Bootstrapped

Trevor Sehrer founded Lenstag in 2013 to fight camera theft and he’s been recovering camera equipment ever since. His childhood was tough to put it lightly. He dropped out of high school and college and eventually ended up as a site reliability engineer at Google. He moved from his hometown Corvallis, Oregon to Silicon Valley. Trevor embodies the spirit of this show as he’s extremely humble, relentless and entrepreneurial. His ability to keep showing up despite adversity pushing back against him is why he’s successful. The takeaway from this episode is, keep showing up. Keep trying and you’ll get there. That’s the only thing that matters. Business Contact Info www.lenstag.com First recovery: https://petapixel.com/2014/03/31/exclusive-lenstag-recovers-first-item-stolen-lens-returned-happy-owner/

  Until around the age of 30, Robert Graham was wandering around the world in search of answers to life’s two big questions, relationship and work. In this episode we go through Robert’s journey and his strategy for finding those answers. Robert Graham is the founder of GrahamComm, presentation, sales and communication skills training. He’s fully optimized his life to maximize his happiness. He lives with his wife and daughters six months of the year in Mexico and and the other six months in Oakland. The takeaway from this episode is that you should create a vision for what you want your life to look like AND a plan to get there Business Contact Info grahamcomm.net  

Sam Parr has started both bootstrapepd and venture backed businesses. Sam’s one of those people who’s a born entrepreneur and from an early age he was starting companies and selling things. Having two parents who were entrepreneurs he thought that’s just how people get jobs, you start a business. We go through his businesses, personal finance strategy that supports his entrepreneur lifestyle, mental health strategy and what led to putting Tim Ferriss in the four hour headlock: https://www.instagram.com/p/BQj-vGHhzhL/ The takeaway from this episode is that you should whole ass one thing instead of half assing many things.   Quotes from the episode “Made money my entire life selling things” “I bet I just made more money than that teacher” “I don’t like being told what to do” “Every single thing that we touch has to be awesome”  “We’re only going to do a couple things but we’re going to make them all really, really cool” Business Contact Info Sign up for The Hustle email: thehustle.co Sam’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/theSamParr?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Sam’s 6 Month Cross Country Motorcycle Trip: http://imgur.com/a/euaD5 Sam’s work history: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parrsam/ Hustlecon: http://hustlecon.com/ *Runner Sam mentions: Chris Lukezic

Gary Nealon went through bankruptcy at 30 years old after buying a business 1 year earlier. By many measures he’s your average guy who grew up in a lower-middle class family in America. By many other measures he’s quite far from average as he runs an 8 figure online cabinet sales business, a consulting business and more recently a social exploration and discovery wine app. I hope this episode gives you the confidence to take risks knowing that even if you hit rock bottom and file for bankruptcy at age 30, you can fight back and build a 10 million dollar plus business. The takeaway from this episode is that you should take risks because they often lead to success and failure isn’t permanent.   Quotes from the episode “I was literally starting from scratch at the age of 30” - Gary Nealon “You gotta jump back on the horse and do something” - Gary Nealon “By the age of 30 I ended up filing bankruptcy on that and literally lost everything that I had.” - Gary Nealon “I assume and I hope that filing bankruptcy is the lowest point in my life and I’m like if that was rock bottom and I’m on my way back up, I know I’m never going back there down there so I’m going to have to do whatever I have to do now.” - Gary Nealon “To be able to be your own boss is one of the most gratifying things” - Gary Nealon “I liquidated everything I had an put it into this company” - Gary Nealon “By the age of 30 I ended up filing bankruptcy on that and literally lost everything that I had.” - Gary Nealon   Business contact Info Gary’s Consulting Biz:www.garynealon.com RTA Cabinet Store: www.rtacabinetstore.com RTA Blog: www.rtacabinetstore.com/blog Sweet Cabinet & Kitchen Pics on Facebook: www.facebook.com/rtakitchencabinetstore Sweet Cabinet & Kitchen Pics on Twitter: twitter.com/RTACabinetStore Wine App: www.winetrailadventures.com

Bryce Huett is an entrepreneur who describes his life as fantastic. He is one of the few people who loves his job. In this episode we cover Bryce getting laughed at when he registered his business without an idea, his love of customers, company culture strategy, the value of trusting people and much more. The takeaway from this episode is the value Bryce puts on health. He's been described by employees as the fittest person in his 50 person office. Even in the darkest days of his current business, which almost died several times, he worked out almost every day and always maintained a healthy diet. I guarantee three outcomes from listening to this episode: you will laugh, learn and leave inspired. I've been told the first 15 minutes are a bit slow and although I don't agree, I'd love your feedback.   Quotes from the episode “Those are the moments where literally you have to bootstrap yourself to get off the ground and if you don’t then it can end bad. And by that sense, you could go and find a job that you truly hate like a lot of people end up doing and never recover from that.” - Bryce Huett “I love what I do and that in itself puts me in the minority from a lot of people that work today.” - Bryce Huett "People that don’t make themselves vulnerable personally are not happy people, they’re not" - Bryce Huett   Quotes from employees “Miss that guy. True leader and risk taker at the same time.” - Chris Camp, Former employee “Single most inspirational person I’ve met. He could talk to a team he’s never met and get them pumped up.” - Keegan Bast, Director of Sales   Business contact Info https://www.distributorwire.com/who-we-are/company/

Kamaljit Bains has lived five different lives. In one of her lives she was considering attending her own funeral. In another she traveled the world for 9 months. She doesn’t see obstacles, she goes after what she wants. If the context of life isn’t making her happy, she changes it. People around Kamaljit are drawn to her infectious energy. She’s made piles of money in high paying corporate jobs but that didn’t satisfy her. Kamaljit has been on her own since the age of 16 which forced her to figure it out on her own. This is what made her who she is today. She currently owns her second bootstrapped business. The takeaway from this episode is that life shows up for you when you ask good questions. Throughout her life Kamaljit has asked tough questions and more importantly, she’s been honest about the answers. She always knows why she’s doing something and rarely, if ever is she doing something because it’s the norm. It’s gotta be her norm. She judges herself on her own standard, not someone else’s.   Quotes from the episode “The people I was seeing on a day to day basis were just trying to survive, they were just trying to make it and that was fine but for as long as I can remember, the bigger questions in life were always the ones that got my attention.” - Kamaljit Bains “Those tough conversations at a young age, the fact that my mother didn’t die, my father didn’t shoot anyone, that I believed those things were possible and they didn’t happen. Those conversations created this ferocious desire to have direct conversations with people.” - Kamaljit Bains “At 21 years old, 21 years old somebody paid for my flights, to move my things, to help me find an apartment to go and move to New York City. A 21 year old indian girl who was supposed to get married and push out babies was going to one of the most exciting cities in the world. I just couldn’t believe it.” - Kamaljit Bains “What I got really clear about was that I love working, not administering a business and administering a business will make me look good to the world but it will make me unhappy as an individual so that’s out.” - Kamaljit Bains Quotes from Kamaljit’s friends “If you have a serious issue she will tell you to experiment with it and have fun” - Andrea Mueller, Friend   Business contact Info Kamaljit Bains Impeccable Bookkeeping 415-702-5546 Serving small and medium sized businesses in San Francisco. Operating ethos: Be the change you wish to see in your client       

Tonny Soesanto is the relentlessly optimistic President of Kikka Sushi. Tonny’s sushi empire started 30 years ago with just a few employees. The company is now 2,000 employees and supplies a significant amount of sushi to Whole Foods and other top grocery stores across the United States. Tonny is an extremely happy person. He was laughing and smiling throughout my visit to Kikka HQ in LA. This episode will teach you a lot about optimizing for happiness and how to run a business. The takeaway from this episode is that there’s always a way when you work hard with persistence and optimism. Every time Tonny encounters a problem or an opportunity, he finds a way to make it happen. His strategy is to say yes first and figure out execution second. This strategy led to Kikka Sushi becoming one of the first to-go sushi suppliers in grocery and to being one of the first to use brown rice in sushi. Kikka’s yes first approach is why they are still growing today. When competitors said no and died, Tonny said yes and thrived.   Quotes from the episode “I’m very persistent, I don’t want to lose” - Tonny Soesanto “It’s not the money that I want, it’s the challenge” - Tonny Soesanto “I learn from my experience in life so the best you can do is teach your children or my employees to do the same...You need to view your life as glass half full, never half empty.” - Tonny Soesanto “I sleep on a stainless steel table but that’s fun” - Tonny Soesanto Business contact Info http://www.kikkasushi.com/ 431 S. Isis Avenue Inglewood, California 90301 (310) 410-1151 Email us at kikka@kikkasushi.com

Keith started BootCampSF in 2000. He is constantly experimenting and seeking adventure. His experiments include starting his business and learning to roll a kayak once capsized in his neighbor’s pool (people actually do this). Keith is not concerned with the world’s judgement, his concern is his next adventure. He’s been one of the most encouraging and inspirational people I’ve come across. The takeaway from this episode is that everything in life is an experiment. There’s no failing, only finding things out. People often avoid taking the necessary risks to reach happiness due to fear of failure. Keith’s philosophy removes that barrier. If you ignore outside opinions and buy into believing that everything is an experiment then every experiment you run gets you closer to success regardless of outcome. Remember, on this show success is defined as happiness. Run experiments and be happy.   Quotes from the episode “That first year, I wasn’t sure. It was kind of like an experiment and that’s kind of how I view everything anyways. Everything is an experiment so you’re not really going to fail, you’re just finding something out” - Keith Wohlwend “If you want to try something knew, you better get good at it.” - Keith Wohlwend “I get up early and get stuff done in the first part of the day, as much as I can” - Keith Wohlwend “I need eight, I need lots of sleep. I always hear about these people that can do four and it’s like, how do you do that?” Of course with any sort of athletic work you have to get a lot of sleep.” - Keith Wohlwend