Eric Spofford
Appearances
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
If you understand addiction, it ends in only a couple different places. The person ends up in recovery or they end up in jails, institutions and death. And the thing you need to consider is what are you going to regret if the worst case situation happens?
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Right. Trump. Oh, thank God. They're like, you know what I mean? They're loud and like, and aggressively no longer scared to, to come out and just say it how it is.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I love it. I absolutely love the idea of having real operators operating the country, right? Politicians aren't meant to... I mean, politicians are politicians. Look at what they've done so far. So very excited to see people with operational experience running it.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Don't leave that. Can we just talk about how Donald Trump and the supportive team's attitude around, you know, how much we give away to the world? Sure. Like, God, he's a funny dude, man. It's entertaining. At a bare minimum, love him, hate him, love something about him. Whatever your opinion is, you've got to give it to the dude. He's entertaining. He comes out and says...
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
this is now not the Gulf of Mexico. It's the Gulf of America. You know, that's what you're thinking about. You know, you're just sitting there on like a Wednesday morning and said, you know, it really pisses me off. They call that the Gulf of Mexico. We're going to rename it, you know, Greenland by Greenland.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
You know, one of the things I'm excited just that he's thinking about and taking actionable steps towards is like, I'm sick of, listen, I'm a taxpayer, man. Like I have paid the government tens and tens of millions of dollars. So when I say this, I'm not coming off of like, You know, I have significant revenue that I've contributed to this.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And so to turn around and watch us provide assistance and aid to countries like Ukraine makes me fucking sick. Like, listen, I care about Ukraine as much as I care about fucking Uganda and South Africa and China and like generally everywhere else. It's not my country. It's not my problem. Like I live in America and this country has problems.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And, you know, that led to, you know, the next 10 years of just an insane life. Got addicted to Oxycontin, which turned into heroin. You know, crime, violence, jail, streets, yada, yada, yada. And I got sober on December 7th of 2006, just before my 22nd birthday. Went on to find a passion in helping others recover from addiction and alcoholism. Did it at first on a volunteer basis.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
This country has homelessness, a drug epidemic that I personally watch on the front lines every day. 112,000 people died last year of fentanyl overdoses. We just had fires in California and they fucking send them $770 a piece after burning half the fucking city down. It's shameful, man. It's absolutely disgusting. And so, like, I don't mind paying taxes.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I pay them one way or the other because I like to sleep good at night. But I feel a lot better about seeing that money come out of my businesses and my ecosystem. Because, I mean, when you look at it, when you really understand tax, everything that fucking moves gets paid. For sure. Like seven or eight times.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And so, like, it feels a lot better to know that they're paying attention and then going to be making America about America. Right. And people like have been so scared to say that, but it's like, yo, there are no other countries that I'm aware of. And mind you, I'm not like this great, you know, geopolitical guy, but I don't see any other countries just fucking handing money out across the globe.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Exactly. Yeah. Who sent us money? You know, who else is funny? And so to see us kind of repurpose and refocus on spending American tax dollars on American people and American problems and like, yo, Hakuna Matata, like best wishes to all these other countries. And like, but it's on, I don't go to bed sleep thinking about fucking Ukraine. Right. Or any of this other shit.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I do go to bed thinking about those parents that lost their kids to fucking fentanyl.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I do go to bed thinking of like feeling terribly about these people that were displaced in Los Angeles or the hurricane that whacked North Carolina that was totally mismanaged. And no one's talking about that anymore. I mean, it's just like, yeah. So I'm excited to see the focus turn back to America with the external revenue team. Yeah, I like that. What is it, the IRS and the ERS? Yeah, exactly.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
External Revenue Service.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And these people are so fucking stupid that they won't give them reciprocity to their home state licensure.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
God, they're so fucking dumb. It's crazy.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
That turned into an entrepreneurial idea. Started my home state's very first sober living home. Scaled that over 13 years, two months to the largest provider of addiction treatment services in New England. Sold it for $115 million to a private equity-backed strategic.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
literally trump went on in his speech yesterday and he said tick tocks back yeah i mean it's just too big to fail right right they couldn't let it stay down yeah And so I didn't have a lot of concern that it would be down for very long. I think TikTok had to do what they had to do to stay in compliance, protect themselves, but also kind of stand their ground.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And so the 12 hours that TikTok was down, I mean, God, how many people were complaining about that?
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
You see how dependent people are on TikTok. you know, these platforms for a lot of reasons for the social greed, but also their own entertainment. Right. You know, so I didn't have a lot of concern that it was going to stay down for very long.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Honestly, my answer to almost everything right now is no. And here's why. The cost of distraction is unbelievable, right? And so I'm tunnel vision on these couple initiatives, these operating companies that I have, they're explosively growing.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And if I take 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 10 minutes away from my day-to-day to disengage from what I'm doing, pay attention to some pitch on some idea, and then potentially say yes, It takes time and energy even to just get that deal done and to get it over the finish line and to deploy capital.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And then review it. And all the while, you know, when you look at it, like if you say I'm three to five years away from $500 million valuation, right? I'll hit... This year, I'll hit $150 to $200 million enterprise valuation. Not liquidity, but just the business. This is what it's worth if I sold it. So take three years from now. I've been in for two. I'll be in for another three, right?
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Alongside that, I've done a couple hundred million in real estate transactions, invested in many other opportunities, and built a little bit of a personal brand. I've been messing around here on social media for the last few years, having a good time. connecting with like-minded folks like Dan.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
60 months. What's $500 million divided by 60? A lot. A lot. Divided by 4.3 weeks to the month.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
$8 million a month. All right. So that's $2 million a week. $2.3. And so when you look at the value of time.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I will get it done, but for the sake of conversation, if I transact in three years or if the businesses, say even if just I grow the business valuation to $500 million in the next 36 months, that means that when you take that value that I've created and accredit it backwards, that my time right now is worth $2 million a week. Five days a week, I mean, I work seven, but we'll call it five.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
That's $400,000 a day.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Yeah, the answer is fucking no. And so I acutely understand the value of my time in that context. And so when I look at it, I'm just like, I can't afford to even stop long enough to listen to what it is you have to say right now.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
It's a really interesting way to think about time management and the value of time. Like when I look at my 13-year, two-month run, I had the math done, but it's been a while, so I forget what it was.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
But it was like every dollar that I made from the beginning when I didn't make any money the first couple of years all the way through the end when the business was cash-flowing a million dollars a month, and then the equity proceeds at the transaction Of the 115 million. And then looked at that and credited that for the 13 years, two months.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And I had that boiled down to like what my hourly rate was. And that's where I first started to think of it like that. And so now I think of it like this. It's like, you know.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And that is the tool, the mechanism that you need to overcome your anxiety and your fear on confronting your loved one that has alcoholism and has addiction
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Exactly, but at a much faster rate this time.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Now, today, back at it in the addiction treatment space, active day-to-day CEO of two explosively growing businesses. One, Treatment X, a national collective of treatment centers. We acquired two businesses in Q4 of last year. We're set to acquire four more this year. So we're currently operating facilities in California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and growing expeditiously.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Moving quick.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And here's the moment where he pissed the entire internet off, you know? I just fucking hate these people that are making money online with things that they have no business selling because they don't have the expertise or the experience to back it up. Right.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And so the space, it's the only reason I remained to stay in the space with my business coaching mastermind is because I'm an actual operator and we bring real value to people that own companies that want to take them to the next level. But seeing these people that you have business coaches that have never owned and operated a real business.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
that have never hired or fired human beings, scaled, you know, headcounts, scaled sales, operations, seeing, you know, just all these coaching offers. And it just become this big, like, yuck. You know what I mean? And I really dislike it. And so I'm looking forward, I think this year, and I think right now,
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
the tide is, it has turned and is in the process of turning and more and more people will be aware of, of kind of consumer behavior of being like kind of weeding through what's fake and what's real and what's bullshit. Um, so that's one, like if you have coaches that are coaching coaches on how to coach other coaches, it's like, what the fuck are we talking about? Jesus Christ, go get a job. Um,
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And then second, people are just not authentic. You know what I mean? When I watch people's content, the stuff that I see go wrong is that they create a stage character... that they think is the thing that people on social media want to see, and they try to placate absolute everybody. Like, they're scared of pissing people off.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And I guess what I'm saying is that the people that have the greatest personal brands are the people that have mastered being able to be authentically them and totally okay with creating a division. If you're authentically you, at some level, you're going to be polarizing to people. There are going to be people that don't fuck with you at all and people that love with you.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
But people become so scared of what people think and the rejection of the people that don't fuck with you that they try to placate everybody in that nobody loves them.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
My charity comes is my purpose, like my God-given mission here is to help people with addiction and alcoholism. That's very clear. And so everything I do in a charitable sense is around that. And so it's very frequently helping people get into treatment, finding resources for people that can't afford it, helping families, et cetera. That's my main area of focus.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I think all these other things are great, but this is my thing.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I don't know if I've ever thought about it in the context of what percentage, right? I have thought about it in how is it managed. And so I have an estate plan that's set up for my kids that has taken the core issues that I think that my wealth could cause harm to them and tried to...
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
tried to deliver that and manage that from the grave after I'm gone the same way that I would here in real life while I'm still on planet Earth. And so some of those things are in my estate plan, my kids don't get a fucking dime. I mean, I will let them starve on the street if they can't pass a drug test. And so they're getting, I think it's like twice a year hair tests that go back six months.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And then a separate business, which is Turnkey Real Estate, where we are taking ordinary average Americans and giving them the opportunity to buy investment-grade single-family homes under $100,000 that are cash-flowing with low-income Section 8 tenants. So that's the majority of my day-to-day.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Like if you're using drugs, you're on your fucking own, homie. They have to be full-time enrolled in school or employed full-time. And so there's no sitting around, you know, spending dad's money. Right. And they have to have, and that's at the discretion of, um, the person that'll be in charge of my estate. If they want to go out, pursue the entrepreneurial journey. Cool.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
But you have to be doing it at a full time. You have to be productive. It can't be just a charade and smoke shirt. Like you have to be gainfully like doing something. Um, And even then, there were a lot of mechanisms where they never get access to all the money.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Like, one of the most underrated, I should say, one of the most underrated attributes of a human being that I have, to a painful extent, is hunger. And so I don't want to spoil them and give them everything. I don't do that now. I've never done that since they're children, and I'm not going to do it later in life from the grave.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I think it gets more attention because people can't make sense of it because they don't really understand addiction, right? If you come from a nice family and mom and dad are still together and there's lots of money and a nice home and fancy cars and all this stuff, people look at that and go, why would you ever do drugs? Why would you destroy this?
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
But when they look at different socioeconomic classes, they can reconcile it. They're like, oh, well, they're from a bad neighborhood. Their parents were divorced. It makes sense. The truth is this, is that addiction falls squarely across all people, regardless of economic status, race, neighborhood, et cetera. It's inexplainable.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And so it happens in the neighborhood like this one with $20 million homes, $50 million homes, and it happens in Section 8 housing projects and middle-class America and everything in between. And so addiction is just a disease that doesn't discriminate. It does not respect that you come from a good family. It doesn't respect that you come from a high net worth status.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
It doesn't give a shit about any of that.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I also oversee a transportation chartering company consisting of a private jet, my Challenger 604, a 92-foot yacht, the bonus round. and many other things.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
It's somewhat of a brutal conversation and a little bit morbid, but you have to think about it in the context of this because this is the reality. If you understand addiction, it ends in only a couple different places. The person ends up in recovery or they end up in jails, institutions, and death.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And the thing you need to consider is what are you going to regret if the worst case situation happens? And that is the tool, the mechanism that you need to overcome your anxiety and your fear on confronting your loved one that has alcoholism and has addiction.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Because let me tell you something, I have consoled hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of grieving moms and dads and loved ones of people with addiction.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And the amount of regret of the, I wish I had, I wish I hadn't enabled them, I wish I'd said it, I wish I'd thrown them out of the house, I wish I'd had, that I've heard at funerals and in deep grief post losing their loved one, it is some of the most painful shit that I've ever seen anyone go through in my entire life.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
You know, I nor any other person in recovery or the addiction treatment industry can guarantee that your loved one will find recovery. But what I can guarantee is that if you do the right things, no matter what the outcome, as painful as that might be, you will not have the excruciating pain of regret. And so it's something that you have to do.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
A lot of people die and lose their life in vain, in addiction, and there are co-conspirators, there are co-defendants to that situation, and they are the loved ones of that person that love them to death, literally. You see that addiction lives off of codependency, right? If addiction is a fire, codependency and enablement is the oxygen that keeps it going.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Without enablement of some sort, addiction itself as a fire is arrested and extinguished. And so a lot of these lies and hiding between, well, I'm not the one doing the drugs and it's not me and it's their decision and they have to make their own decision.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And the fucking million things that I've heard from loved ones to excuse them not having to have these uncomfortable conversations and do very uncomfortable, painful things to do what's right for their loved one. I assure you that's not how you'll feel at their funeral.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And so you have to close your eyes and really envision that very painful moment and think about everything that you're going to regret and then use that information to dictate what you're going to do next.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
It was December 21st was 2021 was my money day. I don't know if it was a Monday or not.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Yeah, it was my Money Monday. And I sat, you know, for the closing call and they clear it and they say all the wires have been sent and then you sit around all day refreshing your online banking app.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
it was like 5 35 that night and i was sitting in my kitchen with my feet on my table honestly getting frustrated because i'm like yo it's after banking hours where's my money and i refreshed it for the last time and boom all that money just showed up and uh it was that was the probably the craziest feeling uh that i it was a wild experience you know what i did next I went to fucking work, guys.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
That's what I did. I got up the next day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I got up the next day. I drove with Lori, my right-hand chief operating officer, been rocking with me a long time. And the next morning, we were standing in front of some brick mill buildings that I was considering acquiring and renovating into apartment buildings.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
like two hours away from home, outside of Boston on the South Shore, freezing cold, holding a hot Dunkin' Donuts coffee. It's like 9 o'clock in the morning. We've been up since 5, on the road since 7, and she whacks me in the arm and looks at me. I mean, we just cashed an enormous check. You'd think we'd go to an island and celebrate or something.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And she says, we're never fucking taking a day off, are we? I said, probably not. That was three years ago, and we haven't. We haven't taken five seconds off. Wow. I don't know anything about a vacation. I know more about changing scenery and working from remote locations.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
No number.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Because what people don't understand. frequently is that like they see these oh this guy's worth 1 billion or 200 billion or 50 whatever there's a certain threshold where life doesn't change right you run out of shit to buy right I have a ton of exotic cars there's not a car on the planet I couldn't make a call and have it dropped off right So it's like, all right, whatever.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I own a plane, a boat. We're sitting in a fucking $20.75 million home in the Venetian Islands of Miami right now. What else are you going to buy? And so it has to become for a love of the game. It has to become about the sport of business and entrepreneurship and the grind and the grit and the team and the camaraderie. And so when you love it as much as I love it, it's really not about the money.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
It really isn't. Like, the money's the scoreboard, but you play the game because you love the fucking game. And you want to win, but you still love to play.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I just like it.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I know it inside and out. I understand the business intimately. It's, you know, for me, I had this conversation recently with the addiction treatment business. That is as much of an entrepreneurship and the sport of business journey as it is...
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
spiritual journey for me right like you go back into I come off of heroin and all these other drugs you know more than 18 years ago and I'm confronted with you know some guys in 12-step recovery Alcoholics Anonymous Narcotics Anonymous I get I get put into that process which changed my life Right?
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And part of that process is you actually make a decision and it's a prayer that you turn your will and your life over to the God. It's the third step in the 12 steps. People obviously probably wouldn't know much about this, but it's a contractual process between you and God that says, left to my own devices, I have destroyed my life. This is my best thinking got me here.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Fucking, you know, not in a good spot. Right? And so... Um, I need some help. And so the deal you cut with God is that, you know, he's got a job for you and it's your job to do that job. And in turn, if you do the job and the work that he's assigned to you, that he'll take care of you. And so when I sold my company. The next day we were busy, but my phone was just silent.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And over the coming months, it left this like void of like, I'd spent 13 years every day doing something that had a meaningful impact on other people. And all of a sudden like real estate's cool and I've made a lot of money in real estate, but like you're not really helping anyone. You know what I mean? And it's not, and so it just, it felt like a labor of love and I kind of got called back to it
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
The target's a billion, but also understanding market cycles, the world changes. There's a lot of things that we know in 2025 that in 2027 are going to be different. Sure. You know, interest rates come down, the multiples go up. So there's a lot of things that you can't perfectly plan that process, but it's $500 million at a minimum.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
It is a much different grind this time because it's much more about a roll-up strategy, acquiring businesses, not building them organically. It's much faster.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
We're buying businesses. We're buying existing addiction treatment facilities. Yeah, and so we bought two. I bought one in October of last year, 2024. I bought another one in November. And right now we are ramping up with the target of buying four additional businesses facilities this year. We'd like to close and integrate one per quarter. So every three months we'll be acquiring a new one.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
That's the other information that I have to consider when I think about selling the next time, right? It left me so fucking bored. And so it's like you give it like, okay, now you have an enormous pile of cash. But the day to day of what I'm doing right now is so fun. It's gonna be hard to let that go again, knowing that I've already had the experience of selling a business once.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I've already experienced the void. Like this is the stuff that they don't talk about in, everyone wants to talk about the exit and selling their company. And I mean, how common in the business world is that conversation? We don't talk about the void after. How close are you with the people that you work and grind and build with every day? Because you just divorced all of them. You left.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
You packed. They're on another mission with another leader, with another group, and you're off on a fucking island alone with a bunch of money. You know? And so... What am I, I always have to do something, right? And so I don't know if it's back into this or too far to tell.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Very few, very few. That's one of the reasons why I got into social media was I looked out at the landscape and saw a bunch of people that I thought were fake. I looked at them and I was like, you're talking all this business and entrepreneurship, but you haven't actually built it. You're only good at making content and using buzzwords that sound good to get attention.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
But in the world of Instagram and social media influencers, the amount of people that have actually built a real business is a small fraction. Kind of on our hands. And of that, the amount of people that have actually sold one to a successful exit is a fraction of that. So it's a small minority.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I love Section 8 housing because, one, I love third-party payer reimbursement systems and understanding that the government, if you can cut through the red tape, will actually pay you significantly more to provide quality low-income housing to the people that are in their program over and above market rate tenants because they know that they need to incentivize landlords to overcome the stigma of Section 8.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Straight to the money. We're out here breaking rules. I like it. That's appropriate, right?
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
and deal with their government bureaucracy, paperwork, and red tape. And so once you can kind of figure all of that out, the ability to make money in it is astronomical.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And it's the one thing that I've found in recent times that cash flows at such a rate that it overcomes the objection of the high interest rates and the cost of capital destroying cash on cash returns in traditional real estate investing.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Three-bedroom and higher homes because Section 8 doesn't reimburse on square footage. It reimburses on bedroom count. So the more bedrooms, the higher the rent you're going to get. It doesn't matter if it's a 10,000-square-foot mansion or an 1,800-square-foot four-bedroom home. And then just solid bones to the property. You want to get something that's in decent condition.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
If anyone's going to break the rules, I'm honored.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
One of the main... There's a couple... There's a couple pain points within it. One is screening the tenants and making sure that you're bringing in quality tenants and that'll pay off in dividends over time. And the other is looking at properties and overcoming a lot of the deferred maintenance.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
So you want to make sure you have something and try to, like when we come in and we rehab it, we try to make it so it's not going to need someone to come back for quite some time.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
Quick bio, folks. Listen, grew up in the greater Boston area. Lived a very crazy life. Got involved in drugs and alcohol. Young age. state's youngest convicted drug dealer. I believe I still hold the record for that. Fifth grade, I believe I was 11 years old, selling weed. Yep, got a kid named Garrick Pelletier, ratted me out. I still fucking hate him. Just kidding.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
I think the entire world changes today. Yeah. I think that the economy is gonna be on a crazy run for the next four years because people's fear is subsided. They have a lot of faith and certainty in what the future looks like. Love Trump or hate Trump, you remember what that four years looked like. It was good four years, right?
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
And so I'm excited to see what happens in the markets when they open this week. I'm excited to see what happens in crypto. I'm excited to see what happens in real estate with interest rates.
The Money Mondays
From Rock Bottom to $115 Million Dollar Exit: Eric Spofford's Journey to Entrepreneurial Success 💰 105
um and just watch the i mean the energy of the country is like yeah like five and it's electric you know what i mean it's like everyone's like we're back baby we're back and it's really really really interesting to see how many people are more vocal this time than they were the last election cycle when he lost or during his first presidency like people are no longer like who'd you vote for?