people never act. So I’m putting a deadline on exoplanets on October 1st, 50%, 54% of people buy in the very last.
Because they, you know, they know that the clock is running out. So yeah, there it is. The free retiree, personalfinanceclub.com.
I love that. Good job, Jeremy. Um, Jeremy, thanks for coming on our podcast today. I want to end with going back where we started in the entrepreneurial side. Um, a lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs or have ambitions of being an entrepreneur.
When should they wave the white flag? If they’re starting. And, you know, and we all everyone’s like, oh, don’t give up, don’t give up. But you know what? I’ve been in business for myself for a long time. And I seen a lot, I’ve seen a lot of the true stories that are out there, and a lot of people do get beat up in the journey, Jeremy, that hasn’t happened to you.
But what do you say to the people that are trying to make it? Maybe they haven’t made it for a while. Do, would you ever tell them, but Hey, maybe you should look a different direction.
No one wants to hear that, but that’s a very fair question because, you know, in my opinion, I certainly see people who are trying, who have no chance, you know, like, uh, and I’m not, you know, and not no chance of what they’re currently doing that maybe not, no chance at anything, but, you know, I’m like, what’s, you’re doing is not gonna work like, you know, for whatever reason, you know?
Um, and you know, it’s very difficult if you’re in that position to tell the difference between. Is this one of those persistence times, or is this one of those never going to work times and you know, frankly, like the future is not written, so maybe there is no exact answer. Um, and so I, I don’t know the answer.
I mean, I think that’s impossible to know, but I would say like, if you’re not making progress or changing anything, if you’re just doing the exact same thing and not getting any. Like yeah. Changed something. And whether that’s give up or whether that’s changed your business model or whether it’s changed your marketing or whether that’s, you know, who knows what it is, but if you’re doing the same thing, not getting where you got to give up, right.
Or you got to, you got to change something. And so that’s why, that’s why I would consider is, is, is I’m just grinding for no reason. If so, time to change something up. And that’s what
you basically subscribed to. Right? Every single day. What can I do?
How can I get better?
Yeah. Uh,
Answer
there’s like this Japanese concept called Kaizen, K a I Z N which stands for like continuous daily improvement.
I think it’s like one of Toyota’s principles in their business, which basically says, you know, every single day, like one little thing and again, not moving mountains in a day, just moving a little spoonful of dirt and then it becomes a mountain over time. And so, yeah, you know, Forcing yourself, actually another, you know, you mentioned about entrepreneurial stuff and
Eisenhower
other entrepreneurial concept that I love is, is what’s called Eisenhower’s matrix, which is these four quadrants of how you spend your time.
And you can break up this quadrant. I mean, this is a podcast you’ve got to bear with me, but you can break up this contrast contrast on two axes. One is, um, important and not important. So you can, you half as important, half is not important. And then the other one. Urgent and not urgent. And so most of our time is spent in what is called quadrant one, which is important and urgent.
And so if you are building a, if you have a small business or something and you just have to run the business, you have to like answer the phone calls and you have to answer emails and you have to like sell the product or whatever you have to do just to keep the business going, spending time, that important urgent part, then there’s also, um, not important urgent that’s like stuff.
Insurance salesman or not even an insurance salesman for business managers, but yeah, like solicitor’s calling you or customers complaining about things that, you know, you shouldn’t care about. And you’re like, we’re spending all this time making a customer happy who is never going to be a customer anyway.
So I was like, okay. Urgent, but not important then there’s like not or to non-point, which is just like wasting time on Facebook or something. Um, and then there’s this magic quadrant of clutter too, which is important, but not urgent. So it’s things that are important to what you’re working on, but not urgent for the time being.
Yeah.
Quote 2
When you figure out the things that you need to do that are important, but not urgent. Those are where like the magic happens. Right. If you are always in quadrant one important and urgent, you’re just spinning your wheels and you’ve got some fingers you’re just maintaining. Trajectory. Right. But the things that no one is telling you to do that are important to your business is how you make massive moves in your business.
Right? And so, for example, if you have like a bakery and every single day, some people come in and buy some goods and you’re, you’re pretty busy. You know, you could just spend all day baking cupcakes and selling them to those people. Cool. And then the next day you come in and got a big, more cupcakes.
Awesome. Godly. But then nowhere in there. Do you have build an e-commerce platform to sell a cupcakes, nation shipped then nationwide, never in that, never in that cycle, do you, uh, figure out a franchise situation so that other people can take your cupcake platform and build it in other cities? Like never, you know, the stuff that is these, like these bigger ideas.
That aren’t urgent. Cause like franchising, your business is never going to be an urgent need, but it’s for sure. The thing that’s going to make you, you know, a multi-million dollar company instead of just a small bakery. So yeah, there you go. Entrepreneurship tip,
that was one of the best pieces of advice we’ve ever gotten on there.
Yes, a hundred percent.
Do you sign up for his
thefreetiree promo? What is it? Personal finance club.
Yep. What’s the promo.
So, I mean, to be fair, like the course is about investing in the next one amount of entrepreneurship. Maybe I should have one about entrepreneurship
advice though. Isn’t even just for entrepreneurship.
I was even thinking about my, I work in Silicon valley and it’s easy for us to get in the weeds. Like I’m, I’m more, I’m going to product launch team
and
we’re in the weeds. But if we need to spend more time zoomed out in that other quadrant and talking about to think about the big picture in the business in five years from now.
So I think it’s not even that advice is for everyone. Uh,
I mean, yeah, I totally agree. Even, even like in your personal life, right. You know, if you, if you’re constantly just going through your day and you’re never thinking about like, how am I going to like, you know, improve my marriage or get a new house or, you know, the stuff that’s like, not urgent.
You can definitely like get in, get in ruts there. So, and I love the clarity of that because it really forces you to, like, when you look at your two lists for today, you’re like, do I have any quadrant, two things on there? And so I haven’t do like time blocking sometimes I’m like, all right, there’s never gonna be.
Yeah. Uh, phone call for this, but like for four hours on this day, I’m just like writing down how to franchise personal clients and or whatever. Um, because if you don’t time block that, it’s not going to make time for itself, you know? you know?
Amazing advice, man. Amazing. Thank you everyone for listening, you’ve been listening to the free retiree show so long for now.