00:00
Those like riveting tails of buying a Lamborghini from a prostitute
00:02
or having your Ferrari stolen on your wedding day.
00:04
Ed Bolian, you have grown your YouTube channel
00:08
to north of two million subscribers.
00:10
It also allowed you to own many incredible cars.
00:13
I started my first business, which was breeding out
00:15
Bino Iguanas in my parents' basement.
00:17
I bought my first Lamborghini Gallardo when I was 20 years old.
00:20
Oh, that's Ed, the cannonball guy.
00:22
But he's actually a dear devil.
00:24
I've told about 3,500 car stories.
00:27
I need a stupid goal.
00:28
I need to buy a Bugatti.
00:29
The first time I got into that was, this thing is nuts.
00:33
Where does Vim Wickey go from where you currently are?
00:36
That's a great question, I think.
00:42
Ed, I'm not sure if I've ever had somebody as knowledgeable
00:47
as you about the legality and processes in the automotive world
00:53
and with so many incredible stories
00:56
sat on the other side of me in either one of my van studios.
01:00
You have grown your YouTube channel
01:02
to north of two million subscribers.
01:05
You've launched multiple businesses
01:07
and it has also allowed you to own many incredible cars,
01:10
ones that are completely my taste as well,
01:13
including a Bugatti Veyron.
01:15
So I'm going to start by asking you,
01:18
if you had to pick one single defining moment
01:22
from your earliest years that set you on that trajectory,
01:26
what would spring to mind?
01:29
Yeah, as I look back on my career in the automotive industry
01:32
and certainly the journey that I've had
01:33
in automotive content creation,
01:35
clearly it revolves around Cannonball
01:37
as kind of that initial point of radiation
01:39
in terms of both influence and the recruitment
01:42
of other people to show up and tell stories
01:43
on the Vim Wickey channel.
01:44
And so I think that so much of it
01:47
is that the perfect intersection
01:49
that Cannonball was in the 1970s
01:51
between automotive enthusiasts and journalists
01:54
or content creators of the day,
01:56
racing drivers, car dealers,
01:58
all kind of coming together for some insanity
02:01
and the stories that would come out of it.
02:03
And so when I was young, when I was in high school,
02:06
learning about the history of Cannonball,
02:08
that it wasn't just this goofy 1981 rat pack
02:11
and Burt Reynolds movie,
02:13
that it was a real thing that crazy people went out
02:15
and did and drove across the country
02:16
as fast as they possibly could.
02:18
I just thought it was the coolest thing ever.
02:19
It was the kind of thing that could kind of
02:21
turn your resume into a single word,
02:23
which I thought, you know,
02:24
as somebody who's trying to define themselves
02:26
in a world that I wasn't born into or led into,
02:29
it was like, that was the dream,
02:30
was for people just to say,
02:32
oh, that's Ed, the Cannonball guy.
02:34
And you know, I think being able to chase that dream
02:37
for the first 10 years of my working life,
02:41
because I kind of set the goal
02:42
when I'm 17, 18 years old and did it when I was 28,
02:46
you know, that's a time,
02:47
especially for guys where you're just really trying
02:49
to figure out who you are and how the world's gonna work
02:52
and how you're gonna grow into the person
02:55
you always dreamt you might become.
02:57
And so having a stupid, ridiculous goal like that,
03:00
that could kind of be that slow dripping faucet
03:03
in the back of your consciousness
03:05
that can kind of motivate you through
03:07
the dark times of self-doubt and uncertainty and pain
03:11
and just be that sort of like guiding light
03:14
of your professional ideas and career,
03:17
that was a huge blessing.
03:19
And when I wrote a book about it,
03:21
I started it with a letter to my son
03:24
because we got pregnant the month after I got home.
03:26
And so I started writing the book
03:28
right after we'd taken him home from the hospital.
03:30
And I said, you know, my hope is that you might one day
03:36
find your Cannonball.
03:37
I hope it's not anything like anything that I do,
03:39
but you find something that can kind of take you through
03:42
that chapter of your life when everything's hard,
03:45
when everything doesn't work,
03:46
but be that thing that kind of becomes that moment for you,
03:50
that the world starts to revolve around
03:53
from a professional perspective.
03:55
Even though you are talking about an automotive,
03:58
the first automotive kind of moments
04:00
that your life began with,
04:02
especially in terms of business and ideas,
04:05
before that, I'm gonna show you a photo
04:08
because we always dream of ending up at place X,
04:12
something to do with cars.
04:14
If that's your passion, it certainly is yours.
04:16
But sometimes people start at another place
04:19
and then are completely baffled
04:21
at how their story unwinds into the place
04:23
they always wanted it to become.
04:24
So I'm gonna start today with a picture.
04:27
And I want you to then tell the audience
04:29
what resonates in your mind from this picture.
04:32
What does this creature mean to you and your journey?
04:36
So that is Papaya, my middle school pet albino iguana.
04:42
And back in middle school, I started my first business,
04:45
which was breeding albino iguanas in my parents' basement.
04:48
And so we had 36 gigantic lizards
04:51
living down there at one point.
04:52
And not the most successful business,
04:55
but as we all dream of entrepreneurism in various ways,
04:59
that to me was the first one.
05:01
If anybody had told me that one day
05:02
you'd become famous for making video content,
05:05
I would have certainly expected to be
05:06
the next crocodile hunter
05:08
long before I'd be the next automotive presenter
05:11
And so I grew up loving dinosaurs as a little kid
05:14
and then I learned that there's stores
05:15
that sell little ones that you can bring home
05:17
and let it live in boxes in your room.
05:19
And so I've had a bunch of wild pets
05:22
and so now it's lower maintenance boa constrictors.
05:24
But yeah, that was the albino iguana breeding business.
05:27
Great white reptiles.
05:29
What would an albino iguana, albino iguana sell for?
05:34
They were about $5,000 to $10,000 back then.
05:36
And so I had one and then I had the offspring
05:39
in that one which are heterozygous for albinism.
05:41
And so at one point I had every known heterozygous
05:45
for albinism iguana on earth.
05:47
And so we bred a few of them
05:49
and then I actually sold them to a guy
05:51
who was recently arrested in conjunction
05:53
to some tiger king stuff.
05:55
But I think he's getting out soon.
05:57
Was there ever a part of your mind
05:59
that was like, I could be doing this forever then
06:03
Like continue selling these,
06:04
continue selling pets essentially.
06:06
Well, when you write a business plan
06:07
you think like this is gonna grow to the moon
06:09
and back and I'm gonna just be trippin' over
06:11
money and reptiles all over.
06:13
So I certainly had that thought.
06:17
But growing up I played a lot of high level basketball
06:20
and things like that and I ended up having
06:22
really bad knee issues in high school
06:24
and that ended the ability to think about
06:28
what basketball looked like for me in college
06:31
or beyond potentially.
06:33
And so I mean I grew up in middle school
06:34
playing with a little bronze a year older than me
06:37
but we'd see him at tournaments.
06:38
Dwight Howard ran off Morris Dosh Smith
06:40
and all these guys that went on
06:41
to great professional basketball careers
06:44
and I just couldn't, I had to have
06:46
six knee surgeries and things like that.
06:48
And so sometimes you run into a wall like that
06:51
in life or in your profession or in a relationship
06:53
and it invites you to step back
06:55
and think a little bit more about what else is out there.
06:59
And that was really the moment in my life
07:01
where I started to learn well there is so much
07:03
that can be done in the world of cars.
07:05
You know, when we say we love cars
07:06
that means something different to everybody.
07:09
I like selling bad cars and buying terrible cars
07:12
and I loved working at Lamborghini Atlanta
07:15
and doing all these things and that was,
07:18
and I never would have known about that
07:20
as a real viable career path before
07:24
when I was so distracted by other things in life
07:26
by reptiles and basketball and other things like that.
07:28
And so sometimes we do need that hard reset
07:31
to be able to invite the mental exploration
07:34
and the creative process into whatever might be next.
07:37
Because cars were your entertainment.
07:39
You were so passionate about them as you mentioned
07:40
like growing up being obsessed with cannonball, et cetera.
07:43
Yes. You never really looked at it
07:44
with that other pair of glasses
07:46
on that other perspective then.
07:47
Well, even from a recreational interest perspective,
07:50
it was really once that door closed that cars began.
07:54
And so I didn't grow up in a car loving family.
07:56
I was an eight years old reading magazines.
07:59
I was 15, 16, 18 years old
08:02
really getting engrossed in the hobby
08:04
and when you think about that being 20 to 25 years ago now,
08:08
it was such a different landscape
08:10
of what high end cars looked like.
08:13
I mean, there were more hundred thousand dollar cars
08:16
being built this month than existed back then.
08:20
So we're at car week right now
08:23
and we're tripping over Revuelto's
08:25
and things like that.
08:27
But back then, I mean, if you saw a 348 Ferrari,
08:30
it was a month changing ordeal
08:33
for it just to come by.
08:34
You just, in any big American city,
08:36
you didn't see exotic cars.
08:39
This institutionally was not a thing.
08:42
And so when we start to understand
08:46
what that world has become since then
08:48
certainly has become much more to me
08:50
but has become much more to the world at large.
08:53
Have you always been obsessed with detail?
08:56
I look at traits that people may have had
08:58
when they were younger
09:00
that's actually become something so valuable for them
09:03
that money can't buy if someone was to try
09:04
and compete with them later in life.
09:06
And with you, the word detail always stands out to me
09:09
because everything seems so polished,
09:11
your content that you put out,
09:13
the professionalism you take in your background,
09:16
the shots and also your general knowledge of vehicles
09:19
which is what I put in the opening statement
09:21
So like, would you say you've always been someone
09:23
that's a bit obsessed over the details of everything?
09:26
Well, that's all very kind of you to say.
09:28
I'm not sure it's always true
09:30
but I do appreciate the idea that you can break down
09:34
something that's big and hard to wrap your head around
09:38
by taking it into smaller bites
09:40
and understanding those details
09:43
in order to make it easier to overcome
09:46
because you take something big like driving
09:48
from New York to LA without becoming arrested
09:50
and then you start to think about,
09:51
well, how might I do that?
09:53
Well, it comes down to solving the route,
09:55
solving the timing, solving the car,
09:57
solving the countermeasures, solving the team,
09:59
taking all these little things
10:01
and each of those little problems
10:02
isn't that insurmountable.
10:04
When you put them all together
10:05
and you try to do it all at once, it is.
10:07
And so when we start to take any big problem
10:10
or big goal of buying some stupid car
10:13
or going on some stupid trip
10:14
or starting some crazy business,
10:16
in general, if you think about everything,
10:19
But if you do break it down to the details
10:21
and you do the research to be able to understand
10:23
exactly what each entails,
10:25
you can probably figure out a path forward.
10:28
So what was the next business you launched
10:30
after the Pate Guarnas?
10:32
So after I went off to college at Georgia Tech,
10:35
I learned that it was a very different economic time.
10:39
This was 2006 or so
10:41
when I started an exotic car rental business.
10:44
And back then you could just tell banks,
10:46
at least in America, how much money you made
10:49
and they would believe you
10:50
and give you loans for things like Lamborghinis.
10:52
And so I bought my first Lamborghini Gallardo
10:54
when I was 20 years old.
10:55
I didn't have enough money left to make the first payment
10:57
and set up a little website and started renting it out.
11:00
And it was really the first exotic car rental business,
11:05
not in a huge city.
11:07
So there were businesses in LA, Miami, New York,
11:10
but to go to a kind of a secondary sized US city
11:13
like Atlanta, it was not as much of a thing
11:15
because while we have a great built-in demand
11:18
of like ownership replacement clients
11:20
in a city like Atlanta, we don't have the tourism
11:22
that would sustain a business like that
11:25
in some other cities.
11:26
And so I had been researching the business plan,
11:29
business idea for a while
11:31
and was familiar with people who were doing it
11:33
And I thought, you know, this could work
11:35
and it really didn't work that well,
11:37
but it worked okay.
11:38
And I didn't go to completely broke
11:40
and they didn't steal all the cars.
11:42
And so it was one of those things
11:44
that you learned a lot.
11:45
And to me, if I look back on my career
11:49
and all those chapters of all the things
11:52
that have come to be my resume
11:55
or my LinkedIn profile now,
11:57
I think what I'm most proud of is the efficiency, right?
12:01
That I spent the right amount of time in each place
12:04
to learn what I could, to glean what I could
12:07
and to prepare myself for what was next.
12:10
And one of the most peculiar things about, you know,
12:13
being in positions like this
12:14
where people start asking me questions like this
12:16
is a lot of times it gets to like,
12:17
well, what would you tell your former self?
12:19
I don't fear to 18 years old, whatever it is.
12:23
It's so easy for me to answer that
12:25
because my answer is absolutely nothing.
12:27
Maybe buy some Bitcoin 20 years ago,
12:29
but it's really just make the mistakes,
12:33
be ready to learn from them
12:35
because there are so many things that I use today
12:38
and the things that I do, both for fun and for profit,
12:42
that sometimes at the same time,
12:44
that I would never have been able to do
12:46
if it hadn't been for the lessons learned
12:48
from the really dark, really difficult,
12:50
huge setback moments.
12:52
And I think it's having that attitude
12:55
of not being overwhelmed by the anxiety of what lays ahead
13:00
or the frustration with what just happened
13:03
but being willing to go just take the next step,
13:07
solve the next small problem.
13:09
Would you say you're a risk taker
13:11
or would you say that you're like a strategic risk taker?
13:14
I'm guessing you kind of like fill the sheet right up,
13:18
have everything in front of you before you execute.
13:22
I am definitely a risk taker.
13:23
I'd like to think that it's always calculated.
13:26
It most certainly isn't,
13:27
but I have always believed that a good answer now
13:31
is better than a perfect answer tomorrow.
13:33
The ability to just understand what you can,
13:37
act based on that, be ready to react
13:39
if it doesn't go the way you want it to
13:42
is better than spending so much time
13:44
breaking down every possible scenario
13:47
and generally talking yourself out
13:50
of the risk that you were about to take.
13:52
So is that when you, for example,
13:54
went and put yourself in Lamborghini
13:56
before starting a rental business,
13:58
like learning the ropes inside working for Lamborghini?
14:01
So that was backwards.
14:03
I actually went to work at Lamborghini Atlanta
14:05
after the rental business and that was because...
14:07
Not typically the way round people do things
14:09
when they've started a business.
14:10
So when I was struggling through the days
14:13
of the rental car company,
14:14
one thing that I understood was I would have benefited
14:16
greatly from spending a summer working at Hertz
14:18
or Enterprise or a normal rental car company
14:20
just to understand how the business works.
14:23
And so I thought, well, maybe the next chapter
14:26
is a dealership model or something like that.
14:28
So let me go work at a car dealership
14:30
to see what it's like,
14:31
to see if I ever want to own one
14:33
and the immediate answer was absolutely not.
14:36
But I did enjoy the day-to-day
14:38
transactional nature of car sales.
14:40
I thought that was a lot of fun.
14:42
And so I would say that I benefited a lot
14:50
from the chance to really see behind the curtain
14:53
of the industry from a dealership perspective
14:56
in terms of what my automotive identity and career
14:59
would sort of grow into.
15:01
And it has served me well
15:04
and it was certainly informed the idea
15:06
that I didn't want to be a lifer in the dealership world
15:08
and it was probably, yeah, it wasn't for me
15:13
and I wasn't for it.
15:14
How much did the experience in that dealership
15:17
benefit you and your business?
15:20
Well, it's benefited me a lot in the connections
15:23
that are made, there's no better networking
15:25
than an exotic car dealership
15:26
because you meet people from so many different backgrounds
15:28
and so many different moments of life
15:30
and so many different ideas about how the world works.
15:32
And so educationally, it was really, really valuable.
15:36
I certainly have got a lot of stories to tell
15:38
because there's no boring days in an exotic car dealership.
15:42
But I loved the mentalism of sales,
15:45
of like how I can speak to someone
15:48
and listen to what they're telling me that they need
15:50
but slowly move that towards the criteria
15:53
that I know are the right litmus test
15:55
or the right evaluative perspective
15:57
to get to the point of making a decision
15:58
to buy the car that I want you to buy.
16:00
And so it's really not that hard to just hear
16:04
because there's plenty of things to like
16:05
about every kind of car
16:05
and you can talk to anybody and anything
16:07
as long as you listen to them well enough
16:08
and use their words against them in that process.
16:12
And so I loved that.
16:14
And I would do that all the time
16:16
if it weren't for all the other mess
16:17
that it goes with selling cars that break tomorrow
16:20
and all the other things.
16:21
With selling a luxury exotic to somebody,
16:25
most of the time you want the entire client base
16:28
to come through the door to be able to buy it,
16:30
there's not really that many people that you go,
16:32
I'm definitely not going to sell it to them
16:34
unless you're talking about something extremely unique
16:38
that the person couldn't handle.
16:41
Compared with rentals,
16:43
where I'm guessing a lot of the clients that flood in,
16:46
there is that process of going,
16:48
whoa, hang on a second, I'm not sure
16:50
I want this guy taking my Lamborghini for a drive late.
16:53
Was that the biggest learning curve
16:55
was actually learning to deal
16:57
with the people in your business?
16:59
It's all people in every business.
17:02
Unless we're doing software sales to businesses,
17:05
at the end of the day,
17:06
you're going to be transacting with a clientele
17:09
and in the exotic car selling world,
17:12
what I learned very, very quickly is
17:14
it's a whole lot easier to sell someone
17:15
the second, third, fourth, fifth car
17:17
than it is to sell them the first.
17:18
And so the way that you cultivate
17:19
your existing customer base
17:21
is how you live and die in that world.
17:23
And in the rental car business,
17:25
it was really the same thing.
17:27
My greatest success from a profit perspective
17:30
was in the repeat business of people
17:33
who treated rentals as an ownership alternative.
17:37
And that's really how those two worlds intersected for me
17:40
was that, like I said, I started this
17:42
in a time where anybody could get debt for anything.
17:45
And then that was great as the world
17:49
kind of started to fall apart
17:51
and the economy starts to crumble,
17:53
depreciation gets out of hand,
17:55
ownership costs get out of hand,
17:57
then renting becomes an even more attractive option.
17:59
But as it bottomed out, say around 2009, 2010,
18:03
that was the point in which anybody
18:04
who still had good credit left in the United States
18:06
could buy a Lamborghini for pennies on the dollar.
18:08
To all my loyal listeners listening on Spotify,
18:11
Apple and other streaming platforms,
18:13
I urge you to do me a quick favor
18:15
that you might not know that you could do.
18:17
You can actually follow if you're listening on Spotify,
18:20
the Road to Success podcast
18:21
and also rate it with how you feel
18:23
these conversations have been,
18:25
how they may have helped you
18:26
or if you're just enjoying the one
18:27
that you're listening to today.
18:29
It really will help us if we're able
18:30
to grow our streaming platforms
18:32
beyond hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners.
18:35
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the podcast
18:37
and I really hope to bring you
18:39
some more inspirational guests soon.
18:41
What is a story that stands out to you
18:44
as maybe one of the biggest educational processes,
18:48
maybe from a client
18:50
at the beginning of that rental car journey?
18:55
that would obviously pretend these were theirs, right?
18:57
That that would rent them once, twice a month,
18:59
take them to the same kinds of shows and events
19:02
and I recognized that that was the perfect client
19:06
because they took care of them.
19:07
They weren't gonna be out doing donuts in a car
19:09
that they were saying was theirs
19:10
and they learned the cars more,
19:12
they took better care of them
19:13
both by knowing them better
19:15
and by being more conscientious
19:17
and so I realized that kind of gravitating towards
19:20
a little bit more of a membership concept
19:22
even though that wasn't very well developed
19:24
as it is today, made a lot of sense
19:27
and so I think seeing that
19:29
as well as obviously all the rap videos
19:31
and all the things that we would inevitably do
19:33
being based in Atlanta
19:35
was kind of starting to understand,
19:36
all right, these are the clients
19:37
that are gonna sustain this business long term.
19:40
And do those types of people treat the cars like shit?
19:43
Like how quickly did you
19:44
like see something come back and think,
19:46
oh my God, have they really done this?
19:49
You have to be emotionally prepared
19:51
every time a car goes out
19:52
that it's gonna come back in half on a truck
19:54
and so it's one of those businesses
19:56
where you can't become terribly emotionally invested
19:59
in the quality or the condition of the cars
20:01
because it won't stay that way for long
20:04
because what I was always fascinated with
20:07
as I grew to love high-end cars
20:11
was really the people that were able to drive them a lot
20:14
not the people that had the newest, coolest thing
20:17
to bring to a car show
20:18
but the people that you would see
20:19
with the ones covered in bugs, covered in dirt,
20:21
high miles, you know,
20:23
that you knew they really weren't that concerned about it
20:26
and I don't know where that general idea came from
20:31
cause I can't point to something where in my childhood
20:35
my family or myself were like so conscious
20:39
of the condition of something
20:41
and so concerned about imperfecting it
20:44
but to me, I just, I love not caring about stuff
20:48
that's really cool.
20:49
That is where we're extremely similar
20:51
and I have the exact same concept.
20:53
I'm lucky enough to have a Huracan Performante.
20:56
I've now had it four years, 30,000 miles on the clock
21:00
and luckily the same gearbox and engine
21:02
but I totally get what you're getting at
21:04
which is the point of there's having a car and owning it
21:07
and then dealing with like restrictions
21:08
and maybe when you feel like you're buying something
21:11
so amazing but then you're restricted
21:12
to do a certain amount of mileage,
21:14
treat it a certain way, not go on tracks,
21:17
and then there's kind of a bad result to that
21:19
versus a full ownership experience of no restrictions,
21:23
no anything, it's a completely different thing
21:25
but I guess the people that were renting the cars
21:27
had more of a narrower field of view
21:31
of what they could do with them.
21:32
Like would you restrict them
21:33
and stuff like that as well?
21:34
We had mileage limits just to keep people
21:36
from totally running up the miles
21:38
and generally geographic limits
21:41
and not taking them out of the state
21:42
and stuff like that
21:43
which in my area was not that big of a restriction,
21:44
it was all generally standard practice
21:47
but I think that they certainly the goal was
21:51
from a customer experience perspective
21:53
to give them a totally worry-free experience in a car, right?
21:57
They're not worried about how much it costs to insure
21:59
or fix or how much the clutch wear is gonna be
22:01
or anything like that.
22:02
We're just building it all into one number,
22:04
put your credit card down, sign and go have fun
22:07
and if you can really allow that to happen
22:09
and it doesn't always work that way
22:10
because they do break
22:11
and you have to hold people responsible
22:12
for things that they break
22:14
that aren't just wear and tear,
22:15
it can be a really, really fun experience
22:18
and I think that guilt-free opportunity
22:22
to be out there with some of these cars
22:24
was something that I was chasing
22:26
from a personal perspective as well.
22:28
Now I had no alternative way to own and experience
22:31
and afford these cars other than letting people
22:33
take them out every weekend and trash them
22:35
but it worked because I had a whole bunch of them around
22:38
which was really always the goal
22:40
is how do I get close to these cars?
22:43
That was my next question
22:44
is when did one become two and two become three?
22:47
So I bought the first one the summer
22:49
after my sophomore year of college
22:50
and then that winter bought the first Ferrari,
22:54
bought another one about six months later
22:56
so generally about every six months
22:57
I'd be in a position to add another car
22:59
and by add I mean find another bank stupid enough
23:01
to write me a loan for the next one
23:02
that was very little equity building here.
23:05
Would your future picture of what you were able to do
23:08
just get bigger and bigger and bigger
23:09
every time you added another vehicle to the fleet?
23:12
Would it add even more fuel to the fire
23:15
to grow a bigger business, a bigger business
23:17
or bigger business or was there a point
23:18
that the stress of so many would get to you?
23:23
What you realize very quickly is that the mental image
23:26
of the perfect business is one of every kind of car
23:29
all parked up in front of a business
23:31
with shiny signs and a pretty office and a nice desk
23:34
and then you realize wait a minute that's not it at all
23:36
that sure I could get a Bentley
23:38
but nobody's gonna rent it unless they know
23:40
they can't rent the Ferrari or the Lamborghini
23:42
so it was really just those two marks of cars
23:44
that made any sense for inventory
23:46
and you realize that you have more cars
23:48
but you only see them together
23:50
when you're not making any money
23:52
and so the mental image of the business
23:54
was in fact quite contradictory
23:56
to what really success looked like
23:59
and I think there are so many things that we go into
24:03
believing that success is one thing
24:05
but then learning very immediately that no
24:07
you were that assumption was very wrong
24:09
success exists and it's possible
24:11
but it looks like this.
24:14
When you could actually get out in your cars yourself
24:17
and get to those events and see the cars that were driven
24:20
how the owners intended them to be driven
24:24
were you fascinated in the stories
24:26
behind those individuals back then
24:28
and like how they were able to do that
24:30
like would you be the guy like mingling
24:32
and talking to everyone when you went to those events
24:34
like just consuming as much information as you could?
24:38
I was always fascinated by the stories
24:39
that got people into whatever position they had
24:42
to have these kind of cars
24:43
because I did not have some schema to follow
24:45
or some roadmap that was gonna lead me to that destination
24:50
I loved the businesses that they had started
24:53
and the ways that they had grown them
24:54
and the point at which they felt like they could afford it
24:57
and the ways that I as a sales person
24:59
eventually could help them do that
25:00
because that journey continued
25:01
into the exotic car selling world
25:03
as it was in the renting
25:05
and kind of peer relationships
25:07
that I might have felt like I had
25:09
but to me especially at that period of time
25:12
so now we're moving into like 2010, 11, 12
25:15
at which point you can't sell luxury assets in the US
25:18
it's just in the whole world it's all terrible
25:20
and so we've got credit crisis, debt crisis
25:23
all the things happening
25:24
and so they asked me to come and help them
25:28
because when I started at Lamborghini Atlanta
25:30
at the very end of 2009
25:31
they'd sold five new cars that year
25:34
and by the time I left in 2015
25:36
we were selling 80, 100
25:38
and which is obviously a radical difference
25:41
but it's much more reflective of the economic times
25:45
and the five is the desperation
25:47
that existed in that place
25:49
Many of you might not know this
25:50
but away from the recordings that I do
25:53
I've actually got a digital marketing agency
25:55
now we specialize in a lot of automotive clients
25:58
but we cover everything really
25:59
our team is made up of PPC specialists
26:03
and the most talented designers I've ever seen
26:05
which have done work like the Starnagloss website
26:08
the TWR website and many more
26:10
we've actually just built icon box
26:12
for the Auto Alex crew as well
26:13
meaning that people that watch their channel
26:15
can buy their favorite merch
26:16
seamlessly and in style
26:18
so if you're interested in starting a project
26:20
and you'd love to speak to us
26:22
just tap the link below
26:23
and let's hop on a call
26:24
Had you ever been on camera up to that point?
26:28
I hadn't done any camera work
26:30
I never thought I was a storyteller
26:33
or a speaker of any kind of sort
26:35
Do you remember the first time you did go on camera?
26:40
I made some very rudimentary videos
26:42
driving cars around to try to experiment with that
26:47
or in the very early days of YouTube
26:50
but it was they didn't go anywhere
26:52
it was certainly not a career path back then 2011, 12, 13
26:59
so the idea of like making videos recreationally
27:04
wasn't that much of a thing
27:06
I was featured on an MTV True Life documentary in 2004
27:10
for a New York to LA rally that I went on
27:13
as kind of like a senior trip
27:14
getting out of high school
27:16
where they followed three teams
27:18
that were driving on this rally
27:21
and it was not really
27:23
I mean it was MTV content
27:24
so of this 42 minute show
27:27
probably eight to 10 minutes was about me
27:30
and it was not really interview based
27:32
it was much more just kind of candid moments
27:35
that they had strung into something
27:36
that felt a little bit like reality
27:39
and I certainly didn't come away from that
27:41
thinking oh I looked good doing that
27:43
it was one of those things that was like
27:45
well that was a cool thing that exists out there
27:49
it was not by any means an archetype
27:52
to what then Wiki would become
27:53
or anything like that
27:54
Did you ever have that moment though
27:56
where a friend or someone said to you
27:58
when they had seen you maybe in front of camera
28:01
you're like really good at this
28:02
like the way you can tell a story
28:04
construct something together
28:05
like you should do this
28:06
or did that like all come from within
28:09
No it didn't happen until we started
28:11
telling stories on Vin Wiki
28:12
And why did that happen?
28:14
Well so after I was at the dealership
28:17
and realized that work in 80 hours a week
28:18
and knowing that I didn't want my boss's job
28:20
or his boss's job or to own the place
28:23
I knew that I needed to do something else
28:25
and so in 2015 I left the dealership
28:28
and fairly shortly after a few months later
28:31
I got some friends together
28:32
and we started an app called Vin Wiki
28:34
the idea of that being that it's a crowd sourced
28:37
vehicle history reporting platform
28:38
kind of like a social version of car facts
28:40
or auto check or red check
28:42
or any of these things that you'll have
28:45
and the US has better built out
28:47
vehicle history than most other countries
28:49
but it's still tough
28:51
and so it felt like a good opportunity
28:53
that kind of was based on
28:55
some behaviors and ideas
28:56
that I'd used in selling cars at the dealership
28:59
and we started it with different friends
29:03
that had different development skill sets
29:04
one guy could build a website
29:06
one guy could build a mobile app
29:07
one guy could do the back end
29:08
I could do some marketing
29:09
we had some cars take the shows
29:10
and stuff like that
29:13
you know you think you're a technology entrepreneur
29:16
and you're gonna tap that first domino
29:18
and a butterfly's gonna flap its wings in Kansas
29:20
and everybody's gonna download it
29:21
and tell their friends
29:21
and that's not what happens at all
29:23
it happens once you reach this
29:24
ridiculously high critical mass
29:25
of self-replicating users
29:27
that we were not close to
29:29
the other guys had gone back to their day jobs
29:31
and I was like well I don't know what we're gonna do
29:32
and I'm going broke pretty fast
29:34
and so I said well we haven't really tried
29:37
that much on YouTube
29:38
and I know this is kind of a thing
29:40
and through some of the cannonball stuff
29:41
that had happened while I was at the dealership
29:44
Freddie Tavares and Doug Demiro
29:46
and Rob Dom and TJ Hunt
29:49
and some of the guys Matt Farah
29:50
of that era of car YouTube
29:53
and I knew there was an opportunity there
29:57
primarily because I was talking to Doug Demiro one day
30:00
and he was you know doing all these car reviews
30:02
and kind of had moved a lot of the Jalopnik audience
30:04
to his personal YouTube page
30:06
which was just a failure of imagination
30:08
on the part of Jalopnik
30:09
that that was even a thing
30:11
and I said hey when you do these reviews
30:13
show that you're posting in the Vinwiki app
30:15
like a list of all the cars you've reviewed
30:17
which other people do on his behalf now
30:19
but he was like oh no I couldn't possibly do that
30:22
I don't want to delegitimize myself to my audience
30:26
and I've known this guy for a long time at this point
30:28
I'm like Doug did you just hear yourself say that
30:30
like out loud like delegitimize yourself
30:32
to a YouTube audience
30:34
and and he's like no man it's like this
30:36
I'm making more money on YouTube
30:37
than I am writing articles for Jalopnik
30:39
now Jalopnik was paying like 150 bucks in articles
30:41
so that wasn't hard to accomplish
30:43
but I was still like that doesn't even make sense
30:45
and it was really like one of those
30:46
Wolf of Wall Street moments
30:47
I'm like you showed me a paste up
30:49
and I'll quit my job that I don't have right now
30:52
and so I uh we went out and I was like
30:55
look let's just do stories
30:57
and at that time there wasn't podcasting
31:00
the idea of like a guest appearing on a channel
31:03
wasn't a thing Joe Rogan wasn't making podcasts
31:05
so this is the summer of 2017
31:08
and my thought was that we would make
31:10
Vinwiki car stories and give them
31:13
to an existing youtuber
31:15
so I was like I'm going to shoot these things
31:17
I'm going to put them in a drop box
31:18
and I'm going to send a link to all these guys
31:20
all of them have channels
31:21
and one of them is going to say sure
31:23
I don't mind having an extra show
31:24
every once every week or a few days
31:26
and it'll be like the Vinwiki car stories
31:28
on Doug DeMiro's channel
31:29
and they all said no
31:31
they were like we don't we don't want any
31:33
I'm like why so will people subscribe to us
31:36
they want to come see us
31:37
that's what it's all about
31:38
did you feel quite hurt by that at any point
31:41
like like just digging a little bit deeper
31:43
is like when you see those guys
31:45
you've built relationships
31:46
you think oh yeah we're all going in this direction
31:49
well I wasn't hurt because I understood their logic
31:54
and I did though have the belief
31:56
that they were wrong
31:58
and so that simply meant
32:00
I needed to take that next step
32:02
take that next risk
32:03
and see if my theory was right
32:05
that people did have a fascination
32:08
with these just crazy car stories
32:11
that they wouldn't hear
32:12
unless they ran into somebody at a bar
32:14
or at a car show or wherever else
32:16
and so the idea that you could sort of
32:18
take these stories and make them bigger
32:21
and expose them to a broader audience
32:23
I thought was fascinating
32:24
and so we shot the first 25 of them in a day
32:28
the first idea was this
32:30
you know I was going to take a bus
32:31
or like an RV around to car shows
32:33
because like who's going to come to my studio
32:35
in Atlanta and record these things
32:37
and we were going to shoot
32:38
I had more of an idea
32:39
like a big comfy chair
32:42
like maybe a rocking chair or something
32:44
but it was probably you know
32:46
where the mics are all set up
32:47
the cameras are all set up
32:48
you just press a button and go
32:50
you have more buttons than I do
32:53
we ended up just doing it at my warehouse
32:55
and it just got a bunch of pizza and beer
32:58
had people come out and tell stories
32:59
and then everybody said no
33:01
you can't release them on our channel
33:02
so we just released them on a Vinwiki channel
33:05
and fairly quickly people were like
33:07
wow those are you know very good
33:09
now my stories were generally
33:12
from my time in the exotic car
33:16
some from the rental stuff
33:17
but most of it was in selling
33:19
and when I wrote the book
33:21
about the cannonball record
33:23
I realized this is a fairly boring tale
33:25
of three sweaty guys going really fast
33:27
getting away with it
33:28
and then accomplishing something that
33:30
at the end nobody even knew what we were doing
33:33
and that wasn't that entertaining
33:34
and so in order to carry people
33:36
through the journey that I had
33:38
in that decade of planning and saving
33:40
and trying to figure out exactly how to do this
33:42
I was connecting those dots
33:44
to more immediate moments
33:46
and more recent stories from selling cars
33:49
so I had kind of packaged my like
33:51
10 best car selling stories
33:53
and written them out
33:54
and I thought that would probably help
33:57
and so I knew what my stories were
33:59
and I thought them through
34:01
when I started to tell them
34:05
there was an interview that I had heard
34:07
from Alex Roy at one point
34:09
somebody was asking him
34:09
he was the guy who held the cannonball record before me
34:12
and he has a legendary car story
34:14
about being pulled over during the promotional tour
34:20
and it's called the lot of evidence story
34:23
hey will you tell us the lot of evidence story
34:25
and I'm like oh yeah that's a good story
34:27
and then he said well it takes about eight and a half minutes
34:29
do we have enough time on this whatever format
34:32
and I hear that and I'm like
34:33
who on earth knows how long
34:38
and I'm like he recorded it
34:41
I'm like that's awesome
34:43
and so that was like a real lightbulb moment for me
34:46
in the thought process of like
34:48
we can make stories better
34:50
we can make them the best version of themselves
34:53
so that not only are we happy
34:55
that it's becoming like a blown up version
34:58
of like a post that could live in our VinWiki app
35:00
but even better than that
35:02
it's something that the person who's coming
35:03
and giving of their time
35:05
that they're really proud of
35:06
that they can share with the world
35:08
and so they're gonna share it to their audience
35:11
and we're gonna get this content
35:13
and it's gonna help promote the app
35:15
this seems like the perfect recipe
35:17
and it didn't immediately come together that way
35:19
but it did you know
35:21
open up the chance for
35:22
I could maybe tell 100 people at a car show
35:25
or you know a few people in a room
35:27
but now I can tell millions of people at the same time
35:30
where did the ability to say
35:33
they're wrong come from
35:36
because when you talk about the other youtube is saying
35:39
oh yeah it's not for me
35:40
and I'm not sure it'll work and
35:42
where did the internal confidence come from
35:49
I believe in myself
35:51
that you had a lot of iguanas in the basement
35:53
when you were younger
35:55
but we don't know much else
35:57
and what was it that
36:01
the ingredients that form the ability to think like that
36:04
because that to a lot of people
36:06
would be a would be a roadblock moment you know
36:09
some of those points
36:10
that they wouldn't take that next step forward
36:12
the video wouldn't be uploaded
36:14
the channel wouldn't be started
36:15
the first subscriber wouldn't come so
36:18
what do you think has cultivated that
36:21
at some point I became of the opinion that most people
36:28
exaggerate the risks
36:31
and exaggerate the points of possible failure
36:33
in the problems that they think they might want to solve
36:37
and if you just start by not being afraid
36:43
you'll get past that first set of obstacles
36:46
that just rules out 99% of your competition
36:50
and so when it comes to buying a terrible car
36:54
or going on some stupid trip
36:55
or doing something that you wouldn't
36:58
that most people won't try
37:00
the reason they won't try
37:02
probably isn't how terribly difficult it actually is
37:05
or how expensive it is
37:07
or anything like that
37:08
it's that there's some part of that process
37:10
that they just can't wrap their head around
37:12
and so if you don't try
37:13
and you just kind of move
37:13
all right well I'm going to do that
37:15
then you start just solving the problem
37:18
and I realized like
37:20
and what they ran into is
37:22
I have an audience that wants to see me
37:24
I know that if I make the same kind of content tomorrow
37:26
I'll probably see the same result
37:28
I like the current results
37:29
so I'm going to stay there
37:30
so I see their calculation
37:32
and I see why they wouldn't want
37:35
this new free different content
37:37
just handed to them to make revenue off of
37:40
but if I get past that
37:44
the platform inherently likes more content
37:47
it likes higher quality content
37:50
it likes an immediate delivery
37:52
on an initial title and thumbnail premise
37:55
which they weren't always doing in their vlogs
37:57
that took them to 10 different places
37:58
and different adventures
38:00
and I said this is a different product
38:01
but I think it works
38:06
and they weren't necessarily surprised
38:09
that it worked on its own
38:11
but I saw I think for years
38:13
maybe even today they would maintain
38:16
that it wouldn't have fit in well
38:19
alongside their regularly scheduled content
38:22
and you look at Doug DeMiro's channel today
38:24
where they've added the podcast
38:25
through cars and bids and things like that
38:27
they've had to carve that out
38:28
because it does interfere
38:30
with the general car reviews
38:33
and things that he's done
38:34
and so they weren't really wrong
38:37
I was wrong about that being my best path forward
38:40
and fortunately we were able to gain an audience
38:44
get views and eventually make a little bit of money
38:46
and it makes my Bugatti payment
38:49
it's funny you mentioned Bugatti
38:52
because I remember watching this piece of content
38:55
I can't remember who it was or where
38:57
but it was talking about someone
38:59
that had gone to their first dinner
39:01
with a load of other Bugatti owners
39:03
and they come away from it thinking
39:05
it would almost be impossible
39:07
if I went broke and I could still go to that dinner
39:12
and make some sort of money
39:14
from some opportunity or something
39:15
just the people that you surround yourself with
39:18
in that world can be different gravy
39:22
and you have spoke about network
39:25
right from the beginning of this conversation
39:28
and you also used to attend lots of events
39:31
from getting one of those first cars
39:33
do you think you sometimes
39:35
almost get so motivated
39:36
by the people around you
39:38
and the networks and the conversations
39:39
that you can lose touch of reality
39:43
of like how a lot of other people think
39:46
and then that makes what you're all doing
39:48
a little bit easier
39:50
if you can get in the doors
39:51
that may be open from your earliest years
39:56
do you think that's helped your mindset
39:59
make a lot of those big things seem smaller
40:01
just because that's how all the people that you know think
40:04
perhaps but I was always approaching even their hobbies
40:07
with a more you know risk-taking attitude
40:11
right so when they were all trying to buy
40:12
like cars that have warranties
40:14
and low miles I'm like
40:15
what if it was crashed three times
40:17
that would make it cheaper
40:19
and so I don't know that it was necessarily
40:22
a keeping up with the Joneses
40:24
to the phrase we'd use mentality
40:26
I think much more it was like
40:29
all right I see how all these people are doing it
40:31
and I know why they're taking that path
40:33
but I actually think there's some shortcuts
40:36
or some cheat codes
40:38
to achieving a similar result to what they have
40:41
because if I pull up
40:43
in a salvage title Lamborghini
40:45
next to one that nobody knows that
40:48
and it might be a crazy story
40:50
and that would be more fun
40:52
because my payoff of delivering that story
40:55
after I've driven it covered in bugs
40:57
and definitely needing to be washed
40:59
that might be better
41:01
and I think people enjoy that more
41:04
and so it was really again
41:06
I talked about the efficiency of this
41:09
leading to that, to that, to that
41:10
and I think you know some of the attitudes
41:13
that I've had in car ownership
41:16
and in the curation of car stories
41:19
is based a lot on seeing how most people
41:22
and that's satisfying to them
41:23
I'm not discounting the way that they do it
41:25
because most people couldn't buy a car
41:27
that you have to drive around all these problems
41:30
and that require all these extra
41:33
in order to make sure that it doesn't explode
41:35
they wouldn't enjoy that
41:37
I do because I can think through
41:39
all right don't don't worry about that gauge
41:41
because that doesn't work
41:42
and don't worry about that
41:43
because we're going to fix it later
41:44
and just just go drive and have fun
41:46
and so I think being able to synthesize
41:50
the attitudes of a group
41:52
and realize well this seems very satisfying
41:56
this seems very interesting to that person
41:58
this seems like it would appeal
41:59
to this aspect of my persona
42:01
and that becomes the recipe for my path forward
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42:51
do you remember the first time that you got
42:56
your first significant
42:57
all for Wall Street paycheck moment from YouTube
43:02
um well there hasn't yeah i mean i there hasn't been one yet
43:06
guys driving a red Bugatti
43:10
you know it's all been you know very incremental
43:13
was there one that made you realize
43:15
that you were on a path
43:17
that was going to lead you to serious success
43:20
so we started in the summer probably around like
43:22
I remember it's a holidays like Thanksgiving Christmas
43:25
I that was the first day we made a hundred dollars
43:29
in ads since money and I was like
43:31
that is how much a substitute teacher makes
43:35
and it had been probably two years
43:37
since I made my last dollar at the dealership
43:40
it was not like a seamless easy process
43:44
and I was bleeding money faster than you could possibly imagine
43:46
from just doing all the stuff to market the
43:49
the app which was not making any money or going anywhere really
43:52
and so it was getting a little desperate
43:54
and I remember that moment where it was like wait a minute
43:59
this could become like a little bit of a job
44:02
and that was exciting to me
44:03
I never fancied that it might be like a path to owning
44:06
more cars or doing more things
44:08
I always thought that it was just going to be this
44:12
flash in the pan sort of idea
44:14
because it was something you enjoyed doing as well
44:17
it was but I wasn't out there like trying to make it about me
44:22
like for the first probably two years
44:25
one video a week was me from one of my stories
44:28
and in my experience of now doing about I don't know
44:31
3,500 car stories since 2017 for you know
44:36
I would say most people that have spent a decade in the car business
44:39
have 10 to 15 good stories
44:41
the kind of stories they've told before
44:44
what happens is they come to me they'll record five or six
44:49
they'll get some attention they love that
44:51
they like the form the stories take
44:53
the next five are great
44:55
because they really thought about it
44:56
but they don't over script it that becomes a problem
44:59
but they think it through and those are great
45:01
then they want to keep doing it
45:03
but there's just nothing there
45:05
and a lot of times the community of
45:07
vinwiki storytellers has become quite a thing
45:09
and so they all know each other
45:11
they all they're all going on road trips together
45:13
having fun it's awesome
45:14
and I love love love that about it
45:17
but now they want to go have adventures together
45:19
and come tell the stories about them
45:21
it's the most expected
45:22
and I'm like these are all just like kumbaya
45:25
here's how good my life has turned out to be moments like
45:27
we liked it when your car broke down
45:29
and the dog got sick
45:31
and so you know it's like that that's all the
45:33
those are the stories that people appreciate
45:35
because of what you've had to overcome
45:36
what you learned that the external validity
45:39
that the story can take
45:40
and so it's it's a challenge
45:42
for a lot of the guys that have had great
45:44
because their stories are amazing
45:45
but now things are better
45:47
and life isn't as complicated
45:50
and the cars aren't quite as broken
45:51
and the roads aren't quite as hard
45:53
and that's that's an interesting phenomenon that we see
45:57
so because I'd done so many crazy things in the car business
46:02
I probably had 50 good car stories
46:04
I've told about 250
46:06
but a lot of those now are like life updates
46:09
and new car purchases and stuff like that
46:11
that are not those like riveting tails
46:13
of buying a Lamborghini from a prostitute
46:15
or having your Ferrari stolen on your wedding day
46:17
or any of those things that were like legitimately
46:19
I think probably pretty good stories
46:21
it's funny because you talk about the Doug DeMiro moment
46:25
where like I'm not uploading it on my channel
46:29
and it's almost the same thing
46:31
because you come to this moment where you're like
46:33
yes I know you've done really well
46:36
but I think that's where like I've got to draw the line
46:38
it's really hard sometimes for people to understand
46:41
or to have the ability to say no
46:44
but you say you've always had that kind of ability to like
46:47
almost call it and say like that's enough for now
46:50
well I think being able to for anyone to stop
46:52
while they're ahead is important right
46:54
the the abilities for us to to say like
46:57
all right that's that's where this part of my life ends
47:02
and you know I knew when the iguana business needed to end
47:08
I knew when the rental business needed to end
47:10
I knew when the dealership business needed to end
47:14
and and that's hard because generally I didn't know
47:17
what was next in those stories
47:20
and fortunately I haven't found that
47:21
been wiki needs to end just yet
47:23
but there will come a day where it's just run its course
47:27
and it's done what it is and it's better to exist
47:30
in the state that it is than to become what's next
47:33
or or to you know gradually change
47:36
a bigger change is necessary or whatever it becomes
47:38
who knows have you always been good at predicting
47:42
what story would fly and what story would flop
47:46
like come away from turning off the record
47:49
button on the camera and going that's a million views
47:52
or has it always been like really hard to predict
47:54
it's always the one that you think is going to be
47:56
like meh versus the one that you think is going to fly
47:59
early on it was very surprising
48:01
I had no idea what was going to work or what wasn't
48:03
and you know as you get to different
48:06
subscriber and viewership thresholds
48:08
Google will give you like contacts that you can call
48:10
or set up a time with and talk to about stuff
48:13
and I remember one time the girl told me saying
48:16
we've looked through all of your successful videos
48:18
and we really think you need to find more stories
48:21
about stolen cars crashed exotic cars and prostitutes
48:27
I said you you understand those don't just walk in my door
48:31
like was this YouTube yeah they told me that
48:33
and I said I get that I've seen that they get views
48:37
it doesn't happen every moment so it's what year
48:40
would that have been oh that would have been
48:42
I don't know probably 21 20 20 20 yeah everything
48:46
that you can read when monetizing a video
48:49
basically says not to do those things yeah
48:52
but it was like you just back then nobody knew
48:55
and I'm still nobody knows I would say today
48:58
I have a pretty good handle on what a video is going to do
49:01
and like most legacy automotive creators people
49:05
have been doing this for more than five years
49:07
we do see some view retraction where it is focal
49:10
on a very specific portion of our subscriber base
49:14
that are the people that show up every day
49:16
and then you can tell when something gets served
49:19
algorithmically to more of your subscribed audience
49:21
more of your unsubscribed audience and things like that
49:24
so you do see the patterns that start to emerge
49:27
and I've enjoyed the business aspect of YouTube a lot
49:31
in terms of how we serve the right brands
49:34
how we make sure that all the stakeholders benefit
49:37
from whatever it is we're trying to do
49:39
how you run merch how you make content just to me that's fun
49:43
like seeing this as a way that you can show up here
49:48
in the course of a week churn out
49:49
what could become six months worth of content
49:52
to me that's beautiful and it's a it's a lovely treatment of
49:57
the business in the industry
49:59
in 21 22 on that timeline that we're kind of going along
50:05
was the app and the web platform out earning the channel
50:10
or was the channel vastly out earning those platforms
50:14
the app still has not made money for for a variety of reasons
50:18
so that the app has never made more money than the media brand
50:22
and it actually business wise we had to separate them
50:25
due to the confusion from a growth perspective
50:29
and potential fundraising opportunities
50:30
and things that we still haven't realized with the app
50:33
but the it's an interesting thing because our app has now
50:39
coming up on nine ten years of linear growth
50:43
which never happens with a technology company
50:45
you either don't grow or you grow exponentially
50:48
because your success is in a great product
50:50
that people like and they evangelize
50:52
and they tell the world about our success is marketing
50:55
so marketing turns into new downloads new users
50:58
but it's just a nice straight line
51:00
and that means that we are a total failure
51:03
when it comes to making the product as good as it could be
51:05
because we built it all that time ago
51:07
we can't afford to rebuild it right now
51:10
and so it's a very interesting and challenging dynamic
51:14
for the business to take of
51:16
and and I continue to romanticize what one day
51:20
the app can become because it is an amazing resource
51:23
it's the largest free database of automotive information
51:26
that's available worldwide
51:28
it's got 160 million cars in a database
51:30
that anybody can just type in and post to
51:32
and so I love that and one day at scale
51:35
it might be really valuable
51:36
but what I focus on now is just making sure
51:40
that it stays alive and we keep telling good stories
51:42
in what year did your brain realize
51:45
there could be a very real life story
51:48
in you purchasing a hypercar
51:50
because I mean owning a Lamborghini at 20 is one thing
51:54
and it's not just been
51:55
they're not just going to focus on the fact
51:57
that you literally got a Bugatti Bayron
51:59
which is insane because there's been so many also
52:02
notable incredible cars that have formed
52:05
the cars that you've owned
52:06
I think as 2024 you'd had 64
52:11
but when did you think that you could take the step
52:14
why was that significant for you
52:15
is there something like you'd always wanted
52:17
since you first saw it launched in 2006 or
52:21
it was even when they announced it in 2003
52:23
I thought it was just the coolest idea
52:25
and we were you know at that point
52:26
just starting to increase like the awareness of
52:30
an F40, F50, McLaren F1
52:32
I mean you know now it seems crazy
52:34
that these cars would be so you know
52:36
undervalued at one point
52:38
but I was talking over dinner with a guy
52:39
that about McLaren F1
52:41
that we're doing some content with
52:43
that you know sold for about $600,000 in 2004
52:48
and it's now worth north of 20 million I suppose
52:50
and you know that's crazy
52:53
and that's hard to wrap your head around
52:54
but I was like well you have to understand
52:56
back then $600,000 for a car was nuts
53:00
and not much more nuts than $20 million for a car today
53:04
well just on that I have my own very small story
53:08
which was I grew up in the building world
53:10
and one of our customers
53:11
which is the builders merchant
53:12
he bought a McLaren F1
53:15
because he had a very successful year in trading
53:17
I remember this I must have only been like
53:20
well I 12 when I heard this story
53:22
and what was really significant to my dad
53:25
who told me the stories
53:26
it was one of his best customers
53:28
in a really affluent area of Surrey in England
53:31
and he had this great big building yard
53:34
and he bought the F1
53:36
I want to say for $350,000
53:39
and he sold it for $650,000 or $700,000
53:44
and he was over the moon
53:45
and he said to my dad
53:47
can you believe that I've just profited
53:51
an amount of money on the car
53:52
that my entire company would make in a year
53:54
but obviously he's then now come to see
53:56
and later like what that car would have become
54:00
when you like hear that
54:01
and hear the stories of F1s from your part
54:04
do you think that like the Veyron
54:06
in the back of your mind has that same potential
54:08
is that what also gets you excited about it
54:11
but you know the reason the Veyron mattered
54:14
to me from a personal journey perspective
54:17
was that working in the rental car business
54:21
and working in the dealership world
54:23
I was always chasing the ability to own
54:26
and use and drive the cars personally
54:29
now in the dealership world
54:30
you get to drive a lot of cars
54:31
but it never felt the same as if you
54:34
your name was either on the title
54:35
or on the loan documents
54:37
and so chasing the next car
54:40
was always a big part of my personal journey
54:43
in terms of the profession of the car industry
54:46
and so I always wanted to have the next car
54:49
and to me the end all be all holy grail car
54:54
was a manual transmission Lamborghini Marcella ago
54:57
I thought that was the greatest thing
54:58
I remember when they first came out
54:59
and the I was 16 years old in 2001
55:01
and so I see the road test and road and track
55:04
and they're breaking all these speed records
55:05
and it's just perfect
55:06
and I'm like that's what I want
55:08
and it wasn't a good rental car
55:09
it wasn't the right thing to have in that
55:11
and so when I started to work in the dealership
55:13
I was like how do I buy a Marci
55:14
and I remember the first time
55:17
that we had a manual transmission version
55:19
of an LP640 coming on consignment
55:22
I came off the truck
55:23
I'm like I'm gonna run this thing around the block
55:24
and just see how it is
55:25
and I came back and I was like
55:27
that is the greatest car that's ever been built
55:31
and my boss was like with a stick
55:34
and I was like yeah
55:36
and he's like because at that point you know
55:39
you couldn't make cars faster
55:41
by giving them bigger engines
55:42
because they had to become so much heavier
55:44
so you had to start making them faster
55:47
and so that's one of the reasons why
55:49
F1 technology became so heavily deployed
55:52
into road cars was because
55:55
they wanted to make these cars go faster
55:57
and have better lap times
55:59
and that was really the only way that they could do it
56:01
because they're having to put so many airbags in
56:03
and so many different safety systems
56:04
and the prevalence of all-wheel drive
56:05
was increasing and stuff like that
56:07
and so if you wanted to make a mercy faster
56:11
the gearbox was the only place you could really do it
56:14
and so we thought that it was a 90% take rate
56:18
turns out it was a 99%
56:21
but nobody knew this
56:23
the factory had no records
56:24
they had no no one had any idea
56:26
how many of these were out there
56:27
it was all just guess
56:30
I would occasionally have people say
56:31
I'd rather have a manual transmission car
56:33
and you know at that point
56:34
I couldn't afford to buy them
56:35
but there was no premium
56:36
I mean you know we were selling that car
56:38
for probably less than you would have paid
56:44
and so I owned a couple of e-gear LP640s
56:46
with gigantic 12-year loans before that
56:49
and then one came up for sale in 2014
56:55
and I remember I paid $215,000 for this car
56:58
and in a conversation here at Car Week over dinner
57:00
somebody asked what it would bring
57:01
I was like easily $2 million today
57:05
so in the same way as your father's friend
57:07
who was like you know
57:07
oh I had a huge win
57:08
I made a lot of money on that car
57:10
enough to buy the worst example
57:13
of a manual transmission LP640
57:15
with just the profit
57:16
I mean I had a very branded title
57:17
it was crashed by a terrorist drug dealer
57:23
I do and I loved that car a lot
57:26
but the moment that I had
57:32
with the giant loan in my name
57:34
I had like a proper existential work crisis
57:37
I'm like well why am I going to go to work tomorrow
57:42
I mean I got to feed my family and stuff like that
57:43
but like that seems dumb
57:47
and so I fortunately
57:50
motivated myself to go do it
57:51
at least for a little while
57:52
I mean I did quit a year later
57:56
when Venwicky started to gain traction
58:01
I need a stupid goal
58:03
in order to keep working as hard as I want to
58:05
so I just had this moment like
58:07
I need to buy a Bugatti
58:08
and that sort of became
58:12
now it still took another five years
58:15
but it was the right thing
58:16
to make me work harder
58:18
and keep good credit
58:19
and keep doing all the things
58:22
but I tried to buy a lot of really really bad Bugatti's
58:26
and one of them finally worked out
58:29
driving that down the road
58:31
like you talk so logically
58:32
and with so much like precision
58:34
but you have that proper giddy moment
58:37
of like I've actually done this
58:38
like how did it make you feel
58:40
so I had almost bought a supersport
58:44
and that I went down
58:48
I was going to have to sell like five cars
58:49
in order to make it work
58:51
and I was excited to do so
58:53
but it was it was much more money
58:55
than I ended up spending on my grand sport
58:58
this is this is really like a dumb idea
59:02
but I like a dumb idea
59:04
and I was I was really trying to wrap my head around it
59:07
and sometimes you drive a car
59:10
it's a meeting your hero's moment
59:12
and it it lives up to it
59:14
and I came away like
59:16
it's what I need it to be
59:18
I didn't come away like
59:20
I can't live without that thing
59:21
but I was like this that makes sense
59:23
if I can get it all together
59:24
and for various reasons
59:25
that deal fell apart
59:28
the one that I ended up buying with
59:29
that has the removable roof
59:30
like hearing the four turbochargers
59:32
spooling up right behind your head
59:34
the first time I got into that was like
59:38
and I was over the moon
59:40
and I mean giddy schoolgirl going crazy
59:43
and so that was everything I dreamt
59:48
and it was made better
59:49
because it was the Frankfurt Motor Show car
59:51
that bird man owned
59:51
and gave it to Bieber
59:52
and sold it to Mayweather
59:53
and sold it to little Lucy Burton
59:54
and just true you know
59:56
I loved the story of the car
59:59
even though you love the story of the car
00:01
was that like a big part before
00:02
you actually committed to the purchase
00:07
could come from the car
00:08
that you were looking at buying
00:09
was that part of the decision making process
00:12
so I learned very early on
00:14
in making YouTube content
00:15
that there is no financial model
00:18
that justifies the purchase of a car
00:22
Freddie and Tyler can make
00:24
videos enough to say
00:25
all right well I can make six videos
00:28
or Freddie can make 400 videos
00:31
and one day it's going to pay for itself right
00:33
and so I knew that like
00:37
it doesn't make sense
00:38
but I like to buy cars
00:41
that I believe will theoretically
00:43
go up in value one day
00:44
and that makes the world go around
00:46
in my financial world
00:47
and so I believed that
00:51
of the 14 grand sports
00:52
that were brought to the U.S.
00:53
the fact that six of them
00:54
went to market inside of 12 months
00:57
meant that the market had been pushed down
01:00
and that once those were all absorbed
01:01
in place that they would go up
01:05
Was it a bigger achievement for you
01:07
mentally getting that Veyron
01:10
or hitting your first million subscribers on YouTube?
01:13
Why do growing businesses love working in Slack?
01:16
Let's ask Christy at Ari Bikes
01:18
Running things in Slack saves me so much time
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Ashley from Caraway
01:34
If we didn't have Slack tomorrow
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02:01
The Veyron was a bigger achievement
02:04
only because reaching two million subscribers
02:07
was above your deal than one million subscribers
02:09
because back when we started
02:12
for reasons none of us understand
02:14
your daily subscriber growth was like
02:17
somewhat guaranteed
02:22
regardless of how many views you got
02:24
you just ended up with another 1500 or 2000 subscribers
02:28
It was the way the algorithms worked
02:30
And these days people think they're paying for it
02:32
when they hit subscribe
02:33
even though they're not
02:34
but it's almost that transactional moment in there
02:36
So from zero to a million subscribers
02:39
was like a super linear line
02:40
it was very predictable
02:41
like I knew the day it was going to happen
02:45
Getting the next million was actually quite challenging
02:47
because everything changed in the way that YouTube worked
02:50
It never matters because your views
02:53
are totally independent
02:54
of the number of subscribers that you have
02:57
But I would say that the
02:59
I had built up in my own mind
03:01
and in our audience
03:02
that like one day it's going to buy a Bugatti
03:04
enough that like it was a thing
03:09
that was one of those things
03:10
that one of those goals
03:11
that like was as good as it needed to be
03:13
Now am I personally as proud of that
03:16
as I was for cartwheeling
03:18
the profit from a really nice manual LP640
03:21
into owning the worst one on earth for free?
03:23
Like being able to own my dream car
03:27
for no money outlaid
03:29
even though it's the worst example
03:31
but the first time I ever had the title
03:36
like that was the coolest thing
03:37
it was like the first time I felt like
03:39
doesn't matter what happens in my life
03:40
nobody can take my mercy away
03:44
as I limped it across from driving it
03:46
2500 miles from Vegas to Atlanta
03:48
because I couldn't afford to ship it
03:50
and you know the air conditioning didn't work
03:52
and the seatbelt was ding in the whole time
03:53
it was like it was a nightmare
03:55
but it was a great car
03:57
Have you had people say to you
04:00
Oh but I've seen these quotes
04:01
like the average Bugatti owner has like
04:04
40 houses and two helicopters
04:06
and a private jet and this and that
04:07
do you think it's true?
04:09
Well I'm bringing that average down a lot
04:13
I don't understand how it works
04:15
and I am definitely the world's poorest
04:18
Bugatti owner and I'm very pleased with that
04:20
I you know I just bought some
04:22
3700 dollar Chinese wheels
04:24
to put normal tires on it
04:26
and it drives great
04:30
I use it as much as I possibly can
04:32
I put about 4000 miles on it this year
04:34
which I was a little bit ashamed of
04:35
it should have been more than that
04:37
and I couldn't pay $40,000 for PAX tires
04:41
but now we seem to have solved that
04:42
so maybe 10,000 miles this year
04:43
I'm going to drive it all I can
04:45
The problem with making content is that
04:47
I end up having to buy a lot of cheaper cars
04:49
and stuff for car trek and other things that we do
04:52
and it takes up a lot of the miles
04:53
that I would be driving in
04:55
the Lamborghinis of the Ferrari
04:56
and just that I can't
04:58
because I've got to make these cars work
05:01
and so hopefully there's less of those projects
05:03
in the next 12, 18 months
05:04
and I can put more miles on it
05:06
Where does Vim Wickey go
05:08
from where you currently are?
05:10
What's the next thing?
05:11
Like throughout your journey
05:12
you've always been focused on
05:13
the next thing or when's right to end it
05:15
Do you have that insight?
05:17
You've just ticked off owning a hypercar
05:19
that you had as a goal for five years
05:21
like where does your brain go next?
05:24
That's a great question
05:28
that you've got some level of success
05:29
but perhaps that it's sunsetting
05:31
on some time horizon
05:34
it may not be a year or five years from now
05:37
you know I've felt for a while
05:39
that I might be closer to the end
05:40
than the beginning of Vim Wickey
05:43
and there's no exploration on it
05:46
it's not like there's this onus
05:47
on me to like shut it down
05:48
I just feel like I'm so pleased
05:51
that we've been able to put so many great stories out there
05:54
and invite the audience along
05:55
and invite so many of the audience
05:57
to come in and tell their own stories
05:58
and so that means the world to me
06:02
So I think that there is a logic
06:05
that prevails on YouTube
06:07
that at some point you have to pivot
06:09
and you have to do some different style of content
06:12
and I don't know how much
06:13
I necessarily believe that
06:15
I mean I've seen plenty of people
06:18
and take these huge production risks
06:20
and spin up all this ability
06:22
or this you know talent
06:24
and employees and all this stuff
06:26
and sometimes it works
06:28
but most of the time it doesn't
06:29
because the audience did
06:31
as I was told by Demiro and everybody else
06:33
they came for a reason
06:34
and when you start serving them
06:36
something different
06:37
they're not necessarily going to react
06:39
the way you think they ought to
06:41
and so I think we have to be proper stewards
06:45
of the audience's attention
06:48
that we owe them something more
06:51
something different
06:52
and so what we've done
06:55
me and Tyler Hoover
06:56
Who's Garage and Freddie Tavares Hernandez
06:58
is we've played fake top gear
07:01
and we make Car Trek series
07:03
where we'll set out a buying challenge
07:04
and go buy some crazy car
07:06
and go on some adventures and film
07:07
and it is more fun than it looks
07:10
and so I'm very happy with that
07:12
because it's like a
07:13
mini series concept
07:15
that we spend infinitely more money
07:17
than we would on our normal day to day content
07:20
but it puts us in a situation
07:23
where we can give the audience
07:24
something different
07:25
that is produced differently
07:27
financed differently
07:29
and feels very different
07:31
than what they get every day
07:32
but they can sort of like
07:34
and have this special experience
07:36
I've been pleased with that approach
07:38
and I hope we get to continue
07:40
on those fun adventures
07:41
and it seems we shall
07:42
but in terms of totally changing
07:45
Vin Wickey or thinking about
07:46
what Vin Wickey becomes
07:52
that you wouldn't sign off
07:54
your journey with Vin Wickey
07:56
in the future happy
07:57
if you hadn't had them on
08:00
to tell us a particular story?
08:03
I think that you know
08:05
we've had a handful of Vin Wickey's
08:07
storytellers pass away
08:13
the most beloved Vin Wickey
08:15
We paid a tribute to him at SEMA
08:24
in the last few months
08:26
which is now about a year ago
08:30
having so much peace
08:34
someone was going to see
08:38
was so powerful to me
08:44
immortalize his own
08:45
epic tales of the car business
08:47
and exploits and deals
08:49
and all these things
08:52
Eric Keller from EAG
08:54
one of the greatest
08:55
BMW experts in the world
08:56
died in a motorcycle accident
08:59
had told so many great stories
09:01
and sold so many epic cars
09:03
through his dealership
09:04
and built something
09:05
really really meaningful
09:06
and I think the fact
09:07
that we can be a small part
09:09
of that relationship
09:11
that someone can build
09:12
with an audience that
09:14
they certainly could have found
09:16
but that we can be that bridge
09:18
to that kind of storytelling outlet
09:20
to me has been really really satisfying
09:23
Has that though also been
09:26
of this journey with Vin Wickey
09:28
saying goodbye to people
09:30
come on the channel
09:31
what has been the toughest thing
09:34
I think the toughest thing
09:36
with social media content creation
09:38
inadequately compensated
09:42
for everyone to be able to
09:43
tell you how they feel
09:45
and the privacy that you give up
09:50
to be very worth it
09:51
but early on in particular
09:53
that was a big challenge
09:54
is that I am opening myself up
09:57
for people to go into the comments
09:58
and say whatever they feel like
10:05
have people that want to come up
10:07
and talk to me at any moment
10:09
and that is wonderful
10:10
I consider myself to be exactly
10:12
the right amount of famous
10:13
like enough that if I'm at a car show
10:15
I'm going to shake some extra hands
10:16
and take some pictures
10:18
but if I'm walking through the airport
10:19
it's only a few people
10:20
and that's all well and good
10:21
and if I'm with my family
10:22
it's all respectful
10:23
and our audience is amazing
10:26
and so but I think that
10:28
that was a really hard thing
10:30
early on to warm up to
10:33
and now like if we bring a female
10:37
and it's just you know
10:39
that you just can't really get around
10:40
if you invite people to comment on
10:46
do you have guests that have been
10:49
to come on and tell some stories
10:50
and then the stories have gone live
10:53
and then maybe they've been
10:54
attacked in the comments section
10:58
I know that's going to happen
11:00
that it's going to happen
11:01
and I'll say don't read the comments
11:03
at all the demeanor of the audience
11:05
and that's very true
11:08
you can look at a video
11:09
that has a 98% like ratio
11:11
and there will be 50 vitriolic comments
11:14
that are just filth
11:17
but at its worst at the beginning then
11:19
when you say that that was something
11:21
how would that that physically look
11:23
like you put a video live
11:26
the comments come through
11:28
what would it do to you
11:30
I think it would just
11:33
the problem is you give it too much credit
11:35
you you read too much into it
11:37
when again it's hard to say
11:39
98% of the people like this video
11:41
those 20 people really seem to dislike it
11:44
me or whatever we were talking about
11:48
I have to decide what matters
11:52
because the idea the business matters
11:54
making more videos matters
11:55
like I want to do those things
11:57
but I have to decide
11:58
what credence do I give
12:00
what attention do I give
12:03
and the answer is very little
12:04
don't worry about it
12:05
you shrug it off and just
12:06
up both the rest of the comments
12:07
and make it all go away
12:11
tough thing for any content creator
12:13
I think to to mute out enough
12:15
what's your next Bugatti moment
12:19
well I've got young children now
12:21
so my next Bugatti moment
12:23
is them going into well-functioning adulthood
12:26
and that's not as entertaining
12:27
from an audience perspective
12:29
but I think that the
12:32
challenges that we have
12:33
of trying to blend work
12:36
and the rest of life
12:38
becomes a little harder
12:40
when we earn a living off of social media
12:42
and when the garage is full
12:44
of broken supercars
12:49
you know try to be conscious
12:53
the world of exotic car owners
12:55
and like really good people
12:58
all that greatly it does
12:59
and there's plenty of great people
13:00
in our community and in our world
13:02
and then out here at these shows and events
13:04
but it's it can stack the deck against us
13:10
the rest of the relationships
13:13
and I think that we have to compartmentalize
13:20
our passions our goals
13:22
whatever we want to be doing
13:23
with what that means
13:24
to the other people around us
13:26
and I think trying to find
13:29
will be the quest of the next
13:31
you know 10-15 years of my life
13:33
Have you always been content
13:38
finding contentment
13:39
has always been a challenge
13:42
and spirituality helps there
13:45
I'm trying to be as outspoken
13:47
a Christian as I possibly can be
13:49
in my relationship with Christ
13:50
is really what puts all of that
13:54
and it's a very important part
13:57
and I think the fact that
13:59
God gives us the opportunities
14:00
to have these crazy experiences
14:02
and be able to tell people
14:05
and bond through them
14:06
is one of the most beautiful things
14:08
but I also think that
14:10
the ability to find contentment
14:13
is something that is beautiful
14:15
when we can manage it
14:17
that making the most out of today
14:20
and being as gracious
14:21
and appreciative of the opportunities
14:23
is really what makes it all
14:25
and as I walk into my garage now
14:30
and I'm like holy cow
14:31
they still haven't repossessed
14:36
and it's getting to the point
14:38
I don't really have a lot more goals
14:43
and that's a new place
14:45
I had to set an arbitrary goal
14:46
of going out to buy a Bugatti
14:47
last time I felt that way
14:49
but it's different now
14:50
and I'm trying to figure that out
14:53
because I couldn't be any happier
14:55
with the current lineup of cars
14:56
and I just want to go drive them all
14:58
and I hope that I didn't have time
15:00
to drive one out here
15:01
all the way to California
15:02
but that takes an extra couple of days
15:03
when you don't go at cannonball speeds
15:05
and so I think just
15:07
it's hard to know what's next
15:09
but contentment is always a challenge
15:12
I didn't want this story
15:14
to be something individual
15:16
like the content that you put out
15:18
that story that is perfectly 10 minutes
15:20
to do with the title
15:22
because that is what
15:23
you're so good at doing
15:24
I wanted this story to be about you
15:26
and your journey of how the hell
15:28
you got from selling iguanas
15:30
to where you are today
15:31
as a Bugatti Veyron owner
15:34
and multiple business owner
15:35
and passionate family man
15:37
so I thank you very much
15:39
for coming and spending time
15:42
in the middle of a car park
15:43
somewhere in Monterey during car week
15:46
I hope you enjoy the whole of car week
15:48
is there anything in particular
15:49
you're getting up to
15:50
you're very excited about
15:51
well I have made it here
15:52
in a car that very short time
15:55
I have got the 1998 Lamborghini Diablo
15:57
victorious secret edition
15:59
that we are going to be parading
16:01
hopefully functionally this week
16:03
but it got legally registered
16:05
about I don't know 72 hours ago
16:07
and it is it is here
16:10
but it is going to go several places
16:12
well I hope you enjoy your car week
16:14
thank you for coming
16:14
I'm ready to six out
16:24
quantum fiber Wi-Fi keeps your meeting
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additional pods may be needed
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16:46
thanks for having me