$100M CEO Explains How to Build A Brand in 2024

How I got here…

21: Graduated Vanderbitl in 3 years Magna Cum Laude, and took a fancy consulting job.
23 yrs old: Left my fancy consulting job to start a business (a gym).
24 yrs old: Opened 5 gym locations.
26 yrs old: Closed down 6th gym. Lost everything.
26 yrs old: Got back to launching gyms (launched 33). Then, lost everything for a 2nd time.
26 yrs old: In desperation, started licensing model as a hail mary. It worked.
27 yrs old: "Gym Launch" does $3M profit the next 6 months. Then $17M profit next 12 months.
28 yrs old: Started Prestige Labs. $20M the first year.
29 yrs old: Launched ALAN, a software company for agencies to work leads for customers. Scaled to $1.7mmo within 6 months.
31 yrs old: Sold 75% of UseAlan to a strategic buyer in an all stock deal.
31 yrs old: Sold 66% of Gym Launch & Prestige Labs at $46.2M valuation in all-cash deal to American Pacific Group. (you can google it)
31 yrs old: Started our family office Acquisition.com. We invest and scale companies using the $42M in distributions we had taken + the cash from the $46.2M exit.
32 yrs old: Started making free content showing how we grow companies to make real business education accessible to everyone (and) to attract business owners to invest or scale their businesses.
34 yrs old: I became co-owner of https://Skool.com to help the many people who want to start a business online do so.

Today: Our portfolio now does $200M/yr between 10 companies. The largest doing $100M/yr the smallest doing $5M per year. Our ownership varies between 20% and 100% ownership of the companies. Many of them we invested in early and helped grow (which is how we make our money - not youtube videos).

To all the gladiators in the arena, we’re all in the middle of writing our own stories. The worse the monsters, the more epic the story.

You either get an epic outcome or an epic story. Both mean you win.

Keep crushing. May your desires be greater than your obstacles.

Never quit,

Alex